This last Monday, the world renowned church Saddleback founded by Rick Warren (author of The Purpose Driven Life,”) hosted the Saddleback Civil Forum on Orphans and Adoption. A team of expert speakers was assembled to speak at the event which aimed to sensitive Americans to the possibilities of trans-national adoptions as a way of easing the suffering experienced by so many children.
Thousands of people attended this event in person and online through a live webcast as they sought more information about the global orphan crisis and ways they can help.
"Orphans and vulnerable children are not a cause," Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren emphasised. "They are a biblical mandate and they are a social mandate that we cannot ignore.
"Imagine a country half the size of the United States; that's how many orphans there are in the world. We're not talking about a small problem here."
Dr. Susan Hillis, senior HIV scientist at the Center for Disease Control, informed the audience that currently there are 163 million orphans in the world. Only six nations in the world have populations that exceed that number.
While the number alone may seem overwhelming, Hillis has been encouraged by the tremendous response of churches to the orphan crisis.
In Ukraine, churches have helped reduce the number of children who are in institutions or on the streets from 300,000 to 30,000, Hillis highlighted. The mother of eight adopted children has seen a fire ignited in the hearts of pastors in the east European country and churches really making a dent in the problem.
"What I'm seeing is a movement of God through the church," she said Monday, adding that she's sensing the movement around the world, says the Christian Post.
(To read the full article, please go to http://christianpost.com)