Today, I have asked Greg Eubanks to write about Justice and Liberty for All. Greg is Director of Service Offering Development for Buckner Children and Family Services, Inc.
Clients served by Buckner have not enjoyed the blessings of liberty in their lives. Our children, living in foster homes and orphanages throughout the world, arrive with the knowledge what it is like to live under the oppression of abusive treatment. Families come to Bucker with experience telling them that liberty is limited by economics and the injustice of diminished opportunity.
What our children and families come to understand, however, is the power of hope over circumstance. They know this because they experience it through Buckner. Young women in Ethiopia are receiving vocational training and loans to begin their own businesses. Youth in foster care are graduating, and becoming alumni of the system which introduced them to a new future. Families living in colonias of the Rio Grande Valley are experiencing the domestic tranquility of new construction, thanks to Buckner mission groups.
All of this is possible because Buckner employees, donors and volunteers decided to take liberty with justice, serving the forgotten among us. Far from the idea of any one individual or one nation, we know that justice is an individual proposition. As such, Buckner works intentionally, and creatively, to provide an array of services to meet the unique needs of each vulnerable child and family.
My work at Buckner is focused on developing these service offerings, which make up our integrated continuum of care. From humanitarian aid to educational programs, community-based intervention to family foster care, microfinance to adoption of every stripe, Buckner strives to take liberties with the status-quo approach to social justice. There is not just one need, and there is not just one solution. Rather, we involve a host of diverse individuals, working together with Buckner to meet needs and impact lives.
For those reading this blog today, I would invite you to join us. Perhaps you represent a church looking to be relevant in your community. Maybe you are a student searching for meaningful service opportunities. Or, you could be a family with the means and desire to be a family for a child. Buckner has a service offering through which you can connect with someone who needs you. As both an individual nation and a global community, we still have huddled masses among us yearning for freedom from their overwhelming circumstance. How will you answer their cries for justice?
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