On our sidebar you can see ministries that our family supports through prayer always and finances when possible. It is called Shevet Achim. I won't describe the ministry here because you can click on the link to see it, but I would like to ask you to join me in prayer for those who are ministering and the families who are grieving and waiting. Below I have pasted an email that just arrived in my inbox sharing some of what the Shevet Achim staff have had to deal with this week alone. If the Lord leads you to give, please do so. But, above all, please pray with us. Thank you.
Dear friends,
Last night in an Amman hospital another baby died due to a heart condition. He was not one of the children we invited from Iraq for screening. But I am feeling the weight of it nonetheless; he was the third infant to die before my eyes this week.
His wailing mother pushed past us out of the room in despair. I watched as the nurses wrapped his small body in blue plastic sheets, and taped them shut with white adhesive tape. The bedding was removed, the vinyl mattress wiped down. Soon there was no sign of what had taken place.
Across town Amman’s expensive cafes were filled with people enjoying themselves. On another night I could have been one of them. It is so easy to be unaware of what is going on around us. Children are dying simply because no one cares enough to help them.
For this purpose I believe we are in the world. To care. To speak up for those who have no advocate. To fight against their invisibility, which allows the rest of us to go on with our lives in comfort.
So I’m going to keep speaking up. And I’m writing to ask you to speak up too. We don’t have enough money to help all these children. But we can make some noise—first of all to God. And also to our friends and family, groups and congregations.
I went to that hospital last night to see one of the babies we did bring from Iraq. Havan, eight months old, is the most urgent case from Tuesday’s heart screening. He was rushed into the ICU with a chest infection and high fever.
Today he’s doing better, so we do still have a chance to help save his life. His visa to Israel is ready, and a world-class hospital is waiting there to do his arterial switch surgery. We can take him across the Jordan River as soon as he is discharged from the hospital in Amman. But at this hour we still need $7975 to cover his expenses. And after him there are six more children also waiting with us in Amman. Their stories and what it will take to help them are listed on our website at http://shevet.org .
Will you join me in not keeping silent?
Jonathan for Shevet Achim
Dear friends,
Last night in an Amman hospital another baby died due to a heart condition. He was not one of the children we invited from Iraq for screening. But I am feeling the weight of it nonetheless; he was the third infant to die before my eyes this week.
His wailing mother pushed past us out of the room in despair. I watched as the nurses wrapped his small body in blue plastic sheets, and taped them shut with white adhesive tape. The bedding was removed, the vinyl mattress wiped down. Soon there was no sign of what had taken place.
Across town Amman’s expensive cafes were filled with people enjoying themselves. On another night I could have been one of them. It is so easy to be unaware of what is going on around us. Children are dying simply because no one cares enough to help them.
For this purpose I believe we are in the world. To care. To speak up for those who have no advocate. To fight against their invisibility, which allows the rest of us to go on with our lives in comfort.
So I’m going to keep speaking up. And I’m writing to ask you to speak up too. We don’t have enough money to help all these children. But we can make some noise—first of all to God. And also to our friends and family, groups and congregations.
I went to that hospital last night to see one of the babies we did bring from Iraq. Havan, eight months old, is the most urgent case from Tuesday’s heart screening. He was rushed into the ICU with a chest infection and high fever.
Today he’s doing better, so we do still have a chance to help save his life. His visa to Israel is ready, and a world-class hospital is waiting there to do his arterial switch surgery. We can take him across the Jordan River as soon as he is discharged from the hospital in Amman. But at this hour we still need $7975 to cover his expenses. And after him there are six more children also waiting with us in Amman. Their stories and what it will take to help them are listed on our website at http://shevet.org .
Will you join me in not keeping silent?
Jonathan for Shevet Achim
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