World Orphans - Urban vs Rural

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Urban vs Rural

Since 1993, WORLD ORPHANS has funded a very large number of “far-rural” homes. From an accountability standpoint, these homes are very difficult to visit and evaluate. Unfortunately, many of these homes have no surrounding neighbors to see how the church cares for orphans.

There is therefore no significant community that is impacted and drawn to the church as a result of the work. This is a very important part of the current WORLD ORPHANS strategy.

In addition, these communities are typically so small that they have very few orphans, comparatively, in the vicinity. They end up having to take in “disadvantaged” children instead of the true orphan. Well, as you can imagine, the vast majority of children in many of these locations and cultures are disadvantaged.

Although these children are exceedingly precious to God and are in need of help, there are many other ministries set up for that purpose. WORLD ORPHANS is tasked to take of the most helpless of the helpless, those with no parents, no extended care structure. That is our sole call – to truly reach out to the least of the “least of these.”

The other high-incidence scenario with these far-rural homes is that orphans are brought in from all over the country, either through informal relationships or through churches within the same denomination. The net result is that children, who are already traumatized through parental death or abandonment, are now removed from their communities of origin.

In many cases they are now being brought up in a rural area where the surrounding people are not of their tribe or people group and don’t even speak their language. This is obviously not a good situation either.

For these reasons, WORLD ORPHANS has intentionally chosen to focus on key, “strategic cities” for the placement of its homes.