....wise words from Natalie!

We have some friends who adopted a little boy this year. They had a quick whirl-wind adoption and it was all kinda set in motion when Paul met Natalie at a doctors office one morning in July! Her and her husband have a beautiful way with words and so I am going to quite frankly plagerize her blog for a moment (I'm gonna tell her!).

This first post is some heart-wrenching statistics on adoption.


From www.hfgf.org: (pretty consistent with other research)...includes USA foster care system
~Every DAY 5,760 more children become orphans
~Every YEAR 2,102,400 more children become orphans (in Africa alone)
~143,000,0002 Orphans in the world today spend an average of 10 years in an orphanage or foster home
~Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…
~Every YEAR 14,050,000 children still grow up as orphans and AGE OUT of the system
~Every DAY 38,493 children AGE OUT
~Every 2.2 SECONDS, another orphan child AGES OUT with no family to belong to and no place to call home
~In Ukraine and Russia 10% -15% of children who age out of an orphanage commit suicide before age 18.
60% of the girls are lured into prostitution. 70% of the boys become hardened criminals. Many of these children accept job offers that ultimately result in their being sold as slaves. Millions of girls
are sex slaves today, simply because they were unfortunate enough to grow up as orphans.


Orphan Sunday
(read cautiously)


Today. One day each year that SOME churches and SOME Christians acknowledge the plight of orphans...orphans here in America, usually by circumstances their parents create, rarely death and abroad, often by death, un-education, and lack of resources. Weekly we talk about building funds and AV equipment and our potluck calendar and argue over who is on what committee and what committee should pass what by-law.... But we talk annually, once each year, if we are lucky, about "the least of these."

The question that has been floating in my head, especially of late, is "How I am any different than Tedi?" He was born in Africa in a small village on the Sudan border to a mother with five older children who had lost her husband to a preventable disease. I was born in Somerset, KY to parents, then married, and went home to lead a middle class life. The only difference....we born in different places. I did not deserve more than him....He did not deserve less. But here we were, worlds apart.

When we talk about the "least of these", we must first realize we, indeed, are the least of these. Just as orphans need a family, we need a Savior. What if Jesus had not stepped in for us and saved our lives.... What if? Usually it is difficult to digest the thought of children dying, both physical and emotional deaths, so we turn away, file it in the back of our mental junk drawer.... OR we only talk about it once per year.

As I have written before, I am in a constant state of knowing I can and should do more. Last week in church we sang "Hosana" and one line from the bridge goes... "Break my heart for what breaks yours..." My heart is broken and yet I feel paralyzed by my own inadequacies and inability to do more. I am daily challenging myself to do more.... I NEED to and I MUST.

SOOOO..... What am I doing? What can you do? First, I am mothering a child who WAS adopted. He is now my child. I am standing in the gap for him, defending him, mothering him to love others. Can you adopt.....because chances are if you have found my blog and have read this far, you have something stirring inside of you, aching in your stomach, moving you to step forward..... I am speaking and writing about adoption every time I can. Beth Moore, Russell Moore, David Platt, I am not. But I can do my part. Can you defend the least of these.... I need to do more, that is why I can challenge you. I only hope the small things that I have done and am trying to do are making small changes and examples for those around me.

I am blessed that the church we attended today focused on orphan care. They intend to move forward and pursue orphan care, here and abroad, as an important facet of their ministry. And I intend to be involved in this ministry. Will you start a ministry at your church? Will you get involved?

I can not change the WORLD, but we have changed the world for ONE. More importantly, this ONE has changed our world and our world perspective..... Will you cause change and be changed?

Okay more to come....