Challenge From A Book

As I said from a previous post, I have been reading some good books and on-line blogs that have really challenged me.  And I want to talk about one of them.

Dear sweet Ruth got me this book and I immediately ate it up.  Highlighter in hand, heart moved, eyes wet....

The Orphan Justice Center is an amazing organization that challenges us to take up the call of God to care for the widow and the orphan.  It's not a request, but a mandate and sometimes we just brush it off because it seems too difficult or might infringe on our lifestyle.  There are vulnerable children all over the world.  There are children who are being enslaved as child soldiers, trapped into prostitution, there are children who are fending for themselves because their parents have died of AIDS.  Some children have parents, but they don't have the means to give them the basics of life.

You may be thinking, "Oh those children live far, far away".  Well,  that's not the case at all.  In my town, there are children who don't have enough to eat.  There are about 500 children a month that receive food from the local food bank.  500.  That's the population of one of the elementary schools in town.  I know that I feel super guilty every time I walk past that empty donation bin for the food bank, so instead I'm going to commit to putting food in there each time when I go shopping.  Because guilt isn't helping anyone.

Children in the foster care system are also societal orphans that need care.  They may have parents, but the parents aren't able to care for them. I was a foster kid, taken in as a teenager because my forever parents took up the challenge to care for me.  In some cases, like my own, parental rights are terminated and then the child truly is an orphan.  To take me in, did it cost them?  Surely it did.  Was it worth it?  Yes.  Fostering is tough and not all of us are able to do it, but we can all support families that have chosen to foster.

What about families we have contact with whom are having a tough go of parenting?  How about walking alongside them by being a friend, a support, not turning a blind eye when we see them yet again screaming at their kids. What do we do when we see children in our community that are being neglected?

And then there's adoption.  Not everyone is called to adopt, but we know many people who have or are going through the process.  People may assume that adoption is about adopting babies from a foreign country, but it is a wider scope than that.  Some people adopt older children (they need forever families too!), some people have adopted through the foster care system here in Canada.  Some people have donated money to an adoption agency caring for children.  Did you know that there are about 78,000 children in Canada that are in the foster care system?  And that about 22,000 of them are available for adoption?  There are more than 22,000 churches in Canada.  So if every church in Canada took to heart about caring for one orphan, what impact could that make?

Some questions I ask myself....

How much does an extra box of cereal cost to drop in the food bank bin?
What would it cost our family to babysit one evening a month for a foster family that we know?
How tight would it make for our budget if we donated $25 to an adoption agency, just once?
Or what about donating organizations like The Orphan Justice Center?

I can do something, even if it seems like an insignificant nothing, it can be everything to a child.