We Need Your Help

For over 50 years Manuelito Navajo Children's Home has been providing care for children and families in need. We offer a 24-hour residential care facility for children in need of a good, secure, and wholesome place to call home. We give assistance to single mothers and their children. We operate a school for children preschool through high school. And, we do all this with the assistance and generosity of many churches and individuals throughout the country. We accept no public funding, but rely on many partners to make our ministry possible.

People and churches help us in many ways, but regular financial contributions to our work are the most significant and beneficial to us. Like any organization, business, or family a regular and consistent source of incomes helps us to budget efficiently and plan accordingly. To put it bluntly, when we take a child into our care, we would like to know with fair certainty that we will be able to feed and clothe that child six months from now. To be honest, however, we often find ourselves acting on blind faith, accepting care of the child and hoping the funds will be there at the end of the day.

Manuelito Navajo Children's Home is remotely located, especially in relation to most Churches of Christ, which have traditionally served as the bedrock of our support. At present, we are the westernmost childcare facility sponsored by Churches of Christ. Because of our remoteness and little resource to advertise, we often find ourselves at the end of train when it comes to finding support for our work.

We need your help! Can you become a partner in our work and contribute financially and regularly to our ministry? Can you encourage your congregation to support us monthly? Can you introduce our good work to your friends?

I serve Manuelito Navajo Children's Home as director of development and church relations. I am willing to travel to your town and speak to you and your church about our ministry and the needs we have. If you would like for me to come, please contact me at jeffrfoster@gmail.com.

Contributions to Manuelito Navajo Children's Home can be mailed to M.N.C.H.; P. O. Box 58; Gallup, NM 87305. You may contact us at (505) 863-5530.

Walk a Little Plainer, Daddy

Walk a little plainer, Daddy,
Said a little boy so frail,
I'm following in your footsteps
And I don't want to fail.
Sometimes your steps are very plain,
Sometimes they are hard to see;
So walk a little plainer, Daddy,
For you are leading me.

I know that once you walked this way,
Many years ago,
And what you did along the way
I'd really like to know,
For sometimes when I am tempted
I don't know what to do;
So walk a little plainer, Daddy,
For I must follow you.

Someday when I'm grown up
You are like I want to be,
Then I will have a little boy
Who will want to follow me,
And I would want to lead him right
And help him to be true;
So walk a little plainer, Daddy,
For we must follow you.

Author Unknown

All People Shall See It Together

If I was not a preacher I could very easily have been a cartographer. I love maps. Since I was a child, I have collected maps of various sizes, shapes, and types. I own maps of the world, of continents and countries, of states and cities, or forests and mountain ranges, and of national recreation areas and amusement parks. I am fascinated by the shapes of continents and oceans, by the texture of terrain, by the winding borders of countries and states, and by the vastness of the world.

The maps I won represent more than the elements of geography and physical science. Indeed they represent the vast numbers of people that live on this globe. Each corners of the world is unique and special. Each nook and cranny is home to a group of people--nations, races, tribes . . . and families. Cultures vary from border to border, from continent to continent. traditions, heritages, world vies, languages, and the ways of life change as you move across the lands and over the seas. Diversity is the rule of the world; a wonderful blend of color, personality, and thought.

However, the diversity of the world has been offered common ground. The prophet Isaiah declared:

A voice cries out:
"In the wilderness prepare the way of Yahweh,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken" (Isaiah 40.3-5).

With these words John the Baptist proclaimed the imminent coming of the Messiah (Luke 3.4-6)--God's anointed One, Jesus Christ--who would bring all faithful men and women into one family, one household, one nation, and one body. Boundaries would be dissolved, differences would be blended, peoples would become a people. One community would be formed from many (Ephesians 2.14-17).

The next time you look at a map, consider the diverse peoples who call our world home. Then, remember the Gospel of peace that calls all faithful men and women into one fellowship.

There He Goes Again!

There he goes again!

These likely were the words of bewilderment uttered by Peter, or Thomas, or Judas, or any one of the Twelve, as Jesus associated himself with yet another outcast. The Rabbi had established a tendency of encountering and even searching out such people . . . lepers, cripples, the blind, the demon-possessed, prostitutes, Gentiles, tax collectors, the poor, and others.

Nothing and no one seemed to hold Jesus back. He did not recoil in horror as a known "woman of the street" wiped his feet with her hair. He did not flee as lepers came toward him--on one such occasion he even reached out his hand to touch the unclean. He did not look with disdain upon a Samaritan woman he met at Jacob's well. He accepted an invitation to dine with a tax collector. He was not horrified when a wild, demon-possessed man charged at him and his disciples as they disembarked from a sea voyage.

Jesus did not avoid contact with people because of physical ailment, or ethnicity, or occupation, or social standing, or morality. Jesus went freely with all sorts of people--people considered to be outcasts, people considered to be unclean, people considered to be sinners, and even people considered to be popular and respectable.

Jesus cared about people, and his mission was not reserved for only the well-to-do or for the righteous. Jesus came to love and to make a difference in the lives of people from all walks of life. And he calls us to do the same. Will you love as he loved?