November is National Adoption Awareness Month

Nearly 144 million children across the world are orphans.

Every two seconds, another orphan dies from malnutrition.


Around the globe, 15,200,000 children have been orphaned by the AIDS crisis. If all these children held hands, they would stretch across the United States. By 2011, this virtual chain will reach around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the greatest proportion of children living as orphans. In 2003, there were 43,400,000 children with no living parent.


By 2010, the total number of orphans, from all causes, in sub-Saharan Africa will increase to 50,000,000.


Think it only happens to "them?" Well, look at us...


About 40,000 infants are placed in foster care each year. 126,000 children are currently available for adoption.

More than 20,000 children each year never leave the system. They remain in foster care until they "age out."
Thirty percent (THIRTY PERCENT!) of the homeless in America and roughly 25% of those in prison were once in foster care.

Children have on average three different foster care placements; it is not uncommon to hear of children who have had 20 or 30 different homes.

TELL me this is okay. TELL me that our biggest problem right now is a tumbling American economy. TELL me this isn't really a problem. TELL me it doesn't break your heart too.

There are kids in our own neighborhoods who need someone to invest in them. There is a foster system packed to the gills with kids who know nothing better than a life that has laughed in their face and walked away. There are countries full of kids who may never know a mom's hug, a dad's encouragement, or a home to call their own. Some of them only need proper nutrition and medical care in order to thrive. There are kids who need to know that there is a God who loves them and has never forsaken them, even in the worst of circumstances.

Oh, that I could open my doors and take them ALL in!! Oh that I could detest the banality of half the things that I do and talk about, and start setting my mind on things that are above (Colossians 3:2)! Oh that my heart would break and bleed a thousand times over until I can't HELP but lay down my life for another!

I pray and eagerly anticipate the day that I will step into a land that is not my home and open my arms to the child that God has selected to be OURS, to train up in His ways and encourage and love and prepare.

Yes, we would love a child with HIV or AIDS. Even if it broke our hearts heart a million times over to do so. If that is what would bring the most glory to God, then so be it.

Because it's not about us.

Oh Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;

You will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear

to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,

so that man who is of the earth will strike terror no more.

Psalm 10:17-18