The Future of Children: A Report on the State of Children in Poverty in Post-Katrina America

Here's an interesting report from "The Future of Children" on the state of child poverty in America after Hurricane Katrina.

Free Indeed: The Modern Church's Opportunity to End Slavery, Again

Free Indeed: The Modern Church's Opportunity to End Slavery, Again
Click on this link for a wonderful document on the church's responsibility related to the child slavery movement.

It states, "The transnational nature of the church is perfectly suited for the global engagement of this issue from the grass roots to the world stage. It also has access to vast economic and human resources and is able to mobilize extensive networks to affect government policies and social programs."

Wronged Childhood - Margaret Allen, 1892

“Maddened by earth’s wrong and evil,
‘Lord!’ I cried in sudden ire,
‘From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder,
Shake the bolted fire!’”
____________

It was with his gentle heart aflame with the burning wrongs of colored slavery, that dear old Whittier prayed thus. Might not one who has looked upon the blight and woe of wronged childhood call forth the vengeance of Heaven in no less measured terms than these.

War, injustice, slavery, have not lacked poets whose clarion tongues have rung out an alarm-peal in every land – who have not feared to dip their pens in blood, or to tip them with fire, that so they might startle into life men’s love of fight for right and freedom. Yet at the havoc wrought by passion and lust, men must draw breath and speak softly, these must be veiled horrors, and he who makes public protest against this wrong, brings about his head a storm of opprobrium and abuse.

The cry of the “Maiden Tribute” has not yet lost its echo. Its reverberations in the byways of our great city keep hushed and hidden much of what was once done openly, and hold in terror the violators of the law of protection it reeducated the people to make.

But have men parted with passion since the day they bought the “Pall Mall Gazette” and trembled as they read?

Did the storm of indignation which swept the land purify from love of license the souls of men?

Would that it were even so! Then would not much sunshine of joyous innocence have darkened to agony, nor would unmerited shame and life-long suffering have fallen as a blight upon mere childhood, while the Rescue Records kept at our Women’s Social Headquarters would have lacked their worst horrors.

It is difficult to read some of these without overmastering indignation against the perpetrators of violence and outrage, and one would fain close the books for ever, and withdraw oneself from touch and sight of the misery, if only refusal to know a wrong but did away with its existence in the world! As long as evil exists which may be grappled with and conquered, brave and pure-souled men and women must be willing to know the worst that they may do efficient battle – though the worst may not be written here.
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Beth (13)

“My dear, what is the matter?” asked an Interview officer of an eager-faced child of thirteen; “why have you come here?”

“Please, ma’am,” she strove to say, her lips quivering the while, “I wanted to be good, so I’ve run away from home.”

“From home ? but that is naughty,” began the officer; “your friends will miss you, and” –

“But I can’t be good there, ma’am, so I’ve come away to you.”
Tears choked the story, which, when sifted to the bottom and verified, brought details of wronged practiced upon this child by two relatives since her sixth year. Once before she had been away, but was fetched back to the slavery her little soul had first begun to hate, when she heard at a Salvation Army meeting of Christ’s sorrow over sin.

Alas! The slavery was of mind as well as body, and many a tough battle did she fight in her efforts to “think good,” before the Rescue officers were able to rejoice with her in that she had obtained the full deliverance of Jesus “from the guilt of power and sin.”

A child in a police-court is always a sorry sight. Beth, a tiny London maid-of-all-work, could scarcely be seen over the witness-box when she went to give evidence against her mistress’s son in the Old Bailey. She was thirteen, and gave her testimony of facts clearly enough, but in some fashion which nobody could quite understand, the young man was let off.

Her mother, a respectable hard-working woman, was nearly wild with despair, they had worked so hard to get justice done, and there seemed none to be had. She brought Beth straight to Devonshire House, nor did she plead her trouble in vain.

After the little girl had been with us some time, we obtained for her a place where she would not be required to work beyond her strength. Very soon, however, her new mistress called on the Home Secretary.

“What’s the matter?” asked the latter. “I thought Beth would give you real satisfaction, she had become a truly converted child, and seemed so anxious to do right.”

“Why, that’s the trouble,” smiled the visitor, “she is so anxious to do right that I never know what prodigious efforts she won’t make. We breakfast at half-past eight, you know; well, that child is down at half-past five, and by six o’clock she is watching her kettle boil, so as to have all ready in time. Think of the waste of coals.
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Trissie (13) and Kate (14)

Trissie and Kate were aged thirteen and fourteen respectively. A mother whose little daughters of this age are sheltered in nursery and school-room, would shudder with horror at the bare idea of such children being pressed into the most repulsive traffic in which human beings can share. Yet, night by night found them thus engaged upon one of the most brilliantly-lighted thorough fares of the city.

For Kate there was no escape. Her mother was an abandoned drinking woman, who treated the child with ferocious cruelty we dare not here describe, if she ventured to return home with out the money she had been bidden to seek in such fashion as should curse her future-womanhood.

Trissie was motherless, her father a great drunkard, who cared little that the left his children to starve in the attic they called home. On finding out where and how the thirteen-year-old spent her late evenings, one of our officers called at the address she gave. A crippled girl, an elder sister, opened the door, showing a clean and tidy room, but bare of every comfort.

“Did you know how Trissie got her money?” inquired the officer, after explaining why she had come.

“We daren’t inquire,” replied the girl on crutches, “the fact was we were all so starved we were glad not to ask.”

On investigating the truth of the child’s story, we were shown a West-End house where she had been decoyed for months before, and given her introduction to gilded sin, carrying away with her one sovereign of the five paid for her procuration.
____________

Nell (12)

Of many of these unhappy children we cannot write at all; would that they could be deprived of the memory of their earlier years, when cruelty and passion vied with each other in providing hideous reminiscences for their later life! To Janie and Bertha we give but passing reference – who could give details of the child of ten, whose morals were ruined (apparently for ever) by the occupants of the police and fire-engine stations opposite her aunt’s little sweet-stuff shop? Too young to understand why, she went when bidden, and when fear would have led her to seek protection, threats overawed her into fatal silence. As for Bertha, whose age was fourteen when she came to us, her own father must answer with shame.

Then there was Nell – poor little, ill-used Nell – for whom we are now wanting a mother’s love and a mother’s watchful care. The child of a legal marriage, strangely enough, she lost with the death of her father all earthly consideration. Her remaining parent – one shrinks from calling such a woman by the sweet name of “mother” – went to live with a man to whom she was not married, both by turns treating Nell with cruelty.

Other children were born, whose wants were carefully attended to, well fed, warmly clad and happily nurtured, while the butt of their jokes and blows went hungry and cold. Oftentimes the rest of the family would be sitting around the table eating a good meal, while Nell would be crouching outside on the doorstep with only a crust to gnaw.

This little one, twelve years of age, has been for some time under our care, and we are anxious to find a motherly woman who would take her to train for God. She is a willing little worker, and knows how to make herself useful, but past ill-usage has somewhat stunted her growth. Under careful training, and in a loveful atmosphere, little Nell would be a blessing to somebody.
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Corrie

If only one looked at Corrie’s antecedents, no one could wonder that the child should have fallen a prey to evil at the age of twelve.

There was only one room for seven of them – a truly wretched place – and out of it went two of her brothers to the Reformatory, and one sister to join the army who nightly pace our streets. Both parents were drunkards, taken up now and then for brawling and fighting.

The mother was at last carried to the hospital for lengthy medical treatment, and the one room was given up. Corrie found refuge, as day-worker in a little fried fish shop, rejoicing in freedom from her mother’s heavy blows.

At length, she found the work irksome, and ran away, being about the streets by day, picking up whatever she could find in the shape of food, good, bad or indifferent, and sleeping at night upon the stone staircases of various model lodging-houses.

Meantime, the father had dropped into our Limehouse Shelter, and, under the influence of the new, pure atmosphere, was pricked into remembrance of his duty towards his child. At the end of the sixth week of her vagrant life, he found her asleep on the doorstep of one of the said lodging-houses.

“We cannot keep her here, my good fellow!” said the Shelter captain, when the lost-looking little girl was produced by her father. “Take her along to Mrs. Bramwell Booth. See, I’ll write you a note. She will take care of her, if any one knows how to!”

So she came, but a more wretched-looking little creature could hardly have been seen, to judge from the accounts given by those who washed her. To begin with, she was half-starved: bad food and exposure had done their worst with her, and her face was that of a thin old woman.

“She was just one little mass of rags and dirt,” quoth Major Reynolds of Corrie; “no skirts but the thin, ragged thing that hung from her waist, and just rags round her legs for stockings. I don’t think I ever saw a child in a more neglected state. You would not know her now as the neat-looking child who runs messages!”
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Effie (13) and Flo (14)

Some of the may live out of mind the woes and wrongs of their childish days; but what of Effie and Flo, who, at thirteen and fourteen respectively, were sheltered in our Maternity Home? Can they ever forget?

Even if memory died within them, both children bore out with them tokens of their shame their arms were hardly strong enough to carry far.

Flo was a small, fair-haired Sunday scholar, the victim of vice fostered by overcrowding, her own brother being answerable for her downfall.

Effie’s story is perhaps the sadder of the two to those who know her. A sweet, bright little girl, she came to us in short frocks, with her dark hair falling loose upon her shoulders, so baby-like, so innocent-looking, it was indeed difficult to believe that she could have come to the right place.

Her father was a village blacksmith, whose eyes were so injured by the heat of his forge that he could not see to read, and gladly welcomed the Scripture-reader of the village to supply his lack of eyesight. This man lived near at hand, and, when his wife went to work at the squire’s. Effie was requisitioned to run messages in return for the kindness he showed her father.

He vilely used his influence to put the child under a sort of slavery, binding her to silence with terrible threats of prison for her if she dared to tell of his actions.

Ultimately, the truth was discovered by a doctor, who won Effie’s confidence by removing her fear of prison, inwardly vowing within himself that the culprit should taste that which he had so fairly frightened the child. The parents willingly prosecuted the man, and, helped by the doctor, secured a sentence of eighteen months.

Poor little Effie! She could not realize her position at all, she was so innocent of al that her fatal silence had brought upon her; she played with her baby as she would have done with a big doll, her ignorance leaving her no room for shame.

To her father the shock was heavy indeed, nor has he yet recovered from it; fortunately, in the mother who fetched her home she has sympathy and comfort.

Effie took away with her a very real knowledge of Jesus as her Savior, and now and the writes pretty old-fashioned letters to tell how “It does seem hard to be quite good at times, but I’m trusting Jesus, and He does help me!”

Are our child-life stories all told? By no means, but we think enough has been written to give thinking matter to any who have it in their power to promote stricter legislation upon this question – to make this crime against innocent childhood so heinous an one as, at any rate, to reduce the probability of its recurrence to a minimum.

In face of the facts which confront us at every turn, is this too much to ask?

"What the Voice Said" - Poem on Slavery by John Greenleaf Whittier, 1847

Here is a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier who was a Christian poet and activist that helped to campaign against slavery. Early Salvationists used his work to help speak about child slavery.

"MADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil,
"Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,"
From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder,
Shake the bolted fire!

"Love is lost, and Faith is dying;
With the brute the man is sold;
And the dropping blood of labor
Hardens into gold.

"Here the dying wail of Famine,
There the battle's groan of pain;
And, in silence, smooth-faced Mammon
Reaping men like grain.

"'Where is God, that we should fear Him?
'Thus the earth-born Titans say'
God! if Thou art living, hear us!
'Thus the weak ones pray."

"Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding,
"Spake a solemn Voice within;
"Weary of our Lord's forbearance,
Art thou free from sin?

"Fearless brow to Him uplifting,
Canst thou for His thunders call,
Knowing that to guilt's attraction
Evermore they fall?

"Know'st thou not all germs of evil
In thy heart await their time?
Not thyself, but God's restraining,
Stays their growth of crime.

"Couldst thou boast, O child of weakness!
O'er the sons of wrong and strife,
Were their strong temptations planted
In thy path of life?

"Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing
From one fountain, clear and free,
But by widely varying channels
Searching for the sea.

"Glideth one through greenest valleys,
Kissing them with lips still sweet;
One, mad roaring down the mountains,
Stagnates at their feet.

"Is it choice whereby the Parsee
Kneels before his mother's fire?
In his black tent did the Tartar
Choose his wandering sire?

"He alone, whose hand is bounding
Human power and human will,
Looking through each soul's surrounding,
Knows its good or ill.

"For thyself, while wrong and sorrow
Make to thee their strong appeal,
Coward wert thou not to utter
What the heart must feel.

"Earnest words must needs be spoken
When the warm heart bleeds or burns
With its scorn of wrong, or pity
For the wronged, by turns.

"But, by all thy nature's weakness,
Hidden faults and follies known,
Be thou, in rebuking evil,
Conscious of thine own.

"Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty
To thy lips her trumpet set,
But with harsher blasts shall mingle
Wailings of regret."

Cease not, Voice of holy speaking,
Teacher sent of God, be near,
Whispering through the day's cool silence,
Let my spirit hear!

So, when thoughts of evil-doers
Waken scorn, or hatred move,
Shall a mournful fellow-feeling
Temper all with love.

More than 700 000 children are uninsured in America in 2006

Children's Defense Fund just reported this week that new census statistics show that more than 700 000 children have been uninsured in America in 2006.

Marian Wright Edelman of CDF states:

"It is a national disgrace that in just two years, the number of uninsured children has increased by a million in the richest nation on earth... This alarming jump demonstrates that our children need a strong national safety net so that every child has access to the health coverage needed to survive and thrive. It is shameful that despite overwhelming public support, the President appears to be doing everything in his power to prevent children from getting the critical health coverage they need. Congress has a moral obligation to stand up to the President and stand strong for children today to ensure a healthy America tomorrow."

Jesus the Troublemaker

Check out this article from PRISM magazine called, 'Jesus the Troublemaker.' Christian, international lecturer, social reformer, philosopher and political columnist from India, Vishal Mangalwadi shares his provocative views.

Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice

Check out this incredible group called Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. They have 6 centers in the South Bronx:

• The Center for Arts Activism
• The Center for Education for Liberation
• The Center for Wellness
• The Center for Youth and Community Organizing
• The Center for Community Justice
• The Center for Community Development and Planning

Read the letter from the Executive Director,

The fires that led to the devastation of the South Bronx in the late 60’s and early 70’s still rage in my mind. I witnessed them day after day as a little girl perched on the ledge of my ninth floor window in the Bronx River Public Housing Projects. I was too little to understand things like "Planned Shrinkage", "Urban Renewal", "Disinvestment" and "white flight" back then. All I knew is that they were frightening and tumultuous times for me and all of the children of the South Bronx.

No wonder so many of us ran away. Understanding only that our success in life would be measured by how far from the "ghetto" we could someday escape.

In this sea of uncertainty, hundreds of young people, like me, anchored ourselves to the love offered us at the Youth Group of Holy Cross church. There we were formed as leaders and guided in the Franciscan principals of simplicity and servant leadership. It was our sanctuary, a place of refuge during those difficult adolescent years.

Teetering on the edges of these two very different realities, I began to grapple with questions that I know many young people struggle with ... I asked, "Does the God I know in there see what is going on out here?" "Does the One I worship on Sunday, understand how ugly it can be on Monday?" "Does He care?" I prayed that I could find a place where my faith could do more than get me to heaven, when all hell seemed to be breaking loose around me.

I had to experience one final fire before my questions would be answered. In 1992 after Fr. Mike, then pastor of Holy Cross, led the parish in an Anti Drug Prayer march, drug dealers vandalized and torched the church in retaliation.

Led by Fr. Mike and the youth group, we refused to let evil and despair have the last word. We marched again and as I witnessed the sea of people on that day…children, mothers pushing baby strollers, elderly men and women, immigrant families…those that the world would consider powerless…I understood so very clearly what true power was! It was there, God said to me, in His children from the center to the margins coming together not just hoping for miracles or praying for change but making it manifest by the power of our will and the courage to stand up and do something!

Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice was born on that day. Throughout the past 13 years, we have worked to create a space that forms young people to be prophetic voices for peace and justice and we have dared to believe 2 fundamental things: 1) We can rebuild our neighborhood 2) armed with faith and trained as community organizers, youth can lead that movement
And so they brilliantly have!!! Their accomplishments are numerous. They lead campaigns for environmental justice, community health, decent housing, police reform, education and immigration.

Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice stands in solidarity with these young comrades. Our presence reminds them that they are not alone and that we are committed to nurturing their mental, physical and spiritual development even as they work on the development of their community.

I no longer despair or wonder if God CARES. I have seen God bend down to pick up garbage along the Bronx River…I have heard her testify at hearings against highways that bring trucks and soot and asthma in my neighborhood…I have heard him stand up against the police officer that would stop and frisk him simply because he is a brown child. I see God care in the young people and staff of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice every day.

Jesus Justice: So Easy a Five Year-Old Can Do It

New York youth worker, Jeremy Del Rio - who heads up the New York-based Urban Youth Worker Coalition, just published a great article on social justice - aimed at youth workers.

Check it out: Jesus Justice: So Easy a Five Year-Old Can Do It

Frontline: Juvenile Justice

Should teenagers who commit serious crimes be tried as juveniles or adults? What happens to young offenders who reach the 'end of the line' in the juvenile court system - and how do you rehabilitate these young people to prevent future criminal behavior? FRONTLINE explores these questions as it follows four juvenile offenders - one white, two Hispanic, and one African American - through the Santa Clara, California, juvenile courts, observing how the criminal justice system treats their cases and determines their fates.

Frontline: When Kids Get Life

"The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world that allows children under 18 to be prosecuted as adults and sentanced to life without parole. Currently there are more than 2000 of these young offenders imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives. This is the story of five of them in the state of California."

At Project 1:17, this semester we have been looking at the Juvenile Justice system. I believe that as William Booth said that we should "go for souls and go for the worst" - our commitment to work with youth whom society has deemed, "the worst of the worst" should be the people who we care for and minister to. This Frontline Documentary, When Kids Get Life, captures this world. You can watch the show online and explore the webpage for a variety of additional resources.

I have become more and more fascinated with correctional ministry - I would love to see more and more Salvationists get involved in chaplaincy in these types of facilities.

On the Move - by Bono

"The one thing, on which we can all agree, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums and in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the debris of wasted opportunities and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. 6, 500 Africans are dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality."

Bono, On the Move.

Shane Claiborne: When Violence Kills Itself

Shane Claiborne on the recent Virginia Tech shootings:

"Sometimes all the peacemakers need to do is practice revolutionary patience, and steadfast hope – for the universe bends toward justice, and the entire Christian story demonstrates the triumph of love. And it makes it even more scandalous to think of killing someone who kills – for they, more than anyone in the world, need to hear that they are created for something better than that."

For more, click here

Evangelicals Debate Whether Environmental Stewardship is a Pressing Moral Issue

There is a very interesting debate currently taking place among evangelicals. There has been a lot of debate in the National Association of Evangelicals regarding whether or not environmental concern and the stewardship of creation should be one of the important political agenda items that the Church is advocating. Christianity Today has recently joined into this debate.

Some, like James Dobson, feel that this distracts from other moral issues such as homosexuality and abortion. Others, like Richard Cizik from the NAE, feel that this is just as important.

I have been following this debate for the past couple of months. It is a very interesting dialogue that wrestles with the question of who we are as evangelicals. I would encourage you to take a look at both sides of the conversation.

Letter from James Dobson
Challenge by Jim Wallis
Brian McClaren's response
Lynsay Moseley's response
Bill McKibben's reponse
Randall Balmer's response

Amazing Grace - The William Wilberforce Story (In Theaters Spring 2007)

Amazing Grace is a film which is set to be released in movie theaters in the Spring of 2007.

It is based on the true story of William Wilberforce, a British statesman and reformer from the early part of the 19th century. This feature film will chronicle his extraordinary contributions to the world, primarily his 20-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, which he won in 1807. He was also instrumental in passing legislation to abolish slavery in the British colonies, a victory he won just three days before his death in 1833.

This is going to be a pretty amazing film which addresses issues of faith and social justice. Something worth planning to see!