My wife and I were watching a documentary on Netflix about two Americans who went to India to do a film on orphans. They were trying to use the perspective of what their world looked like through their eyes. Needless to say, it was a real eye opener for my wife and me.
We get so wrapped up in our own lives that we sometimes become oblivious to how bad conditions really are in other parts of the world. These two men had contact and were involved with a group of about twenty-five young people–both males and females, ranging in age from three to twenty-five.
The twenty-five year old was the leader, and he looked after the “welfare” of the group. They were sleeping on the sidewalk or in the streets near a train station. They got money by mostly begging at the train station, and several had limbs missing from jumping off the train or accidently falling in front of it. One young girl had fingers missing on her hand because her boyfriend forced her to place her hand on the tracks, so the train could run over it, in order for her to draw more sympathy from those she was begging from.
A lot of them had HIV and/or AIDS from unprotected sex; some were injecting substances into their veins without knowing what they were; others sniffed the fumes of a product to “give them a high”; and then there were those who used tobacco to “get a buzz”–all so that it could help them to forget the miserable condition and life they had. Some had lost their parents who had died or were missing, while others had left their home due to mistreatment, or they had been abandoned by their parents.
I was somewhat shocked to hear that there are thirty-one million orphans in India alone. That figure does not include nations like China, Europe or America. Watching them sleep on cement with just a blanket covering them made me comment to my wife that I will not complain anymore about hotel beds.
They have an existence without future in this day and age. Their life is pretty bleak, to say the least. At the end of the movie, they were soliciting funds to help out these orphans. However, the problems they face are overwhelming, and no help will make it a better world or a better life for them.
In fact, all efforts now to create a better world are doomed to failure because Satan, the god of this world and ruler over this society and civilisation, doesn’t want to make this a better world, but he wants to keep it deceived and in a state of godlessness. In time, he will seek to destroy all of mankind.
We who are living in the Western world are so fortunate to have the things we do, and at times we need to look at how parts of the rest of the world are living to really appreciate what we have.
No effort on anyone’s part will make this world a better place. The only viable solution is the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God, when Satan will be banished and when we will assist Jesus Christ in creating tomorrow’s world–a better world for all of humanity.
Watching this documentary was really sobering, and it helped me to realize how badly we need the Kingdom of God to really change the fate of these orphans who are just the tip of the iceberg of the countless problems facing all of mankind. Thankfully, the true solution is not too far away.
