November is National Adoption Month and also the month that houses Orphan Sunday. Now, as you all know, I am proponent of adoption. I believe it is a redemptive process in a fallen world. I believe it models a true example of what Jesus Christ did for each of us. I know it is beautiful. I know it is hard. However, this blog post is not going to be about adoption it is going to be about orphans.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Psalms 82:3
There are estimated to be 153 million orphans living in our world. Now, many of these children are social orphans which means they have parents living that cannot or will not take care of the them, but the parent’s rights to the child are still intact and have not been terminated. Often these parents are working long hours in remote areas, are not able to afford/feed their children, or have drug/alcohol related issues that are preventing them from parenting. Many time these children spend their entire lives in orphanages because they are not adoptable. Social orphans may have one of the worst opportunities for a future. They are an orphan without family care, often living with substandard nutrition, medical care and education and yet they never have the opportunity for a family through domestic or international adoption. These are the children I want to spur you to consider. What are you doing to help them?
Now, this is where I get convicted myself. Oh yeah, we sponsor several children. I keep their pictures on my photo board and send them an occasional letter, but I do all of this out of my excess. I am not giving up anything to sponsor them. It is easy! It helps me pat myself of the back and say "Oh, I look after the orphans"! I once read a challenge...if you don't know the name of an orphan, I question if you are truly taking care of the orphans. I would like to go a step farther and say...if you don't know the name of a specific orphan who you also support and are involved in their life/health/education, I wonder if you are truly taking care of the orphans.
So many people support orphans through international organizations, like Compassion or World Vision, each month. These organizations are great and they make it super easy to support an orphan. We can check that off our "Things Christians Should Do" list...and, guess what, you can even have it automatically deducted from your bank account or charged to your credit card. So easy! You don't even really need to think about it...or the orphan. Somehow, I don't think this is what we are called to do.
I believe that the plight of the orphans is to break our heart. I believe the situation that some children live in should convict us to re-evaluate our lives and see how we can truly "look after the orphans". I think far too often we see that picture of that adorable little orphan and think "oh how sad" and then we get up out of our comfortable chair, we drive away in our nice vehicle, and we go home to our mansions. (And, don't even try to tell me your house is not a mansion....because in most of the world it is!!) On Orphan Sunday, after watching a presentation with pictures of orphans living in poverty and seeing overwhelming statistics about orphans and their plight, someone actually said in the same conversation "I pray for those orphans around the world. Thank God for our healthy babies". What? Are you kidding me? You just missed the whole point of the presentation. God did not allow your eyes to experience that so you could be thankful for what you have and walk away! In the words of Ann Voskamp (she is just so much better at expressing my thoughts on paper than I am :)...
"As if God uses slums and shanties and the starving merely as this cosmic Sunday School visual aid to make a bunch of the spoiled kids grateful. As if gratitude is this virtue that can neatly scrub away any inconveniencing responsibility, as if gratitude can quietly get us all off some uncomfortable hook.
In a world of need, it’s too easy to think that static gratitude is our only responsibility — instead of feeling gratitude as the electric current empowering our ability to actually respond.
To actually do something. To actually walk, live, move, respond, go into this world as though our feet are kissing the grace of the ground under us and God over us, going as an embrace to those in need.
Gratitude is the demanding question mark in the grammar of your life – otherwise your life needs editing.
So you are grateful & —- ??
So you are grateful & — ?? What are you going to do?
So you are grateful & —?? How now will you live?"
So, I ask you...what are you going to do for the orphans? How will you now live in a way that will change the life of one orphan?
So you are grateful & —- ??
So you are grateful & — ?? What are you going to do?
So you are grateful & —?? How now will you live?"
So, I ask you...what are you going to do for the orphans? How will you now live in a way that will change the life of one orphan?
Don't look at the staggering 153 million and throw up your hands. Look into the eyes of one and vow that you are going to do something to give them a chance to live, a chance to go to school, and maybe even a chance to go live with their family.
If you are looking for a way to help...stay tuned as a friend and I have something "in the works".
If you are looking for a way to help...stay tuned as a friend and I have something "in the works".
