Monday, November 11, 2013

November isn't Enough

     November in the United States marks National Adoption Month.  With an 18 year history, the government originally started National Adoption Month in an effort to promote foster care and adoption.  Most states have one Saturday in the month of November in which family courts complete adoptions for free, waving court fees, paperwork fees and lawyer costs.  We love this.  All kids everywhere deserve a home.
     Orphan Sunday, the first Sunday of November, began in 2003 in Zambia by a group known as Orphan's Hope.  With origins in the evangelical church, it is now a global movement to create awareness of the plight of orphans everywhere.  Learn more here. 
We at Imana Kids have been using social media heavily this month, promoting a child a day that needs sponsored.  This is in part an effort to take advantage of this month as well as it is because school starts in Rwanda on January 6.  That's less than two months away!  The good news is that there are 60 kids sponsored!  We have families and individuals in 16 states and three countries that have committed to loving one child and changing their world.  It's exciting for us to see our sponsors' profiles come rolling in; we know that their lives are going to be shaped with the relationships that they develop with their sponsored child almost as much as their child's life will change.
      Here's the deal.  There are around 35 kids and young adults left to be sponsored.  Some of them have names and stories.  Some of them are faces that we can't match with a name or story because there isn't one That's a daily reminder to all of us just how ugly and unjust it is that kids don't have families.  Thank God that our heavenly Father knows their names, their stories and their hearts.
     Here's part two of the deal.  We don't want National Adoption Month to exist.  There shouldn't be an Orphan Sunday.  Accepting that there will always be orphans in world is like putting a cap on what God is capable of doing.  Each of us has something to give, to do, to invest toward ending the orphan crisis.  Adoption isn't a solution.  We love adoption; love, love, love it.  But adopting one child isn't going to end the poverty, the loneliness, the disease, the hate, the apathy and the death that is the cause of the problem.
     So what is the solution?  Of course, if every Christian in the world adopted an orphan, there wouldn't be orphans.  For one moment.  Until a parent died, another father went to jail and a mama died from dirty water.  The solution is in education and in healthcare; in delivering justice and compassion.  The solution is in using our gifts, our resources and our talents to stop the cycle here and now.  We are the church and we are one giant body.  We don't settle for answering that call just one month a year.  We ask God, "How do you want us to do this big thing?  How do You, God, use us to end this"
    We are doing this in one little corner of Kigali.  We are doing this through you all; with your compassion, your time and your support.  We are doing this by sending street kids to two beautiful schools filled with knowledge, tools and people that can empower these kids to change their future.  To be the last orphan in their corner.  We are doing this here and now.
     Even if you aren't sure that you can sponsor a child, would you consider emailing us your interest?  There are more needs for these children than only financial and we want to use every gift and talent we can to change each of our "kids" lives.

Profiles and stories of the kids of Kimisiagara Orphanage. 


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