In our quest to learn how to “reach the world from our living room,” we have looked to older, fruitful families for ideas and inspiration. This week, our inspiration and instruction have come from orphans, and we’d like to share their story with you:
Every day, children from the streets come to the gate at a certain African orphanage for a little food, and sometimes to have their picture taken, hoping to some day be allowed to live within its walls. The residents of the orphanage are also children who once lived on the streets. Because of the giving of their sponsors, they now receive three meals a day, clothing, medical care, and spiritual training.
One week recently, thirty-seven children from nearby towns died of starvation, and the children in the orphanage heard of it. They called a meeting. All children who were aged fourteen and above attended; no staff, no adults. A little while later, they emerged with their solution. 
The teen orphans decided that they would, from that day on, skip one meal each day, and that those meals would be delivered to the children on the streets. Most of the children who died were between ages three and seven, so they decided to target that age group. The teen orphans also haul water for them, and make sure they are fed. Some spoon-feed those too weak to feed themselves. While their stomachs are growling from missing their regular meal, these young men and women are serving others.
The pastor who is running the orphanage wrote, “Without my knowledge or understanding, God is raising up missionaries right here in our orphanage. I have done completely nothing to make them missionaries for God. It is God doing it.” I thank God for this. 
Let us put them in prayer. Tell their sponsors [what is happening].”
How do teen-aged children whose needs are met become compelled to give.. not just give, but sacrifice to give?It is probably because they remember their previous state. They were once starving children in the street, waiting at the gate for something to eat. If it were not for their sponsors’ giving, that is exactly where they would be today, if they’d lived at all.
For those of you who have personally tasted what it is to go from being spiritually starved (dead, really), living a futile life, burdened by sin and without hope — to being saved by God through Jesus Christ, you understand this phenomenon. It has radically changed your life. We have been transferred into a life where our sins are forgiven, and we are not longer enslaved without hope to serving ourselves and our own desires. Eternity in heaven is secure, and it’s all through no doing of our own!!!! It’s the most radical, amazing thing ever! Our “Sponsor,” Jesus Christ, has met ALL our needs, and it’s a done deal. We can’t possibly stop there. You hear of people “on the street” and your heart is burdened — you remember your previous state, and that we could do nothing to help ourselves, and that we were rescued! There is nothing we can do with this information and transformation, except to go forward to do “good works which He has prepared beforehand for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). 
Feed the children, be the “sponsor,” miss a couple meals :-), rescue those who need rescuing, witness the gospel. We cannot save everyone. There is much work to be done and we each cannot do it all. But we absolutely can do whatever we should do. Seek God with us to always know what it is that we should be doing, for those who live far, and those in our own communities.
If you aren’t 100% sure this radical change has happened in your heart, and you don’t see the evidence of this supernatural change in your life, please see the page entitled “The Main Teaching Of The Bible” on this blog to find out how you, too, can be free. There is a Sponsor who gave His very life to rescue YOU.