Guest blog: Today’s writer is Kendall Parker. age 18 years. She will be a part of the FTO mission team Dec 21-Dec 30. She will be spending Christmas with the team instead of with her family this year and also celebrating her 19th birthday in Ghana. Please join us in praying for Kendall and the other team members. If you would like to be a part of the team, we still have a few spots left. OR if you would like to be a contributing donor, please click GIVING.
Orphans are a rare breed to others. So rare that many people don’t care to know their story.
My dad always makes the analogy of “how do those in other countries hear the Bible and it is not fair for them.” But the thing is, if a child goes out and says, “there is more to life than this” or notices the clouds in the sky or the trees growing up from the ground, the child then notices that something has created that. From that point, God prepares their heart for someone to minister to them and He prepares the heart of someone, like myself, to learn to love them and have a burden to minister to them.
Earlier this year, a post by my mother’s friend was shared on Facebook from Feeding the Orphans about a winter trip to accra, Ghana, Africa in December. I immediately became interested and started doing research about kids in Ghana. Soon enough, it stole my heart. I filled out the application and soon found I was accepted and my life has done nothing but change.
When I go over there, my plan is not to just do God’s work. Yes, that is very important, but I want to show orphans what love is. My whole life my biological father never showed me what love truly was. My view on love was buying me toys or items to make up for his lack of being a father. He soon told me earlier this year that he wanted noting to do with me and could live his life not included in mine. I may not know what it is like for my biological father to want me, but I know what it is like for my Heavenly Father to want me. He loves me through all my baggage, all my failures, all my problems and all my sins. God says in John 14:18 that He will not leave us as orphans; but come to us.
Obviously, God can not come to us in the flesh, but He sends people He has given work to. Personally, I feel EVER so humbled with the fact that someone as loving and mighty as OUR GOD would choose a small girl with so much baggage and “daddy problems” to minister to others and show the love of Christ to them. Knowing that God wants me to go is an amazing feeling and I want to do nothing more than please Him.