Adoption Ministry - A Mandate

November is National Adoption Month.  I have so many blog posts rattling around in my head that I would love to get out in words this month about adoption, but for today the one that just has to get out is what I heard in a church orphan care leadership meeting yesterday.....

My pastor invited me to go with him to The Keep.  It is a new ministry that supports churches who are starting orphan care ministries.  They are doing it right!  As a foster mother, adoptive mother and adoption professional, I sat amazed as they walked us through the process. They have covered all the bases that many times get left behind. They kept saying you can't just preach the emotional sermon, you have to provide the reality based support to the families who answer the call!  YES! YES!!! YES!!!!!!

But one thing that stuck with me more than any other is that they kept saying over and over that orphan care is a mandate! James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  

They kept asking the pastors in the room, "Do you have a music ministry? Do you have a children's ministry? Do you have a youth ministry?" Of course the answer to all those questions was "yes". But then when asked "do you have an orphan ministry?" the majority did not.  The facilitators then boldly asked "why not?!" None of the other ministries are mandated, but orphan care is.  They made the point that we must change Church culture!

As I sat working today and reading a profile of a brother and sister both under 8 years old that their case worker e-mailed saying they have staffed (that means selected a forever family for the children) four times, but every time the family backs out after they read the profile.  I looked at their faces, and the tears just came.  The dam broke! 

We have 140,000 children in the USA who are legally free for adoption, but they remain fatherless, orphans! We have over 300,000 churches in the USA...do the math!  

I get it!  I do!  I read the files almost every day.  They are terrifying!  What am I going to do with the child who gets violent when they get upset? How would that child affect my other children already in the home?  Can I tell you how? It will completely mess them up! Our family has been wrecked by adoption!  I don't just read the files, I live them daily with my precious children. 

With one of our kiddos, it was the attorney, and with another it was the pediatrician.  The "professional" who tried to make us see the reality of what we were doing by continuing to go through with the adoption. "Do you know what this might mean for your family?" "Do you know what this might mean for your future?" "Do you understand adoption means you are taking them on as if they were your own?" My answer is always the same....YES!  I know what it could mean! Do you know what it means if I say "NO"?! This is a child without a mother! If I am not going to be his/her mother, then who will be?

There are 140,000 children in the USA looking in a mirror tonight as they brush their teeth asking, "Who will be my mother?"

Their files are messy!  Their actions are not desirable.  But as one of my amazing adoptive mothers I am working with put it, my file is messy too!  What if Jesus had read my file knowing how my actions would hurt Him, hurt and tarnish other sons and daughters of his, and so decided I wasn't worth it?

But He didn't!  He said I was worth it!  We looked at the "files" of our kids, and we said "you are worth it!"  And our children in our home now have a culture of adoption!  They ask us to adopt more children every time they hear of a child who needs a home!  What is a foreign concept to much of my generation, is a natural part of life to the generation coming after me!

They get the mandate.....but the epidemic is spreading in exponential growth....we can't wait for this generation coming to solve the problem! You...me...the Church of today, we have to get the mandate!

God help us if we do not hear the cries of His children!  There is something that everyone can do!  If you need resources, let me know!  Even if adoption is not what you feel called to, do something....anything!  If you call yourself a son or daughter of God, then it is your mandate!