Dr. Rodney Plunket

A topical sermon on caring for hurting children

It’s a hard story to tell and to hear, but we need to hear it anyway.

Eight-year-old Nichelle Jones woke up in the middle of the night and made her way to the kitchen for “sweets and Kool-Aid.”  Her mother’s boyfriend, Trenton White, spotted the girl in the kitchen and asked her what she was doing.  She initially replied, “nothing.”  White told the girl, “We can stop this if you tell the truth.”  After the girl offered the same response, White thrashed her hands with a belt for lying, prompting her to say that she was after the sweets.  White then led her to his bedroom, had her lie on his bed and whipped her with the belt on her buttocks, with powerful strikes, with a lot of force,” the complaint says.  White then had Nichelle do push-ups, knee bends, leg presses, and had her run in the house.  White said, “Because Nichelle seemed to prefer whoopings to boot camp training, I made her continue the boot camp.”  A little over four hours later, after White and the girl’s mother ineffectively tried to ease her suffering, help was finally summoned, but the girl was pronounced dead five minutes after arriving at the hospital.  An autopsy showed Nichelle bled to death from the whipping and disclosed a variety of other injuries, including bruising and abrasions to her extremities and chest.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that in 1997 just under one million American children were victims of substantiated or indicated child abuse and neglect.  That federal department also reports that in 1997 there were 967 children who were known to have  died as the result of maltreatment, and 77% of those were three years old or younger.  And these deaths are only the ones that were reported to CPS agencies.  A 1995 telephone survey of parents conducted by the Gallup organization estimated that as many as 49 children per 1,000 in the population suffered physical abuse and 19 per 1,000 suffered sexual abuse.  And a study released in the mid-1990’s revealed that “children in the United States are twice as likely to be the victims of violent crime as adults.”

An Associated Press Report dated June 13, 2000 reports on children in poverty who live in the world’s richest nations.  And if it had not been for Mexico, America would have been the worst of the rich nations with regard to the percent­age of its poverty-stricken children.  In 1998 almost one in five American children lived in poverty.  And the problem is not out there in other places.  A recent publication estimates that in Lubbock one in four children go to bed hungry every night.

I read recently of a story that a national magazine ran some years ago.  That story was entitled, “Do We Hate Our Children?”  Given the grim facts, that question is not one that can be discounted with ease.  At times it must look to God that America is a nation that hates its children.

There is a great story in the Old Testament that I think well conveys God’s love for mistreated children.  Ezekiel 16 contains an allegory.  God refers to the city of Jerusalem as a baby girl being exposed to the elements immediately after being born.  God sees the baby, “flailing about” in the blood of after-birth, and God says, “Live.”  Purely because of the power of God’s word, that baby does lives.  She grows up, and God adorns the young woman that she becomes, and God makes her beautiful.

I think that is what God wants God’s people to do.  I think God wants us to take the unloved children of our world, and love them, and bless them.  God wants to use us to give recovery to these children, and to move them from recovery to wholeness.

Herbert Johnson and Susan B. W. Johnson have written an article entitled, “A Sanctuary for Children in a Culture of Indifference.”  I want to share with you a few lines from the beginning of that article.

A newborn child is a mystery.  We are amazed how something so tiny and vulnerable survives the ordeal of birth.  We wonder at the delicate hands and small gestures and loud sounds that come from such small bodies.  There is also a fierce dignity of the newly born that sometimes startles us.  Every newborn child is a new creation, and the unique personality of each child is beyond reckoning.

These authors then go on to point out that, in spite of the wonder of a newborn child, many do not treat children in a way that conforms to their wonder.  Please listen to a few more of their words:

We believe that beneath the public debate about family values and singles mothers or the alarm about the plight of our families and the inability to establish a family-friendly society lies a deeper and more troubling reality:  we have fostered a culture of indifference toward our children (Word & World 15 [Winter 1995]: 32-33).

If that is true in our nation, it must not be true among God’s people who live in this nation.  We must not be indifferent about the plight of children.  We must care deeply and passionately about their well-being.  It does not matter what race they are.  All that matters is that these are children whom God loves and whom God wants actively to love through us.

Let me share with you two more stories that focus very explicitly on the way the Children’s Home can address the problems of children in our day:

Walter was forced at an early age to become something he wasn’t.  In a family where the adults concentrated on their own problems and pretty much left the kids to their own devices, Walter was forced to become a take-charge kind of guy with his younger brother.   It wasn’t easy; Walter is one of the ones created with an easy-going, laid back kind of personality, and he just didn’t have the knack of taking charge.  He did it, though.  It was him or nobody, because the adults had checked out of their responsibilities to Walter and his brother, and Walter took charge.

The problem was, Walter was angry.  He was a thirteen-year-old kid, and he was in charge.  He didn’t trust adults; they hadn’t proved trustworthy.  His kid brother didn’t mind him unless he was tough; so he became tough, physically and verbally aggressive with him.  His family moved around a lot, so he missed too much school, and when he was there, he was disruptive.  He was angry, because life was demanding things of him he wasn’t equipped to give.

Walter’s family fell apart when he was thirteen, and he and his younger brother were placed at The Children’s Home.  Walter was shy and withdrawn, and it was hard for him to relate to other chil­dren.  He kept falling back on his old habits of being aggressive, verbally and physically, with other people.  It took a long time for him to learn that he was in a safe place and that he didn’t have to be the tough guy.

Walter grew physically (6’4”, 260 lbs.), emotionally, and spiritually, becoming a Christian and a good example and leader for others.  He took advantage of the opportunities the Home provided for him, and when the time came for him to learn independent living skills, he took advantage of that program at Texas Boys Ranch.

This next story is told by a woman who lived at the Children’s Home as a child.  She sent an e-mail to the Home looking for the house parents that so blessed her life, and through that e-mail she tells her story.

My name is Kim Schenck.  I lived at the CHOL in 1980-1981 at cottage 13 (I think).  Before this time, I had a very rocky childhood.  My mother didn’t want an eleven-year old or my one-year old sister.  I lived in the Plainview institute (that is what I referred to it as, and I’m glad it closed down) for 6 months, and then I was shipped off to the Lubbock children’s home where I learned how to live and not survive.  My house parents, Mary and Ed Rogers, helped me to develop into the person I am today.  I am forever grateful for their guidance in my life.  I haven’t looked for them in the past because I had to make a decision between them adopting me or Brenda and Clif Bates.  It was a tough decision for a twelve-year old, and I didn’t want to be separated from my little sister so I chose to be with the Bates even though they were strangers to me emotionally.

Mary and Ed helped me to recover from the darkest times in my life.  They treated each one of us extremely special.  In the summer of 81, all 8 children in the home were treated to a wonderful vacation.  We all went to California to Disneyland for 3 days.  We spent 3 weeks traveling and one week at a Christian camp near Oregon.  At this particular camp I became a Christian and thus started a walk with Christ.  Now I’m 32, happily married for 12 years and recently had a beautiful baby girl.

These stories illustrate the move that the Children’s Home of Lubbock can generate––the move from recovery to wholeness.  Please be generous in your support.  Let’s do all we can to enhance this ministry in the Name of Jesus.