“Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their adversity.”  – James 1:27-  NETBible.com

I have sometimes wondered what this would look like today – and then I met Amber.

We were sitting at the bedside of her mother Sarah who was nearing her earthly journey’s end.  Amber was eager to tell me her story. 

Sarah was once a vibrant single woman – a successful advertising sales rep.  She was also devoted to Jesus and loved to sing His praises in the church choir.  But she wanted more – a family. 

Marriage didn’t seem to be a part of God’s plan for Sarah, but a child – well maybe!  So it was, that she was watching a news program on TV one day and learned about what they called Amerasian children. 

These are the children begotten of reckless American service men and young, hopeful, Asian women.  A child is born, the GI ships out, and the unwed mother is left with a child that her culture abhors.  “Most never knew their fathers. Many were abandoned by their mothers at the gates of orphanages. Some were discarded in garbage cans. Schoolmates taunted and pummeled them and mocked them Their destiny was to become waifs and beggars, living in the streets and parks.”  In Vietnam they were called “children of dust.”  (Smithsonian Magazine – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/children-of-the-vietnam-war-131207347/

Sarah decided that this was exactly the kind of child that needed her love.  But she ran into some ridiculous red tape.  At that time, a single woman in the U.S. was not permitted to adopt an international child. 

Sarah refused to take no for an answer.  That Texas girl dug in her heels, and set up camp in Washington D.C.  She went – office to office, Representative to Representative, Senator to Senator, pleading with someone to take up her case. 

After two intense months of this kind of lobbying, one Senator finally offered to help.  He sponsored a bill that was passed which gave Sarah and other singles like her a greenlight to adopt an international child. 

In the meantime, there was a special little Amerasian girl in South Korea.  She was about five years old, living in an orphanage in the midst of a culture that wished her to disappear.  Her prospects of adoption were growing less by the year. 

But Sarah found her and loved her and brought her home to Texas.   Amber doesn’t remember anything of Korea, but she does recall her first trip on an airplane and arriving at DFW where she was met by a throng of lights and cameras and eager reporters who were there to cover this amazing story. 

Amber was so proud of and grateful to her mother. 

As for Sarah, she wasn’t able to speak to me as we sat in her room in those twilight hours, but her life story said it all.  Here was a woman whose courageous Christian faith motivated her to do what few of the rest of us would attempt.  Thank you, Sarah, for showing us how it’s done.

A PRAYER: God gives us all hearts as tender and tenacious as Sarah’s.

This has been Jim Johnson and pickleheavenpress.com

May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.