Orphan Sunday

Today is Orphan Sunday. November 21st is the National Adoption Day, but Orphan Sunday is unique in that it is a unified campaign to raise awareness of the more than 140 million orphans around the world as well as God's call to respond. This is not just about adoption, this is about God's heart for orphans! This Orphan Sunday campaign is sponsored by Family Life, Focus on the Family, and Show Hope. Because this is a topic that is so important to our family's heart, we wanted to share some information with you on this Orphan Sunday.



What Happens to All the Waiting Children?

Challenges facing orphans worldwide …
As They Grow Up

* Orphans are 13 percent less likely to attend school than non-orphans.
* Only 10 percent of all the children orphaned because of AIDS have access to critical social services.
* Children — especially infants and young children — who live in orphanages, children’s villages, and other group institutions, generally suffer because they do not receive the emotional and psychological support they need.
* Children living in an orphanage environment experience significant delays in both physical and mental development compared to children living in a family environment.
* Children who lose their parents, especially in the developing world, often face years of economic hardship, lack of love and affection, little education, abuse and risk of HIV infection, malnutrition and illness, stigma, discrimination, and isolation.

When They Become Adults

* Orphans have few means of supporting themselves and are often forced to work in commercial agriculture, as street vendors, in domestic service, and in the sex trade.
* 70% of homeless mothers who were in the US Foster Care system as a child have at least one of their own children in foster care.
* 70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes- 9 times the average (U.S. Dept of Justice, Sept 1988)
* Within two years of leaving a Russion orphanage-~15% of all orphans have committed suicide while another ~60% are involved in criminal activity (gangs, drugs, prostitution).

Orphans in Africa

* In sub-Saharan Africa, one in six households with children is caring for at least one orphan. Yet this still leaves millions of children who are left in the care of strangers — or with no one.
* In countries increasingly ravaged by AIDS, orphaned children not only lose their parents but also teachers, health workers and civil servants who die of the disease.


What You or Your Family Can Do
To care for orphans and waiting children


Pray for Them

Go online to find a waiting-child listing (AdoptUsKids or RainbowKids.com). Print out a picture and description of a waiting child and tape it to your dashboard, refrigerator or bathroom mirror. Every time you find yourself waiting – in traffic, walking through the kitchen, looking in the mirror – pray for this child. Plead with the Father on their behalf. You can also download a monthly prayer calendar from Show Hope.

Speak Up For Them

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 they know would give this child a home. Be a child’s advocate.

Become a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). CASA volunteers are trained citizens appointed by judges to represent the best interests of abused and neglected children. These are people who volunteer their time to get to know a child in foster care and speak to the court on their behalf. Visit National CASA for more details and to find an office near you.

Mentor Vulnerable Children

The ranks of the fatherless and even the motherless continue on an upward spiral as the breakdown of the family continues unabated and births to unwed mothers increases. Mentoring offers an opportunity to help to break this cycle by providing a Godly role model and friend to a foster or otherwise vulnerable child. Learn more about mentoring and how you can make a difference to these children.
Support Those Who Support Them

Mow a foster parents yard, offer to baby sit, or organize a few days worth of meals when a new child is placed in their home. And tell them often that you appreciate what they do.

Throw a shower for a family adopting an older child. Often showers aren’t thought of for adoptive families especially when the adoption involves an older child. This greatly encourages adoptive families.

Sponsor a local child welfare social worker and commit to pray for them, an occasional lunch on you, and sending gifts or notes of encouragement.


Make One Phone Call

What do you need? How many times do you think people call up a government office and say that!

Waiting Children exist right in your community. Call up your community’s Child Welfare Services office and ask the simple question … “What can we do to help children in foster care in our community?”

When youth turn 18 in the U.S. foster-care system, they are often left to fend for themselves. Over 20,000 teenagers 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.

Give Sacrificially to Them

Support reputable orphan care organizations on an ongoing basis.

Give financially to a family in the process of adoption. See Show Hope for more information about financial assistance for adoptive families.
Sponsor an Orphan or an Entire Orphanage

Make a difference in a single child or an entire orphanage full of children through active child sponsorships. Or make it a family project to sponsor a single child or an entire orphanage. Write to them or encourage your children to write notes of encouragement to your sponsored children and hear first hand what its like to be an orphan who is being cared by the love of Jesus Christ.
Take a Short-Term Mission Trip

We don’t care where you go, whether it’s the far reaches of the planet or right in your own backyard. Go where you are already invested, go to new places the Lord sends you, but go and experience the face of God through orphans in our world.

Provide Them a Safe Home

Explore what it would take to become a foster parent in your local community. Your county’s child welfare office is looking for safe and loving homes to place children who must be removed from their current home. Do you have an empty bedroom that could be put to great use for a child in need? What are you waiting for! Contact your county’s child welfare office to find out about upcoming information meetings in your area.

Give Them a Forever Family — Adopt a Child

Waiting… thousands of children are waiting for a forever family. Waiting to experience God’s unfailing love and hear the message of hope found in Jesus Christ. You can make an eternal difference in God’s kingdom. You can give a child a home through foster care, domestic or international adoption. Caring families are especially needed for older youth, sibling groups and special needs children. Do you have a place in your heart, an empty bedroom in your home, and an empty seat in the minivan that could be put to great use for God’s kingdom?



All of this information was taken from http://www.icareaboutorphans.org/ please go to this website for more information, it is a phenomenal resource! We pray that God would continue to work in our hearts as well as yours, to find out how we can play a part in the lives of orphans!

Love,
Morgan Family