As mothers, we want to teach our children compassion for the less fortunate. How can we help our children understand the plight of others who do not enjoy the luxuries we take for granted, like a warm home, plenty of food, and a family to care for us?
How about giving your children and family a sample portion of the “real life” experiences in the daily life of an orphan?
We encourage you to utilize the following suggestions to broaden your family’s understanding of the life of an orphan:
Have your family go outside and do chores such as picking up sticks, trash, and leaves without shoes on to teach your family what it is like to go about daily chores without the comfort of shoes. Then organize a shoe drive to collect shoes for those without. You can even help deliver the shoes on a mission trip with Shoes for Orphans Souls.
- To demonstrate how a warm home and comfortable beds are luxuries, turn off the furnace for a day and maybe even crack the windows. As you prepare for bed, instead of tucking your children into their warm comfortable beds, request that they sleep on the floor without a pillow or blanket to see what a night’s sleep is like for many other children in the world. Then determine what they would want to go without for a while, and use those monies to purchase and donate blankets and pillows to a local shelter.
- For dinner, serve everyone one small bowl of rice and/or beans and remind your family that this is the only meal many children receive for the entire day. In another bowl in the center of the table put the cash that you would have spent on a day’s worth of groceries. Donate the money to a local food pantry.
- Have an entire day where no electricity or running water is used in your home. Explain that in many parts of the world, there is no electricity, and children walk for hours to get water for their family. You could even take a small walk carrying jugs, then fill them with your hose, and take the same walk. Spend time in prayer thanking God for the many comforts of home we take for granted and ask Him to provide comfort for the orphans around the world.
If you are looking for a resource that you can use with your family to go deeper, we encourage you to consider God’s Hope for the Orphan … and Me! This interactive Bible study introduces children to God’s heart for the fatherless and how your children can make a difference. It also includes the game Spare It, Share It. More information and the study kit are available from Hope for Orphans.
Listed below are some other ideas from Hope For Orphans Kids:
- Tape a photo of a child waiting for a forever family to the bathroom mirror or keep at the table to pray for that child daily. Pray daily for a local foster child, the foster family, the birth family, and the caseworker.
- Tell everyone you know about how much God loves orphans and how He wants His followers to love them, too.
- Sponsor a child in need or call your local department of human services and ask if your child can be a pen pal or have a play date with a foster child to develop a relationship with them.
- Mow the lawn, do some housecleaning, or do other chores to help busy foster parents.
- Give some of your allowance to help an adoptive or foster family buy the things they need to adopt or foster a child.
- When school supply, Christmas, or birthday shopping, have your child pick out extra supplies or gifts to donate to your local DHS office for foster kids.
- Spend a day volunteering in a soup kitchen, sorting clothes for a care closet, or packing health kits for the homeless.
God’s word says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” James 1:27 (NIV).
Therefore, the plight of the orphan is worth taking the time to teach to your children. If this guide has blessed your family, we would love to hear from you. Please share your experiences with us.
This guide was created by MomLifeToday.com, a ministry outreach of FamilyLife.com and may be reprinted in its entirety for ministry purposes. (A-Guide-to-Teaching-Your-Kids-About-Orphans) © Copyright 2010 by FamilyLife. All rights reservedJoin us this month as we focus on this important issue and how we as moms can make a difference. We may not all be called to adopt, but we are all called to action. We’ll be featuring adoptive and foster moms throughout the month and ways that you can make a difference.
About Tracey
Just printed out a photo for the mirror, Tracey; thanks for the great idea.
I am sure your “little people” will be telling all their friends about the special photo on their mirror…what a great thing to share with playmates! Blessings to you!
We sponsor a child from Africa through Compassion. My little people love talking about her and praying for her. She is the same age as my daughter so I am able to also use this as a way to teach them about how blessed we are.
These are wonderful ideas that any mom can do.
That is so awesome…we teach our children to pray for distant cousins…these is a great way to love another and bring them into your family! I hope at least idea works every mom out there! Have a happy fall day friend! Blessings to you and your adorable little ones!
i would like to help orphans, we have a lot of clothes for the most we could donate, we are not rich at all, you could say we are low middle class… i said i should throw out things, instead we could donate, i don't know how to get them to a trusted place that would actually deliver them to orphans? could you please help? thank you so much and your website is awesome, your tips worked perfectly for my siblings:)
shouldn't* throw out my clothes
This is a wonderful article. My Husband and I and even including my boys are in the adoption phase . We have adopted our youngest son from our county and are in the process of possible 2 little sisters. I would encourage all who are interested in adopting to look into their own counties. so many children who just want a Mommy and Daddy and a place to call home. Blessings
This was a great article. I am a single mother of 2 teenager girls (14 and 11). In April, I got an email asking me to give a "forever home" to a 2nd cousin I hadn't ever met. I found out this little one has been orphaned since 2 1/2…God put it in my heart to take her in as my own. Now I'm up to single mom of 3. Then, New Years Day, God called me to decide to take in her orpaned sister as well. So–Now I am increasing from 2 to 4 daughters. My daughters get a little overwhelmed sometimes–but I am working on teaching my daughters that God has demanded that we take care of his orphans and widows. I never chose this on my own–but God's called me to do this. It is the most amazing and humbling experience I have ever gone through. Amazing and Blessed it is!!
Tracey, this is a great article. I love the ideas. My wife and I are planning some activities based upon your post. I thought about another possible option–it may not be specifically related to orphans, but Habitat for Humanity has a site called the Global Village near their old HQ offices in Americus, GA. It’s a collection of dwellings meant to be representative of housing in poor and third world communities. A visit there on a hot summer afternoon can be quite an eye opener, but bring drinking water with you. God bless.