Orphan or Adopted?

Here in Cochabamba, we’ve spent a lot of time working with orphans. I’ve grown to dislike that label. They’re just kids. I’m certainly not making light of their situation, I just think that labeling them as such adds permanency to their situation, even after (hopefully) adoption.

 

 

Josie is not just an orphan, she is a funny little bubble of laughter, who was abandoned by her mother because she is blind and has a disability.

Gilmer is not just an orphan, he is a toddler who survived the gas explosion that killed his mother, and has a burn healing on his face to prove the story.

Josue is not just an orphan, he is a little boy who was found wandering on the streets, who still sometimes thinks he has to steal food from the other kids in order to survive… oh, and he really likes oranges and getting tickled.

Maria is not just an orphan, she is a little girl who is being made to beg on the streets, and who comes to the square on Saturdays to be bathed and pick out pink hair ribbons.

Brandon is not just an orphan, he is a little guy who likes to be held, cries when he wants popcorn, and sits on the street corners on a colorful blanket to gain sympathy from passers-by so his fake mom can get more money.

These kids are not just pictures, they’re not guilt trips for you, and they’re not just an obscure group of people that the Bible tells us to help to prove we’re actually Christians. They are kids who like popcorn and oranges, who pick out pink hair ribbons, and who are in need of love and parenthood. The ones that are still on the streets have so little concept of love and care, that the gospel would almost not make sense to them if presented, because they have yet to experience salvation from slavery, corruption, hunger, and abandonment. The ones that have entered orphanages, foster care housing, or have been adopted still have trouble, like Josue, understanding that they no longer have to fight to take care of themselves; they are adopted, loved, cared for, filled, and need not worry anymore. But can you really blame them for stealing some of the other kids lunch?

 

 

How often do we as Christians, who are adopted into the family of God, made as sons and daughters, co-heirs with Christ, live as if we are orphans on the street? We don’t trust our father to provide for our needs, like any decent caretaker would, so we take our lives into our own hands. We can’t trust him that our “next meal” is coming, so we get in a little “fight” with the other kids to make sure we get crumbs, not realizing that He has a whole meal cooking for us in the kitchen. When we evaluate our daily lives, our anxiety levels, our stress, a passerby on the street would usually not realize the gospel through our situation. They, having not (yet) been adopted into the family of God, cannot understand salvation and the gospel because they have not yet seen it acted out. They haven’t seen salvation from worry, slavery, or corruption, not because it isn’t our reality, but because we choose to live in a made-up reality that we as sons and daughters are really orphans, without a loving and caring Father.

Do we too, like the kids that are forced to beg on the streets, come to the Plaza once a week to be bathed, get new clothes, and put some braids in our hair? These kids have no choice – they are orphans, forced to beg on the streets. But we are not orphans – we have been adopted as Children of God, and we can live in that reality. We allow ourselves to live in self-induced slavery, and sit on the street corners begging and stealing, because we simply do not trust. Then, on Sundays, we come to church, get fed, get cleaned up, and put on new clothing, giving us a hint of the appearance of that which we are – adopted, new, clean, and provided for. But, unlike these kids, we have a choice to live as Children of God.

How silly (but not unheard of) would it be for Josue, who was taken off the streets, who now has a bed, three meals a day, and an adoption on the way, to leave the orphanage, walk back to the alleyway or garbage dump or city slum, and get his meal from a garbage can, and sleep in a cardboard box? It just wouldn’t make sense to go back to his old identity and old way of thinking, when he has been rescued from that life and given a new life and a new identity. We too have been rescued from our old life, given a new name of daughter or son, and called to live in that new life. So let’s stop living as orphans, feeling the constant need to take care of ourselves, and live as the sons and daughters of God that we are.