Last month marked the half-year anniversary since Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake. Aside from the small uptick in coverage at the milestone, the eyes of the world have largely turned elsewhere: oil leaks, soccer matches, November elections. Of course, this was all but inevitable. The 24-hour news cycle is fueled by “new,” and tales of ongoing struggle, grinding poverty, and a less-than-hoped-for rebuilding are anything but new.

There’s certainly good reason for frustration at the reality every news programmer knows all too well: news consumers rarely remain interested in other people’s tragedy for more than a few months, at most. Such is human nature, as much a testimony to evil in our world as Haiti’s earthquake itself. The truth is, if we tried to sustain concern for every tragedy we’ve ever seen on TV, we’d melt like cheese on a stovetop. So, as the media’s conveyor belt of heartbreaking stories rolls on, we are left making uneasy peace with an emotional journey that looks like an EKG: long stretches of numbed apathy spiked by occasional moments of empathetic sorrow. Is this really the best way to live?

Read the full article on Cardus online.

The last post highlighted the need for men, specifically, to catch up with our stalwart sisters in taking up the cause of the fatherless.  My own father—who embodies for me the blend of gentleness and strength that marks  a man fully committed to Christ—shared with me a song last week that resounds with this theme as well.  It’s clearly from an artist with a vision for men stepping forward as fathers to the fatherless, country singer Randy Travis.

Raise Him Up

When I first met his momma
She was just 19
Couldn’t say for certain who the father was
I have known him since he was a pup
And I’m gonna raise him up

If you never knew your daddy
Like I never knew mine
It feels like everybody knows you’re fatherless
This boy may not be blood of my blood
But I’m gonna raise him up

I’ll provide for him
Walk beside of him
I am strong enough
Cause it’s time he knew
What a son can do
With a father’s love
He can change the world

Ya’ll may have to look at Joseph
A couple thousand years ago
When he held a newborn baby he named Jesus
He said he may not be blood of my blood
Still I’m gonna raise him up

I’ll provide for him
Walk beside of him
I am strong enough
I will show him too
What a son can do
With a fathers love
And he will change the world

33 years later
When the Son was in his grave
Broken and abandoned by a world he came to save
His real Dad said he’s mine
Blood of my blood
And I’m gonna raise him up

I’ll provide for you
Walk beside of you
I am strong enough
I have seen from you
What a son can do
With a fathers love
One man changed the world
And he can change your world
But you gotta raise him up
Raise him up

It’s a beautiful thing.  For Christians who yearn to see the Church grow impassioned for the Gospel and the orphan, the newly-arrived July edition of Christianity Today is little short of thrilling.  The cover declares, Abba Changes Everything:  Why every Christian is called to rescue orphans. Inside, an excellent introduction framing the magazine is headlined, “Adoption is Everywhere.  Even God is into it.”

That the leading print voice of evangelicalism in America would choose to make orphan care and adoption the center of its July magazine underscores what many of us already knew:  God is stirring His people to again be known as those who “defend the cause of the fatherless” (Is 1:17).

Page 18 begins a tremendous article by Russell Moore, which gave the magazine its cover language, “Abba Changes Everything.”  I’ve heard Dr. Moore articulate this message from the podium, via radio and over the dinner table, but I must admit I felt my heart expand against my ribcage as I read this fresh expression.  Beautiful and heartbreaking; daunting and inspiring; and profoundly rooted in the ultimate reason for it all:  the Father-love of our God revealed through the Gospel.

Page 23 starts the cover story, “Coming Alongside Parents:  Churches are getting real about adoption’s challenges—and helping families after the child arrives.”  It shares the experience of Summit VI and highlights the robust growth of orphan ministry within churches.  Writes author Carla Barnhill, “…[T]he Summit drew more than 1,200 attendees, most of them ministering to orphans through their home churches.  Watching those gathered, I knew this was not my parent’s generation.”

Finally, page 52 carries the section “My Top 5 Books on Orphan Care” that I had the opportunity to provide:   Russell Moore’s Adopted for Life, Dr. Karyn Purvis’ The Connected Child; Melissa Fay Greene’s There is No Me Without You; Tom Davis’ Fields of the Fatherless, and Doug Sauder’s The One Factor.  (Several others came to mind after I’d submitted that I wish I’d included as well, but five was the limit).

If you can, pick up a copy of CT from the newsstand today.  If not, all these articles will come available online over the month ahead, and we’ll post them on the Alliance blog as they do.  In the meantime, advocates of the orphan care take heart:  God continues to build both passion and action in His Church for these children He so deeply loves.

This past weekend, my parents gave Rachel and me our first overnight away from 8-month old Lincoln.  As much as were missing the lad and his three older sisters, we can’t say it kept us from relishing the time together amidst California’s breathtaking redwood forests.  The quietude also provided a rare chance for extended reading.  I picked up Tom Davis’ Priceless and couldn’t stop ‘til it was done.

The book is a page-turner, no question, in the vein of Clancy or Ludlum.  And despite its relentless pace, the book’s descriptions of Russia and its people are rich.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the former Soviet Union, and again and again found myself in the grip of nostalgia, nodding or grinning at the way Davis captured the beauty and quirks of the mystery-shrouded land and its people.

Beyond the sheer pleasure of a good read, however, the significance of the book is far deeper.  It leaves the reader awash not just in knowledge, but in the experience and emotion, of what it means for an orphan to live without provider or protector.  It helps us not only to understand, but to feel, why God calls us to “defend the cause of the fatherless.”

That’s why every movement in response to God’s call for justice requires not only good theology and strategy, but also good art.   As CS Lewis describes it in The Abolition of Man,  our head can only rule our decisions “through the chest [heart].”  That means that as vital as right thinking is, it is ultimately a rightly-formed heart (will, desire, emotion, aspiration, longing) that most impels right action.   (This is why Scripture urges, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life”—Proverbs 4:23.)  Good art, from truth-telling stories to music to movies, can powerfully stir and shape our hearts.  It can draw truth from idea to action.  Good art leads a migration from mind to heart, and then from there to hands and feet.

That’s just what Davis sought to do via a can’t-put-it-down thriller in Priceless.   He accomplished his goal marvelously.

I’ve noticed recently that orphan advocates are becoming increasingly aware of the interlink between orphans and human trafficking.  The simple reality is that a child that does not have the protection and provision provided by parents will be highly vulnerable to the deception, coercion and outright capture that can lead to modern forms of slavery.   This connection is the focus of the soon-to-be-released novel by Tom Davis, Priceless, which will give readers a poignant encounter with the grim realities of human trafficking.  Tom is actually on his way to Eastern Europe now, and he’ll be blogging live from locations in Moldova and Russia, including pictures and videos.  I’ll be following the adventures on his blog, and looking forward to hearing Tom at Summit as well.

One of the breakouts at Summit VI will also explore this issue, taught by Laura Lederer, who formerly helped lead efforts at the U.S. State Department to combat human trafficking and now helps lead Alliance member Global Centurions.   In addition, an interactive, hands-on experience created by iEmpathize will help Summit attendees understand the issue as well.   For individuals committed to “defending the cause of the fatherless,” issues surrounding human trafficking can’t be overlooked.

Towers magazine’s March 22 edition includes an interview with Alliance President Jedd Medefind on orphan care and adoption ministry and the church.

TOWERS: If you were a pastor in a church wanting to promote an orphan care culture, what things would you do and say?

MEDEFIND: You can always begin with Scripture because God’s heart for orphans is so clear. That should be the wellspring of orphan ministry, and all ministry, as we expose people in the church to the fact that caring for orphans in their distress is a central part of following Christ.

Second, an orphan care culture becomes particularly powerful when pastors are modeling it. When a church sees a pastor that has adopted kids or is somehow involved with the foster system or in other ways is caring for orphans, then it is just natural for people to begin modeling that.

A third thing I would emphasize is the importance of focusing not just on process, but on the journey. The process is the paperwork, the finances and the preparation to adopt. That is very, very important. However, the journey of a life with a child— everything prior to the adoption, in the adoption and for decades afterwards — is part of what adoption means and the church has a role in all of that. The church especially has a role in ministering to adoptive families after they adopt, supporting them through difficult times: everything with help with childcare to counseling if there are very difficult issues. So, I would argue that a full adoption culture includes support not just of process, but of community wrapping around the adoptive family to love them through all the ups, downs, joys and challenges of adoption….

Read More in Towers Magazine (the final page).

The Families for Orphans Act is currently before key committees in the U.S. House and Senate.  This bill would create a special office in the U.S. State Department charged with making sure that U.S. foreign aid policies and funds consistently emphasize the goal of ensuring children grow up in families.  The office would promote initiatives that keep existing families together, that reunite children in orphanages with living family members, that support in-country adoption, and that enable inter-country adoption when appropriate.  Learn more from our friends at Kidsave.

Read today’s Chrisitanity Today guest editorial from Alliance President Jedd Medefind on the Idaho Christian group arrested for taking orphans out of Haiti without authorization.

Newswires buzzed recently with reports that a group of ten Americans from an Idaho-based Christian charity were arrested trying to transport 33 Haitian children into the Dominican Republic contrary to the rules of Haiti’s government. Although details are still emerging, the story thus far suggests a potent mingling of good intentions with ill-advised plans. Fellow Christians embarrassed by the incident should have the grace to withhold the abuse many observers are now piling on the group, but we can still take a strong lesson on the need to match zeal with knowledge in every effort to “care for orphans in their distress.”  More…

A group of Congressional members supportive of adoption are working to create a streamlined system to match orphans from Haiti with U.S. families.  Helping to lead these efforts is Senator Mary Landrieu, a longtime adoption advocate.  Although the legislation championed by the group would focus first on Haitian orphans, it would ultimately apply to other areas in which there are orphans in need of families, seeking to make aspects of international adopion overseen by the U.S. government smoother and easier.  Supportive members of the U.S. Senate will seek to get the “Families for Orphans Act” out of committee this week and on to the floor of the Senate for a vote.   Among other elements, the bill would establish a specific office in the State Department to focus on adoption and to advance policies that work to find permanent homes for orphans.

For many Christians stirred by Haiti’s pain, the most significant response will be one that lasts beyond the current crisis.  Every available resource should be focused on emergency care for now—but a deeper test of our concern will come over months ahead.

Individuals who want to how ordinary people can make a lasting difference for orphans—in Haiti or otherwise—may have no better opportunity than Summit VI in Minneapolis, MN on April 29-30, 2010.

More than fifty workshops will deliver practical know-how for building adoption, foster care and global orphan care ministry in local churches.   Keynotes will include nation champions of orphan care and adoption, such as John Piper, Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman, Tom Davis, and Al Mohler.  Compelling voices of the global church will join as well, from Africa and Eastern Europe to the First Lady of Guatemala City.

For those desiring to make their response to Haiti more than just a one-time gift, Summit VI will offer the tools for long-term response.  Click here to register.