The Global Orphan Crisis

This information comes from Dan Cruver’s sermon titled, “The Cosmic Significance of Adoption: What It Means for Us and for Orphans." For this sermon and many other helping resources on caring for orphans, go HERE (www.orphansunday.org).

The Global Orphan Crisis
There are 143 million orphaned and vulnerable children in our world. If all of these children were moved to the country of Mexico, Mexico’s population would more than double,growing from 108,700,000 to 251,700,000.

There are approximately 47.5 million orphaned and vulnerable children in Sub-Saharan
Africa.

There are approximately 5.9 million orphaned and vulnerable children in Middle East and North Africa.

There are approximately 37.4 million orphaned and vulnerable children in South Asia.
30.1 million orphaned and vulnerable children live in East Asia and Pacific.

9.4 million orphaned and vulnerable children live in Latin America and the Caribbean.

There are as many orphaned and vulnerable children living in Ethiopia as there are people in greater NYC.

Almost 1.5 million children live in public care in Central and Eastern Europe.

That’s our world.

What about the United States?
More than 800,000 children pass through our country’s foster care system each year. There are over 500,000 children in our foster care system right now. 129,000 of those children are waiting to be adopted right now. That’s how many people live in the capitol of South Carolina.

Approximately, 25,000 children age out of the foster care system each year, many with no support system and little to no life skills. There are currently over 5,400 children in South Carolina!s foster care system. Over 1,500 of them are waiting to be adopted. So far this year only a couple hundred of them have been permanently placed in homes.

This brings us to this question: How many total children are adopted each year? Between 118,000 and 127,000 children have been adopted every year since 1987. More than 50 percent of all adoptions are handled by public agencies or come from countries outside the United States. More than one-third of Americans have seriously considered adopting, but no more than 2 percent have actually adopted. Only 4 percent of families with children (1.7 million households) contain adopted children.

With this many orphans in the United States and in the world, the church has a monumental task before it if it is to practice true religion. "James 1:27 says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction." "The church has its work cut out for it.

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So here’s the big question: how is the hope of our glorious future as God’s sons through adoption even possible? How is it possible that God can take “children of wrath” and give them an unbelievable future on a renewed earth? What has God done to give us this hope that is laid out in Romans 8:23?

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

. . . Paul says, “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, (so that the eternal Son become the incarnate Son) born under the law.” The law under which the Son became incarnate meant condemnation for us. As Paul says earlier, this law ‘held us in bondage.’ It could not give us life. It could not quicken us. Rather, it puts us to death because of our sin.

But God sent His Son, His eternal Son, who became incarnate Son without ceasing to be the eternal Son, and he lived his life under the law in order to fulfill it. To paraphrase what Paul says in Galatians 3, “The curse of the law was placed upon his shoulders.”

At the cross the One who in the garden of Gethsemane cried out, “Abba, Father, remove this cup from me,” willingly submitted to the will of the Father on our behalf and went to the cross. At the cross this Son cried out, not ‘Abba, Father,’ but “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” He experienced at the cross what we sons of disobedience, children of wrath deserve.

Why did Jesus do that? Why did God send forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us? Why did he do this? Paul tells us in verse 5: “that we might receive adoption as sons.” Jesus bore the curse of the law that we might be brought into the household of God to share in the love that has existed between the Father and the Son for all eternity. We who by nature are sons of disobedience, we who by nature are objects of wrath, are brought in to share in this amazing love which will one day fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

. . . He accomplished redemption! He took the curse of the law upon his shoulders and was forsaken by the Father so that we might receive adoption as sons! And on the day of resurrection Jesus says to Mary, “Go to my brothers and tell them I’m ascending to my Father and YOUR Father.” YOUR FATHER! Mission accomplished! (my emphasis)