Citylight is joining with Jesus on His Mission to multiply disciples and churches here in Omaha, and across the globe. This week during Global Focus Week, our global partners, Dave and Robin Laney, who serve as the co-directors of Robin’s Nest Children’s Home in Jamaica are here to provide perspective and hope. Through a journey of surrender and trust, Jesus has called them to provide a safe place, rooted in His love, where hurting children can grow physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The Laneys have shared with our church the unique challenges and opportunities they have had along with prayer needs.
- Pray for the children.
The emotional and mental struggles of the children is a reality we face every day. We are a children’s home and a safe place for kids who have experienced hardship at home. Our children are placed at Robin's Nest by Child Protective Services having been removed for various reasons including neglect, abuse, death or illness of a parent, and poor living conditions. The Nest is a safe place for them while they are waiting to be reunited with their family or placed in foster care. There is a significant level of trauma involved in having been removed from their homes and most have experienced some level of trauma prior to being moved. The State realizes the need for counseling, however, the government system is overloaded and there are not enough counselors available to serve the tremendous need. These kids are hurt. We see a need for emotional and mental health on our property. We need people who can help our kids gain an understanding of their situation they are in and give them hope for the future. It’s hard to see hope when there is so much mess inside. Please pray for the children and the hurt they have experienced, that their families are healed, and that they can be placed well and in an expedient manner. Pray that the children would go to a loving home where they are taught about Jesus. Pray for future vision to bring a counselor or counselors on site to help them to work through the children’s trauma. - Pray for education.
Kids with trauma are, most times, behind in their schoolwork. It is hard to concentrate when you have so much going on in your head and heart. Many of the kids at Robin’s Nest are behind in their academics. The public school system consistently has class sizes that are very large. Classes can be anywhere from 30-70 kids. Currently, the system is set up that at the end of high school you take an exit exam in each subject. You must have so many of those passed to get a job, go on to university, get into any kind training program, etc. If you are on the lower tier academically, you have little hope in getting a job that offers a livable wage, which can make it very difficult to thrive. This past summer, we have been blessed at the Robin’s Nest to have had an educator from the States come and spend time with our kids. She assessed each child and gave us a written assessment on each, laptops, learning programs, and all kinds of plans. Presently, we have a young couple from the UK serving at the Robin’s Nest. The wife has been a second-grade teacher, and the husband enjoys teaching and has worked as an occupational therapist. They are serving for three months to help teach, help with the kid’s homework, and help with the basics. The hope is for them to come back next year and spend a whole year with the kids. We are thanking God for them. Also, there is a building about a mile up the road that was a school years ago and now sits abandoned. It’s a full school space and local officials have asked us if we would be interested in using it again. The dream is “What if God would provide the means to re-open this school, allowing us to bring our kids home and teach them along with the other kids in our community?” The children could benefit from more specialized education well-suited for their needs. Please pray that God will provide more educators at the Nest and that God would continue to give vision in the area of education. - Pray for the operational budget.
We have a good operational budget at the Robin’s Nest. Praise God! But there is this constant thought of “Are we going to be good next year?” We are comfortable, but we also have a staff of about 30 people. They work very hard and take good care of our children. These children have many needs, and the caregivers pour out their lives to them and get paid little. Our heart, as a Christian organization, is to be generous. To be generous it takes money to raise their salaries. Recently, the state has raised the minimum wage dramatically and it will go up again. We used to be able to say we pay our staff above minimum wage; we are now finding that we are paying many of them minimum wage or slightly above. It is expensive to live in Jamaica and there are struggles in this for us and our staff. Our heart is that we would pay a good wage for the work our staff does. We want quality people who are trained and willing to invest in themselves and to grow in their knowledge. This requires paying them well. We also have capital projects which God continues to provide for through his people. That includes many of you so Thank you! There are some big projects on our list such possible development of the school, repair of the road and our driveway, solar power expansion, possibly some additional housing on the property for interns and volunteers, etc. Our prayer is that we would love to have more partners, both individuals and churches, that are willing to support Robin’s Nest financially. Pray that God will provide what we need to care well for our caregivers so that they can afford to live well and provide for their own families in the same beautiful way that God provides for the children at the Robin’s Nest.
It is vital that we pray over the Laneys and our global partners! As they serve faithfully, it is especially clear that the results and fruit is truly only in the hands of the LORD. One tool that can help individuals and/or City Groups do this is our Global Prayer Updates: a collection of all our global partners’ prayer updates like these that are texted to you as a reference tool every month. If you are interested in receiving these, sign up at citylight.churchcenter.com/people/forms/559649.