Help Meet Orphans’ Needs:
Give an orphanage a washing machine, crib, package of diapers, etc. At www.helporphans.org, you can click on the “Gift from the http://www.gainusa.org/Heart” section and designate a financial gift to be used for an item of your choice to be given to an orphanage in the country of your choice. You can also organize a drive to collect shoes or other supplies for orphans around the world. Visit www.shoesfororphansouls.org, or www.gainusa.org and click on “Projects.” At www.worldorphans.org, you can learn how a gift of a few thousand dollars can cover building costs of a new orphanage in one of dozens of countries. Consider helping raise this money through your small group or church.
A couple specific orphan ministries that have stood out to Eric and I are Danita’s Children (an orphan ministry in Haiti) and Acres of Hope (an orphan ministry in Liberia.) As Karris mentioned earlier, Danita’s Children was started by a single woman who felt called to go to Haiti with very little money and no real missionary experience. The story of how God led her to begin a ministry to orphans that now houses 75 orphans and reaches over 500 children every week with food, clothing and education is truly remarkable. For more details about Danita’s ministry and how you might be able to help, visit www.danitaschildren.org.
Acres of Hope was started by a mother of sixteen children, most of whom are adopted, with missing limbs or other special medial needs. She developed a heart for Liberia, one of the most devastated and impoverished countries in the world, and the orphanage she built has currently helped over 300 orphans find the food, shelter, medicine and love they desperately needed. Her book, Acres of Hope, is a powerful story about how one obedient woman is changing the world for Christ. Visit www.acresofhope.org to learn more about this ministry and how you might be able to help.
Attend the Annual Orphan Summit (sponsored by Focus on the Family, Family Life and Shaohannah’s Hope). This is an annual three-day conference in which orphan advocates gather together to learn more about orphan needs around the world, connect with others in orphan-ministry, and gain God’s heart for the Fatherless. Eric and I have attended this event numerous times and have always been deeply impacted and practically assisted in our efforts to stand for orphans. For more information about this event, visit www.cryoftheorphan.org.
Pray for Orphans. Here is a practical prayer suggestion from Family Life Today’s Orphan Ministry:
There are countless numbers of “waiting children” around the world, and in our own country; kids who are up for adoption, hoping and praying for a forever-family. Pray for waiting kids whenever you are “waiting.” Go online to find a waiting child listing. A few of these listings include: www.adoptuskids.org; www.rainbowkids.com; www.precious.org. Print out a picture and description of a waiting child and tape it to your dashboard. Every time you find yourself waiting – in traffic, at a stoplight, in the drive-thru – pray for this child. Plead with the Father on their behalf. Organize an evening prayer vigil on behalf of the orphan and waiting child. Invite other churches to join you as well. You can pray for children all over the world or you can ask your local foster care office for pictures and names of waiting children in your city to pray for (you can also get these online.)
You can also become a spokesperson for waiting kids. Keep a picture of a waiting child in your wallet or purse. When you are visiting with other believers, pull it out and ask if they, or someone else they know, would consider giving this child a home. Often, the idea of adopting a waiting child seems impossible from a distance, but when people are able to take an up-close look at a specific child, their entire perspective changes.
Visit an Orphanage
You can go on a construction trip, a medical trip, or just a simple outreach trip to interact with these precious children and show them the love of Christ. One orphanage director I spoke with recently said that just having someone spend individual time with an orphanage child can make a huge impact – because so often these kids cannot receive one-on-one attention. Some ministries that organize frequent trips to orphanages around the world are:
Sponsor an Orphan
This includes both monthly financial support and a ministry of ongoing encouragement though letter writing. Visit www.hopechest.org, www.visiontrust.org, or www.worldhelp.org to learn more. Child sponsorship can make the difference between health or sickness, education or poverty, hope or despair, and usually requires such a small sacrifice on our part.
Consider Long-term Orphan-Work Positions
It’s easy to assume that there are lots of other people out there working to solve the orphan crisis. But with 143 million orphans in the world, the need is not going to disappear anytime soon. In many impoverished countries, you can simply walk down the street and observe hundreds of street children, begging for food, scouring through trash, and sleeping in gutters or on dumps. Most orphanages I’ve encountered started with one simple man, woman, or couple who moved to a developing nation and made themselves available to orphans. Without fail, orphans flocked to them as a refuge and safe haven – and that’s how the orphanage was launched. It didn’t require a lot of money, strategy, or expertise. It simply required availability and a mighty faith in God.
If God is stirring your heart to pour-out your life for orphans on a more permanent basis, I would encourage you to follow His lead! Visit orphanages around the world and ask Him to show you where and how to begin. Typically orphanages in developing nations are desperately needing full-time staff to care for the children, administrate finances, teach, and disciple. Just this week I’ve received two emails from orphan directors in Haiti, urgently needing full-time positions by people who have either nursing or administration skills. These are just two of the countless opportunities that are out there. Don’t worry about the fact that you do not know the language or that you lack experience. Allow God to expand your vision and fill your heart with courage to step out in faith and confidence that He will direct your steps!
Danita Estrella (mentioned earlier) was a single American woman in a successful career, when she felt God’s call to pour out her life for the orphan and widow. Having no missionary training or background, she wasn’t sure that God could really use her on the mission field. But in obedience, she moved to Haiti and asked God to direct her steps. Here is how she described those first few months:
When I first arrived in Haiti, I was not sure where God was leading me. I would walk the streets with sadness and weep before God as I saw hungry homeless children just trying to survive. But His purpose for me was still not clear. What difference could I possibly make? Besides, I had no prior missions experience. I was single. I did not know the language. And I had very little income. But if God was for me, who could be against me?
Today, Danita’s orphanage is home to seventy-five children, and she reaches many hundreds more each week through her school, church, and feeding program. She is living proof of what God can do through a fully yielded life.
Our ministry website, www.setapartgirl.com has a section that describes various positions needed in overseas orphanages. If this kind of work is something that God has placed on your heart, I would encourage you to visit there and learn more about how you might be able to fill a very specific and practical need.
Help Facilitate Adoption
Psalm 68:5 says that God is a Father to the fatherless, and He “sets the solitary in families.” Isaiah 58 says that those who “bring the poor that are cast out into their house” will be blessed by God. Adoption is very close to God’s heart. In fact, adoption is an amazing picture of the Gospel. When we receive Christ, we are adopted into the family of God, and receive the amazing, unmatched privilege of being His sons and daughters for eternity. A “forever family” is the number one desire of every orphan child. One orphan worker told me recently of a six-year-old girl in Guatemala who cries herself to sleep every night because she longs so desperately for a family. Millions of children echo her cries.
In spite of the desperate need for families for the orphans of the world, adoption is not as popular or wide-spread as might be expected. Only 17,000 international adoptions take place in the U.S. each year. That’s not many considering the millions and millions of babies and children desperately needing families.
Having personally walked through two adoption processes, I understand why the adoption numbers are so low. The process, in most cases, is extremely expensive and very intimidating. Families feel unable to afford it, and overwhelmed by the endless piles of paperwork, government forms and invasive home-studies from social-workers. Like I said earlier, it’s far easier and cheaper to obtain an orphan child for corrupt purposes than to rescue one for the Kingdom of God.
But there is a lot that you can do to help make adoption more viable for Christian families. Churches around this country are beginning to awaken to the idea of launching ministry expressly dedicated to orphans and waiting children, providing funding, support, prayer, and practical help to families seeking to adopt. You can become the catalyst in your church for launching an orphan/adoption ministry. To learn how, visit www.shaohannahshope.org or www.HopeForOrphans.com.
You can also give financially to two organizations that provide grant money to families seeking to adopt. From personal experience, I can say that both of these organizations were truly amazing and critical in helping us afford our daughter’s adoption from Korea. To find out more, visit www.lifesongfororphans.org and www.shaohannahshope.org.
Here are some more ways to support adoption:
Become a licensed social worker, and provide home-study services through a local Christian adoption agency. Most Christian families dread the idea of walking through the home-study process, in which a social worker meets with you to ask you personal questions about your marriage, lifestyle and how you raise your kids. Just knowing that they will have the opportunity to work with a like-minded Christian social worker provides a huge amount of relief, and often makes the difference between a family saying yes or no to adoption.
If you know a family thinking about adoption, encourage them and offer practical support. A great resource is the booklet Welcome Home: Eight Steps to Adoption, available through Family Life Today. (1-800-FLTODAY). There is also a great book called Successful Adoption – a guide for Christian families, filled with essential information and inspiring adoption stories. If it seems appropriate, purchase these resources and give them to Christian families you know who are contemplating adoption. Sometimes just having someone give them a little encouraging push in the right direction is all it takes.
If you know of someone who is adopting, offer to throw a shower for them. The adoption process is just as exciting, emotional, and lifelong as pregnancy and childbirth, but often adoptive parents don’t get treated with the same support or enthusiasm from friends and family. By throwing the adoptive family a shower, you can help them celebrate the miracle of adopting a child into their home, just as if they were bringing a child into their home by birth. You can also organize meals to be taken to an adoptive family upon the arrival of their child. When Harper came home from Korea, one of our neighbors organized the several families from the neighborhood to bring meals to us for the first week. It was so helpful and appreciated – especially since we were getting very little sleep, and didn’t have time or energy to cook!
Another great way to support adoption is to connect with a local crisis pregnancy center (also called pregnancy resource centers.) You can volunteer to become a counselor for women facing unwanted pregnancies, or help the pregnancy ministry in many other practical ways. It is a sad reality that Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations receive millions of dollars of funding from the government and other sources, while pro-adoption ministries often struggle to make ends meet. You can offer to help your local pregnancy center with their fund-raising efforts and even become trained as a grant-writer, to propose and submit grants to various organizations that may potentially offer financial support. Visit www.care-net.org for a list of pregnancy centers around the country.
What about adopting as a single woman?
If God lays adoption on your heart, it’s not out of the question for you to prayerfully consider providing foster care or even adopting a child yourself, especially if you are an older single in your late twenties, thirties or beyond, are financially established, and have a great Christian support system around you. Of course, this decision is one of the biggest you will ever make in your life, and should not be made haphazardly. If God has placed this desire in your heart, commit the decision to faithful, diligent prayer, (and considering recruiting trusted godly teammate to prayer along with you) until you have the absolute peace and certainty that this is what He is leading you to do. If you know other single adoptive families, talk to them about their experiences.
If you adopt through the United States foster care system, there is no cost to you. And if you adopt overseas, there are many grants and tax benefits that might help fund the expense. Eric and I are friends with a single man in his thirties who recently adopted two brothers with special needs. It is beautiful to see how he has become a loving and godly father to these boys, who would have grown up in the “system” without him.
Rita Springer, a Christian worship leader, writes in Successful Adoption about how God led her, as a single woman, to become a mother to a little boy in need.
I was thirty-seven years old, and my whole life I had dreamed of being a soccer mom. But here I was, still single. I was faithfully praying and waiting on the Lord, I even had dreams about my husband. I had pictured adopting a child someday, but I never pictured myself doing it alone. I thought my husband and I would adopt a child from Africa together. Then I visited a Romanian hospital and saw all these babies who just dying right there in their cribs, and I felt the Lord start talking to me about adoption. I didn’t know what to do. I really wasn’t sure I was prepared to be a single mom. I had doubts and fears. I was raised in a loving, Christian home, but I also knew what it was like to lose parental figures at a young age. I was nine when my dad died of cancer, and my mother died nine years after that. I knew what it was like not to have a dad, and I didn’t feel it would be fair to raise a child without one. That’s when God told me, ‘Your dad died when you were nine, and I did a good job fathering you. You and I have done all these things together. Let’s go raise a warrior together.’ Wow! I knew then that I was being called to go down that road and adopt.
Only a few months later, though a miraculous series of events, Rita was mother to a newborn little boy who’s birth parents were from Africa. Though she adopted in the U.S., God answered her desire to adopt a child from Africa. Her dream is to raise her son as a warrior for God’s kingdom, and that someday he would return to Zimbabwe to spread the Gospel.
If you are seriously considering adoption for yourself, a great starting place would be getting the two resources I mentioned earlier: Welcome Home: Eight Steps to Adoption, available through Family Life Today. (1-800-FLTODAY) and the book Successful Adoption – a guide for Christian families.
Reach out to Foster Care Children
Over 20,000 teens a year “age out” of the U.S. foster care system with no place to call home. Call your local foster care office and let them know you have the desire to be a support for a child who is aging out of foster care. I recently encountered a nineteen year old Christian single young woman who has launched a support system for teens who have aged-out of the foster care system. She helps them gain practical skills, emotional support, and day-to-day assistance to help them make a strong start in their new life and overcome many of the intense challenges they face. We are in need of many, many more advocates for these young people across our country.
Other ways to reach them:
-Become a Court Appointed Special Advocate. These are people who volunteer their time to get to know a child in foster care and speak to the court on their behalf. You can find out more by visiting www.nationalcasa.org.
-Care packages for crisis situations. Because of drugs, alcohol, violence and abuse, foster children are sometimes pulled out of their homes with no warning, even in the middle of the night. They are often thrust into a new environment without their familiar toys, blankets, clothes, or basic necessities. Volunteer to make a care package for children who are taken out of crisis situations – and include items such as stuffed animals, blankets, toothbrush and toothpaste. It can be a simple way to bring comfort and peace in an emotionally turbulent moment.
-Support local foster care families by volunteering to baby sit, help with housework, cook a meal for them once a week, etc. Commit to praying for these courageous families, and offer them words of encouragement. Offer to provide “respite care”, meaning temporary foster care, to give the long-term foster families a reprieve. You can connect with foster care families through your local foster care agency – just do a quick search online and you’ll find a list of options.
-Get Creative. Here’s one example. A couple of years ago, a seventeen-year-old girl Florida girl named Lindsay began praying about an outreach - some sort of ministry she could participate in - some way to utilize her unique gifts for God's glory. Lindsay got the idea to launch a ministry called Taylor 's Closet. It allows girls in foster care to come into a store-like environment and "shop" for whatever clothes they liked - completely free of charge. The idea was just to put a smile on their face for a moment and let them know they weren't alone.
Since then God has blessed this ministry in some huge and wonderful ways. In December of 2006, Taylor’s Closet opened its first permanent "store" for foster girls – a boutique filled with new or barely-used designer clothes, which the girls can take home for free. Taylor’s Closet receives clothing donations from all over the world and gives girls in foster-care a place to come where they feel loved in a truly practical way. Visit www.taylorscloset.org to get the full story and perhaps be inspired toward your own unique idea for reaching out to these precious foster care kids.
Here are a few more ideas:
In Colorado, two Christian men recently started something called Project 127 (as in James 1:27) with the goal to help get all of our state’s 800 “waiting kids” into adoptive Christian families. They hold seminars in churches all over the region, linking prospective parents with waiting children, helping facilitate the adoption process, and providing support, encouragement, and practical help for those who adopt.
Another local ministry, Portraits of Hope, takes beautifully portrait-style photography of waiting children and displays them in church lobbies and at Christian seminars, so that potential families can see the children up-close and catch a vision for the idea of adopting them.
Ways to Help the Poor
About 25,000 people die everyday from hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. That’s one person every three and a half seconds. At www.poverty.com you can see a world map that details where hunger-deaths are happening currently around the world, and even see names and photos of people who have died in the past hour from poverty and starvation (don’t worry, it’s not morbid - the photos shown are from when they were alive.) It is truly heartbreaking, and I find that I have a hard time looking at this website for too long, because of the sick knot that forms in my stomach as I see these precious faces of lives that have wasted away from poverty.
Amy Carmichael wrote,
Far off, sorrowful things are perhaps endurable. It is always possible to disbelieve them.
John Donne said,
Ignorance is not only the drowsiness, the silliness, but the wickedness of the soul. The cruelest man alive could not sit at his feast unless he sat blindfolded...
I fear that all too many of us, myself included, have spent years sitting blindfolded at our own feasts, enjoying the pleasures and comforts of plenty while countless lives around the world waste away from hunger and poverty. Let us no longer endure sorrowful things because they are so far away and see so hard to believe. As God’s set-apart young women, we are called to open our eyes to the need around the world – and not only to open our eyes, but to make ourselves available to be eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and justice for the poor. (See Job 29)
When Annie returned from Haiti, she told us about children with bloated bellies and discolored hair from lack of nutrition. The average Haitian child eats a meal once every three days. Many eat dirt mixed with flour and water to fill the ache in their bellies. Haiti has the highest infant mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere. While Annie was there, about 20 parents came to the orphanage to relinquish their children for adoption in order to preserve their lives. The parents simply could not feed their children, so they were forced to give them up. It broke Annie’s heart to take photographs of parents who were forcing their kids to smile for the camera in hopes that some American family would take interest in them and give them a chance to survive.
I recently watched a documentary about impoverished children in Kenya, called Glue Boys. Thousands of children sleep on the street, scavenge trash bins for scraps of food, and inhale chemical solvents to ease their hunger pains. Many of these kids die in their teen years or sooner, if not from starvation and disease, from poisoning their body with glue-sniffing.
Last year, I read about the thousands of street children in South America that live on garbage dumps and eat buzzards and dead dogs to survive. Tears of horror and despair ran down my face because I felt helpless to rescue them.
But with God, we are far from helpless! His heart is close to poor people of the earth. And He will be with us if we stand for them. Isaiah 58 says,
Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?
This is God’s call upon each of us that proclaims to know Him. If we want to walk with Him, we cannot ignore the cries of the poor. Here are some practical ways to get started being His hands and feet to them:
Visit websites to help expand your awareness of poverty around the world.
Some of my favorites are:
Listen to Jackie Pullinger’s messages on the poor, found at www.sermonindex.net. If you listen with your heart and allow God’s Spirit to speak to you, your life will never be the same. Two of my favorites are Lord Give Me Your Heart and God Uses the Foolish Things.
Give. When you consider that the amount of money most of us spend at Starbucks each month can feed a starving child for that same amount of time, it makes you stop and re-evaluate where your money is going. Just as we will be accountable to God for every idle word we speak, we will be accountable for every careless dime we spend. (Matt 12:36) There is a global food crisis going on around the world. Emergency help is needed, or countless more will die. According to Compassion International, $39 will sustain an entire family for a month. $79 will sustain two families. Consider giving sacrificially to the poor of the world. Are there comforts you can go without in order to meet this urgent need? Sponsor a child, sponsor a family, support organizations that are meeting their needs. There are loads of ministries to the poor in desperate need of funding. Visit these websites to learn more:
Go Serve the Poor Around the World
If you listen to Jackie Pullenger’s message Lord Give Me Your Heart, you will be challenged to the core with the call to go – to get out of your comfort zone and go to the poorest and neediest people on earth. The poor of the world do not just need Americans to throw money at them – they need us to go to them, to live among them, to love them, serve them, give to them, and meet their practical and spiritual needs.
Jackie talked about going to live in the Walled City of Hong Kong, China among the most impoverished and destitute people in the world. It took her nearly 20 years to gain their trust. They had seen Americans and Europeans come and go – usually got off their air-conditioned airplanes, wearing designer clothes, staying in fancy hotels, and coming to the Walled City for a few hours a day to play their guitar and sing worship songs and hand out tracks. After a week, they would leave and fly back to their comfortable lives back home. And the people of the Walled City said to Jackie, “They leave, but we are still here. Those Americans came only to ease their own conscience. They did not meet any of our needs. They still have everything, and we have nothing. What impact do they expect to make?” Jackie was able to reach their souls with the message of Christ because she didn’t place herself above them. She lived in the Walled City with them. She shared her house, her food, even her own bedroom with those in need.
To truly reach the poor with the hope of the Gospel, we have to be willing to live among them and sacrifice for them, just as Jesus did for us. Are we willing to give up our lives for them?
Not everyone is called to spend 20 years living in the Walled City, but we are certainly called to more than a short-term feel-good mission trip once every two years. Pray about where God wants you to go to reach the poor, whether it is for a season or for the rest of your life. Read inspiring stories of women who answered God’s called to go such as:
Lottie Moon
Mary Slessor
Lydia Prince
Jackie Pullenger
Gladys Alyward
Amy Carmichael
Serve the Poor in America
While the poor in America aren’t usually as destitute as the poor around the world, there are still countless families in this country who are struggling with the basics of daily life, such as food, shelter and clothing. Visit your local rescue mission or homeless shelter to learn about opportunities in your area. You can also get involved with inner-city churches in your area to link with poor families in need of assistance. Some other great resources are:
Ways to Help Rescue Slaves
I loved the movie Amazing Grace about the life of William Wilberforce – a man who labored tirelessly to end the slave trade in the late 1700’s. His dream was finally realized in 1807 when the Slave Trade Act was passed, and England’s slave trade was abolished. I left the movie wishing that I had such a noble cause to give my life to. And then I learned that today, human slavery still exists. In fact, it is even higher than in the days of William Wilberforce – higher than it has ever been throughout all of world history in fact.
There are 27 million slaves in the world today, and millions more exploited children. Countless men, women and children exploited for sex slavery or forced-labor. Approximately 80 percent are women and at least 50 percent are children.
It is estimated that there are 246 million exploited children aged between 5 and 17 involved in debt bondage, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, the illegal drug trade, the illegal arms trade and other illicit activities around the world.
Girls trapped in sex slavery are lured by phony promises of work, marriage, educational advances or a better life - jobs that traffickers turn into the nightmare of prostitution without exit. Women and girls, some as young as seven, are tortured, beaten and repeatedly raped into submission. Entrapment is perpetuated by torture, beatings, starvation, death threats to victims or loved ones, and confiscation of travel/identification documents.
Here is what the Salvation Army says about the current slavery crisis:
Each year traffickers supply millions of human beings for labor exploitation in settings such as brick kilns, sweatshops, chicken farms, cocoa plantations, mines, fisheries, rock quarries, or for compulsory participation in public works or military service, as well as a variety of other settings. Countless others, predominately women and female children, but also boys, are trafficked into the commercial sex industry where they are used in forms of commercial sexual exploitation like prostitution, pornography, and nude dancing. Some are sold as "brides." Trafficking in persons is frequently referred to as modern-day slavery. Slavery is an apt analogy that shocks and challenges us. Americans in particular are moved by this comparison. To us, slavery is a sordid, indelible stain on our national heritage, but nevertheless it is an evil most believe we conquered and relegated to the history books. However, news media accounts, on-the-ground intelligence from nongovernmental organizations, and reports from agencies the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, create a different picture. They reveal a hideous yet inescapable truth: slavery is alive.
One girl I read about was kidnapped by sex traffickers in Brazil when she was nine years old. She was held at a brothel in a remote part of the Amazon, forced to be a prostitute and obey the whims of corrupt business-men and tourists. When she tried to escape, she was caught and tied to the back of a truck by her arms and drug through back alleys and dirt roads until she nearly died. I read about other girls, as young as five years old, who’s virginity was “auctioned” away to the highest bidder. By the time these girls reach their teen years, they are wasting away from sexual disease and have lost their value to the sex industry. Most are turned out onto the streets to die.
I recently saw a documentary in which an undercover reporter posed as a sex tourist in Cambodia and encountered a back-alley brothel in which dozens of six, seven and eight year old girls were available for sex, for the price of $30 US dollars.
Even in the U.S. human trafficking is rampant. The State Department estimates that 75,000 women and children are illegally brought into the U.S. annually for forced prostitution and other forms of slave labor. They estimate that fifty percent of them are trafficked for sexual exploitation.
The more you learn about this issue, the less you can keep quiet. Slaves around the world are in desperate need of advocates. With the help of God, we can make an eternal impact in their lives, and fulfill the call of Isaiah 58 to let the oppressed go free. Here are some ways to begin:
Visit these websites to become aware of the human trafficking issue around the world:
www.salvationarmyusa.org (click on “fight human trafficking)
Read the Following Books on Human Slavery:
This Immoral Trade
Get name of other one
Get Connected with Anti-Trafficking Ministries to learn about ways you can help:
Other People in Need of Your Help:
The Imprisoned - I was in prison, and you came to me. (Matt 25:36)
Voice of the Martyrs, a ministry that reaches persecuted Christians around the world, says this about the current state of affairs:
In more than 40 nations around the world today Christians are being persecuted for their faith. In some of these nations it is illegal to own a Bible, to share your faith Christ, change your faith or teach your children about Jesus. Those who boldly follow Christ—in spite of government edict or radical opposition—can face harassment, arrest, torture and even death. Yet Christians continue to meet for worship and to witness for Christ, and the church in restricted nations is growing.
This widespread persecution results in thousands of believers imprisoned for their faith. Paul says that we are to remember brothers and sisters in chains, “as if we are bound with them.” (Heb 13:3) You can become an advocate for imprisoned Christians around the world by:
-praying for the persecuted and imprisoned Christians about the world
-writing words of encouragement to let them know they are not forgotten
-contacting government officials to ask for their release
-giving money to support the prisoner’s families, often left with few resources and barely able to survive
Visit www.prisoneralert.com to find many practical ways to become an advocated for those imprisoned for their faith.
You can also reach out to prisoners in the United States. Often these men and women have come to the end of their rope, and are eager and willing to receive the message of the Gospel. They need a listening ear, a word of encouragement, and to know that hope is not lost for them. Learn more about prison ministry in your area by visiting the following websites:
The Sick - I was sick, and you visited me (Matt 25:36)
One of the most forgotten groups of people in our country are the elderly; left to spend the final years of their lives alone in a nursing home, wasting away the hours in front of the television. Local nursing homes are delighted to have volunteers to visit the residents, talk with them, read to them, or play games with them. Just spending a few hours a week can bring much-need light into their lives. And what a great opportunity to witness to them about the hope of eternity in the final weeks, months, or years of their lives.
Local communities often have homes and organizations for disabled people. Volunteer to be a friend to a disabled person; to take them on outings or just get together and let them know that they have value.
Local hospitals are thankful for volunteers who will come and sing, read, or visit with the patients. My brothers and I used to sing once a week at a hospital for terminally ill respiratory patients, and just spending a few minutes in their rooms with a guitar brought amazing joy to their lives. It opened the door for us to share the Gospel with many of them. We even Christmas day one year visiting the patients, singing Christmas carols and reading the Christmas story – and it was probably the best Christmas we ever had.
The Foreigner - I was a stranger and you took Me in (Matt 25:35)
14, 047, 300 men, women and children in the world today are forced to be refugees – displaced, impoverished, their very lives endangered. Hundreds of thousands flee to the U.S. for safety. Sadly, many face a bleak reality once they are here. Without language, skills or resources, they struggle to make ends meet, and many are unable to get their feet under them. They are required to apply for immigration within the first year of being in the U.S., but few of them have the knowledge or skills to go through the process. Refugees in the United States are the ultimate example of the “stranger in the land” that God refers to all throughout Scripture, asking us to remember them and meet their needs. Refugees are in desperate need of practical assistance, encouragement and support. For a more complete look at the issues refugees are facing, visit www.refugees.org or www.unhcr.org or www.partnerworld.org.
Every city in America that hosts refugees has a refugee resettlement service. You do a quick Google search to find out information about one near you, contact them, and ask how you can get involved. This agency can also direct you to other organizations that are working with refugees.
More than anything refugees who have come to America need mentors, who will take personal interest in them. Consider "adopting" one refugee family in your local city and take them grocery shopping, to doctor's appointments and visit their homes to help them up to set up a check book, help them understand their mail, etc. Refugees come from fleeing genocide in many circumstances, to getting thrown into a refugee camp where they live in utter poverty and desolation. Coming to America causes drastic culture shock, which causes high percentages of depression and mental illness as well as homelessness. When a relationship is established with refugees, it provides incredible hope and stability, and gives you a great opportunity to share the Gospel.
The Privilege of Pouring Out
A sacred opportunity awaits you. We have the privilege of pouring out our lives for others, just as Christ did for us. If you have entered into a covenant with the King of all kings, this life is no longer about you. Your body is meant to be a living sacrifice for Him. As it says in Ephesians 2:10, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” God has an amazing work prepared for you. And when you begin taking steps toward serving the least, and prayerfully seeking His guidance and direction, He will be more than faithful to show you where, when, how and who you are meant to serve. Remember, you don’t need to be super-qualified or have everything figured out ahead of time. You just need a heart fully surrendered to the One who does.
Resources and Opportunities
As Christ demonstrated, love is not a feeling—it is something you do.
He then made it simple for us to understand when He said that pure
and undefiled religion is to take care of the widow and the orphan.
(Danita Estrella, missionary to Haiti)
Just yesterday I was speaking on a radio program about exchanging your own selfish pursuits for a poured-out life of service in Christ’s kingdom. A single woman called in to the show and said, “My heart is so stirred by what you are saying. I want desperately to give my life to something meaningful for the Kingdom of God, but I have no idea where to start.”
I have heard this statement from countless young women. Though the world is literally flooded with people who are starving, exploited, impoverished and destitute, America often shelters us from that reality. We live in a palace of luxury, while countless people lay sick, enslaved and dying just outside the walls of our castle. And if we never venture outside our walls of comfort we’ll never know how we can help meet the overwhelming needs of our day. God’s word says, “To whom much is given, much will be required.” We are the ones to whom much has been given. Modern advertising and pop-culture constantly tries to imply that we aren’t “there yet” – that we need to keep acquiring more and more material wealth. As a result, most of us don’t realize how much we truly have in comparison to the rest of the world. Even those of us that are not considered wealthy by America’s standard are among the wealthiest people that have ever existed in all of history.
A lot of us subconsciously say, “If I ever saw a person in need of food or clothing, of course I would help them!” But for those of us who live in middle-class suburban America, those opportunities don’t come along very often. And it’s all too easy to simply forget about the need that is out there because we are too preoccupied living our own lives and taking care of our own needs.
If you have struggled with discontentment in your singleness, one of the best solutions outside of cultivating daily intimacy with Jesus Christ is to forget about yourself and focus instead on serving and loving people in need. It’s somewhat counter-intuitive, but it works! Putting others’ needs above your own doesn’t lead to disappointment and misery, but to unmatched joy and fulfillment. My assistant, Annie, just returned from a week ministering to orphans in Haiti. She stayed in the middle of a crowded, dirty, poverty-stricken city full of heartache, noise and violence. It was swelteringly hot. She got hardly any sleep. She spent six hours riding in a stuffy non-air-conditioned bus, transporting twenty children from one orphanage to another on rough, bumpy, crowded roads with virtually non-existent traffic signals. There was no entertainment or distraction from the sick, starving and sad children that clamored for her attention day in and day out. It doesn’t sound like much of a vacation. But Annie had the time of her life. She came back bursting with joy and excitement. She has never felt so alive or fulfilled as when she was living among the least and giving her all to them.
As Annie showed us her photos and described her love for these children, her face glowed with a radiance that reminded me of a young woman who had just gotten engaged. How can living in sweltering heat, crowded cities, and uncomfortable conditions bring the same kind of thrill that a freshly budding love story does? It’s just the way God’s pattern works. When we go where He is and do what He does, we experience joy that we never knew was possible. The world says that selfishness is the way to get the fulfillment we crave. But in God’s economy, selflessness is what leads to real joy.
If you feel a stirring in your heart to live a more others-focused life, this chapter is meant to help give you practical ideas for how to begin. By no means is this an exhaustive list of the opportunities that are out there. It is very possible that God will open up something for you that’s completely different than what I’ve mentioned here. For example, I recently met a young woman who feels called to reach the deaf around the world with the message of the Gospel. She has spent the last several years learning sign language and taking every opportunity she can find to travel and interact with deaf people in impoverished countries. It struck me as such a unique and much-needed ministry!
It’s so important that we allow God to guide and direct our steps when it comes to these decisions. He knows the plans He has for us, and if we are diligent to seek Him, He will make our path clear. However, just because we don’t have clarity on all of the details shouldn’t stop us from moving forward. Often, God will only give us a small ray of light to follow, keeping all the “hows” and “whens” hidden until we take that first step of obedience. Jackie Pullinger knew only that she was supposed to “go” and reach poor people with the hope of Christ. She boarded a ship that was sailing around the world and prayed about where God would have her get off. Gladys Aylward knew only that God wanted her in China, so with virtually no money or contacts, she boarded a train and allowed God to handle the details. Lydia Prince only felt a draw to Jerusalem. She had no idea how God would choose to use her there, but she went anyway. In every case, God performed miracle after miracle to direct these courageous women’s paths. When we step out in obedience to Him, He will always go with us!
As you read through the practical ideas offered in this chapter, I would encourage you to pray that God’s Spirit would be your guide. Ask Him to stir your heart toward a specific cause. Ask Him to clarify how He might want to use your life to build His Kingdom. And ask Him to give you courage to take the first step forward.
Ways to Help Orphans:
There are 143 million orphans in the world today. They are hungry, sick, scared and alone. They ache for love, for a family, for an advocate. Their world is harsh and cruel. Countless millions live on the streets. They are treated as the scum of society. They must scavenge through dumps to find food. They inhale chemical solvents to ease their hunger pains. In many countries, even stray dogs get more respect than these precious little ones. They hide in cemeteries or old buildings to escape being shot and killed by corrupt men, and to avoid being kidnapped and forced into sex slavery. Many do not live past their sixteenth birthday. They perish in agony from hunger, sickness, glue-addiction, and sexually transmitted disease.
The AIDS crisis is one of the largest disasters in world history. Children are the greatest victims. Millions already been orphaned in Africa because of AIDS. But the staggering fact is that within the next two years, that number is predicted to jump to 40 million. The children orphaned by AIDS are often infected with HIV themselves, facing a bleak future of starvation, sickness and death.
In Northern Uganda, an unfathomable crisis has been unfolding for the past several years. The so-called Lord’s Rebel Army has kidnapped thousands of children, raping them, killing their parents, and forcing them to kill their family members or be killed themselves. Thousands and thousands of children have been orphaned, displaced, and abused beyond comprehension because of this terrible atrocity. And yet, we hear only snippets of this crisis from time to time in American news. Thousands of children from the villages of Uganda must walk miles and miles each night to take refuge in the nearest town, sleeping in old buildings and on the street in order to escape abduction from the LRA.
In Haiti, Cambodia, Vietnam, and many other countries, staggering numbers of orphan girls are being kidnapped and forced into slave prostitution – some as young as five years old. One documentary I watched interviewed a twenty-four year old Cambodian woman, who had been forced into sex slavery from the age of thirteen, required to sleep with fifteen men a day, and beaten or shocked with electricity whenever she tried to refuse. Now, at twenty-four, she is dying from AIDS. Her greatest fear, she confesses, is that when she dies, no one will come to her burial.
This young woman could be any one of us. How can we possibly sit by passively when such injustice toward children is taking place all over the world?”
Rees Howells, an early nineteenth century missionary and prayer warrior, once felt God challenge him to become a “father to the fatherless.” There was a family of orphan children in Rees’ town, and God challenge him to take them as his own. “I thought You were the Father to the fatherless, God,” Rees countered in protest. “Yes,” God replied. “But you are part of my Body. You are my hands and feet. For Me to truly be a Father to the fatherless, I must be one through you.”
God wants us to be fathers and mothers to the orphans of the world. It’s a sacred call upon every one of our lives – not a special call – as James 1:27 clearly states.
It can be overwhelming to think about how to rescue the 143 million orphans of the world. And it certainly is not easy to reach them. In fact, it’s far easier to be a corrupt child exploiter than an advocate for the orphan. I recently watched a documentary by ABC news called “How to Buy a Child Slave in 10 Hours”. A news reporter, disguised as an American traveler, flew from New York City to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and within 10 hours had brokered a deal to purchase a ten-year-old girl for $150. On the other hand, I know of many families who have been trying to adopt an orphan from that same country for over two years. They have spent thousands of dollars and endured agonizing delays in order to finally rescue just one child. It’s an infuriating reality that corrupt child abuser get an orphan for $150 in less than 10 hours, while an orphan advocate must spend tens of thousands of dollars and be forced to hack through mountains of red-tape and governmental policy in order to bring a needy child home.
We must remember that when Jesus rescued us, it was not easy or quick. It required far more discomfort and pain than we could possibly imagine. And when we become His hands and feet to these little ones around the world, we should not expect an easy road either.
Even in America, orphans exist. They are known as foster care children. It is politically incorrect to call them “orphans” nowadays, so often the church overlooks them as not truly being in need of assistance. But foster care children are often as needy as the abandoned street children around the world. The lucky ones are placed into loving Christian homes. But the majority of them are trapped in chaotic, unhealthy, abusive living environments, overlooked, rejected and unloved. They are victims of a dysfunctional system that is heavy on policies but severely lacking in personal advocacy. When foster care kids are of age, many are simply kicked out of the system and left to fend for themselves. I’ve heard people try to defend the foster care system in America, or downplay the fact that these children should truly be considered orphans worthy of our assistance. But the startling fact that seventy percent of prisoners in America are former foster kids speaks volumes about the urgent need for reform.
Ask God to show you where to start. Sometimes, He asks us to begin with one. When Eric and I first began to feel the call of God to reach the orphans of the world, the idea was daunting. We didn’t know where to begin. And then, we heard about a 2-month-old orphan girl from South Korea with no fingers. And we knew this was the one God wanted us to start with. (Today, this little girl is our daughter, Harper Grace Ludy).
My assistant Annie has had a passion for orphans for many years. Yet she hasn’t known exactly what group of orphans to focus on. One of her desires was to use her photography skills to minister to orphans in some way. So she began to pray that God would open a door for that to happen, and she began to be on the lookout for those opportunities. Seemingly out of nowhere, she found out about an orphanage in Haiti that needed a photographer to take pictures of children waiting to be adopted. And she knew it was the door she had been praying for.
When you allow God to place orphans on your radar screen and ask Him to open doors for you to reach them, you’ll be amazed at the doors that open.
Here are a few steps to consider taking:
Visit orphan websites to increase your awareness of the need and opportunities
with orphans around the world. Some of my favorites are:
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