These were not bad people at all. They were not. They were just understaffed, and you had 2 people looking after 40 mentally handicapped children, and they just couldn't do it. So for their own safety, there was children shackled to - like they had to leash them, to make sure they didn't run off. It wasn't that they were being mean, they just could not possibly keep up.
Kyla said: this is not okay, and she's given her life to restoring dignity to mentally handicapped children in China. I was just there, are you ready to get mad? Ready to get mad, here we go, I'm going to make you mad. It made me mad. I was just there, and I said: Kyla, what can I do for you? Anything within my power to do, I'm going to do it.
She said well, we've recently had to cut everything back, because we lost our biggest supporter. I said: what? She said: yeah, there was a church, they were our biggest supporter, and they cut us off. I went: oh, I'm sorry, you know, economic downturn, churches go through hard times, they have to make tough decisions. I'm sorry that happened. She said: no, that's not the reason. That wasn't the reason at all actually.
She said they sent a missions team here, and I told them that they could not force the children to say the sinner's prayer, because we were in Communist China; and so when they left, they cut our support off, because they said: what good is what you're doing anyway, if all of them are going to burn in hell. So that's our story? God is torturing mentally-handicapped children now? We're sticking by that?
I said: what's his name? What? What's the pastor's name? I haven't opened up a can on somebody in a very long time. I said: Kyla, that's not okay, and Shane Willard Ministries will do everything they can to make up the downfall, that you just suffered. We are not going to let these children suffer, because somebody else thinks that people are going to burn in hell, because they're too mentally handicapped to say a specific prayer.
He just summed up the whole problem with Christianity, right there in one sentence. No, it's not okay. We're going to help kids. You hear Kyla's story, you go YES! Go Kyla! Stick with it! Come on girl, you're doing a great job. Something inside of you does that.
There's a friend of mine in South Africa named Brandon Eckert. He's one of my heroes. Brandon was a 26 gang member, bad dudes, and he got saved. He came to the Lord listening to my message, the Authority of the Rabbi. Now there's a revival in Pollsmoor Prison, because he'd been allowed to take the DVD of the Authority of the Rabbi in there and show it to them, that the head of the 26s wrote me a letter. The guy, the head guy of the 26s wrote me a letter to say that he'd given his heart to the ways of Jesus.
It was really cool, because he started out: hi Mr Willard, my name is Bones. I was like: hi Bones; and so Bones, he said: I don't even know what it looks like to give my heart to Jesus as the head of a gang, but I'm willing to give it a go. He went and led his number two guy to the Lord, and so I got to meet him. His name was Colin, and so there's thing going on in Pollsmoor Prison.
So Brandon gets out, and Brandon says: this is not okay, this is not okay. I'm going to do something to change the cycle of poverty in my city. So he started a ministry that gets drug addicts and prostitutes and gang members off the street, and what he does is he gets them high school educated. First he gets them off drugs; second he gets them high school educated; third he gets them in job training, so he can break the cycle of poverty.
The last time I was in Cape Town, the District Attorney of Cape Town asked to meet with me - which made me nervous. Why is the District Attorney calling me to Court right? It's an odd feeling, so I go into Court, and this District Attorney says to me, she says: I just want you to know, because I know you're pouring in tens of thousands of dollars into this from America, and I want you to know that it is working.