"Our Houses are Bigger than Most Foreign Orphanages"

I totally stole this from a friends blog and think it is fabulous. This exert from an interview was one of the catalyst that lead us to make the final decision to adopt!

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.