Note From the Board – May 2025

Priorities

I was on my way to somewhere. I forget where. The airport was choked with hurried humanity, also on their way to somewhere. And, like me, most of them were apparently away from their families. I sometimes find myself watching people in airports, wondering what their stories are. How many of them have children at home wondering when daddy will tuck them in bed again? How many mothers, on their way to urgent business meetings in distant cities, are thinking about the families they’d much rather be with?

That’s the way life is today for many parents – a series of carefully calculated trade-offs negotiated in an effort to strike a balance between providing materially for the family yet giving them the time and attention they need. Some parents successfully walk this tightrope. But far too many tip the balance in the wrong direction, leaving shattered marriages and neglected children.

I had a few moments between flights, so I poked around a few of the mall-like stores lining the terminal walkway. One of them catered to the would-be successful businessperson. The walls and counters were lined with framed posters featuring success-oriented slogans and motivational verbiage. Some touted the virtues of teamwork, others the value of striving to be the best. Most all of them were geared toward those ideals that the successful businessperson could presumably not afford to be without. No doubt the store did a brisk trade with the airport crowd. 

But one of the posters stood out in sharp contrast to the others – a photo of a small girl in profile standing on top of a grassy dune. In the background a soft yellow sun sank beneath the calm, blue waters of an ocean. Beneath the photo were these words: 

“A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove…But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

I wondered whether, amid all of the business-related slogans, this one sold poorly.  So, I asked the man behind the counter, “Which one of these posters is your best seller?” He turned and pointed to the slogan with the little girl. “No question about it,” he answered without hesitation. “That one’s our best seller.” 

Despite the business success motivations that most of the store’s posters displayed and the clientele the store catered to, that one’s message resonated most. The pursuit of financial success is, for better or for worse, a hallmark of our culture.  But deep down inside most of us know that our children are a much higher priority.  

Jesus taught a lot about money and its proper place and use in our lives. Mainly that money is only a means toward an end – a God-honoring end. And that the priority of money in our lives tells a lot about our spiritual condition.  “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” he proclaimed with certainty. 

He also taught in no uncertain terms that children are a huge priority when he said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

That’s about as clear as it gets. 

Last summer when my wife Jeannie and I visited several communities Unite 4 Africa serves we witnessed first-hand that one of this ministry’s top priorities is investing in the lives of children.  

The Animals for Orphans program empowers children to grow sustainable businesses to help provide for themselves and their adoptive families. 

Unite 4 Africa works with Dress A Girl to provide beautiful new dresses for little girls in need. 

Young adolescent girls in desperate need of sanitary supplies are given Dignity Pads so they can avoid missing several days of school every month and, as a result, excel in their studies.  

New schools are being built so kids don’t have to walk miles to classes in the morning and miles in the afternoon to get home. At one of those schools in Ethiopia my wife and I along with others on the Unite 4 Africa team helped feed students nutritious meals. The school was a refreshing, God-honoring oasis of hope in the midst of the grinding poverty surrounding it. 

And we sat with hundreds of children in church services where God’s Word was clearly taught. 

Your financial gifts to Unite 4 Africa make all of this and so much more possible.  May I boldly ask you to make the children Unite 4 Africa serves a priority with the most generous gift you can make today? Jesus is going to use you to fulfill another important teaching of his: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them….”  

Please take a moment right now to visit www.Unite4Africa.org/donate.  

by Rod Robison