How Many is 143,000,000?

There are approximately 143 million orphans living in the world today.

But just how many is that?

Consider that 143,000,000 is the total combined population of the states of California, New York, Texas, Florida, Colorado, Illinois, Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Main, and Kansas. That's eleven different states!

Or how about the fact that if you had all 143,000,000 orphans together at one time, you could fill Invesco Field in Denver 1,878 times.

Or what if each word in the Bible represented one orphaned child? You would fill 182 Bibles and still have thousands of words left over.

And what if each breath you took represented an orphaned child? Well then, you could breathe for 22.5 years.

143 million is a big number. It's too big to comprehend really.

But the thing that really gets me is that we aren't counting something arbitrary here -- like grains of sand or marbles in a jar. No. We are talking about living, breathing, humans. Children with hopes and dreams and potential. Children who laugh and play and dance.

And children who have experienced grief and sorrow beyond what most of us will ever know.

So what are we going to to about this? How can we even begin to help 143,000,000 children?

I don't know.

My best guess is that we will have to help them one (1) at a time.