When my husband and I lived in the Philippines with our two children, we had the opportunity to be foster parents. We took care of orphaned Filipino children until their adoption papers were processed and they could be adopted by someone else.

Our first foster child was Niño, which means "boy" in Spanish.

Within hours of his birth, somebody found little Niño on a Manila garbage dump in a plastic bag with his umbilical cord still attached. He spent the next three months of his life in a hospital recovering from sepsis, a blood infection caused by the unsanitary conditions of his birth.

The day I picked Niño up I was shocked. Marsela, our social worker, had told us he was 3 months old, and I had compared him in my mind to our own children at 3 months of age. Niño, at 3 months, weighed only 7 pounds (3,170 grams). Both of my children were heavier than this at birth. Later I learned he had weighed only three pounds (1,360 grams) when he was found.

For several weeks Niño required around-the-clock two-hour feedings. My family was wonderful in those difficult days. Everyone helped. In just a short time he gained weight and was transformed into a happy, contented baby.

In fact, Niño was the happiest baby I have ever experienced. He smiled at everyone. I will never forget the day the social worker and I had to take him to get the first of his three hepatitis vaccinations. When the nurse put the band on his little arm to make the vein more prominent, little Niño laughed out loud-until the needle slid into his arm.

For one year and one day Niño was part of our family and went everywhere with us-shopping, to church services, on vacation.

It was amusing to experience the reaction of Filipinos when Niño was with us. At that time foster parenting was not a common practice among Filipinos. Since we were obviously Caucasian and Niño was obviously Asian, we were continually asked by waiters, salesclerks and others we came into contact with why this little Asian boy was with us. We would explain we were keeping him temporarily until his paperwork was finished and he could be adopted and move to his new home in Europe.

Over and over I heard the same response: "He is one of the lucky ones!"

Some lucky, some not so lucky

Considering the difficulties he had faced in his short life, he really was lucky. He was found on a garbage dump. He survived. The unusual circumstances of his birth led to his adoption and a new life. We had the opportunity to be a small part of his life. Niño is now a happy child in Norway, living with his Norwegian adoptive parents.

I often wonder what circumstances were so bad that Niño's birth mother could not care for him. What could make any mother decide to leave her newborn son on a garbage dump?

The world truly is in sad shape. People in so-called developing countries often do not have even the basic necessities so many take for granted-clean drinking water, food, clothing, shelter. Tragically, they do not have any real hope for a better tomorrow, that things will ever really improve in their lifetimes. Facing such a bleak future, they are often depressed, discouraged and lonely, wondering whether their lot in life will ever improve. Perhaps this kind of frustration led little Niño's mother to abandon him.

Even though so many feel no hope, there is great hope for the future. A time is coming when there will be enough for everyone, a time when the stresses of this present world will no longer exist. This is described in a book that explains that a better world is coming and tells us how such a world will come about. We find it revealed to us in a book that many people have come to reject in our modern world. This book is accurate and true, nevertheless.

That book is the Bible. It accurately describes the world in which we live, and it explains why the world is in such bad shape.

Humanity learning a painful lesson

The Bible begins with the creation of the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden. These first human beings were allowed to make a fundamental choice: to allow God to guide them or to reject their Creator's instructions and decide for themselves how to live their lives.

They chose to disobey God, and since then God has allowed mankind to make his own choices about how to live, often with dire consequences. But the Bible makes it clear that the time is coming when mankind's choices will bring him to the brink of disaster, described so vividly by Christ in Matthew 24:22, and God will have to intervene in human affairs.

Our Creator wants us to realize that, by rejecting His revealed knowledge of how we should live, the consequences of our human choices are chaos, violence and misery that-without His intervention-would ultimately destroy all life from the earth.

The state of the world is the result of man making his own choices, his own rules for how to live. God will not allow the world to continue unchecked in its downward spiral of greed, selfishness, violence and suffering. He will intervene, but only after He has allowed mankind to reap the miseries of a world in which the only way to true peace and happiness has been rejected.

The Bible shows that a better world is coming. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to the earth about 2,000 years ago to proclaim this wonderful news. The King of kings proclaimed that He would return to earth and establish a kingdom governed by God's laws, the same laws that have been available to humans for thousands of years, carefully preserved in the Bible.

A different world

What will such a world be like? One of those laws is that we are not to steal from each other. Can you imagine a world in which everyone kept this law? You would never need to lock your door, your car or anything.

Although such a world seems almost unimaginable now, the Bible speaks of such a time when everyone will abide by all of the commandments the Creator of mankind gave His creation.

You, too, can experience true happiness and peace. You can have a hope for a better tomorrow. We cannot escape from our world, but we can learn how to deal with it. Regardless of your circumstances, whether in a developing country lacking the basic necessities or in a physically prosperous country coping with an entirely different set of difficulties and stresses, you can get help.

Open the instruction manual the Creator gave us-the Bible. Read how the world today is described, and read about how a better world is coming to replace this violent, tragedy-filled world of today.

One day Jesus Christ will return to earth. He will establish a new world. In that coming world will no longer be such suffering, such anguish, that mothers will feel they have to discard their newborn babies on garbage dumps. A world will be established where one can say for all babies, children and adults alike: "They are the lucky ones!" GN