what is our part to play?

okay so i'm going to attempt to process some of what i learned at !deacamp: orphan care this past weekend.
it wasn't really what i expected.
i wondered if we would feel out of place because we haven't adopted and aren't in the adoption process right now.
that was not at all the case.
it was not an "adoption conference."
it really was a big ol' group of people, sharing their ideas and experiences....all towards the goal of orphan care.

there were differing opinions.
there were key note speakers...who really only spoke for about 20 minutes each.
there were many different guides who spoke.
there was a whole slew of workshops that you could choose from to hear more about different topics.

it was a lot of information in a 2 day time period.
several people referred to it as a fire hydrant.
i would agree.
it was pretty overwhelming.
however, i really liked it because i felt like i came away so much better informed.
these people know their stuff.
they have researched. they have traveled. they have seen first hand the need.

a big question we were asking ourselves was, what is our place in the orphan crisis?
and we all have a place, i believe.

i really liked john sowers who is president of the mentoring project and author of the book, the fatherless generation.
he talked about mentoring the fatherless in your own city.
he said, "step into a fatherless child's life with intimacy and say, 'i'm here, you are not alone.'"
i was definitely encouraged in my work with meliyah & my potter's house girls.

aj & i both loved jonathan olinger.
we listened to him speak and also went to his workshop.
he is the founder of discover the journey which is "a team of journalists and story-tellers who expose injustices facing children in-crisis and advocate for intervention until change is realized."
he spoke of giving a platform to children's voices.
he said we must look at more options than adoption and orphanages to solve the orphan crisis.
he talked about the faith community having a lot of mercy without enough cognitive thought.
that sounds harsh....and he didn't say it in a harsh way.
i totally heard what he was saying.
we all want to do something, anything to help. to do our part.
but have we really researched what is best and most helpful?

 i'm reminded of philippians 1:9-10, "and this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ."

my ideas on what is best were really challenged.
we no longer have orphanages in the united states because they don't work.
we know that a permanent family is the best option for a child.
so we work hard to keep children with their family or extended family then foster care or adoption.
orphanages are not good enough for our children so why are they acceptable for other countries?
why do we keep going into other countries, trying to build more orphanages?
it's like we're trying to put a band-aide on a gushing artery.
orphanages costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to fund...could that same money used for a better solution?
preserving the family first?
support local {global} churches in their mission to orphans?
 provide sustainable income so that they don't have to give their children up because they can't feed them? or worse, watch them die of starvation or preventable diseases.

we also went to elizabeth styffe's workshop.
she's the director of global orphan care at saddleback church.
she was also extremely knowledgeable and challenging.
she talked about preventing orphans.
obviously, this would be a long, 50 year process.
she talked about working with the local global churches to take up their place & their role in loving the orphan.
instead of us, going into another country with our western ideas to save the day.....the goal would be for us to support the local church.
get the local church involved.
the goal is a permanent home, globally.
the local church is God's plan for meeting the needs of the orphan.
the gospel through the global church is the hope of the world. not westerners.

whew, it was some good, thought-provoking stuff.
but we loved that it all centered on the church.
after all, it's the church who is supposed to be loving on the least of these, caring for the orphans & widows, etc.
she also talked about many of the children in orphanages, not actually being orphans.
we go over and build these big fancy orphanages that seem way nicer than the little hut they are living in.
in their mind, their children would be better off and taken care of in that nice orphange with clean clothes and beds.
when actually what children need is family.
they'd be better off sleeping on the floor of the hut with their mama or grandmother than in one of 30 beds in an orphanage.

okay i could go on and on. obviously i already have.
i haven't even touched on the many other areas that were raised last weekend...child trafficking, foster care, special needs children, etc., etc., etc.
again, it was a fire hydrant.
and i want to say that i am not an expert on any of this.....by a long shot.
just sharing some of what stuck with me.
there was so much information that we were praying that what God wanted us specifically to hear, would stick with us.

i welcome discussion in the comments. :) Pin It