Each of our staff at World Orphans has been asked to reflection on the following statement:
"We need the orphan as much as the orphan needs us."
My first response to this statement, honestly, is "what?" Do we "need" children to be orphaned? No, that is not the point. The place I come to is that we need to serve the orphan, our culture needs to respond to the orphan. They need care and we need to serve. They need love and we need to love. The need and response complete a circle of sorts. From early on in scripture, we see reference to orphans and our condition as orphans. This is not a new idea to God. He reaches out to us, adopts us as His children, so that we are no longer orphans…but at home in His family. God loves us, extends His love to us long before we understand it or can respond.
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19
As many of you know, for Debbie and me, our first involvement in orphan care was the decision to adopt an abandoned little girl from China. So, this subject becomes very personal, as much as it is about our organization, the church and society.
Our decision to adopt was in response to what we perceived as God’s calling on our lives. We had thought we were done having children (having two biological children already), but somehow God was not letting us rest. We wondered if we should or could have another, and what that might mean to our family. And then, through a series of unrelated (from our view) events, God clearly placed adoption on our hearts. An idea we loved, but had not personally considered. He broke our hearts over circumstances for girls in China. As we looked at our Charlotte, we imagined her left unattended, unloved, or at least minimally attended and loved. We imagined her bottle propped up for her rather than lovingly held and rocked to sleep, and so much more. Our decision to adopt was not in response to the global orphan crisis, of which we knew little about at the time. We simply felt we could share the blessings that God had bestowed on us. We answered the question, "Is there room in your home and your heart for one of these little girls." Yes, yes there is.
We had no idea how our lives would be changed. Norah is an absolute delight. She is funny, charming, sweet, adorable, and loving…and a little ornery too. She has captured our hearts. We can’t imagine life without her, any more than we can image our lives without any of our other children. We have seen God use this experience, and specifically Norah, in each of our lives, and know that will continue in ways we don’t see yet, particularly for our other children. God sees the big picture of which we are a part. In seeking His calling on lives, we "need" to hear and respond to Him.
We have been told on more than one occasion what a blessing our adoption is to Norah, we quickly reply that the blessing is ours. For us, our adoption doesn’t feel noble or sacrificial. Our family "needed" Norah to be the family God intended for us. Norah "needed" a family.
Norah has been with us for a year now; she is certainly no longer an orphan. I can say with all sincerity, our family would not be complete without her.
From need comes love. I believe God is pleased by that.
"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." 1 John 4:12
The orphan, whatever their circumstance, desperately needs love. We desperately need to love. That’s how God made us. Let us love…to the ends of the earth...even if it takes us across the world.










