Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
James 1:27 (HCSB)
I'm writing out of frustration today. Be forewarned.
Last week's bombshell from the NYC health department exposing the number of abortions is haunting me. I cannot get a grip on how almost half of the women in the Bronx decide that their baby is disposable. I just cannot. Then I read about the 44 million orphans worldwide, who have been allowed to be born but have no families and I begin to wonder if Christians actually READ their Bibles.
New Hope, in it's smallness, does care for orphans. We have several families that sponsor children through World Vision or Compassion International. We have a class that sponsors the work of Amazima Ministries in Uganda as well as individuals doing so. We raise thousands every year out of a congregation of people that don't have a lot of money to provide water, medicine, housing and schools for orphans. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, person for person, we do a lot for a church our size - for a church any size.
And yet, there's such an overwhelming need. The church in America needs to lead people to value life as sacred. It needs to help those mothers in NYC to see that the life they carry within them is a gift from God. Even if their circumstances are such that they cannot keep the baby, the church needs to move heaven and earth to help bring that which God created into this life and care for them. Too many churches are focused on the next 3D program or the next super colossal building for their youth when babies and children are dying each day. It's a sin. yes, I said that.
We have some people here dreaming of building an orphanage in Africa. And events along the way keep happening to direct our attention that way in prayer. You could call them coincidences, but it's funny how when you pray for God's direction out of hearts already trained by the Holy Spirit to love what God loves... how those coincidences keep occurring.
It is COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE in New Hope's strength, power or resources. No way.
And yet, nothing is impossible with God.
We may have to give up some things that we have now to do it. Could be we sell our buildings here and rent a school to meet in. Could be the pastor goes bivocational to help. Could be God finds a way to provide for it that none of us even have dreamed of. But friends, if we cannot love the orphan as God does, we are going to fall short of what He wants us to do and to be.
Will you pray with me about what God would have you do, have your church do about orphans?
Will you give part of what God has blessed you with to save their lives?
Would you join with those of us who dare to dream impossible dreams to see lives saved and transformed by the love of God?
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