God's Children Calling

God's Children Calling
By
David J Hogan

Sitting by a comforting fire,
well fed and trouble free,
I idly turned my TV on,
what i saw still lives with me.

A little girl sat so forlorn
her arm around her brother,
her dying father in his bed
already gone, her mother.

Hungry, lost, no one to care,
no hope now for her Dad,
soon this tiny girl would be
all that this brother had.

Balled fists at the ends of skinny arms
he rubbed against his eyes,
that tiny body shook with sobs
racked by his piteous cries.

Dropping his head against her breast,
his little heart was breaking,
desperation on her face,
her wasted body shaking.

This was South Africa today,
aids raging through the land,
millions dying every year,
as we fail to lend a hand.

How many children just like these,
how many parents dying,
how many babies born to die,
how many mothers crying.

How many people just like me,
well heeled without a care,
how many people strong and free
with more than a little to spare.

How many people talk of God
and fail to hear that cry,
how many of us raise our eyes
as quietly we pass by.

A man lay by the roadside
unseen by men like me,
a Samaritan stopped and saved that soul
so that all of us might see.

The memory of those children
i never will erase,
I hope i may have done some good
when i meet God face to face.

Will i have helped His children
will i have seen their plight,
will i have stood on guard for them
through their dark and lonely night.

Will they have seen someone who cares,
someone to share their pain,
someone to wrap them in their arms
that they may love again.

And always there will be that cry
a call to you and me,
"When you're doing it to one of them,
You're doing it to me"