"You did not do it for Me"

“For I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me. Then they also will answer Him saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Matthew 25:42-46

I am struggling desperately with these verses. The children that my kids have been playing soccer with have been coming to the fence each day for months now and a few of them are becoming good friends with my kids. One of them is a 12 or 13 year old boy who is an orphan but whose sister has been caring for him. He has no school shoes so he can’t go to school sometimes and he has started telling us that he is hungry. His sister lost her job at the factory so they do not have enough food to eat. He told Elijah his story and then we had a staff member talk with his sister to confirm that the story was true. The kids and I have made a plan where he will help us walk around the outside of Beautiful Gate once a week picking up litter in exchange we will provide him with a bag of food and a few other essential items (shoes, warm socks, etc). It is the best I can come up with so he is not forced to beg and can maintain his dignity. We have been told by many not to just give handouts because it strips away their pride and having him "work" for it will help him feel good about himself. But is it enough? He was telling Elijah today how hungry he was but there were 10 other kids with him so if I gave him food, I’d have to feed them all. If I feed all of them they will tell their friends and soon there will be 50 kids or more outside the gate begging for food each day.

I am praying for God’s wisdom in this situation but I feel defeated. I am overwhelmed by the need and by the desire to care for the least of these. What if Jesus was one of the kids asking for food and I said no because then I’d have to feed 50 kids? What if it was Jesus who did not have warm enough socks and I made Him pick up litter to earn the socks? What if Jesus was one of these kids at my door and I refused to help Him? I have such doubt that I am doing enough and I feel like running and hiding from the need around me. I think of the story of the boy on the beach who is throwing back starfish that have washed up on shore. There were thousands of them and the boy was throwing them back one at a time. A man asked him why he bothered throwing them back because he couldn't save them all. Then the boy picked up another starfish and threw it back and said it made a difference to that starfish (very paraphrased version of the story). But I can’t seem to think that way. I think what if I helped the wrong one? What if I helped one that could crawl back on his own, but missed the one who needed the help the most? Who do I help? How do I help? Am I pleasing Jesus or am I being selfish by not sharing more of what I have? As you can see I am struggling a lot right now with doing enough for God. The boy’s story above is just one example of many more I have seen and heard. Just writing this keeps bringing tears to my eyes so I will end this post.
Anita