The Orphan Crisis And God's Solution
"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this:
to care for orphans and widows in their distress" - James 1:27(NRSV)
The Orphan Crisis: There are over 163 million orphans in the world today. Every 18 seconds, another child becomes an orphan. This is not just a problem faced by other countries. It is right here in our own backyard. Here in the United States, there are over 500,000 children in the foster care system, 120,000 of whom are considered 'waiting children,' meaning that they are presently available for adoption and waiting for a family. If you talk to any of these children, you will see that their every thought, every word, every prayer, is centered upon the desire to belong to a family, to have a mother and father to guide them, to just have someone to celebrate with them when they succeed and cry with them when they fail. An American foster child, when once asked what were the three things he most wanted in the world, replied, 'A family, a family, a family.' The Christian recording artist and adoption advocate Steven Curtis Chapman sings about this longing in his beautiful song, All I Really Want for Christmas:
All I really want for Christmas
Is someone to tuck me in
A shoulder to cry on when I lose
Shoulders to ride on when I win
There's so much I could ask for
But there's just one thing I need
All I really want for Christmas - is a family.
Unfortunately, many children who sing such songs in their hearts never find what their heart's desire. And when they do not, their prospects are bleak. Around the world, children who emancipate from orphanages without ever having found a forever family face troubled lives. They are often at risk of exploitation and human trafficking. Theft, prostitution, homelessness, substance abuse, incarceration and suicide affect the lives of a majority of children who grow up as orphans without ever finding a loving, permanent home. It's not hard to see why, is it? It's hard to live life otherwise when you never really had the chance to learn how to give and receive love - when you never had a pair of shoulders to cry on when you lose, or ride on when you win.
God's Solution: God's solution to this crisis is simple - us! Those who have been adopted into God's family (see, among other verses, 1 John 3:1, which reads, 'How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called sons and daughters of God!') have been given a special calling - to engage in pure and undefiled religion by caring for the vulnerable children of the world. When you think about the fact that we have been adopted into God's family, you realize how close to God's heart the cause of adoption really is. Rick Warren has said, 'God's plan is that kids belong in families. God never intended for the government to be responsible for orphans. He intends for the church to be responsible, through families.' Add it all up and it becomes clear as day that God's solution to the orphan crisis is the same as his solution to every other great crisis facing the human race - the Church. The solution is the power of God working through his people, and that is where we, the people of Christ's Church, come in.
Back to Main Menu