THE REFUGEE LAD IN AFRICA

“Hey you.”

The gang of boys in the African refugee camp challenged the newcomer.

“Where are you from? Your clothes and speech are different.”

“I’m from a land far away. I’ve been here in African refugee camps for a long time,”

His answer was gentle but not shy nor defensive. Time and again his fellow refugees had sensed that he was different and taunted him. The lad never reacted in anger—which then angered the hecklers.

They had no idea who he was or how important he would become in their lives.

The lad did get to return to his home country and even there everybody knew he was different. In his gentle manner he helped many people—and the empty-hearted pious leaders hated him for it.

They vowed to stop him.

It all came to a climax at a hill called Calvary. The hecklers crowded the cross he was nailed to.

“You saved others—come down from the cross and save yourself, ‘King of the Jews.’”

He did not come down from the cross but instead He came up out of the grave completing His agreement with The Father to be the one to bring salvation to a hurting world.

Refugee Jesus became Savior Jesus—King Jesus..

And still today—2000 years later—He is rescuing and saving people. Even the ones in Africa’s refugee camps.

Can you imagine the impact it has when we tell the hurting African refugees that this Jesus we want them to meet had also been a refugee in African camps? That He knows what it’s like to be there? And that He can change their lives?

Many of the 7,000 children Children's Cup takes care of in Africa are HIV positive. They have only weeks or months or at most a few years to live.

There is an unrelenting, compelling urgency in our hearts to have them all meet their fellow-refugee in Africa—Jesus.