BRANDS PLUCKED FROM THE FIRE

“And the LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, Satan!. . Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?’” (Zech. 3: 2)

Plucking brands from the fire can be an extremely delicate activity! Satan does not take kindly to having his brands removed, primarily because he plans to use them to "steal, kill and destroy."

This image fits perfectly with our experience with two children, brother and sister, Marvin and Marjeli, who were born in Enemy territory and whose lives were surely forfeit had not the Lord of Mercy and Justice intervened.

The first person in our ministry to become acquainted with these siblings was Olga, who gave them food one day and then gradually had them on her doorstep every single night begging for supper. They said their mother was sick and couldn’t work. Could they have some food for her, too? Olga went with them to their house and discovered that their mother was sick indeed: tuberculosis. She was also using drugs and selling herself to support the habit. Her children were 8 and 1, the older brother carrying the baby sister from house to house to find food while the mother languished in their pitiful room. Their family was added to our food bank.

A few months later our daycare director, Suyapa, met the children. They had followed their friend Olga to our offices one day. Suyapa began to lobby to have them brought into our school and daycare. Some of the staff resisted accepting “street children,” but eventually compassion won out, and Marvin and Marjeli became part of the “God’s Littlest Lambs” community. Marvin was 9 and Marjeli was 2. Although Marvin had been promoted to third grade in the public school, he could not read, so our teachers got to work, discovered he was very bright, and began to fill in the academic holes.

Then their father came home. Add a drug dealer to the family, a thief and addict, exploiter of children, abusive and erratic. Marvin missed school, and when someone was sent to look for him, he was “working.” Because of the parents’ close relationship with violent gangs, nobody was anxious to “set them off,” and any talk about taking the children to our children’s home (which was suggested more than once) made them very angry.

Our staff continued to love and educate the two children,and our social worker began reach out to the parents. They were given a bed and continued to receive food. A two-week food ration, however, ran out very early, as it was often sold to buy drugs. Marvin and Marjeli began to show up at Olga’s house asking for supper again. So in addition to breakfast, lunch and two snacks, supper was added to their daily ration at the daycare. They were also bathed at the daycare, their clothes were washed, and they learned about the love of Jesus.

A few more months went by. Every time the ministry leadership came together, these two children were discussed. Everyone was in agreement that they needed to be at the children’s home, but nobody knew how to pluck the brands from the fire without risking serious retribution from the parents. Would they kill someone on our staff? Would they kill one of our children? We didn’t know what else to do except pray, continue to love, and wait.

The one day the mother went to the neighborhood health center and was re-diagnosed with TB. By law the entire family had to be tested. Both children tested positive. Government officials immediately took the children to be quarantined in the public hospital for respiratory illnesses. The parents were told that the children could no longer live with them, that they would have to go to Social Services. The parents requested that they be sent to our children’s home.

However, as soon as the children were transferred from the hospital to our own quarantine facility, the parents began to breathe threats again: “Give them back or we will kill somebody.”

Once again God intervened. The father, a sometimes auto mechanic, stole parts from a car he had been commissioned to repair. He spent the money on drugs. The owner of the car also had close ties with a gang. He said he would kill the father if he did not pay him for the parts. The father and mother fled the city, leaving the two smoking brands behind.

But we still did not have a signed permission to care for the children. And before long a pair of tattooed young men held vigil outside of our office for most of a morning. They asked about Marvin – they just wanted to ask him where his father was, they said. It was very important that they talk with him. Our office staff was nervous. In Honduras tattoos mean gang involvement, and gang involvement means potential violence. There was talk of calling the parents to pick up the children.

We held a prayer service in the office. We agreed that we could not hand over these two innocent children to their parents. To do so would be to return them to Enemy fire, perhaps forever. We decided to wait.

Two days later the mother showed up at the office alone. We ushered her inside, gave her breakfast, listened to her story. And then we gently suggested again that the children needed to remain with us. Could she sign a paper giving permission? She began to weep: “I’ll miss them.” We prayed with her. She placed her signature and fingerprint on the permission.

Marvin is 10 and Marjeli is 3. I asked Marvin if he knew that Jesus loves him. “Yes,” he said. “At school they told me.”

Street ministry, food bank, school, daycare, Alonzo Movement, administration, children’s home . . . I don’t know that our different ministry areas had ever worked together so closely! I don’t know that we had ever prayed so hard and long over a single situation.

We are rejoicing, but quietly. Maybe the fire is only smoldering, waiting for an opportunity to lick its flames out hungrily again for these two precious lives. Please pray for protection with us as we wait and watch. Please pray for Marvin and Marjeli as they begin to heal. And give thanks with us for two more brands plucked from the fire, tenderly but firmly, in the Name of Jesus.