Who will respond?

This Easter, Ray and I were on Saba. I studied and He worked on getting ready to head back to the USA. We watched " Martian Child", movie! It was so precious and a wonderful portrait of adoption. I also received a very touching email from Pepper Wooten, one of our BOD members for OCH. She too watched a movie, "Trade", about child sex slavery.

Did you know that Atlanta is the #1 city for child sex slavery? Imagine that? In our own backyards? Guess which children are targeted? Thats right, orphans. We urge you to take action visit http://www.innocenceatlanta.org/ and become an advocate for children! They need us..... God tugged on Pepper's heart Easter day and this is what came from it....its powerful

There are so many needy, truly needy. There are the children lost and destitute with out the love and protection or provision that a mother or father can give them. They are alone, unloved, uncared for and forgotten left to the often cruel or hurried care of agencies that are often understaffed and overworked and underpaid. Some orphans have the blessing of earnest hearted caregivers who reach out with caring hands and compassion. But, most languish in facilities until they become of age where they are no longer required to be cared for by their government.

These orphans come from many situations. Some are left homeless overseas due to war and genocide hungry and abandoned and left to die, or are found fending for themselves on the streets. Many are housed in orphanages crowded and having only the very basic of needs meet.
Many orphans are found, abducted, stolen and forced to participate in sex trafficking schemes where they are sold and traded for the highest-bidder-sin-sick customers. This is an alarming 10 billion dollar industry claiming 800,000 innocent victims.

Orphans are helpless to care for themselves. They are at the mercy of their caregivers. In America those who are declared orphans by the court are put into our nation’s foster care system where the availability of foster homes is fewer than the numbers of dependent children requiring them. There are many people who step up to be foster parents because they have a heart to help children in need and provide adequate homes for them. There are those who desire to be foster parents motivated by the hope that they can adopt more easily this way, but are not seeking to foster for the absolute need of the foster child. Because of this shortage of good foster homes, foster parents are in high demand. To relieve the great need, foster care agencies accept foster parents who may only be seeking the monthly stipend. As a result of this many foster children who are removed from an abusive home life are placed into a foster home where the abuse continues. Many children in foster care end up with little sense of family or experience nurturing and many are abused further and even raped and killed.

In the foster care system, you have the two fold problem of too many children removed from their homes and too few quality foster families to house them. If more measures were taken to help the families who posed no danger to their children but only needed assistant such as job skills, adequate housing or financial assistance then fewer children would be removed and a higher standard of foster parent screening would occur because the demand of foster parents would decrease.

Right now, case workers have a load of at least 50 children in their care per case worker. It is impossible to adequately provide counseling and observance of the foster homes of 50 children every month. Some children will get needed attention but many will not.
Because of budget restrictions and the urgent need of attention of the newly arriving children into the foster system, many who have been there…….remain there. The foster care system was never intended to parent children or to provide a permanent place for them. But that is what it has become for the vast majority who are not fortunate enough to be placed in relative care or become adopted.

These children upon becoming 18 are released from the foster care organization and though they are provided some incentives to go to school and a small stipend for housing they have not been trained sufficiently enough to have the skills it takes to survive. Many of our foster children upon turning 18 become our nation’s homeless, unwed pregnant teenagers and or incarcerated.

The cry of the orphan is heard all over the world.

In Romania the maternity ward doors of the hospital wards are locked each night to prevent the mothers from abandoning their infants. Hospitals are full of precious babies whose mothers after staying the required time for recovery leave them there where they stay for two years before being placed in an orphanage. Hospital staff is too limited to nurture, hold or provide the loving care these children need. They are fed and changed on schedule but have contact with a caregiver maybe thirty minutes a day.

Romania is full of street children. They are found in sewers. They are dirty, hungry, and abandoned by all.

There are 143 million orphans world wide with desperate and immediate needs, but the solution is not to abort them before they are born. There are 4,000 abortions performed in America every single day. These are abortions for convenience. These are children fashioned by our great and loving God, taken, dismembered and tossed away by cruel murdering hands. Why do we kill our unborn, provide meager “adequate care” for Americas 500,000 orphans, and ignore the daunting sex trafficking crimes and child pornography in our country?
I hope the reason we do not respond is that we are not ignoring the need but are ignorant of the great enormity of it.

We settle into a comfortable routine in our lives, watching our favorite sitcoms after a “hard day at work”, spend billions on restaurants because we deserve a night out. We are offended by our coworkers, our friends, for insulting us in the most minor offences. We are consumed with our selves, our needs, our wants, our hope and dreams for our futures.

Who is thinking outside the box? There is a lost and dying world literally out there! Did you already have an 8 hour day? What did you do for Christ? What did you do for His glory? Did you do anything for the poor and needy? Did you give a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus? Did you do anything for the “least of these”? Did you ease someone’s pain? Did you minister to a needy child? Did you pray for an open door to make a difference? Why do you not care? Why do you not reach out your hands? Is it because you do not know the need? I hope and pray that it is…….

So, let’s spread awareness!

Proverbs 31:9 Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Biblically, we are to speak up for those who do not have a voice (children)…for the destitute…we are to speak up and defend them.

WILL YOU RESPOND?