We are God’s Hope for the Orphan!

There are 147 million orphans in the world and my wife and I have been called to adopt from Ethiopia.  We have been in the adoption process for almost a year and the children have already changed our lives.  We’ve truly had our hearts broken by what we’ve witnessed so far, but we can’t even imagine the reality of what these kids experience because we’ve never had their perspective.  We are so blinded by the american lifestyle (and ourselves) that we completely ignore the needs beyond our own lives.  I feel ashamed.

Ethiopia has an area of 435,186 square miles, which is nearly twice the size of Texas which is 268,820.  As of 2009, the population in Texas was approximately 24 million, while the population of Ethiopia as of July 2010 was 85 million (the U.S. population is 307 million).  Now consider this…in the U.S. there are approximately 500,000 orphans (although I’ve also seen online that there are about 100,000) and the median age is 36.8 years old.  In Ethiopia there are roughly 5 million orphans and the median age is 16.8!  Scary!!  There aren’t enough adults to even begin to take care of these kids!  It all seems like a lose-lose situation.

The church has an opportunity to make a difference but it has fallen short in the past.  It has the largest distribution group of people throughout the world, and nothing is bigger than the church!  Yet, first we need to open our eyes!  We need to understand how desperate the need really is.  Next, and most importantly, we need to act upon the mandate of God!!!

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