Children Are Waiting...

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"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." - James 1:27

A few weeks ago I came across this article about the crisis within the foster care system in Canada. I felt sad and I prayed. Then, this weekend, I went to the justice conference and one of our speakers asked a question. He pointed to the american foster care system and noted that there were more children needing care than foster parents to care for them. Then he asked the question: "Why, if the religion God finds pure and faultless is to care for widows and orphans, are there so many orphans in our country with no one to care for them? Why, in a nation with millions of Christians, are there children going uncared for and how can this make us look like anything but hypocrites?" And my mind flipped back to this article, and I realized that we in Canada are in the same place. Overcrowded, underfunded, and filled with marginalized children, our system looks the same. But where are the Christians who heed the words of James?

Dare we ask about the situation of the world as a whole? 

When will we take these words of scripture seriously? 

Several years ago at a youth conference my wife and I began sponsoring a chlid through Compassion. I don't know if you could be a foster parent, or adopt a child, or in some other way care for widows and orphans. Find a way. Somehow, obey this word from James. And as you do, seek to stretch to obey it more and more. One place to start is with sponsoring a child through an organization like Compassion. 

You could begin here, or you could begin with your local adoption agency (in B.C. go here) but whatever you do begin somewhere. 



Comments

Anonymous said…
Posted this on FB hopefully it works here. I want to encourage ppl to investigate local BC MCFD adoption. It is free, much quicker than over seas, incredible resources, and for the most part over looked. We have had an amazing experience working with the ministry and in actuality find that it is ppl's misperceptions that deter them from considering this type of adoption.
8:47 PM
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