The Fatherless....

Today I taught the adult ladies Sunday school class. Even though the lesson was on Joseph's (the one in the Bible) escape from Potiphar's wife, I decided to do a belated Orphan Sunday message. I almost backed out on Saturday, I was afraid, afterall who doesn't already know this? Then I decided, "what if, someone makes a life changing decision for one of those children, one of those 143 million?

First I did a word search on "fatherless"  Oh my! God has some tough words for people that hurt the fatherless and the weak.



OK how many people are in 143 Million? You can go here to see. Or you can figure about  1/2 of the population of the US.

There are about 500,000 children in the foster system in the US. Sometimes that number goes up to 800,000.  For those of you that live in PA. Lancaster county has about 502,000 people living there.

129,000 of those children are actually waiting to be adopted....that is equal to twice the number of people in Lancaster City.

While adoption is God's Plan B for children. We live in a broken world and the children are the ones who suffer first and there are plenty of children who are already on Plan B. God needs people whose Plan A is to follow God's lead in how we should be involved with the hurting children of this world.

There is plenty of work for everyone. First off we should be praying....

For the people that make the decisions at the government level...

For the people that are making the decision to move ahead and adopt or foster children

For those who already are in the day to day job of rearing children who were hurt in the past

The list goes on....Praying for the fatherless could be a full time job.

If you know God wants you to be involved a bit more...
And I really think all people who claim to be Christians should be involved more....there is sponsorship...There are many good organizations that have sponsorship programs, some for medical conditions, some to help the children go to school and some to just see that the children have a good meal once a day.  There are even ways that you can donate to the adoption expenses of a certain child at Reece's Rainbow Anyone that reads this blog can come up with $25 a month....even if it means beans and rice for dinner one night a week!  Just take the $25 out of the grocery money BEFORE you go to the grocery store.

Then there is Safe Families  a way to help families here in the States to stay together. An ounce of prevention and all that....

Foster care...may nearly rip your heart out some days, but it is a necessary link for survival for some children.

And most involved is adoption...I was challenged by a speaker one time....we Mennonites are grateful for our Heritage...we mention it a lot...and it has stood the test of time...most of us are not afraid to roll up our sleeves and get a job done. We have a history of helping each other and the "world" when disaster strikes most of us have sent loved ones to volunteer for cleaning up and rebuilding. And "the Mennonites" for the most part are pretty successful.... "God is helping us."

BUT!!!? why is God giving success???!!! 


Anyway....my whole point about the Heritage....if it is so great...why not share it??

People often say...but it costs so much!  And it does. No one signs any papers for free. But my husband says it is a mindset....a lot of people would not think twice about paying $20,000 for a new car...and there is nothing "wrong" with that, but you can't take a car to Heaven...
  
OK this is long enough and mostly was for me spit out the rest of my "speech"  I did not say all that I wanted this morning...there simply was not enough time. But maybe one lady went home and talked to her husband....maybe next time I will need to discuss the "Reluctant Husband" syndrome. No, this thing we speak of, does NOT make sense, if you look at it logically...but there is a verse in Proverbs about "simple things confounding the wise"

 No, these little ones are no longer orphans, but I'm not really allowed to show pictures of those that still are.