The Things We Don’t Tell You

We like to talk about successes.

Isn’t it exciting to hear our success stories?

That neglected baby dying of undernourishment that is now healthy and thriving and celebrating her 1st birthday.  (YEAH Katia!)

The dad that’s gotten clean, is on fire for the Lord and becoming a committed leader and provider his family. (GO Juan!)

It makes us feel good inside to hear those stories.

And it sure feels good to share them. 

We love to show you the pictures of smiling children doing some amazing activity.

We love telling you about the successes in our ministry and about the lives being touched. 

But the reality is that every story isn’t a success story. 

A lot of times there’s a lot we don’t tell you.

We don’t tell you that oftentimes we feel like total failures. 

We asked you to pray for that parent in rehab, to give toward their treatment, to sponsor their child that’s struggling without their mom or dad.

What you might not realize is that afterwards, we don’t always tell you how it went.

That’s because sometimes, despite months of hard work, and rehab payments, and lots of prayer, the whole thing is a total flop.

Within a week of leaving rehab, he’s back on drugs. His children are devastated. His wife blames us. And we can’t bring ourselves to tell you.  

We can’t tell you about the mom that abandoned her children for a violent drug addict. Just three days after we reunited her with her family.

The child that has us all at our wit’s end with his behavior. 

Because it just plain sucks to talk about it. 

This is our reality and our conflict. 

So tomorrow we’ll go back to sharing about the family that is blowing us away with their progress. And all the food hampers the children assembled this week to hand out to struggling families.

Success is so much more fun to talk about.