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JUGHEADS
Youth Juggling Company, LLC
5905 Concord Avenue
Edina, MN 55424
jugheads@comcast.net
612.229.3348
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[Back to Paul's Platform main selection page]
February 2006
"Compassion
for Orphans and Jugheads"
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Last November, while Wendy and I were down in Miami visiting the Larreas (my sister's family) before driving home our new JUGBUS, there happened to be a special visitor in town from Honduras named Marco Martinez. Marco is the pastor of the Oasis of Christian Love Church/School in one of the poorest districts in Honduras. Orphaned children literally live, eat and play in the trash heaps, and Marco ministers "to the least of these." For several years, Ernie & Jean have helped to organize the meticulous and painstaking project of sending a huge container of supplies to Honduras for Marco's ministry. Because of our common work with youth, the Larreas arranged a meeting with Pastor Marco and me. Through Ernie's translations, Marco and I conversed about our differences and similarities with working with youth. Then, a very humbling thing happened: he prayed for me and our Jugheads. Clearly, he knows that the average American household (and school, and community) has immeasurably more material wealth and privilege than his people in Honduras, but moved by the common non-material needs of children and youth, he interceded for us.
For the past
month, God has impressed upon my heart the needs of international orphans.
To pursue a heart for orphans, I just finished reading Fields of the Fatherless
by C. Thomas Davis. On p. 110, the author poses one example to test the
reader's level of compassion (literally, "to suffer with"):
"Do we cry for the child in Honduras whose only source of sustenance
is the trash heap he lives on?" This was an unstaged connection!
Two men from extremely different circumstances can have compassion for
one another, and awareness breeds more compassion. For the orphans, Wendy
and I are praying for how to become involved in their lives. For the Jugheads,
I'd like to start a formal prayer team who will commit to praying for
this ministry and the children therein. To tie the two extremes together,
perhaps our company could "adopt" an orphanage and become penpals
or material supporters! If any of these ideas sound intriguing to you,
or to add an idea, please contact Wendy or me.