Fifteen years ago, my wife and I took a trip to Brooklyn to work with an inner city ministry to children that was located in an area called Bushwick. It was very dangerous; we could not get a taxi to take us there from the airport. We knew the risk, but we wanted the training that this experience would give us. Several people who knew Bushwick, advised us not to go. We figured that if God was sending us, then He would protect us.
On our arrival, we were given a quick tour of the area. There was an armed young man standing on every street corner selling drugs. We were told to never stare at them and to try to ignore anything that they were doing. We could hear gun shots at night.
Many of the children that lived in Bushwick were surviving without any help from their parents. Small children had rotted teeth, the result of malnutrition. When we picked up children on Saturday morning, a seven year old boy told me that he almost did not get up in time. He explained that his mother never knew what day of the week it was.
Bushwick had a well deserved reputation. A school teacher told me that the free breakfast program had helped the schools immensely. He said that before the program, kids came to school so hungry that they could not concentrate.
A person that worked for the ministry was caring for a young boy. He had encountered the boy and his mother weeks before. She was trying to sell him for twenty dollars. He paid the money and took the boy to keep something horrible from happening to him. The child was safe with him.
We also met a woman that worked with the ministry as a missionary. She was keeping an eight year old girl. Ebony understood that she had two mothers, one that could not take care of her and one that would. Her birth mother came around occasionally, but just to visit.
My wife and I talked to Ebony for a while. She was a pretty little girl that was doing well considering the circumstances. Nancy and I thought about her a lot. It was very obvious to both of us that given the chance, we would have taken her home in a heartbeat and raised her as our own daughter. We were being prepared for the future.
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