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Verse:Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. —James 1:27
Life magazine of July 23, 1951, carried an article by Michael Rougier entitled “The Little Boy Who Wouldn’t Smile.” It is the touching story of Kang Koo Ri, a boy who lived with his parents and an older brother in a small house fifteen miles north of Seoul, South Korea. During the Korean War, when Kang was five years old, the village in which the family lived was destroyed, and a squad came to rescue the civilians who were still alive. At Kang’s house, they shouted for any survivors, but there was no response. Looking more carefully, one of the soldiers saw the small naked figure of Kang crouched against the wall in the far corner, his eyes wide open. In another corner, they noticed a woman’s body lying on a straw mattress, covered with maggots and flies.
Kang’s mother had evidently been dead for several days.
But there was no sign of Kang’s older brother or his father.
“As Kang was carried away,” the narrative continues, “he raised an arm in the direction of the house. Tears coursed down his cheeks and his body shook in spasms. The G.I.s thought that he was trying to say something, but no sound came.
All the way back, he cried steadily, tears streaming from his eyes but no sound at all coming from his throat.”13 Back at the regimental command post, the chaplain described Kang as “a lot of very small bones held together by Lord knows what.” At the orphanage, he had no emotional strength to socialize. “Bewildered and speechless, he turned his back on the other children and walked away, his eyes wet with tears. There he stood, with one hand twisting the thumb of the other hand, his legs sagging slightly and his eyes on the ground.” Time passed, but Kang continued to ask to be taken back to his brother! Kang is just one example of many thousands of war orphans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. By an initiative of the French organization SOS Enfants En Détresse, January 6 has been chosen as the World Day for War Orphans.
According to James 1:27, it is our sacred duty to care for those lonely children of God who do not have anyone else to care for them.
They need to see in us a reflection of God’s love for a dying world.