I Love My Hair

I hope our sweet little miss is as excited about her curly locks as the new Sesame Street character is.  I measured one of her curls the other day, and when you straighten it out it's 5 inches long. Go girl!



(Side note: The guy who made this video is a writer and puppeteer for Sesame Street who has a daughter from Ethiopia!)

They've Got Personality

Our little miss has gotten pretty good at waving at people.  You'll also frequently find her clapping.  She loves to be tickled, and her giggles are delightful!  She's very friendly... multiple times a day she reaches out to be picked up by friends.  How could anyone resist this sweet face?

Our little buddy is full of curiosity about the world and energy to go explore it.  He's fascinated by sounds we make and likes to copy them.  He tries to snap his fingers or make a popping noise with his finger and mouth (like this).  He picked up a funny pucker mouth scrunch nose face from his sister, which comes with a huffing and puffing sound effect.  You don't think it's possible that their parents are expressive, do you??

Kisses From Katie

Maybe you've heard of a remarkable young Christian girl named Katie Davis.  When Katie graduated from high school in 2007 she moved to Uganda to help orphans.  Since then she has adopted 14 girls, ranging from 19 months to 14 years old.  That's right.  Katie is a single 21 year old with 14 adopted daughters.  But that's just the beginning.  She works tirelessly to provide medicine and help send over 400 children to school and Bible study, and has a feeding program that provides meals every day for over 1200 children, all through an organization she and her parents have created called Amazima Ministries.

If you haven't been to her blog yet, you've got to check it out.  Here's a great place to start, and an excerpt to get you started.

Poverty and squalor and disease and desolation are REAL. They have names. And faces that stare back and hands that squeeze mine tight. They are beautiful people in need of REAL love.

I DO NOT BELIEVE that the God of the universe created too many children in His image and not enough love or food or care to go around. In fact I believe that He created the Body of Christ for just that, to help these little ones, the least of these. And I believe that except for a handful, the Body of Christ is failing. And it's not just me who thinks this. According to several different resources, there are an average of 147 million orphaned children in the world today (this statistic includes children who have lost only one parent as well), 11 million children starve to death each year or die from preventable, treatable illness. 8.5 million children work as child slaves, prostitutes, or in other horrific conditions (making things like that cute baby Gap dress Jane wore today...), 2.3 million children world wide are living with HIV.

That is 168.8 million needy children like Michael and Patricia. Seems like a big number, huh? It shouldn't, because there are 2.1 BILLION people on this earth who profess to be Christians. Jesus followers. Servants. Gospel live-ers. And if only 8 percent of those Christians would care for just ONE of these needy children, they would all be taken care of.

You Gave Me a Home

Grab your tissues and check out this wonderful video of a family bringing home their son Yohannes from Ethiopia.  The family had to travel twice because of Ethiopia's new rules, and Yohannes' reaction when he sees them coming back for him the second time is ... well, there are no words.  You'll have to see it for yourself.

We Want to be Just Like Dad

With Two Hands

I heard recently about a book that I was so excited to read (pictured below–and you can click on it for more info).  It's a collection of stories about a missionary in Ethiopia and the amazing things God did through him and others to spread the gospel of Jesus.  I read some parts out loud to hubby and we just marveled at it.  We really look forward to reading it to our kids when they're older.    

True confessions -- I couldn't put it down and read the whole thing in one day.  I highly recommend it!  

It's Your Child that God is Placing on Your Heart

It happens multiple times a day.  Sometimes it's when I'm holding my son and he reaches for my face with eyes full of trust and love.  Sometimes it's when I'm rocking my beautiful daughter as she starts getting sleepy at the end of a busy day.  Sometimes it's when I'm feeding him a nighttime bottle and can't help but kiss his little head, or when I'm tickling her toes and she giggles in delight.  I stop to think about miracle that they are and can't help but thank the Lord for all He has done.

Our children are so full of joy and love.  And they are our son and daughter.  What beautiful words.  They don't just belong to us through love and legal documentation, they belong to us through God.
 

There have been a few friends of ours that I've had the privilege of walking with at the beginning of their adoption journey.  And it's an exciting thing to realize that when God places adoption on a family's heart He also has a child waiting for that family.  Taking the first step of faith to follow Him toward that child is the hardest part, but the blessings that follow are far too numerous to count.     

If you were sitting in my living room right now and telling me that God was placing adoption on your heart, but you just don't know...  I would have you look into my daughter's big beautiful eyes and try to tell her that you couldn't do it.  I'd have you look into my son's curious, trusting face and try to tell him that you really don't think you could adopt because it's too hard, too expensive, too time consuming, or too scary.  I guarantee that you couldn't do it!  You couldn't look into the faces of these two bright eyed babies and say no.  It seems impossible to me to look at the way God has intervened in their lives, the joy that they bring us, and say it isn't worth it.

God loved us enough to sacrifice His only Son, and the Bible tells us that He wants His children to know and walk in that love.  Just think -- for the child that does not have a family, he or she can learn of God's love through you.   And you can learn more about God's love through them too.

So if God is placing adoption on your heart, don't be overwhelmed by fear and excuses.  Pray for the Lord to show you His will in regard to the orphan crisis, and if He is leading you to do it, take that first step.  Do it afraid.  And I guarantee that your fear will turn into overwhelming joy and gratitude to the One who makes a way at every step in your journey.

Best of Friends

Where one is, the other usually isn't far behind.  I love it that they have each other!

 

 

 

 

"Our Houses are Bigger than Most Foreign Orphanages"

From a recent interview with Greg Lucas about his new book Wrestling with an Angel:

Adoption is very difficult. It is a long and often heart wrenching process. Depending on what type of adoption is pursued (domestic, foreign, special needs, etc.) you could wait upwards of four years and spend up to $40,000 on the adoption process. You could also wait a few months and spend as little as $2,000.00.

I’ll put this as simple as I can. Some types of adoption are not for everyone, but everyone can and should be involved in the adoption process.

According to UNICEF, there are somewhere between 143 and 200 million orphans worldwide. By some liberal statistics (and perhaps sprinkled with some divine irony) that’s about the same amount of people who identify themselves as “Christians” in the US.

I have a firm conviction that every member of a Christ-centered, gospel believing church should be involved in the adoption process. If you have room in your family, fill it with a child in need of a family. If you have money in the bank, but cannot physically adopt, support a family who can.

As American Christians we are incredibly wealthy. Our houses (even the smallest of them) are bigger than most foreign orphanages. We have the resources, we have the room, we have the gospel…all that’s missing are 200 million orphans!

I also believe that the greatest influence of the gospel is within the immediate family—Dad pastoring his family and both parents living the gospel in front of their kids. If this is true, then one of the greatest ministries of the church and one of the most effective settings for evangelism and discipleship should be the ministry of adoption.

At our local church, my pastor is setting the example for this. He and his wife have three amazing children. They don’t “long for” more kids, neither do they feel that there is something missing in their lives in their early 30’s. They simply saw a need that broke their hearts, found some room, scraped up some money and now they are on a waiting list for a child in Ethiopia. Talk about Great Commission obedience!

With this in mind, take some time to walk through your enormous house and ask God what he would have you do with your part of the 200 million orphans worldwide, most of whom may never hear the gospel, much less have it lived out in a loving family of their own.

Adoptions from Ethiopia Rise

I'm sometimes asked why we chose Ethiopia to adopt from, and my answer is that God narrowed it down for us (isn't it nice when He makes the decision clear like that?).  When we started the adoption process, we were looking for a country that you could adopt two babies from in less than a year, a country that cost comparatively less, and a country that required comparatively less travel time (some countries ask you to travel twice for six weeks at a time).  Ethiopia was the only man left standing!

Based on this article, it looks like many other families are finding the same thing.   Check out these interesting quotes:

Just six years ago, at the peak of international adoption, there were 284 Ethiopian children among the 22,990 foreign kids adopted by Americans. For the 2010 fiscal year, the State Department projects there will be about 2,500 adoptions from Ethiopia out of fewer than 11,000 overall — and Ethiopia is on the verge of overtaking China as the top source country.

Randy Daniels, Buckner's vice president of international operations, said the [Ethiopian] children who do head to adoptive families in the United States generally seem to flourish.  "They're some of the warmest, most loving kids of any I've worked with in the world," he said. "It's amazing to how quickly they adjust to the families stateside, to the language, the culture."

That's been our experience!  Our kids, and really all the kids we've met that have been adopted from Ethiopia, are definitely warm and loving, and have adjusted remarkably well to their new families.  Two thumbs up for Ethiopian adoptions!!

Amazing Giveaway

Check out this amazing giveaway -- a spot on a mission trip to Ethiopia with Visiting Orphans in February! All you have to do is buy a t-shirt between now and October 28 to be entered in the drawing.  And they've got lots of great ones to choose from, such as:

Let me know if you win!!  

Is the Orphan My Neighbor?

Why justice for the fatherless is worth the risk
by Russell Moore

I will never forget seeing her pull the measuring tape out of her purse as she talked about the skull of her child.

The woman, standing in an airport in Russia with my wife and me, was, like us, an American. She, like us, was in the former Soviet Union to pursue adoption. But she was worried. She had heard “horror stories” about fetal alcohol syndrome and various other nightmares. She said that the measuring tape was for gauging the size of the craniums of her potential children, to “make sure there’s nothing wrong with them.”

The reason I think about this conversation so much these days is because I am finding—more and more often—that one of the primary obstacles for Christians in advocating for the fatherless can be summed up right there in that measuring tape: the issue of fear. As much as we might not want to admit it, many of us don’t think much about orphans because, frankly, we’re scared of them.

Orphans are unpredictable. Often we don’t know where they’ve come from, what kind of genetic maladies and urges lie dormant somewhere in those genes. Moreover, in virtually ever situation of fatherless, there is some kind of tragedy: a divorce, a suicide, a rape, a drug overdose, a disease, a drought, a civil war, and on and on. We’d rather not think about such things, and we’re afraid often of what kind of lasting mark they leave on their victims.

Those of us who know Christ ought to recognize that fear is often a deterrent to justice, a deterrent that has been indicted, crucified, and buried in the triumph of Jesus. In Jesus’ story of the so-called “good Samaritan,” after all, Jesus presents us with a man who “fell among robbers” and was beaten, nearly to death (Lk. 10:30). With little commentary on why, Jesus tells us, simply, that two passers-by, both religious officials, moved on to the other side, to avoid the wounded man (Lk. 10:31-32).

While many have speculated that there might have been theological reasons behind their neglect (the fear of becoming ceremonially unclean from touching a corpse), the most compelling reason I’ve ever heard was from Martin Luther King, Jr., who wondered whether the passers-by were simply afraid.

After all, there were no streetlights on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho—the setting of this story. There was no police force. A man beaten by terrorists is a good signal that the evildoers are still about, perhaps hiding in the caves along the roadside, lying in wait for their next victim. Moving on along, quickly and quietly, probably just seemed like prudence.

But Jesus never was one for justification by prudence alone. He praised a Samaritan—a reviled outcast from the official religious structures—for the compassion he demonstrated toward this man. And the compassion Jesus commended—and commanded from us in imitation—wasn’t mere charity. The Samaritan didn’t simply help the beaten man; he gave him his own animal, set him up in an inn, and paid for all his expenses for his ongoing care (Lk. 10:34-35). Any Israelite hearing this account would have seen immediately what was going on. The Samaritan was treating the beaten man like family.

Right now, there is a crisis of fatherlessness all around the world. Chances are, in your community, the foster care system is bulging with children, moving from home to home to home, with no rootedness or permanence in sight. Right now, as you read this, children are “aging out” of orphanages around the world. Many of them will spiral downward into the hopelessness of drug addiction, prostitution, or suicide. Children in the Third World are languishing in group-homes, because both parents have died from disease or have been slaughtered in war. The curse is afoot, and it leaves orphans in its wake.

Not every Christian is called to adopt or to foster children. And not every family is equipped to serve every possible scenario of special needs that come along with particular children. Orphan care isn’t easy. Families who care for the least of these must count the cost, and be willing to offer up whatever sacrifice is needed to carry through with their commitments to the children who enter into their lives.

But, while not all of us are called to adopt, the Christian Scriptures tell us that all of us are called to care “widows and orphans in their distress” (Jas. 1:27). All of us are to be conformed to the mission of our Father God, a mission that includes justice for the fatherless (Exod. 22:22; Deut. 10:18; Ps. 10:18; Prov. 23:10-11; Isa. 1:17; Jer. 7:6; Zech. 7:10). As we are conformed to the image of Christ, we share with him his welcoming of the oppressed, the abandoned, the marginalized; we recognize his face in the “least of these,” his little brother and sisters (Matt. 25:40).

The followers of Jesus should fill in the gap left by a contemporary Western consumer culture that extends even to the conception and adoption of children. Who better than those who have been welcomed by Christ to care for the most feared and least sought after of the world’s orphans? After all, who are we, as those who are the invited to Jesus’ wedding feast? We are “the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame” (Lk. 14:21). Since that is the case, Jesus tells us, we are to model the same kind of risk-taking, unconditional love (Lk. 14:12), the kind that casts out fear.

Yes, orphan care can be risky. Justice for the fatherless will sap far more from us than just the time it takes to advocate. These kids need to be reared, to be taught, to be hugged, to be heard. Children who have been traumatized often need more than we ever expect to give. It is easier to ignore those cries. But love of any kind is risky.

The Gospel means it’s worth it to love, even to the point of shedding your own blood. After all, that’s what made a family for ex-orphans like us.

Laundry Day

Our little helpers!

 

Isaiah's Story

Amazing testimony of a family in Houston who adopted a nearly dead, homeless newborn baby boy. Wait until you see the little guy now! What a picture of our new life in Christ!

Happy Fall!

I tried to get a picture of the kids with our friends' beautiful fall decorations, but they were so interested in the pumpkins and hay that I couldn't get them to look at the camera!

It's fun to see the world through their curious eyes. Praise be to our creative, powerful God who made it all!

Helping Those in Need

Some of you might know that I teach classes for Liberty University Online. Lately I've been grading discussion board posts about children that are malnourished, and it's really been moving.

Did you know that under-nutrition accounts for more than half of the deaths of children under the age of 5?  That's awful!   The class text book says the main causes of child mortality are pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria.  Malnutrition is an underlying factor in many of these deaths. 

As Christians, we are admonished by Scripture to reach out to the poor.  In Deuteronomy 15:11 we're told "For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.'" Many other Scriptures encourage meeting the needs of the poor as well.  Luke 3:11 says "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."  I John 3:17-18 really gets me -- "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."

I've been encouraged to find out that several of my students sponsor a child through Compassion International, a great organization.  One student talked about going door to door with a collection box for UNICEF at Halloween.  Another shared the website freerice.com, where 10 grams of rice are donated through the World Food Programme when you answer a trivia question correctly.

The Bible tells us that Christians have a responsibility to help those who are in need.  How much more do Christians in America bear that responsibility?  God have given to us in abundance, and not just so that we can hoard it for ourselves or find more things to buy that may materially enrich our own lives for a short time. 

But get this -- God not only tells us to help the poor, He tells us that we'll be blessed when we do.  Proverbs 19:17 says "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed."  Proverbs 22:9 says "Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor." 

So how about us?  What can we do to help?