I Will Not Leave You As Orphans - Lee Shelnutt

(Courtesy of the BBC)

I Will Not Leave You As Orphans

By Lee Shelnutt

(All Scripture quotations are taken from the ESV)

No one should be under the pretense that a few days in a country makes one an expert. Far from it – it should make you realize there’s just so much you do not know. Nevertheless, a recent World Witness trip to the beautiful country of Rwanda with Alex Pettett and the Cottens, did make me more aware of something that was a terrible but fleeting news story here in the US back in 1994. 

Much had transpired through the decades before 1994, preparing the way for the 100 days of terror. Colonial favoritism. Tribal-racial tensions. Dehumanizing propaganda. European meddling. Political and economic disparities. Genocidal trial runs. And then came the mysterious downing of an airplane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. Within hours, young, French-trained, death squads of Hutus, wielding machetes with genocidal furor, were unleashed and in a span of 100 days they brutally tortured and murdered 800,000 to 1,000,000 of their Tutsi and moderate Hutu neighbors and fellow countrymen. Imagine – basically 1/10 of the population gone; bodies strewn across the natural beauty of that central country in east Africa. 

The days before Hutu and Tutsi children had played together in their neighborhoods. Neighbors had chatted. Some even had gone to church together. Then in savage fury, neighbors turned on neighbors. Doors were locked to the those seeking refuge. Some neighbors even wielded the machetes too.

At the genocide memorial, I watched the films. I read the displays. I walked quietly beside the mass graves. And I wept.

I’m glad that there’s a group for Rwandan youth called, Never Again. I’m amazed by the Rwandan government’s efforts at truth and reconciliation. 

And yet the aftereffects are still very tangible. Everyone 27 years or older that you see there, lived through it. Untold numbers of Hutus live with their guilt. Tutsis with their losses and griefs. 

Retired Bishop John Rucyahana of the Anglican Church there in Rwanda, welcomed us and said that if World Witness comes and helps train Rwandan pastors, to please remember that many pastored churches with Hutu and Tutsi sitting beside one another with their guilt or grief.

Among all the horrors of the genocide, one was the making of thousands of orphans. Imagine such orphans, brothers and sisters. Think about their plight, their condition, their questions:

What has happened? What will I do now? Where do I go? What happens next? Who will love, nurture, and guide me? Will someone stand on my side? Can I trust them? Who can I trust? What will become of me? Who am I?

One has said that those are the orphan’s questions. Another has underscored the orphan’s plight:

• Orphans must take care of themselves.
• Orphans must be strong. They cannot be weak.
• Orphans must protect themselves.
• Orphans cannot depend on anyone. They can only trust themselves.
• Orphans crave to be taken in and loved but doubt they ever will.
• Orphans want to be accepted, to belong, but they are afraid to get too close.
• Orphans are on the outside looking in.

Is it any wonder why our God calls his people to care for orphans? In Isaiah we read, “...learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.”

In James we read:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

From the Law, to the Prophets, to the book of James, God tells us of His concern for orphans and calls us to protect and minister to them. It is a non-negotiable for Christian piety. Yet, how often do we ignore their questions, their plight, how often do we ignore them?

I wonder about that. Why is it so often the case? Is it because, well, we just do not see them around us like we would if we were living in Rwanda or in another era? Is it because we are not comfortable with the vulnerability and feelings of abandonment that are their life? I do not know. But let me ask you, how do the following words of Jesus in John 14 sound to you – right here, right now?

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 

You do not have to be an orphan to know something of orphan fears and challenges, of feeling abandoned and vulnerable, of being isolated and alone. The orphan questions can be your questions. 

What has happened? What will I do now? Where do I go? What happens next? Who will love, nurture, and guide me? Will someone stand on my side? Can I trust them? Who can I trust? What will become of me? Who am I?

Were those questions running through the heads and hearts of the disciples in the Upper Room? The Supper was over and Judas the betrayer had left. Now Jesus tells them he is leaving. Can you imagine their thoughts – the One they loved and had left everything for, now was leaving.

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”

Those sound like orphan questions and appeals, don’t they?

Have you ever loved and lost someone? If you have, you can fear becoming what? In a sense, you can fear becoming orphaned. Right? To be orphaned means to be alone, to have no family, to have no home, and to live like it. But what did Jesus say to people like the disciples? Like us?

“I will not leave you orphaned.” That is the promise. 

To not be orphaned means that you are not alone. Believer, you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. The Father and Son have sent Him to you.  You are not abandoned never see your beloved Christ. Jesus said what? 

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

To not be orphaned means that you have a family. Spirit indwelt believer, you are in union with the Holy Trinity -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in communion with all the saints! You have a holy, glorious family!

And you have a home! In John 14, Jesus also said,

^“In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

And you can live as a beloved child, not an identity-less and abandoned orphan. A loved child can and should do what? Trust, obey, and not fear. What else does Jesus say in that same Upper Room discourse?

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me…

If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him…

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

Trust, obey in love, do not fear – that is living as a beloved child. Child of God, remember whose you are, remember where you are going, remember how you are called to live, and remember that Jesus has promised:

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Regardless of the circumstances of your life – the storms, the death of loved ones, separation from others – believer, you will never be orphaned by God. And the child who truly knows this, should more readily do what? Love orphans. 

Let me come back to Rwanda. There are still many children there in great need – education, food, insurance, clothing, etc., and many of these are orphans. Reach the Children of Rwanda (RCRI), is a wonderful ministry there led by Erskine Seminary graduate Benjamin Musuhukye. RCRI has an excellent child-sponsorship program. If you are interested in the work of RCRI, please contact Kathryn Dushime, of Neely’s Creek ARP Church, at: sponsorwithrcri@gmail.com