{"id":4791,"date":"2012-11-02T13:27:29","date_gmt":"2012-11-02T17:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/i-will-not-leave-you-as-orphans"},"modified":"2012-11-02T13:27:29","modified_gmt":"2012-11-02T17:27:29","slug":"i-will-not-leave-you-as-orphans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/i-will-not-leave-you-as-orphans.html","title":{"rendered":"Will we leave them as orphans?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83524c19a69e2017d3d364b9d970c alignleft\" style=\"width: 260px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;\" title=\"Carousel-photo\" alt=\"Carousel-photo\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/6a00d83524c19a69e2017d3d364b9d970c-300wi.png\" \/>\u201cI will not leave you as orphans;\u00a0I will come to you.\u00a0Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but\u00a0you will see me.<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">\u00a0<\/span>Because I live, you also will live.\u00a0In that day you will know that\u00a0I am in my Father, and\u00a0you in me, and\u00a0I in you&#8221; (John 14:18-20 ESV).<\/p>\n<p>This Sunday we will join churches around the country to shine a light on the plight of orphans.\u00a0As we continue our &#8220;Time to Thrive&#8221; sermon series, we want to focus on how we want to be a giving church and a giving people. We want our giving to be led by God and to be spiritually strategic, so we&#8217;re asking some questions before we give of ourselves sacrificially.<\/p>\n<p>Questions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Where is the greatest need in the world?<\/li>\n<li>If Jesus is found with &#8220;the least of these,&#8221; then where are they found?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It seems to me that both of these questions might be answered by really seeing the plight of the world&#8217;s orphans. Listen to these disturbing statistics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is estimated that there are 210 million orphans worldwide.<\/li>\n<li>8 million orphans live in institutions<\/li>\n<li>5,760 become orphans every day.<\/li>\n<li>250,000 are adopted annually, but 14.5 million orphans age out of the system every year without being adopted.<\/li>\n<li>2 million orphans, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion-dollar sex industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>God spoke through the prophet Isaiah saying, &#8220;Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow&#8221; (Isaiah 1:17 NIV84). Yet, many in the church sit comfortably, while the fatherless are left alone and defenseless.<\/p>\n<p>I want you to come to WCC this Sunday prayed up and ready to give sacrificially. We&#8217;re going to give you opportunities to take action. Actions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Praying for the 210 orphans in our world.<\/li>\n<li>Adopting a child or helping someone else adopt.<\/li>\n<li>Visiting the fatherless (We&#8217;re planning a trip to a Ugandan orphanage in June 2013).<\/li>\n<li>Sponsoring a child.<\/li>\n<li>Fostering a child.<\/li>\n<li>Giving sacrificially.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We&#8217;re going to have representatives from <a title=\"Amazing Grace Adoptions and Orphan Care\" href=\"http:\/\/www.agadoptions.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Amazing Grace Adoptions<\/a>, <a title=\"Caroline's Promise Blog\" href=\"http:\/\/carolinespromise.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Caroline&#8217;s Promise<\/a>, the <a title=\"Baptist Family Children's Home\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bchfamily.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kennedy Home<\/a>, <a title=\"Wilson County DSS\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wilson-co.com\/index.aspx?NID=264\" target=\"_blank\">Wilson County DSS<\/a>, and our own <a title=\"WCC Orphan Care Ministry Facebook Page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCC.OrphanCareMinistry?fref=ts\" target=\"_blank\">WCC Ophan Care Ministry<\/a> in the foyer this Sunday, available to answer questions and to help you take action for the sake of the fatherless.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus has not left us as orphans. We will leave them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI will not leave you as orphans;\u00a0I will come to you.\u00a0Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but\u00a0you will see me.\u00a0Because I live, you also will live.\u00a0In that day you will know that\u00a0I am in my Father, and\u00a0you in me, and\u00a0I in you&#8221; (John 14:18-20 ESV). This Sunday we will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060,2061,1,2062],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-4791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4791"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=4791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}