Orphan Sunday Presentation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6WEcrfCIwI

November is National Adoption Month.  Here is the presentation I gave at church for Orphan Sunday.

In the time that you watched that video alone, another 13 children around the world were orphaned. It happens every 18 seconds.
And the statistics for orphans are heartbreaking:

40% of orphans will become homeless, criminals, or prostitutes.

40% will become alcoholics or drug abusers.

In India, there are 18 million orphans living on the streets.

In Russia, 1 out of every 10 orphans will commit suicide.

In addition, there are over half a million children in U.S. foster care. Only 50% of them will graduate from high school. And each year, 20,000 foster children will age out of the system without a family to go home to.

Today, churches around the nation are holding Orphan Sunday to raise awareness about the needs of orphans.

James 1:27 says this: “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles.”

In fact, God’s command to care for the fatherless is mentioned over 40 times in the Bible.

God doesn’t mean for His people to just be CONCERNED about the 143,000,000 orphans in this world.

He wants His people to be RESPONSIBLE for the 143,000,000 orphans in this world.

In the United States, there are 300,000 churches. There are 120,000 children in foster care available to be adopted. If you do the math, that means that if only ONE family out of every TWO churches would adopt a foster child, there would be no more foster children.

There are TWO BILLION Christians in this world. If only SEVEN PERCENT of the world’s Christians would adopt just ONE child, there would be no more orphans.

I don’t believe that God is calling EVERYONE to adopt, but I DO believe He’s calling every Christian to do SOMETHING.

Out in the foyer, there is a bulletin board with information on various ways you can help orphans, as well as a bucket to collect change for an organization which supports orphan care projects around the world.

Helen Keller said this: “I am only one, but still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

So I want to challenge YOU to find the SOMETHING that YOU can do, so that the world can see the heart of God in those of us who have been adopted into HIS family.