For the Love of the Orphan

Warner Bros. new horror movie Orphan proclaims that it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your biological children. Let me tell you about how an orphan changed my life...

Last year, a 12-year old orphan from Liberia stayed with us while he was here in the U.S. on a medical visa.  Our church was able to bring him to the U.S. in order to repair his hand which had been damaged since he was a baby.  You can read more about Moses’ story in some of my articles I wrote last year.

Moses changed my perspective on orphans and poverty in general.  He was constantly amazed by things we take for granted like clean running water, washing machines, fast food, you name it.  All of the commercialism in America was completely foreign to him. It was actually refreshing.

However, what broke our hearts was the prayerful sobbing we heard at night as he pleaded with God for a family.  More than our stuff, he got to experience “a family” and he desperately wanted a permanent family of his own.

We prayed hard about adopting Moses but for a variety of reasons God did not open that door.  Today, Liberia is still closed to adoptions.  The good news is that our church is helping a Liberian family in our church adopt Moses as soon as Liberia opens back up.  In fact, because they are Liberian our church was able to work with the government there to get all the paperwork done in Liberia.  Once Liberia opens again for adoptions, the barriers for Moses to have his own family will finally be lifted.

That’s not where the story ends however.  The impact Moses had on our church inspired our church to sponsor the entire orphanage in Liberia.  Now, each child there has a family in Texas that provides for all of their basic and educational needs.  I visited the orphanage last year and those children just wanted someone to know their name.  Now they have a family in the U.S. that not only provides for their material needs but also sends them letters and prays for them by name.

But wait… there is even more to the story.  Moses touched each of our hearts in our family.  We knew that we must do something.  While God has another family planned for Moses, he has a little boy from Ethiopia planned for our family.  We’re in the final stages of our adoption process and look forward to picking up our son in the very near future.  Read more about our adoption story.

Will we love our adopted child as much as we love our biological children?  We already do and our biological children already love their new baby brother as much as any of their other siblings.  Actually, since God broke our heart through Moses, we love all orphans.  We don’t know all that God has in store for us, but we know he is still not done with our orphan story.

Loving orphans is not about our own love.  Our love fails us over and over again.  In fact, the honest question for parents is - do they love any of their children more than themselves?  Most parents will answer “of course” but then make decisions every day that challenge that statement.  Loving orphans, and loving all others including our children, is about God’s love.

God’s love for the orphan is really God’s love for all of us, as we are all orphans.  Orphaned by sin, adopted by grace.

Romans 8:14-17 (ESV)
¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

[For more adoption stories visit Tom Davis' blog]