orphan sunday testimony.

Last Sunday was Orphan Sunday.  It's an annual event that any church can participate in and is just an initiative to raise awareness on what churches can do for the orphan.  So grateful that our church has participated in this the last two years.  This year, I was asked to share a simple testimony about our foster experience.  I sure hate getting up in front of people, but I was deeply humbled and honored to have an opportunity to share about something I am so passionate about.  I don't have a lot of wisdom on the subject, but I hope that my story encouraged people and will provoke others whom God is calling to get busy for the needs of orphans.

I thought I'd simply copy and paste what I read for our church here on the blog.  If you're looking for the quick version on how we got to where we are today, this is it!

Around this time last year, we felt like God gave us clear direction that it was time for us to become active in responding to the needs of the orphan.  God has grown is us a desire to do something for many years but we never knew exactly what or how to get started.  God started moving on Dru and my hearts individually but in the same ways, really uniting us in our desire to open our lives up to needy children, and we felt He showed us that the time to pursue this was right now.

At the time we felt the obvious thing to do was to adopt.  We really had no idea what kind of adoption we should pursue, or with what agency, or from what country.  Honestly, our heart strings were pulled when we looked at every type of adoption and we were overwhelmed at the breadth of need.

So we just started walking forward and praying. 

We requested packets of information from a couple agencies that we knew of -- knocking on doors and praying together often, begging God to lead us and close doors that were not for us to walk through.  And, wow, did he do it.  For a short time we had begun to pursue adopting from Haiti.  Everything seemed like it could be the right thing for us, yet as we continued to meet with our agency and file paperwork, Dru’s interest and faith in this was waning, and simultaneously, God made it impossible to attend 2 trips with our agency that would have brought us further along in the Haiti process.  Here we were, begging God for direction, and he very clearly closed these 2 opportunities.  Hmmm. 

All this time, as we looked into various adoption options our hearts were growing for the foster care system.  Something I NEVER thought I could handle!  Yet God started to give me faith and even a desire to get involved with children in foster care.  Still, because we were pursuing Haiti, I figured fostering would be something we’d do later in life…maybe when our own kids were grown.  But, then, God closed the Haiti opportunity and we were left with big, hopeful hearts for foster care.

There were not blaring factors that led us to fostering over caring for orphans in any other way.  It’s simply where God landed us.  It’s where he gave us excitement and faith.  It was where he led us, so it was where we wanted to be. 

So that is a bit on how we came to be foster parents.  Rob also asked me to share some of what God has done in our hearts through the experience of fostering.  Since late June, we have had 4 children come and stay in our home.  It has been a challenging season.  I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so weak, and so dependant on our great God.  The sacrifice of some personal freedom and the pressing and unique needs of the kiddos we’ve had, have kept me clinging to the daily mercy that He promises me.  This felt-weakness has induced a wonderful season of resting in the power and grace of God in a way that I didn’t have to with the “easy” lifestyle I had before.

Seeing God’s hand at work in the lives of the kids we’ve had has been faith-building.  We know that God’s heart is to intervene on behalf of the helpless.  Psalm 12:5 says, “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, “I will now arise,” says the Lord; “I will place him in the safety for which He longs.”  This has been a POWERFUL experience to witness.  As we have seen God pluck our kiddos out of dangerous situations, we marvel at the kindness of God to break into their suffering and bring them to a place, by his grace within us, of safety, rest, and hope.

Lastly, the area that God has moved us most deeply: through this season Dru and I have become so much more aware of the glorious work God did in adopting us.  The distance that he had to go to be with us far surpasses the distance that we reach to these children.  But as we struggle to do this we understand a little bit of what He did for us.  We were not attractive in and of ourselves that he should desire us.  We certainly were not seeking him.  Ephesians says we were dead in our sin when Christ died for us.  And, yet, he did it anyway.  It brought him pleasure and glory to love us.  As we comprehend this a little more due to the fostering experience, we have become filled up in worship to him.  As the gospel is ministering to our hearts we    “See what kind of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God…”!

He died for us.  He adopted us.  This love compels us.