I know the title of my blog seems pretty obvious- we are on the journey to make the world "minus one orphan." Yet, I thought I'd share with you some other numbers and how that led me to that title. As described in one of the entries previously, I have wanted to adopt for quite some time. When it came time to adopt we couldn't decide between Africa and China. In my quest to try and make a decision I thought I'd look up statistics on the number of orphans in each country. I don't remember them exactly, I'm not sure I even truly read the numbers- I just saw a lot of zeros and felt overwhelmed! During this time we had also tossed around the idea of adopting more than one child. I have always known it would be tough on me to leave any orphanage with children still needing homes. So these staggering numbers hit that much harder. But even 2, 3, or 300 kids out of an estimated 147 million orphans worldwide seems like not enough! Needless to say I walked away from that Google search without a country on my heart, but a burden I did not feel I could carry or make any sort of impact on. God did not give me a clear command of which country or how many children, but He did remind me that He gives great importance to one and to all the we do in His name. He pursues each of us individually, the one sheep that has gone astray. Through our simple acts, through our weakness He is glorified. In all that, my focus is to be on my one, triune God. He knows the need, more than I do. He knows each child, their needs, their deepest need.
Keeping this in mind, I have posted the "stats" in the margin. The numbers still break my heart, and I feel God uses the knowledge of the need to move His people. I don't like the use of guilt in the Christian culture so I am very guarded about what I post here. The love of God is what moves a Christian, to those who have been given much. I cannot earn this love by adopting, by praying, caring for orphans. I adopt because I have been adopted. He came after me and called me His daughter. That is why the numbers hurt, but by His grace that I was not an orphan in the earthly sense or the heavenly.
Luke 14:18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."
