Two months after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade the lives of countless children are being saved, lives that previously would have never been allowed to inhale their first breath in a world that God created them for. These children will now have the opportunity to experience love, pain, joy, suffering, and that which redeems all of life’s wrongdoings – the hope found in Christ and in Christ alone.
Saving the lives of children aligns with the mission of Sunrise. It is our mission! Since 1869, post devastation of the civil war, a group of ladies from Walnut Street Baptist Church witnessed orphans roaming the streets of Louisville. These ladies embraced the Apostle James 1:27 teaching and started the Louisville Baptist’s Orphanage, caring for the most vulnerable. In doing so they began honoring the intrinsic value that God breathed into life (Genesis 2:7).
One hundred and fifty-three years later, God continues to allow Sunrise to carry out this mission. We want the unwanted. We care for the child whose parents have given up the child, whatever the circumstances. We help those children involved in physical, sexual, or emotional harm. We fight for this child to survive and to thrive. Sunrise strives to instill and reveal the incredible worth that God has placed on them. (Genesis 1:26-27). We place children with families who want them, who have prayed for them, who adopt them into their own. Adoption at its most basic premise destroys the notion that a child is something that can be set aside, but instead exclaims to the child you are wanted, you are one of us, you are our child!
Like many, our organization rejoiced when Roe v Wade was overturned, but we also recognized that it came with a great responsibility to care not just for the child who would no longer be aborted, but for the mother who would need compassion and support.
Currently Sunrise is serving eight children who have young children of their own. Eight very young mothers who are taking on the task to care for their children in ways that their own mothers could not do for them. One cannot underestimate the task and calling set before them. Yet, with Sunrise and the support of churches and individuals alike, these mothers are determined to love their children with a familial love that was never shown to them. Sunrise is a model of this love. Foster families care for Sunrise children and their babies as their own. There is something miraculous that takes place when this type of selfless, deliberate, and sacrificial love is shown to our children. They change. Their perception about themselves changes. Slowly, they start believing, sometimes for the first time, that they have a right to exist. They come to understand they have a purpose, a calling that surpasses their own individual wants and needs. It comes full circle. They are given an eternal perspective that heals the sorrow brought by the hurt they have experienced and replaces it with an indescribable joy. They are redeemed. It is a miracle to witness and the source of this miracle can only be found in the spiritual realm (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Last week one young mother in our independent living program, who had been with Sunrise for many years in her youth, had just started her first year in college. She had confused her first-class starting time and realized she did not have a ride. She did not want to miss her first class at college. She quickly called one of our staff members, who dropped everything to take her to class. She was in tears with gratitude. She could not only believe that she was going to college, but that there was such love and support behind her.
Sunrise will proudly continue to serve children and their mothers, even when the mothers may
be children themselves. God has a plan for them. Even before they were in their mother’s womb, He had a plan for them. They have a right to exist, to be known. God has a design for their lives, and we will work hard to see it to fruition.
