When Jack Eans, Mission of Mercy's Vice President of International Child Ministries, traveled to Zimbabwe to train the new project staff, God spoke to him in a surprising way.

My first memory of Africa was long ago: it was dark, but I was captivated by long, reddish serpentine lines glowing in the African night, consuming the entire landscape. What in the world?

I soon learned these were long lines of fire. An old Afrikaans man who grew up on a farm related his childhood story. His father would take him out in the winter after the tall grass had turned brown. He would take a clump of this grass and twist it together into a long braid. Then they would light one end and begin walking along the edge of the grass. Every so often they would light a section of the grass.

By the time they were finished there would be several tiny points of light. But soon these points began spreading and connecting until there was a long winding line. It would move slowly upward until it had consumed all the grass and went out at the top of the mountain. The fires were lit so that fresh green grass would grow and be ready for the animals in the spring.

It’s a common practice in southern Africa, but it rings so true for us now as we expand into a new country: Zimbabwe.

This new work was born out of partnerships with the wonderful people of Celebration Church Bulawayo and our long-time co-laborer, Children´s Cup, in Swaziland, Mozambique, and now Zimbabwe.

Together we are three points of light that are beginning to fan into flame. Soon we will reach thousands of children with long term impact - little blades of new growth that will begin to make a difference in their schools, homes, communities and churches.
 
Each time someone sponsors a child, they light one of these little flames. Mission of Mercy, like that young boy on the farm, is holding the torch, following the Lord and lighting fires wherever He tells us to put it to the landscape.
 
Zimbabwe is and will be one of those that burns brightest. It’s been such a privilege to work with the dedicated women and men here who make it all possible. Zimbabwe is a country unlike any other. Nearly every child we registered was an orphan of some type, or (if they had parents) they are unemployed, like the other 80% of the population.

The smiles you will see mask some of the greatest family tragedies you can imagine. One great-grandma (only in her late 50s) shared through tears how her daughter, the grandmother of the children she brought to register, was in prison in South Africa leaving her to care for the children. The children’s parents were dead and her son-in-law abandoned her daughter and grandkids.
 
Confusing isn’t it? So many generations mixed together – it’s very hard to determine what relationships remain and how these children are even being cared for. I'll never forget her tears. Myself and Sifiso, a trained psychologist registering children with us, were in tears unable to continue enrolling the young boy, in whose eyes you could see the thousand questions about his future, wondering what will happen next and where he´ll end up. There really are no words to say at that moment.

But then I think of Matthew 19:14 and the famous story about how much Jesus cares for children by breaking through the culture, where He puts a child in the midst of those questioning adults and proclaims their individual value and importance to the Kingdom.

Registration day was Jesus incarnate. This verse came alive. We put the child in the middle. We asked questions. We show them that they matter. For the first time in their life, all the barriers were broken down. Each brought by their mothers, grandmothers, aunties, or caregiver, they found Jesus saying bring them, let them come. Jesus was touching them. They left lifted by the arms of the One who gives hope.

I get overwhelmed sometime at being part of the ministry to whom Jesus entrusts these children. Let us always carry them with the love and care that Jesus demands of us. Let us never again let the culture and the systems of power stand in the way of bringing them to the only One who can truly heal and bless. This is the Kingdom.