{"id":800,"date":"2010-12-16T12:05:43","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T12:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html"},"modified":"2010-12-16T12:05:43","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T12:05:43","slug":"advent-day-19-visiting-orphans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent Day 19: Visiting Orphans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year we send hundreds of volunteers across land and ocean to visit their sponsored children. Many of the kids ask why. Why would someone fly all the way from America just to visit me?<\/p>\n

I think that’s a picture of Advent in some ways. God visited us. Why would He give up heaven and come here just for me?<\/p>\n

Because we matter to God. <\/p>\n

And that is what our volunteers tell the children. <\/p>\n

They matter. They matter to their sponsors, to people they’ve never met, and to the God they cannot see with their earthly eyes. <\/p>\n

Our volunteer travelers are, quite literally, Jesus with skin on.<\/p>\n

\"Advent19.gif\"<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year we send hundreds of volunteers across land and ocean to visit their sponsored children. Many of the kids ask why. Why would someone fly all the way from America just to visit me? I think that’s a picture of Advent in some ways. God visited us. Why would He give up heaven and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orphans","category-russia"],"yoast_head":"\nAdvent Day 19: Visiting Orphans - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advent Day 19: Visiting Orphans - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Every year we send hundreds of volunteers across land and ocean to visit their sponsored children. Many of the kids ask why. Why would someone fly all the way from America just to visit me? I think that’s a picture of Advent in some ways. God visited us. Why would He give up heaven and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-16T12:05:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent19.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Advent Day 19: Visiting Orphans - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Advent Day 19: Visiting Orphans - Red Letters","og_description":"Every year we send hundreds of volunteers across land and ocean to visit their sponsored children. Many of the kids ask why. Why would someone fly all the way from America just to visit me? I think that’s a picture of Advent in some ways. God visited us. Why would He give up heaven and…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2010-12-16T12:05:43+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent19.gif"}],"author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html","name":"Advent Day 19: Visiting Orphans - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent19.gif","datePublished":"2010-12-16T12:05:43+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-16T12:05:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent19.gif","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent19.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-19-visiting-orphans.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Advent Day 19: Visiting Orphans"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}