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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

HOW many?

November is National Adoption Awareness Month!


Most of us know at least a few families who have adopted, right? 
In 2010 there were 11,058 adoptions in the US alone.
Which is super awesome!


But...


There are 147 million orphans in the world today.
(some estimate 143, some as many as 210)


To put that in perspective, the current US population is around 300 million.


Every 15 seconds the continent of Africa gives us another AIDS orphan.


Every year, 2,102,400 more orphans come from Africa alone!


Whoa.

What about here in the US?

There are currently around 424,000 children in the foster care system.

In 2009 there were more than 114,000 kids in the US waiting to be adopted.



Religion that God accepts as pure and without fault is this:
caring for orphans
or widows who need help,
and keeping yourself free from the world's evil influence.
James 1:27

I know that God is not asking every single family to adopt.

But I think He is asking every single family to care about orphans.





So why would you adopt from halfway around the world when there are kids right here in America who need homes? Yes, we have heard that. The truth is that there are millions of kids all over the world who need homes!

Ya think God is annoyed about which country you choose? Prolly not. 

There are two growing groups of kids who are often overlooked and very desperately needing families. 

Think about it... when you think adoption, what faces come to mind? Healthy babies and preschoolers, right?

But what about older kids? Each year, 14,050,000 kids grow up and age out of the system without having a family. Oh that sucks.



And what about the kids with special needs? How many million of those kids are unwanted because they have down syndrome or a cleft lip or are HIV+

Check out these great blogs about HIV and down syndrome.

Most of us feel sad when we read these statistics and when we see the faces. Sometimes we think that is compassion. But a wise woman once said that compassion is not emotion and tears but compassion is getting up and crossing the street. Compassion is action!

What is God asking you to do?


I found some of the stats here. To look legit and all.

And the wise woman was Christine Caine.





1 comment:

  1. This is a great blog, Carissa! I am loving it. A lot. Christine Caine is an amazing speaker. I got to hear her quite a bit at Hillsong.

    You guys are doing an awesome thing and I'm so excited to see the rest of this story unfold!

    ReplyDelete