wfn.org | “Who Loves the Children?”

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Note #6025 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

GA00077
June 27, 2000

Mission worker, Nancy Warlick, asks,
	“Who Loves the Children?”
	
	by Emily Enders Odom

LONG BEACH, June 27 - Quoting a prescient adage uttered by her own mother,
mission worker, Nancy Warlick, encouraged her attentive audience at the
National Presbyterian Women in Leadership Breakfast Tuesday morning to take
their part in critical ministry efforts on behalf of children by praying. 
“But be careful,” she advised, remembering her mother’s words, “God may use
you to answer your prayers.”

	Indeed that was Warlick’s own experience, which she captured beautifully
for her listeners in word and in image, as she and her husband, Bill, had
their own prayers answered on behalf of the world’s children by developing
most recently, a ministry to street children in Harare, Zimbabwe.  “Jesus
blessing the children is a model for the work we do in Harare,” Warlick
said, noting the significance that Jesus bestowed upon “the least of these.”

	Interspersing alarming statistics about the plight of Africa’s children in
particular with individual stories of transformed lives, Warlick commented
that she was “glad this year was designated the ‘Year of the Child.’”  She
continued, “we need years for the children.”

	Elder commissioner, D. Lynn Burris, of Charlotte Presbytery, and his wife,
Marjorie, attended the breakfast because of their dedication to the
Warlicks’ efforts.  Burris’s church, Davidson College Presbyterian Church,
Davidson, N.C., sent a group of 10 to Zimbabwe for 15 days in August 1999. 
In responding to the size and scope of the children’s needs, Burris, who was
part of the group, said, “You are overwhelmed, but you learn that you can
help one child at a time.”

	Said Warlick on the topic of not knowing how to begin to address the crisis
with the world’s children,  “We can’t say we don’t know what to do.  We can
pray, but we can also be with them.”  Tucked into her Bible is a quote by
Dostoevsky which she has taken to heart, “The soul is healed by being with
children.”

	That is the hopeful message Warlick left with her listeners.  In answer to
her own heartfelt refrain, “Who loves the children?” she gave the assurance
that “God loves them.”  Quoting Zechariah 8:5, Warlick proclaimed, “And the
streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.”

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