Who does God define as an orphan?
An Orphan is a child that has been deprived of one or usually both parents or of some protection or advantage. Or, another definition is: A child that is deprived of the benefits of parenting by death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, separation or loss from, one or usually both parents. One child welfare expert recently defined an orphan as a child with no functioning parents.
"Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless."- Exodus 22:22-24 NIV
Today there are estimated over 132 million orphans in the world.
That is enough children to go three times around the world at the equator. 
It is hard to grasp such large numbers, so picture being on a very long road trip. If you had these orphans hold hands in a line, you would see over 1,700 orphans per mile. If you were to follow that line of Orphans holding hands, driving 60 mph, you could drive 24 hours a day seeing 1,700 orphans every mile, hour after hour, day after day without stopping for over two months, and you would still see orphans holding hands. How long would it take to stop, and with compassion take one child in your arms, to make a difference for at least one? They are hungry, lonely, and afraid, have holes in their shoes, and face the greatest challenges of any children on the face of the earth. They are very real children who need someone to love them and help them.
There are over 73 million children in the United States.
Facts about orphans in America:
Almost 3 million (4.1%) of children, in the United States, are living without parents.* (Orphaned)
Over 25 million American children (more than one in three) are being raised in a family with no father present in the home (Orphaned).
39% of orphan children—28.6 million—live in low-income families.*
12 million children are at risk of going hungry*
A study in 1999 estimated that 1.9 million children under the age of 18 have lost one or more parent (Orphaned).*
In 2007 513,000 orphaned children lived outside of the home (in substitutive/foster care)
In 2007 approximately 800,000 children entered the welfare system.*
2 million children live in informal kinship care.*
79,000 children have had parental rights terminiated in 2006(Orphaned).*
22,000 Babies are abandoned in hospitals each year(Orphaned).
17%—12.7 million—live in poor families.*
31% (904,270) children without parents are living in poverty.*
An estimated 550,000 young children live in homeless families.*
As of May 2006, an estimated 1,600 American children have lost a parent(s) to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Orphaned).
In 2000, 1.5 million U.S. children had an incarcerated parent(Orphaned).
90% of children in long-term foster care have a parent that is incarcerated or has been arrested. "One in three children in the welfare system have parents under correctional supervision"(Orphaned).
- 500,000 children in the United States Foster Care System.*
• 122,761 of these foster children available for adoption.*
The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 cited the Congressional finding that 100,000-300,000 children in the United States are at risk for commercial sexual exploitation at any time. U.S. Cong. Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005. PUBLIC LAW 109-164 – January 4, 2005 http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/61106.htm
A University of Pennsylvania study estimates nearly 300,000 children in the United States are at risk of being sexually exploited for commercial uses. 70% of homeless youth are or have been involved in some form of prostitution— "most of them runaways or thrown-aways," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "These kids are victims. This is 21st century slavery," Allen said. "They lack the ability to walk away."
(From an Associated Press article June 25,2008)
The FBI has determined that the average age for females entering prostitution in the US is 13. Familial prostitution – the selling of one’s family member for sex in exchange for drugs, shelter, or money - is a large and overlooked problem in the United States.
Every child who is temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment is entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the state. Children may be placed in institutions such as orphanages, group homes, foster family homes, relative placements, hospitals or other institutions charged with their care. Through these alternative care settings, the government must ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child. Ironically, these placements are often harmful to children.
- 905,000 children in America were subject to maltreatment (abuse or neglect) in 2006.*
- 64.1% or 580,105 children experienced neglect.
- 16% or 144,800 were physically abused.
- 8.8% or 79,640 were sexually abused.
- 6.6% or 59,730 were psychologically maltreated.
- 2.2% or 19,910 were medically neglected.
- over 28% or 253,400 of the children in state care had been abused while in the system.
- In Missouri, a study found that 57% of the sample children were placed in foster care settings that put them "at the very least at a high risk of abuse or neglect."
- At least 12.5% of the state's foster care population, have been sexually abused while in state care.
Just over 175,000 infants and toddlers were victims of substantiated abuse and neglect in 2003. (Infants and toddlers have the highest rate of victim investigations—16.4 per 1,000—and are most likely to suffer a recurrence).*
*All figures are from the United States Department of Health and Human Services website: www.aspe.hhs.gov
Many foster children face grossly substandard and over-crowded facilities, inadequate and at times inhumane care, physical and sexual abuse, cruel and degrading treatment, and life-threatening deprivation. The reality is: Too many children are moved too many times while in foster care; too many children are living with grandparents or other family in poverty; too many children are waiting to be adopted; and too many children are 'aging out' as young adults without a safety net of a loving family or even a loving relationship with one committed stable adult.
On a national level, the General Accounting Office recently examined the issue of whether the nation's foster children were being adequately serviced with respect to their health care needs. The GAO found that:
- despite foster care agency regulations requiring comprehensive routine health care, an estimated 12% of young foster children receive no routine health care, 34% receive no immunizations, and 32% have some identified health needs that are not met
- an estimated 78% of young foster children are at high risk for human immunodeficiency virus as a result of parental drug abuse, yet only about 9% of foster children are tested for HIV
- young foster children placed with relatives receive fewer health-related services than children placed with nonrelative foster parents, possibly since relative caregivers receive less monitoring and assistance from caseworkers
- that the Department of Health and Human Services has not designated any technical assistance to assist states with health-related programs for foster children and does not audit states' compliance with health-related safeguards for foster children. General Accounting Office, Foster Care: Health Needs of Many Young Children are Unknown and Unmet, Letter Report, GAO/HEHS-95-14, May 26, 1995.
Even in some institutions that are clean and provide adequate food, staff neglect children; babies are left to lie alone in cribs or small beds with no stimulation, play, or adult attention; adolescents are not provided the guidance and care needed to prepare for adulthood.
Children and youth are often denied contact with extended family members and communities. Educational opportunities are frequently lacking and medical care abysmal. Denied the help and care of a natural family, many of these children and youth are further disadvantaged by systems that perpetuate abuse and neglect. We must act if we are to change the future for these children.
The good news is the only number we need to be concerned with is “one.”
What does the one true God want to do through you and your church to make an eternal difference in the life of one child at a time? Only one organization has enough reach, resources, and people to connect with every one of these children:
it is... the church.
Don't underestimate the power of "ONE"
Be the "ONE" for someone today!
Urgent Needs Contact Us
"...life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'"
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"If the Church in America wants to make a lasting difference on poverty in the most desperate places of the world, we need to reorient our thinking away from traditional charity to economic development: from hand-outs to hand-ups, from dependancy to dignity, from short-term to long-term."
"And perhaps most importantly, we need to reorient our thinking from us coming in and "solving the problems of the poor." We might be able to provide sustenance for today, but lasting change is only possible when we partner with the poor in addressing physical and spiritual poverty and equip them to become the change they hope to see." -Peter Greer, President of Hope International