“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” –John 14:18
The date was April 18th, 1993, and the place was Taroko Gorge, Taiwan. Taroko Gorge is a gaping rift in the eastern mountains, with shear marble cliffs and jagged rocks rising up from the raging river far below.
A group of college students visiting Taiwan on a semester-at-sea study-abroad program spent the day hiking these breathtaking gorges. As one of the students in that group, I can vividly remember feeling overwhelmed by the beauty of God’s creative landscape. But my time of wonderment was quenched abruptly when we heard that two our classmates had fallen into the Gorge. One of the boys had already been found; but the other boy was still missing. We were stunned!
Our university ship eventually left port without this young man and we continued to receive word that he still had not been found. We were told that this young man was apparently the son of someone very important. His family had great wealth and were not sparing one dime in the search and hopeful rescue of their son—helicopters and round the clock search parties continued for a very, very long time. He was one of us. It could have been any one of us. We were keenly aware that this lost boy was somebody’s son, alright. His name: Brett Russell Crawford, the son of Gordon Crawford.
According to The La Weekly: “Gordon Crawford is the guy who, once upon a time, placed a big bet on what were then blue-chip entertainment stocks and made gazillions for a lot of people, including himself. As those show-biz firms morphed into Big Media, Crawford assumed even more power when his investment positions became huger by default. None of this is to say that Gordy isn't a great guy. People love him. Besides, it's hard to say a harsh word about someone who in 1993 suffered such a profound personal tragedy: the death of his 21-year-old son Brett during a hiking accident in Taiwan while enrolled in a semester-at-sea program. Crawford has told friends: ‘I'd give up all the money I ever made for one hour with him.’ “
All who traveled on that ship will remember Brett, because we saw him as one of us. And yet, for so many orphans who have fallen through the cracks—lost, in great distress, barely hanging on and in desperate need of rescue—no one searches, no one comes, no money is sent. No one prays, no one mourns, and no one even remembers them, though we may have seen them, their pained faces, their hurting bodies, whether we passed them on the streets, saw them on TV, or witnessed their lives as we walked where they lived. I suppose it would be different if they were our own children or our friend’s children, or for that matter if they were the children of important men, but instead, these sons and daughters are not the children of important men. We see them as nobody’s children really; they are the fatherless—these children are just orphans!
Talk about important, powerful, and wealthy fathers. The Father of the orphans is the King of Kings, and He owns all the gold and all the silver. Orphans truly are princes and princesses—members of God’s royal family. And God entrusted their care to us, His church. Are we, like the father in that story, willing to say that we would expend every effort and resource to find and spend just one hour with these precious children?
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