"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

Have you ever noticed how often Scripture pairs widows and the fatherless? I never really thought too much about it, until my trip to a rural district called Kaberamaido in central Uganda shortly after I got here. Over the course of a week, my Ugandan friend Harriet and I met with four different widows' groups. After those meetings I began to reflect on why the Bible includes so much sympathy for widows and warnings for the church to care for them.

The widows we met were strong women, but in many ways they are held captive to poverty and the limitations of society around them. Most have been left with many children and/or grandchildren to care for, and they have hardly any way to earn a living. Some are sick and aged, too weak to dig the hard earth. They cannot afford to send them to school. Their land has been taken from them. Their roofs leak, and they have no blanket to guard them from the cold. They are discriminated against because they have no husband.

“God is our husband now,” said one of the widows.

It’s amazing to me that even after thousands of years, the widows I met may be facing the same kinds of things that the widows of the Old and New Testaments faced. Growing up in America, you hardly hear the term “widow” used to identify someone in your community, and you certainly don’t see them grappling with debilitating discrimination and abject poverty – things that would seem to add insult to the injury of losing their life partner. But that’s what many women here face.



Likewise, you hardly hear the term “orphan” used to identify children in America anymore. I certainly don’t remember hearing about 10-year-olds who have become the head of a family of four young children or about kids who live alone on the streets because there’s no one to care for them. But that’s what many orphans here face.

During our time in Kaberamaido, Harriet and I sort of stumbled upon the only orphanage in the district – a home that was started up a few years ago due to the large number of children orphaned by AIDS and rebel insurgencies.

We got to speak with Julius, the Ugandan man who directs the orphanage, and I asked him what inspired him to do the difficult work of looking after the 150 orphans under his care every day. He looked at me for a moment, and with a smile he said very simply, as though the answer was perfectly obvious, “Well, what does scripture tell us? That true religion is to look after orphans and widows.”


Wow. What a challenge to my faith and devotion to the Word of God.

Now, as we try to follow what God wants us to do in Kaberamaido among these widows and orphans, I pray for discernment and obedience to what the Lord leads us to do. Please join me in that prayer. This is difficult for me, to look back on everyone we met and determine which ones we can help and in what ways.

I covet your prayers and your support.