Today I have had the time to clean house and listen to some sermons on adoption. I love to hear and get more knowledge about God's word and his heart for the fatherless. I want to yell it from the roof tops. THERE ARE 143 MILLION ORPHANS ON THE EARTH. That is half of the population in the US.
I listened to a series from a church in Tulsa that has started an adoption ministry. The preacher's name is Dr. Alex Himaya. He is the founding and Senior Pastor of The Church at BattleCreek, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Church at BattleCreek is one of the fastest growing churches in America. It has grown from 120 to over 2,000 in attendance in its first four years of existence. He spoke at our church last year and he is awesome. He is passionate about the orphans of this world and their church is stepping up and doing something about it. The last I heard about this church was that 40 couples had adopted 70 children! That is so cool and I think that our church could step up and do the same!
I just listened to a couple of his sermons about adoption and orphans. Click here to listen. I took notes between folding laundry.
Here are some of the things I wrote down:
If you lined up all of the orphans of the world shoulder to shoulder they would rap around the equator of the earth 3 times! Seriously, visualize that!
James 1:27 says "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."
Why did God have James write this?
1. Orphans cannot repay you.
2. To teach us about the love of God. (orphans are often slow to love you back)
3. God is for adoption!
Right now there are 115, 000 children ready to be adopted in the US.
Since Clay and I have started this process we have had so many families say- "we would like to adopt one day" or "I have always thought I would adopt."
1/3 of Christians consider adopting but only 2% actually do. LETS CHANGE THIS NUMBER! IF GOD IS PRICKING YOUR HEART-PRAY FOR GUIDANCE AND TAKE ACTION!
I am so excited to change a little boys life through adoption! I see it as a privilege to get to experience something that is so close to our Father's heart.
I love this video and it forever changed the way I will raise my children.
6 comments:
tears. lots of tears. This is something A and I really never talked much about until we moved here and had a lot of awesome people bring it more to our attention through sermons (like Alex's) and then through personal stories (like yours). I don't know what God has in store for our family but my eyes have been opened to the road of adoption like never before. Thank you for being a tool to let God do that.
Hey Tracy - I just ran across your blog. It was so great to see you at the Priscilla event, and hear of your exciting news. I'm excited to stay updated on your process.
Becky Habegger
I am tagging you, so check out my blog to see what for!
Hey, I saw you on my good friend Amy's blog and noticed that we have similar families. We have two daughters (3 1/2 and almost 2) and are adopting our 3rd child from Ethiopia. My husband is also a youth pastor so we work in youth too. :)
Just wanted to say hi!
tracy, love your blog. love the video; love your passion for orphans. so glad the homestudy went well! God is so much bigger than we can comprehend and this story of your adoption will be evidence to you and to us all of his faithfulness and intricate work in our lives. It is amazing and I am so excited for your family.
Great blog post title! Kirk and I are about to kick off our adoption advocacy ministry. We're calling it "We Have Room," because, really, when it comes down to it, that's why we knew we should adopt again. We have room.
:)
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