While attending a church service in Zambia, an American visitor, Gary Schneider, was struck by the pastor’s passionate call to care for orphans in the local community, a community dramatically affected by AIDS and poverty. Those in the congregation faced real need themselves, needs we can barely imagine. But, as the service ended, one after another stepped forward with money, food, and material things, some even taking off their own shoes and placing them in the offering as a response to the pastor’s call for the orphans.

Gary Schneider, President of Every Orphan’s Hope, was so impacted that he began to help Zambian leaders coordinate Orphan Sunday efforts across Zambia which spread to the United States in 2003.

It stands as a day specifically set apart to bring attention to God’s call for us to stand for the orphan. We are a people called to defend the fatherless, to care for the child who has no family, to visit orphans in their distress. Orphan Sunday is our opportunity as preadoptive families, adoptive families, and those who have hearts for children around the world to rouse the Church, our communities, and friends to God