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Focus on the Family’s Adoption & Orphan Care Initiative is focused on three main components:- Wait No More: Finding families for Waiting Children and Youth in Foster Care
- Cry of the Orphan national media collaboration to raise global awareness on the needs of orphans
- Post-Placement support and resources for adoptive families
If you have additional questions on this program, please contact us at orphancare@family.org or call 800-A-FAMILY
THE DROP BOX FILM
The Drop Box tells the story of South Korean pastor Lee Jong-rak and his heroic efforts to embrace and protect the most vulnerable members of society. It is a heart-wrenching exploration of the physical, emotional and financial toll associated with providing refuge to orphans that would otherwise be abandoned on the streets. But The Drop Boxmovie is also a story of hope—a reminder that every human life is sacred and worthy of love.
South Korea is not the only country grappling with the issue of orphan care. Around the world, there are more than 150 million orphans waiting for forever families to call their own.
Focus on the Family and Kindred Image are committed to equipping viewers with the tools they need to advocate for these precious children, whether through adoption, supporting an adoptive family, or raising awareness of the plight of orphans.
Because in the end, building more
Pastor Lee would be the first to agree: “I always pray that there will be no more abandoned babies in this country and no more in our baby box. That’s all I want.”
Two years and four visits after their initial trip to Seoul, Brian, Will and Bryce created Kindred Image, a company created to continue Pastor Lee’s life-saving work. Kindred Image is committed to sharing Pastor Lee’s story with anyone who will listen, implementing fundraising strategies to enable his ministry, and ultimately carrying on his courageous vision for life in other countries around the world.
Focus on the Family’s relationship with Kindred Image began in 2013, when the Focus team was working in Los Angeles to complete the ministry’s first feature-length documentary, Irreplaceable. Through a series of “coincidences”—actually Divine appointments!—members of the Irreplaceable production team met Brian Ivie, who was in Los Angeles at the same time searching for a means to distribute and promote The Drop Box.
Focus on the Family’s plan was—and is—forIrreplaceable to be the first in a series of documentaries exploring the social issues of our day through a biblical lens, pointing directly to the ministry’s 12-part DVD based small group study, The Family Project™. After meeting Brian and learning about his film, it became clear that The Drop Boxwould make a perfect fit for the second documentary in the series. It was a match made in heaven. Focus and Kindred Image’s shared passion for the sanctity of human life and mutual commitment to raising awareness of the plight of orphans worldwide aligned perfectly. It was a pairing that only God could have orchestrated.
FILMMAKER COMES TO CHRIST
Brian Ivie, the director of The Drop Box, went to Korea to film a documentary about a pastor who was saving abandoned babies. Brian had no idea that God was going to save him in the process. This unforgettable story can be seen when The Drop Box comes to movie theaters for three nights only – March 3, 4, and 5, 2015.
Pastor Lee Jong-rak built a box to save unwanted babies in South Korea. To date, this little compartment has received over 600 children who would have been otherwise abandoned and left to die. See this incredible story in The Drop Box in theaters nationwide, March 3-5.
In June of 2011, the Los Angeles Times published an article with the intriguing headline, “South Korean pastor tends an unwanted flock.” At the time, director Brian Ivie and co-producers Will Tober and Bryce Komae were students at the University of Southern California. Ivie read the Times article and was touched by its account of Lee Jong-rak, a pastor in Seoul who had set up a “drop box” at the front of his church to rescue babies that would otherwise be abandoned. The children suffered from various disabilities, but according to the Times, “To Pastor Lee Jong-rak, they are perfect. And they have found a home here at the ad hoc orphanage he runs with his wife and small staff.”
South Korean pastor tends an unwanted flock
In a country that prizes physical perfection, Pastor Lee Jong-rak, his eyes opened after caring for his own disabled son, has been taking in unwanted infants, who if not for his drop box would be left in the street.
Reporting from Seoul — The drop box is attached to the side of a home in a ragged working-class neighborhood. It is lined with a soft pink and blue blanket, and has a bell that rings when the little door is opened.
Because this depository isn't for books, it's for babies — and not just any infants; these children are the unwanted ones, a burden many parents find too terrible to bear.
One is deaf, blind and paralyzed; another has a tiny misshapen head. There's a baby with Down syndrome, another with cerebral palsy, still another who is quadriplegic, with permanent brain damage.
But to Pastor Lee Jong-rak, they are all perfect. And they have found a home here at the ad hoc orphanage he runs with his wife and small staff. It is the only private center for disabled children in South Korea.
South Korean pastor tends an unwanted flock
In a country that prizes physical perfection, Pastor Lee Jong-rak, his eyes opened after caring for his own disabled son, has been taking in unwanted infants, who if not for his drop box would be left in the street.
Reporting from Seoul — The drop box is attached to the side of a home in a ragged working-class neighborhood. It is lined with a soft pink and blue blanket, and has a bell that rings when the little door is opened.
Because this depository isn't for books, it's for babies — and not just any infants; these children are the unwanted ones, a burden many parents find too terrible to bear.
One is deaf, blind and paralyzed; another has a tiny misshapen head. There's a baby with Down syndrome, another with cerebral palsy, still another who is quadriplegic, with permanent brain damage.
But to Pastor Lee Jong-rak, they are all perfect. And they have found a home here at the ad hoc orphanage he runs with his wife and small staff. It is the only private center for disabled children in South Korea.
