I am a stress eater.

So while the rest of the country is blathering on about a ridiculously totemistic showdown between identically useless political factions, I found myself eating leftover chili and apples that I did not technically need.

Because I am worried about invisible children.

Not the ones trucked out to shop a piece of legislation or a legal decision, real children.

The children in question are very dear to me but as I watch them travel through adolescence I am increasingly dismayed by their choices–joining gangs, dabbling in illegal substances. Sex way before they should.

They are refugees from one of the most repressive regimes on the planet and they have been given the opportunity to come to America–Texas.

But they have not been given the opportunity for much genuine community.

Overlooked by pastors and churches. Stereotyped by people who should have known better. Stopped and interrogated simply for walking down quiet streets.

They learned there were yawning holes in the law.

They continue to long for the chance to play competitive soccer in a town that only makes room for football.

They are falling fast through the cracks.

And I ask myself–who do you call when you see children who live next to a dangerous road lie down in that path and say they are ready to die?

I have always been afraid I would lose a child from their community to that road–too many speeding trucks.

But to see them lying there…and to know there is no one I can call to save them.

How? You ask–how do I know?

I have called before, for other children I loved.

Called pastors
Congressmen
Senators
Bureaucrats
Ordinary people
Christians

The answer always the same–uncomfortable silence–this is not our issue.

Is it yours?