Reflecting Over The Last Year

(From Jay)


For some time, we have talked about adoption. It was just loose talk, really. I must admit that Camille’s heart was attracted to it way before mine was. (God took His time with me…or I simply resisted.) Camille spoke it seems for years of adopting a little girl from China. It just seemed like one of those things you talk about, but that you know will never happen.

But then over the course of late 2009 and 2010, God began to place things in our path. After reading Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham, I was angry that we had not captured the vision for having a large family. Not because of the Duggars, or because of trends, but because, as Voddie put it, so that we could raise up a Godly army that could further the cause of Christ after we are gone. Like Voddie and his wife, we had taken matters into our own hands, and closed the door to having more children. We even explored reversing the damage
we had done, but it was too late.

It wasn’t much later, that we were introduced to Francis Chan, and we immediately were struck by his book Crazy Love. (If you haven’t read it, it is amazing!) This book challenged us to put our faith into action…and the action that kept coming up in our life was the rescue of orphans. We had developed a friendship with the Harmony House organization…which is a foster home in China for orphaned children with special needs that is run by an American family. Through this friendship, we had begun to ‘sponsor’ Lori, a one year old little girl that was hearing-impaired. As Camille searched their website (www.harmonyoutreach.org) to select a child to sponsor…God just led us to her. Lori is the name of one of our dearest friends…and Camille’s background in speech-language pathology caused her to hone in on her hearing issues. We began to send our $30 or $40 a month, and sat back and felt like we had done our part.

Then, in January of 2010, God used our pastor to prepare us for the final phase. William’s ‘Sanctity of Life’ Sunday sermon from January, 2010 was awesome! I still like to go back and listen to it. The link is:

http://www.tbcsikeston.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=453&Itemid=9

It was about being radically pro-life. We discussed several ways to do that…that we still stew over today…but one obvious way is to adopt. There are so many children without homes, and we are to take them in…or assist others in taking them in. What a great example of the gospel! Let’s take a stranger in…call them my son or daughter…and teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ! The sermon continued the work inside of us that God had started. I highly recommend you go back and listen to it!

I want to say that it was that following week that we received the email. It was an email from Harmony Outreach telling us about Lori’s situation, and asking us point-blank if we wanted her. Wow. What timing. How could we say no? With very little thought, we said yes. We knew it sounded crazy. We knew our family would think we were nuts! We didn’t have any earthly idea how we would pay for it. But sometimes, you just have to say yes…

Fast forward…

Almost a year to the day, we received our notice this week that it is finally time to go to China…our ‘travel approval’ as they call it. It’s exciting! Almost doesn’t seem real. But now we are starting to make arrangements for our trip. We will be going the last two weeks of February (and if there are any would-be crooks out there, know that our house will not be vacant during that time…). The trip will have us spending time in four different Chinese cities over the course of 14 days. And we hope to keep everyone updated on this blog while we are there.

So as you finish reading this post, I hope to challenge you in knowing that there are millions of children without homes. And it is the followers of Christ that should be stepping up to rescue these kids. You may have all the kids you planned to have, but be willing to let God’s plan rule in your life. If you can’t, help someone who can. I dream of our church each year raising enough funds to completely support an adoption each year…and stand up and say, “ok, we have the money…who’s next?”

Please pray for us as we prepare for our trip. We still need God to heal our ears, and to provide some more funds for travel. We also pray that God will prepare Lori’s heart for the transition, and that she would embrace us as her new family.