Feast of the Holy Innocents

December 28th is the Feast of the Holy Innocents.  (Not sure how I made it 34 years in the Christian church without knowing about this, but that's probably for another post.)  Leah has become very interested in knowing about and praying for children around the world who are poor and don't have many of the luxuries that kids in America have.  So I had them make a collague out of pictures of children from catalogues like Heifer International, World Vision, and Voice of the Martyrs.  

We sang "Jesus Loves the Little Children," prayed, and ate beans and rice for dinner to experience what many kids eat everyday (if they get meals everyday.)  Leah has specifically been praying for the kids at the Buhozi feeding centre in The Republic of Congo.  Missionaries from our church worked with them to increase their food intake from 4 meals to 6 meals a week (2 containing protein.)  I have only recently become aware of these kinds of intense world needs and I want my kids to be raised with a compassion for the poor & victimized and a gratefulness for how blessed they truly are.  

Though this can all be quite depressing (particularly a feast day that remembers the slaughter of babies by an insanely jealous tyrant), I was encouraged by William Holman Hunt's Triumph of the Innocents.  They are depicted as saints accompanying Mary, Joseph, and Jesus as they fled to Egypt.      

Those little ones who so brutally lost their lives are in the presence of God!