Each evening when my mother arrived home from her job, the children had to be cleaned and ready for our supper meal. The house had to be in good order. After such a successful day in school, there was not much time left to accomplish this task. So the cooperation of the children was so critical. But on this particular day in my life, I learned a lesson never to be forgotten. So I want to share it with you as I have with so many others.

Being so preoccupied with the finishing details -- housecleaning, children and dinner -- I had not been aware of the missing chatter and laughter of the children. At least not until I heard the tender, piercing voice of my mother: "Addie? Addie, where are the children?" I rushed by her, down the stairs and out the front door, calling each child name by name.

When I saw them running down the streets and saw the condition that they were in, I did not know whether to take them and keep going down the streets, or whether to bring them into the house and face the discipline.

But thank God for judgment. The judgment that prevailed. Since I had no better place to take them, I brought them all in just as they were, and presented them to my mother. She was always so calm and considerate in her actions. She gave me a thump on the head, and a shaking and a reminder that I will never forget.

"Addie," she said, "When I tell you to take care of the children, I mean for you to do just that -- be responsible for them and know where they are."

The question and challenge has permeated my life, and makes me at this moment sensitive to the conditions of our children wherever they are. Where are the children? Where are the children? The children who are the greatest earthly gifts given to us by God.

In Genesis 4:1, Eve, who had conceived and given birth to her first son Cain, said of her gift, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." Many have been given to us. Proverbs 22:6 supplies us with the program for our children. A program with an unsurpassable order, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Psalm 127:3: "Children are the heritage of the Lord." Our Lord places great emphasis on our children. He says to us in Luke, "Suffer them to come to me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven."

But the question remains. Where are the children? Where are the children? Many of us cannot answer that question. Many of us cannot look God in the face at this time and say that we've been responsible for the children, as he expects us to be.

When we look out the windows, we look into the streets. Not all of our children, but too many of them are in disarray and disorder. They're not at home, they're not in school, they're void of spiritual and religious training. Too many are on dope and have lost hope. Some are angry, disrespectful, unlovable and unmanageable, out of touch with the elderly, dysfunctional. Some of them are being abused, some have been misused, murdered in the streets, uneducated, unemployed, in jail...and the list goes on.

But when we remember that God holds us responsible for them, it should make us tremble sometimes as we reach for the answers. Where are the children? Where are the children?

Holden Caufield, in Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, makes this statement: He says, "I keep seeing all these little children, tumbling down some hill of rye and all...and there is no one around to catch them. I mean as they stray or as they start to go over the cliff. Somebody must be there to catch them. That's what I must do...I must become the Catcher in the Rye!!"

Where are the children? All of us must be responsible for the status and the condition of our young. It does not matter if your child is in Yale or your neighbor's child is in jail. All children are our children. The old African adage says, "It takes a whole community to raise a child."

The faith community must stop to refocus on this question and challenge to make a commitment, no matter what the conditions are, to go out and recapture our precious children. No matter how young or old, bring them home and back to God. Instill and restore a faith of Christian principles and love. Give them something more substantial to hold on to. Love them. Take time with them. Help them to clean up their lives.

I still believe we can see a better day for our children and once again, as recorded in Zechariah 8:4, "Thus said the Lord of Hosts, there shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for every age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof."

God grant us that day once again. But for now, where are the children? They are safe and back at home, thank God we can say. We can know where they are because we are with them. We can pray for them, and pray with them -- with our children.

Remember the songwriter who reminds us that "Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight for He loves the little children of the world."

Where are they? They are here, all around us. We must bring them back to God no matter what state they are in, for he alone can help us to be able to effectively answer to the question: "Where are the children?" Oh God, oh God, they're here.

Lydia Talbot: The Rev. Addie Wyatt! You are a magnificent role model for the children that you so passionately talk about in your message. I must ask you -- you are a child of the church yourself -- what was it growing up in Brookhaven, Mississippi, at the age of three and giving a recitation in your home church, that led you to become one of our nation's most distinguished leaders for labor reform, civil rights and women's rights?

Addie Wyatt: That was a great experience for me, and I can remember it even now, Lydia -- the love, the warmth, of the members of our church, the community, my mother, my grandmother, my father, and my other brothers and sisters. And we often talked to each other about the love of God and what God really wanted for us as children, individually. Whatever he had designed for our lives, our parents tried to help steer us in that direction.

Talbot:  Now, before the program, I met one of the young people whose lives you changed. Tell us about how believing in these young people that have gone astray can make a difference.

Wyatt:  Lydia, they are children of God. He's given them to us and it is our responsibility to share our faith, our hopes and our dreams and aspirations with children wherever we are. And that's the simple thing that we did for this young man who was on drugs, who was a sort of outcast in the community. But just tender loving caring and sharing, and especially God's Word and will for his life drew this young man in and today he is a glaring example of the hope that we have for the children of the world.

Talbot:  One of the ways that you drew the children in -- and you were only 20 years of age when you and your husband together founded the Wyatt Choral Ensemble -- was through music. Now, how is music important in the expression of faith and gathering in the children?

Wyatt:  Children enjoy it. And then it's something that they can share together and being an economically deprived area, it didn't cost much. All we did was to come together, sit around in our living room and kitchen, and just sing and pray and chat. It brought melody and joy into the hearts of many young people who were very disappointed in life.

Talbot:  What led you to begin a career in the Labor Reform Movement and then on to Civil rights, working with Dr. King?

Wyatt:  Well Lydia, I came from a very, very rich family. We just didn't have any money! And so I had to go to work as a young woman to help provide for our children and my brothers and sisters who were now our responsibility, and I needed money; I needed provisions for myself as an African-American person and as a woman. The labor movement offered us that opportunity and so we joined it and became a part of it. We thought that if we were going to benefit from it, whatever we had to give, we had the responsibility of sharing it with even the labor movement. And God blessed us to do that.

Talbot: Now, the linkage between labor, civil rights, human rights, women's rights, peace in the world... You seem to bring all those together; you connect all those systemic problems together in your ministry.

Wyatt:  Since my husband, Claude, and I really preach and teach and believe in a holistic Gospel, and a faith that covers the areas of everyone's life, we're part of those elements and those institutions that can make this a reality: The labor movement, which helps to provide for the economic, the politic and the social life of our people, and then the church, the spiritual life, which I feel covers all of it, and then the various movements. We've been a part of all of them because we belong to God, and every member in those movements, whether they realize it now or not, also belong to God.

Talbot:  Take us down to Vernon Park Church of God just for a moment. Give us a glimpse of what we would see going on there.

Wyatt:  Well, you would see men and women, boys and girls coming into our Sunday School at 9:30, and then at 11:00 rushing in and the choir starts off by singing "He Has Done Great Things For Me". And everybody can identify with that theme. It's a wonderful service, and we have approximately 1,000 members. Not all of them are there every Sunday, so there are many visitors who come. And we work with the young; we work with the seniors; we work with the homeless, people who are outdoors out in the street. We open our doors and provide a place for them to come and feel their somebodyness, to learn about God, and to learn to appreciate themselves and to get themselves ready so they can go out and make the kind of contributions that we're making.

Talbot: You told me that among some of those homeless are college graduates.

Wyatt: Yes. We have engineers, college graduates, some who have just lost hope, and no one has taken the time to touch their lives and to express the love of God to them.

Talbot:  As you look back over your career and dedication to ministry, and your marriage of 55 years, what's the secret and what keeps you going?

Wyatt:  My faith in God. My love of myself, and my love of my brothers and sisters. And my willingness to do God's will in all of their lives.

Talbot: You spoke earlier of your mother. In our final moment, adversity must have been a trigger for your great accomplishments, but was it your mother who set an example for you?

Wyatt:  A great example. A beautiful, wonderful, God-fearing woman who taught us to love God, to love our sisters, love ourselves, and to love what God has provided through his people.

Talbot:  What was her name?

Wyatt:  Her name was Maggie Cameron.

Talbot:  Maggie.

Wyatt:  Thank you for asking.

Talbot:  We're grateful for the Maggie Camerons in the lives of our children, who turn out to be like you: leaders in our society. Thank you so much, Addie Wyatt.