Most of us do whatever we can to help our children achieve their dreams. It’s painful to realize that there are many young people around the world without such parental support. This week in Bolivia, I met Ruth, 19, the same age as my daughter Grace, but with vastly different circumstances.

Ruth grew up in Tiraque, where mud-brick houses without heat or electricity are the norm. One of eight children raised by a single mom, Ruth hoped to go to school, and for a time, World Vision sponsorship helped her. But when she was 14, her mother sent her to live with an uncle in the city and work instead.

Rich and Ruth (Jon Warren/WV)

Ruth eventually left her uncle and returned to Tiraque, determined to catch up in school, but her mother moved to Argentina, leaving Ruth on her own. Through World Vision’s youth programs, she committed her life to Christ, and she became a young leader, even pressing the local government to open a legal office to help abused women and children. It was then that she decided to become a lawyer.

I wish I could say Ruth lived “happily ever after”—but things got worse. To support herself, she worked backbreaking labor and developed a hernia so severe that she could barely walk. With nowhere else to turn, she sought help from World Vision. The staff arranged for her surgery and paid 80 percent of the costs. Ruth paid the rest. And against all odds, she finished high school.

Today, Ruth is studying at a public university in Cochabamba, pursuing a law degree. She lives with her uncles and gets up early to cook and clean for them. Then she works a retail job in the afternoon and goes to class in the evening. She pays for her own tuition, books, clothes, and much of her food.

It broke my heart to hear Ruth say, “I have never experienced the love of a father.” And yet, she draws strength from her heavenly Father. “Somehow I’ll make it,” she said. “I don’t know how, but I know God is with me.”

Psalm 68 says, “God sets the lonely in families.” God allowed me to step in for absent parents and encourage Ruth, pray with her, and tell her that I believe in her.

How can you be “like family” to young people in need?

Next week we honor one of the greatest men in our country’s history, Martin Luther King Jr.  I do a lot of speaking around the country, and in almost every speech I find a way to include this quote from King: “We will have to repent in this generation, not only for the evil words and deeds of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

I often ask myself, “What am I silent about?” Are there injustices going on around me that I don’t recognize?

Just a few generations back, slave owners went to church on Sunday morning, then beat or raped their slaves on Sunday evening. Were there opposing voices within the church at that time? Yes, but the majority voices prevailed, and slavery went on for hundreds of years.  My own parents lived in an America that denied African Americans their basic human rights and simple human dignity. Does this shame you like it shames me? How could they be so blind, we ask?

Rich prays with a woman who just moved into a transitional home just outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Wayne McGraw/WV)

But are you and I any better? What are the injustices that we are missing?

Think broadly here—beyond just a wrong done to a person. I think it’s also an injustice when a person is suffering and we have the ability to help but don’t.

I was just in Haiti last month. Did you know that there are still over a million people homeless because of the earthquake a year ago? It’s an injustice if they suffer and we don’t help.

This month I was in Bolivia and have seen the kind of poverty and hunger that contribute to the nearly 24,000 children who die every single day from preventable causes. That is an injustice. And what about the billions of people globally who don’t have access to clean water? Another injustice. The gaping disparities between the haves and the have-nots is injustice.

It’s tempting to say, “that’s someone else’s responsibility, not mine.” Someone smarter or richer or more powerful. Other people, not me.  But amazingly, God has entrusted this work of fighting injustice to His people—to you and to me. That’s why King was so vocal about the “appalling silence of the good people.”

Do you see a problem that needs fixing? A justice that needs righting?  Be like King. Don’t turn back. Don’t turn away. Don’t wait and hope for someone else to come along. Take the advice of another of my favorite activists, Mohandas Gandhi: “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”

It’s the first week of the new year—time to test (and maybe already ditch) your 2011 resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions come out of a feeling that something isn’t working in our lives—our weight, our health, our finances. We look for new ways to fix old problems.

But it’s the time-tested, tried-and-true methods that really work. Want to lose weight? Eat less and exercise more. Need to manage your money? Save 10 percent, tithe 10 percent, and pay off your credit cards every month (this is the advice I give my kids).

Spiritually, we can get a little flabby, too, giving God little else than an hour on Sundays. Here again, there’s no new “quick fix.” Your faithful Bible is your best tool. Isaiah chapter 1 can really tell you how to shape up. The Message version says it plainly: “Say no to wrong. Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless” (Isaiah 1:16-17).

God doesn’t want His people merely going through the motions, this year or any year. If you’re flagging in your faith, fill your heart with prayer and worship. Then resolve to give God your best and seek Scriptures that show you how.

What Bible verses have been most reinvigorating for you?