Christian music artist, Steven Curtis Chapman, lost his daughter Maria Sue in a tragic accident in May. He and his family were on the Larry King Live show recently and interviewed with Good Morning America, and he also wrote a commentary on CNN.com about his family’s loss and God’s love for orphans. Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, founded Shaohannah’s Hope, an adoption charity. He writes:
According to UNICEF, there are 143 million children in the world who have lost one or both parents.
In America alone, there are half a million children in foster care, and approximately 120,000 of these children are waiting to be adopted. In many countries, children are too often orphaned or abandoned because of poverty, disabilities and disease; every 15 seconds, a child loses a parent because of AIDS. These are staggering facts that can seem overwhelming and discouraging, but I believe that God has a loving plan for each child, and that plan is you and me.
Caring for these children is not the job of governments or institutions; instead, it is the job of families, people and communities. As Christians, our compassion is simply a response to the love that God has already shown us. Mother Teresa would constantly remind those who worked with her that the Bible clearly teaches that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Jesus. So in a very real sense, caring for orphans is a chance to meet the person of Jesus in “the guise of human suffering.” This is an invitation from the heart of God to know him and to experience his love. (read the rest)
Amen. I’m reminded of James 1:27 which says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world,” (ESV). The Body of Christ does need to come to the aid of those children.
Perhaps with the spotlight on China with its horrible human rights abuses, state mandated abortion, and orphanages full of girls who were unwanted or boys with medical problems that people will catch the vision for adoption there. But not only there, here as well. Not only babies, but older children as well. I’ve worked with so many kids who were “unadoptable” because they were older. What a tragedy and what a shame.