Religion that God our Father accepts as pure
and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and
to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. —James 1:27
The Bible was so much
easier to follow when I thought it was meant for someone else. I was on board
with the not murdering or forming idols out of gold, but the harder commands,
the one like this one from James or Isaiah 58 telling me to spend myself on
behalf of the hungry, surely those were meant for people with special callings,
right? I do a pretty good job with not being polluted by the world, but widows
and orphans? What do I do with that? My mom is a widow and my best friend is an
orphan—love them well and call it good?
Spiritual maturity
doesn’t let you wonder your life away on these things. Over a period of a
couple years, the Holy Spirit showed me that the Bible’s instructions are for
me, too. I don’t get an exemption because I’m working for a ministry or leading
Awana or raising a bunch of little kids. That doesn’t mean I knew just what to
do for the orphans or the hungry, but I did start asking God to open my eyes
and to give me opportunities to live our His commands. The hungry aren’t so
hard to find, nor are the widows. But the orphans? They had me stumped,
especially because my wise husband knew that bringing more children into our
family might very well drive us all over the edge, no matter how sure I was of
myself.
I wasn’t looking for
orphans when my friend Rebecca and I were waiting for our little girls at dance
in 2011. I was really just interested in my friend and hearing about her new
job. To my surprise, it involved Russian orphans. To my bigger surprise, over
the course of the next two years, it would involve me, too.
I would learn that
Orphan’s Tree serves a group of orphans that most of us never think about. I
learned that the most critical days of a Russian orphan’s life are when he
becomes too old for the orphanage and is suddenly thrust out into the world
lacking the most basic life skills. Someone who has never cooked a meal, never
navigated public transportation, never paid a bill or used money, never learned
to form relationships outside of an orphange—not to mention someone who is
traumatized and stigmatized by their history as an orphan—is launched into
society with nothing more than minimal support from a government that’s got
plenty of its own problems. These kids are usually only a year or two older
than my own 14-year-old son. Many of them will end up pregnant, addicted to
drugs and alcohol, in jail, or dead. These are not the cute, lovable orphans we
picture in our heads. Perhaps these are the most unseen, underserved groups of
people I’ve ever encountered.
I encountered them
first on paper, as I often do. I helped Rebecca and her dad, the founder of
Orphan’s Tree, tell their stories in letters and blogs. As I learned about
their lives and hardships, the word “orphan” took on a new meaning to me.
Orphans are not just children whose parents have died; they’re also children
whose living parents have abandoned them. And they’re not just children; the word
“orphan” can follow a person their whole life, effecting every facet of how
they think and relate to the world. I began to grasp the inclusiveness of the
word “distress” from James 1.
When I go to Russia in
January, I will be immersed in their world. I will meet with them in the ministry
centers where they gather and spend time in their homes. I will watch them
parent their young children, knowing how hard that is even when you’ve been surrounded
by good parenting role models. They most certainly have not. I will learn from
the staff who take care of them, many who are orphans themselves.
More than anything, I will
simply listen. I’m under no illusion that I can offer them anything, but just
by being there, I can see them and I can hear them. I think God is showing me that's a tiny first
step in what it means to take care of an orphan in their distress.
