"Sophia" means wisdom...

this picture is a list of needs. A list of needs for orphans in Sophia, Bulgaria.

My friend and co-laborer Chris plans our Young Life Service Project every year. This year staff and high school students will visit an orphanage in Sophia - several orphanages in fact. Some are for mentally and physically retarded children. Some are for "normal" orphans from infant to teenagers. As Chris explained the conditions there after his visit, I was moved by a few things.

First, the horrible adoption situation in Bulgaria. Only 100 kids total are allowed to be adopted from Bulgaria every year. No one from outside Bulgaria is allowed to adopt Bulgarian orphans because 1) of strange EU rules limiting adoption rights to member countries 2) they discovered that children were being adopted from foreign countries only to be harvested for their organs. Bulgarians don't adopt because they are poor. You get the picture; no one adopts these kids and probably never will.

Second, the atrocious conditions these kids are living in. He told of standing sewage, holes for toilets, one worker caring for 20-30 kids at once. The picture above is of a list of needs he recorded on his trip...under "urgent needs" the list contains:

1. Cooker
2. Repair of central heating
3. Cutlery
4. Cooking utensils
5. Bleach
6. Washing powder
7. Disinfection Materials
8. Blankets
9. Sheets

Third, I was struck how I didn't deserve to be born in America, I don't deserve to have a college education, to have parents who love me, to have cultural and economic mobility, to have the simple basic things like forks, sheets, and heat.

Fourth, how ironically from the name of their city is the Greek word "Sophia" meaning "wisdom". Now we live in oblivion to the names of our towns and villages, but once they meant something. The city named "wisdom" lost its namesake in the story of East and West, Communism and Iron Curtains. If the writer of Proverbs is right, then "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom". I hope and pray that our efforts for renewal in Sophia are motivated out of fear (respect and reverance) for God's heart for the orphaned, abused, and left.

In 1979, Mother Teresa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in the name of the "unwanted, unloved and uncared for". She said "I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive [the Nobel] in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." On that occasion, she wore the same $1 white sari she had adopted when she founded her order, as a way to identify herself with the poor.

New Testament scholars discuss Jesus' "preference for the poor" and the Book of James proclaims "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).

I pray that I can overcome my comfort and radically identify with the poor as Mother Teresa. I pray that I can overcome my comfort so as not to be corrupted by the world. I guess I am praying for dis-comfort.

I ask for sophia to navigate these waters; sophia initiated by a love and respect of God, the one who chose to make me American, college-educated, and with lots of opportunity, food, and blankets at my disposal.

So I am thankful, this Christmas, for all the gifts I don't deserve. Lord Jesus, let me not squander them.