Who Needs an Easter Dress When There Are Orphans Needing Food? Forget the Frock 2014

Three years ago a small group of people in my church were lead to start a movement.  It called for people to trade in those Easter dresses and garb to buy a t-shirt.  Not just any t-shirt, rather a t-shirt that would feed, provide clean water, and expose orphans in third world countries to Christ.  Our church was going to Forget the Frock.  Check out the blog that started it all.

Sounds great....right?  Looking back on it, I now realize it was genius, though I didn't always feel that way that first year.  That first year, I refused to take part.  I found it crazy to give up my Easter dress, my tradition, and I ensured myself that someone else would do something for those orphans.  I remember buying my Easter dress and wearing it with pride.  I grew up going to a traditional Southern Baptist church in the south, the idea of wearing a t-shirt to church, far less on  Easter Sunday was beyond crazy.  Easter came and went, I didn't think much more about it.

The next year rolled around and our church announced they were going to take part in Forget the Frock again.  They brought in an organization called Feeding the Orphans to speak about the movement and how the money that was raised when to help orphans in Africa.  It was there God opened my heart and my eyes.  Feeding the Orphans is started by Sydney when she was 10 and her eyes were opened to the world of orphans when her parents started the adoption process of a child in Ghana.  Her heart cried out for those children she would see in a picture of her soon to be sister.  As her family was going out to eat one night, she refused to go in.  "Why should we eat like Kings and Queens when they have nothing," stated Sydney. At 10 years old, God broke Sydney's heart for those Orphans and she started a ministry that would work to not only provide them with food, but also show and tell them how much Jesus loves them.

Listening to Sydney and her family talking about their ministry, God took my heart, broke it, and pushed it down to my stomach.  How dare I even being to think that my Easter dress and tradition was more important then the life of a child?  That day, I vowed to take part in Forget the Frock.  I wanted nothing more then to feed the orphans and show them love.  I may never make it to a third world country to love on orphans, but I can take part in a movement that is funding others to bring the good news of Christ to them.  I can wear a t-shirt that will provide an orphan with food and clean water.  I can stop being selfish and forget about that Easter dress tradition.  As Christians we are called to love God and his people.  Its about time I start doing that last part!

I have took part in Forget the Frock for the last two years.  Last year alone, during the Forget the Frock movement, Feed the Orphans raised $30,000.  I'm super excited to see what this year holds.  We already have people in 20 states participating and hundreds of churches.  We are going to feed some orphans this year!  Who needs an Easter dress when there are orphans needing food?

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. -James 1:27