Adoption Awareness Month

November is National Adoption Awareness Month and last Sunday, November 2nd, was Orphan Sunday. I am falling way behind this month. Church's around the world are focusing on the orphan crisis worldwide. 147 million orphans. That seems to be the number that is talked about again and again.  I have really been thinking about what to post about this month (on all those days I have not posted anything!) and how to share my heart on this topic. 

It is one thing to hear a number. To be so overwhelmed by it that you don't even know where to start. Or how to make a difference. Friend, after being there, on the font lines, loving on sweet orphans for the last 2 1/2 years of my life, it is so much different than a statistic. These are real loves, real children, and real stories. And I want to help you make a difference and find ways how you can be involved.

This all hits even closer to home when I think about my very own sister. She is no longer part of that statistic. At a time, she was, but no longer. She is a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a grand-daughter. She is loved and she is cherished. And so are all those sweet 147 million orphans worldwide. They may not have a family of their very own yet, but they have a Heavenly Father who loves them completely.

As I mentioned earlier, it is so easy to be overwhelmed with the orphan crisis and not know where to start. Friends, not everyone is called to adopt, but we are all called to do something. When I was in China, it didn't make the orphan crisis less overwhelming. It probably made it even more overwhelming! I remember in June 2012, the first time I stepped foot in a government run orphanage. A "home" to over a hundred children. Children who only wanted to be loved and cherished. Who yearned for a family of their very own. And my heart broke.

And this was just one orphanage. 
In one city. 
In one country. 
On one continent. 
And knowing how many more children there were out there, just waiting.

How could I, just one person, do anything to even make a difference with a problem so great?

I felt the Lord so clearly speaking to my heart that day in that orphanage. I couldn't change everything. But I could make a difference in the life of a child, one at a time. I realized that day, that no, I could not end the orphan crisis. But I COULD make a difference.

And if I made a difference for even just one child, it was all worth it.

Friends, what is the Lord placing in your heart? How can YOU make a difference in the life of an orphan? Throughout the remainder of November, I will be elaborating more on these 7 points in what you can do to help:

1.) Pray.

3.) Go.

3.) Give.

4.) Support.

5.) Sponsor.

6.) Encourage.

7.) Adopt.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these, you did for Me."

Matthew 25:40