In God's Hands

I sit here at the farm with 11 applications and essays for the 2008 Forward Education class. I have room for eight of them. This process has been a very difficult one for me. Even the idea of picking youth in Masoyi to apply for this program was very difficult. I have so much power when it comes to the future of these youth. If I had let one more young mom apply to the program, would she have made it? Would she have gone on to university? Would she have been able to provide a brighter future for her and her child? These things race through my mind.
Today I sat and read all of the applications and essays of the youth who have applied for next years program. I made it through about half of them before the overwhelming feeling of pressure and sadness hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was in the middle of reading one of the applications where it describes relatives of the applicant. Mother deceased; cause of death HIV/AIDS. Father deceased; cause of death HIV/AIDS. Both of them died with in a one month span of each other. The application fell out of my hand and I wept. I sat their talking to God. “Father I can’t do this. I need your help.”
How do I tell three of these youth that they will not be accepted into the program. How? All but one of the applicants has at least one parent who has passed away. The one who’s parent hasn’t passed has never met their father anyway.
Their essay’s were so powerful and so full of hope for the future. One wants to be a doctor; one a career councelor, a nurse, social workers, and an engineer. They all want what many of us from the west take for granted; an opportunity.
I hold to much power and it scares the shit out of me. I have the power of deciding who has an opportunity to escape a continuous cycle of poverty and distress that surrounds them.
I have to believe that God is making the decision with me to get through this. However, I think about the time I walk down the dusty streets of Masoyi five years from now and see one of the youth who did not make the program; walking out of his small house; the same house I had seen him walk out of five years earlier.
Father I can’t do this. I need your help.