If you missed the first post in this series: Part 1

 
The echo of God’s love resonates not just in our hearts but also in our heads. When we see the thousands of children pouring across our southern border, we have no choice; we have to act in Christian love, in charity as Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 13. They are children – not adults who have made informed choices to break our laws and enter the U.S. illegally. We must live out biblical compassion.

But, but… love is every bit as much a head thing as it is a heart thing.

And so, unfortunately, we are going to fail these kids.

Most of the children who have crossed our border will soon overwhelm a child welfare system already sinking under the weight of 400,000 children. It is a system already in crisis, and once we dump—yes, dump—these children into it, we can be certain their lots in life will not be improved.

Almost certainly, they will fail.

Here’s how it works:

We – the Church, followers of Christ, and society as a whole – we will fail them, and they will fail – because that’s what usually happens to orphaned children.

• Somewhere around 12 percent of children in the system will take their own lives before they reach 18.
• Over 75% of the sexually exploited minors in New York have spent time in foster care.
• Orphaned girls are ten times more likely to sell their bodies to survive than girls in stable families.
• This year, not counting the kids who will pour into the system from the border crisis, 24,000 children will age out of our foster care in the U.S.
• Former foster children are three times more likely to be living in poverty – and fifteen times less likely to have finished college.
• Sixty-six percent of them will be homeless, go to jail, or die within one year of aging out of foster care.

This is Christian compassion?

The echo of God’s love in our hearts and in our heads means we must come up with a better answer…