Orphan Sunday or Orphan Day?

Yesterday in churches across the world, followers of Christ came together to observe, pray and remember "Orphan Sunday," a day set aside in churches to remember the millions of children in orphanages  foster homes and living without families  As I sat in my home church, worshipping with God's family there, my heart was so encouraged by the "volume" of God's love and passion for fatherless children. This morning I woke up craving that same worship experience, but felt defeated that the same people who stood and prayed yesterday, have moved on with the normalcy in their life and haven't thought about praying or advocating for the million children around the world who long to call someone "mom or dad." As I sat and thought about that, I discovered maybe people don't understand the amazing role they could play in a child's journey or maybe they simply don't know how. 

Katie Davis once said, “The truth is that the 143 million orphaned children and the 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and the 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitutes, or under other horrific conditions and the 2.3 million who live with HIV add up to 164.8 million needy children. And though at first glance that looks like a big number, 2.1 billion people on this earth proclaim to be Christians. The truth is that if only 8 percent of the Christians would care for one more child, there would not be any statistics left.” This fact terrifies me. Are we truly reaching out to the fatherless if 8% of Christians have not opened their hearts to God's call? Now I do know that by simply adopting all the children that need homes, the issue of children being abandoned will not end, because the root of this issue is sin and until Jesus comes back folks, we will have sin in our lives, but we DO need to do something!! 

So, for the next 27 days, check back to my blog each day for practical ways to reach out to children who have been abandoned, orphaned, who are in foster care and the families that reach out to them. A big part of orphan/foster care is adopting and fostering, but a even bigger part is supporting. Supporting the families, who are in the process. Supporting the children and give them hope. Supporting God's plan to reach out and show hope. 

Day 1: PRAY! Pray that God will break your heart to these kids. Pray that He will keep you focussed and ready to accepted the November challenge. Pray that every child today knows they are loved and has  father who gave up EVERYTHING for them. PRAY! 

Join me in changing the lives of children around the world without leaving your neighborhood.