I am in way over my head right now. The baby beginner joining the experienced. I have so little knowledge, so little to offer. But I care. Truly care. I care enough to act. And so I will give you what I can: I will give you what I learn, as I learn it. No expert talk here. Just a servant of God who is seeking to love that which He loves.
And I’ve realized that God loves orphans. He cares about the fatherless in a special way.
He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. – Deuteronomy 10:18
When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. – Deuteronomy 24:19
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. – Psalm 68:5
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
Over the course of the next few months I am joining a team of bloggers who will be discussing the orphan crisis. It is a crisis of unfathomable proportions: there are 163 million orphans. And as followers of Christ we are to be looking after them. We are not.
It was very timely indeed that a post on Christmas Change offered this video for thought:
This team I have joined hopes to change that. What we start on the pages of our blogs will culminate in a conference in February called !deaCamp: Orphan Care.
I invite you to visit the site and consider registering to attend. You can also follow along with this journey at the !deaCamp Blog or on Twitter.
And since I see myself as more of a student in the classroom, I welcome you to join me and ask me the questions you have about orphan care. I’ll do my best to find the answers.
In hope,
Shelli
About Shelli Bourque