Orphans and Widows

[something I journaled in Ukraine]

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. [James 1:27]

We don't love God truly if we do not love His creation, especially His most unloveable ones. How can we say we want to serve Him or even that we love Him if we can stand against His own? We show our love for Him in many ways but most often by loving others. We don't realize it but by showing kindness, giving of ourselves, we are loving Him. When we open our doors, give our things, invest our time in the sick, hungry, widowed and orphaned, we glorify Him and serve Him.

How thankful I am that we are here in Ukraine to love people, specifically those deemed unworthy of love by society. We illustrate how God loved us, unworthy and unloveable, adopted orphans... we show Him love and understand His love for us more fully.

And "keeping ourselves unstainedby the world...". It could mean so many thingsbut when i think about it in connection with the rest of the verse I think it has something to do with Romans 12:2 - not being conformed but being transformed. Removing ourselves from the world's view of the unloved... and loving and serving anyway. Truly being different. Not letting the world's opinion of orphans and widows enter into our own but retaining the pure and undefiled religion we are removed from thoughts and opinions unlike God's.

[and now more thoughts]

The orphanage was completely unlike State orphanages I have visited in past trips to Ukraine. These children so well cared for and the workers so loving to them that I almost feel silly calling it an orphanage... it seems like a very large, very diverse family. The goal for the Vinnitsa Christian Orphanage is that the kids might have a "double adoption" - being adopted into the family of God and being adopted by a Ukrainian family. The orphanage has been in the process for quite a few years, open for about three years and now has 48 children (it can hold 50). Legally, it has been a difficult road for kids to get adopted but the first adoption is now going through. It's very exciting to see what is going on there and I am so thankful to have been a part of it. Praise God for His faithfulness!