Zero!

Now that we are at home I am sitting and reflecting on our trip. The first morning after we got the kids Samuel (Abete) told me he was hungry. The girls were just hanging out and still in their PJ's so I decided that I would take him to breakfast in the hotel. The waitress was great and asked him what he would like to eat, then went to the buffet and filled him a plate. When she returned they talked some more then the waitress told me that he said "he was lucky that he has a family." At first this made me feel good until I thought about how a child should not feel "lucky to have a family". What a sad statement that there are children in our world who do not know what it is like to have a family to love them.

There are approximately 143,000,000 orphans in the world today. I believe that it is the Christian churches responsibility to be caring for them and we are failing in this area. In Addis Ababa Ethiopia alone there 70,000 living on the streets with no one to feed them or even care for them. Before we left I took all of the food and a few Birr we had left over and split it into 2 bags for the boys who sat outside the hotel where we stayed, they polish shoes to earn money. I encountered an Ethiopian man standing out side the hotel who told me that one of the boys I was trying to help was a lousy worthless boy who deserved nothing. I tried to explain to them that Jesus loved them (regardless of what this man said), but where is the Body of Christ to show these boys the truth? They are told that they are not worth anything day after day? James 1:27 says that"pure and undefiled religion is to care for the orphans and widows" Where is the church?

I know that 143,000,000 is a large number. I read on another blog (I can't remember who's) who spoke about the large number of zeros. How overwhelming it is to look at all those zeros? What a daunting task to help all the zeros that there are in the world. What can I do? I hear the question all the time "How can God allow this to happen"? The question should be how does the Body of Christ, the church, stand by and let this happen? Colossians 1: 24 We can start one zero at a time. I now have 2 children who are no longer Zero's!

Ephesians 1: 3-5 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance to His good pleasure and will.

Tomorrow I will post the 10 things every christian can do to help the orphans and only one addressed adoption!