Neha Gupta, founder of Empower Orphans, expects to launch her organization's presence at Penn State on April 22, 2015 to garner students' awareness and involvement. To date, Empower Orphans has raised $1.7 million and served 25,000 children in India and the US.
Click here to read the full article.
Click here to peruse the Empower Orphans website.
Reading this article encourages me to know that GOOD things happening in the news. Yet I notice that Gupta's "areas of impact" focuses on meeting orphans' physical and educational needs. In the Bible, James 2:15-16 teaches that to effectively minister to people, we must address their physical needs. So I applaud Neha's compassionate efforts to extend mercy to the needy. Yet also lack deep excitement over the efforts because they lack the gospel. Biblical, best practice orphan care, I believe, must address children's needs in four areas:
- Physical needs. (Provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, medical care.)
- Educational needs. (Equip them to become economically independent adults.)
- Emotional needs. (Help them heal from trauma or abuse & meet their need for family, belonging, self-confidence, self-worth.)
- Spiritual needs. (Introduce them to their Maker and Savior. Show them eternal salvation.)
In most orphan care institutions, survival trumps best practice orphan care. Meaning that they are struggling to feed and educate the children, and don't have the resources to meet emotional and spiritual needs (or they lack a Christian mission statement identifying the spiritual need). My aim is to come alongside MTW-affiliated orphan caretakers to equip them to care for not only the physical and educational needs of the orphans, but their emotional and spiritual needs as well. By this, I believe, the children will be saved physically AND spiritually, and equipped to lay the pathway of salvation for other also.
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