A Different Kind of Orphan

Tomorrow is orphan Sunday. I have a huge heart for the orphan, and I am excited to see how God may one day use that passion to His glory in serving these kids He loves so much. I want to use this post, however, to talk about a different kind of orphan.

I hear the statistics all over...There are 163 million orphans in the world today, depending on where you do your research. I admit it...When I hear this, my mind immediately goes to pictures of kids with swollen bellies in Africa, kids who are obviously in desperate need of medical attention and the love of a family. However, just yesterday God opened my mind to something.

If you do the research, you may discover that roughly 13% of the 163 million have lost both parents. So, what about the other 87%, you say? Well, the other 145 million are missing one parent.

77% of the 163 million are missing a dad.

Wow.
That's 126 million kids, worldwide, without a dad.
Wow.

You know what blew my mind even more? On July 31, 2009, my little brother became part of that statistic.

I don't want you to think that, by including my brother in this number, I am discounting the terrible, horrible circumstances facing millions of children around the world who are suffering ALONE tonight. My brother is loved and cared for, has a warm bed to sleep in tonight and a full belly...while many kids are starving to death and dying from preventable diseases--with NO ONE to hold them or kiss their foreheads. There is a desperate need for people to adopt, foster, and sponsor children around the world...children who are missing one or both parents and enduring conditions not even conducive to life. Tonight, I pray that you will think about these needs and what you can do to alleviate them in some way. {If you want to know how, shoot me an email and I will gladly suggest some ways to get involved.} However, I also want you to think about something else.

Many of you may look at the daunting reality--163 million orphans--and think, "What could I possibly do to change that number???" I often wonder myself. For those of you who easily find yourselves overwhelmed when you think about the possibility of adoption, foster care, or even child sponsorship, I want to remind you that you do not have to look very far to find a fatherless child. They are all around us. They are in our churches, in the same schools as our children, in the homes next to us and just down the street...they are all around us. Maybe you think international adoption is out of reach for you and your family. The fatherless are not.

Not a day goes by that I don't long for my brother to be pursued by a godly man who will willingly invest his time in the life of a now-fatherless kid. And my brother had the best dad known to man...for 13 years of his life. There are millions of other kids around the world who have gone much longer without a dad in the picture.

Maybe you feel like you cannot adopt, foster, or even sponsor a child. Can you find the time to invest, even in some small way, in the life of a fatherless kid? Even by taking the time to call, to ask how the child's day was? Even by attending one of the child's sporting events so he or she has someone to cheer from the stands? Even by writing a card, sharing an encouraging Bible verse? Can you commit to faithfully pray for a fatherless child?

You don't have to spend thousands of dollars on an adoption in order to care for the orphan. You don't have to take hours and hours of training to become a foster parent in order to care for the orphan. You don't have to travel around the world on a mission trip in order to care for the orphan. All of these things are good, and maybe you should ask God if He wants you to do one or all of them. BUT. The fatherless are right before you, and their needs are not necessarily complex.

They want to know that someone cares.
They want someone to ask how school is going.
They want someone to shoot hoops with them after school.
They want someone to offer to help with their homework.
They want someone to give them a big hug, the kind that only a dad can give.
They want someone to take them out to dinner, just because.
Really, they just want to know that someone cares.
Can you care?

Tonight, I want you to think about these words in a different light:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: To look after orphans and widows in their distress {yes, even and especially the ones who go to your church and live next door and attend your schools} and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27).