It’s a question I have asked myself many times throughout my years in orphan ministry. Why am I called to “change the world”, and am I actually called to do something so impossible?

“Changing the world” has been attached to so many slogans that it has lost its true meaning. How can a single person change the world by himself? We see so many problems in the world and we give up way too fast. The mistake we make is thinking that we must change everything bad in the world and do it all at once! If I believed that, I would have given up within a year of starting SunErgos International.

After spending a year in Russia, my heart was broken for the orphaned and abused. I felt hopeless and confused; feeling that there was nothing I could do to solve this problem and “change the world”.

How could I do anything when children are thrown away in the dumpster? How could I change the orphanage director’s opinion that physically beating a child will not make him behave better?

Walking inside a hospital for premature babies and seeing crib after crib with the tiniest little bundles, and knowing that their mommy threw them away, caused me to act. Hearing the wailing in that room still brings tears to my eyes. How could I just stand by and do nothing?

I am not asked to adopt all the orphans in Eastern Europe, but I am asked to not stay indifferent and do my part each day. I am called to do my best, each day, to show God’s grace and love in action to those who are hurting and abused.

The question should not be – “Why me? The question should be – “Why not me?” Each one of us can do our part in reaching out to the fatherless, the abused and the hurting. It is terrifying to think that so many are indifferent and just watch from the sidelines and do nothing.

Will you ask the right question? – “Why not me?”