Bringing Joy and Purpose to Orphans

Ethiopian Orphans from Simon Scionka on Vimeo.

I’ve been reading Fields of the Fatherless by Tom Davis.  Last night I was reading a chapter with some startling statistics.  There are 143 million orphans in the world.  If only 7 percent of the people who profess to be Christians adopted, every orphan would have a home.   It’s a numbers statement, clearly impossible given the many barriers to adoption, but it’s also a statement of hope.  It only takes a small percentage of the billions of people on this earth to impact these children and give them a family!

This video, the book, the six families I know who are in the process of adoption...I am brought back to Ethiopia and I wonder about the children still in the orphanages that Gia called home for six months.  I wonder.

Gia's orphanage in Mekele, Ethiopia

William went to a men’s group yesterday and learned more about Lifesong, an organization with a simply-put mission:  to bring joy and purpose to orphans.  They do this by mobilizing the church to engage in service: some to adopt, some to care, some to give.  They partner with orphanages and other ministries to meet basic needs and give education, medical care and technical training to orphans.  They also provide adoption grants and loans.   

William carries his new daughter down the stairs of the orphanage in Addis

Organizations that support education are key.   Gia is from an orphanage where all of the kids, from babies to teenagers, were inside four walls all. day. long....no education anywhere in sight, other than a tattered poster of the alphabet on the wall.  Not much hope there.  Thankfully, the situation has changed and they now send the older ones to school.

Another of the orphanage in Mekele

It all brings me to what's next?  What next for our family of five?