I couldn't help but stare at the closet in front of me. As I peered in I saw the clothes neatly organized. Shorts were in one location, tops were in another. Socks and shoes were toward the bottom. But it wasn't the organization that surprised me. Instead, it was the fact that each section was labeled by size, not by name. I was at an orphanage in Ethiopia, and I was overwhelmed at the thought that those children didn't have any clothes they could call their own. It was an image that would stay with me the rest of my trip in Africa.

I was traveling with Bethany Christian Services on a ten-day trip to South Africa, Zambia, and Ethiopia on behalf of Today's Christian Woman in order to learn more about the global orphan care crisis and to determine what conversations TCW needed to be having about adoption and foster care. Today's Christian Woman is a global community of women who come together on our site to be encouraged in their faith and in their everyday life—whatever stage of life they're in, wherever they live.

While I was in Africa, I talked with the kids, families, and social workers who were a part of Bethany's innovative Foster-to-Adopt program. Because recent studies have shown that children do significantly better being raised in families than in orphanages, Bethany's programs in South Africa and Ethiopia are working to place children in foster homes with the hope that most of those families would eventually adopt those children. And according to Sebilu Bodja Gelalcha, Bethany's Director of Africa Operations, that's happening. Around 90 percent of the families become legal guardians of their foster child, which is a huge success considering how culturally abnormal it is in these countries for a family to take in a child who is not related to them.

It was great to see how the movement to adopt is growing thanks to the witness of several of these families. "I'm willing to go to places, talk about my experience, and give my testimony so that other children who haven't had this chance to be cared for by a family have that opportunity," Solomon, a foster-to-adopt dad in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, told me. Abdulkadir and his wife, Abebech, foster-to-adopt parents in Adama, Ethiopia, have personally recruited three additional foster families. It's stories like these that can offer hope and encouragement to TCW readers. These families are stepping up to God's challenge in Isaiah 1:17: "Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans."

I got a small glimpse of what could happen in our societies if we started to invest in the children around us. At TCW, we realize that our families help shape who we truly are—our interests and passions, our character, our emotional well-being, and especially our faith. Yet there are still 13 million children around the world without a mom or a dad to help nurture them growing up, to help them grow emotionally, intellectually, socially, and spiritually. The church in Africa is stepping up to care for the least of these, and we should do the same wherever we are around the world. That'sthe message we're taking to TCW readers.

Natalie Lederhouse is the administrative editor for Today's Christian Woman and occasionally blogs at natailelederhouse.com. Follow Natalie on Twitter at @nataliejean.