"They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord; and you will be called Sought After" Isaiah 62:12

When children suffer, God's heart aches. There is nothing that His eyes do not see, and when children bear the brunt of the brokenness that ravages our world, His very being is grieved, His rage is aroused, and His arm reaches out to intervene.

We see the stark and shattered reality of children living in places of war, poverty, slavery, abuse, and sickness, without water, education, parents and love. These realities scream loudly for attention. But God's zeal for little children is constant and when the orphans cry out, God will answer their cries. Scripture proclaims this Truth.

Children become orphans in a myriad of ways. One of them is the wreckage of HIV/AIDS. Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 15 million children under 18 have been orphaned as a result of AIDS. More than 12 million of these children live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it is currently estimated that 9% of all children have lost at least one parent to AIDS. By 2010, there will be over 25 million Aids Orphans. That is more than the populations of New York and Washington states combined.

The result? A mass, global pandemic of children with no caretaker. This means no education, no food and no future, and most tragically, no family. Most places where the AIDS epidemic rages are concurrently suffering from extreme poverty, creating great obstacles for relatives or neighbors as they attempt to absorb these orphans.

Institutional and governmental approaches to the orphan crises, often including overcrowded orphanages with inadequate staff, have received much criticism for the arguably inhumane and detached care provided for the children. But with a lack of home-based care systems operable in many of these countries, orphans have little choice. Some may end up sifting through trash to survive or migrating to larger cities. Others might be forced into indentured servitude to a neighbor for little or no recompense. And with AIDS spreading, from war, rape, unsafe sex and dirty needles, the plight of millions of children is held in the balance.

We have been humbled during our visits to many orphanages around the world that are providing deeply loving, spirit-filled environments for orphaned children to grow up in. However, our hearts know that the family is God's ordained environment for a child to live in. When we consider the growing orphan crisis, from AIDS, poverty, war and injustice, we want to challenge ourselves, the developed world and the local church to engage in a paradigm shift; from institutional care to family-based care for orphans.

In Uganda, for example, where over two million orphans live, if orphanages were the only solution, one would need to be built every few hundred meters apart to accommodate all of the children. This will never happen. However, families, in connection with the local church, will remain in Uganda long after organizations rise and fall. Our hearts, experience and Scripture all say in harmony that a child is to be valued, cared for and loved with the transforming love of Christ in a way that is attentive to the needs and spirit of each child, and is deeply constant. Only families can provide this.

We realize we are young and that this is a bold statement, but we have already seen great fruit from several ministries that are moving into home-based care for orphans, and it is transforming children's lives. We ask: what if families were able to absorb orphans into their homes, a deeply humble gesture, intimately emulating the sacrificial love of Christ, and what if the local church was able to help that family with the added burden of another plate on the table and education to fund? We long to see the local church begin to step forward to respond to the millions of children around the world who are left Fatherless, though we know that the Father of the Fatherless is reaching down, one by one, to restore their weary hearts.

The local church is God's chosen instrument of redemption, and redeeming the lives of orphans through welcoming them into their homes, and letting God set the lonely in families, is the church's responsibility. Let us begin to let the Spirit move in our hearts to challenge us to think larger than institutions, and begin to think in terms of what Scripture has already told us.

God will set the lonely in families, and He will call them sought after. These children, whom the world has forgotten, God is seeking. Let us follow in His footsteps and seek them, in the trash dumps, in abandoned buildings, in refugee camps and war-torn areas, child soldier battalions, basements and street corners. And let us welcome them into the family of God, and into our own families. Let them become truly Sought After.