Adoption is contagious!
I remember how we felt when we found a church body that was living out the gospel through adoption. We felt an instant kindredness because of what God had been doing in our hearts and sharing that with others matters. We thank God for uniting us with people to share our adoption experiences with and we pray for more to come!
God is doing something great! God's Spirit is moving hearts to do things we thought we'd never do and what makes that so special is that He gets all the glory for what He is doing through His people.
"For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen." Romans 11:36
We've found ourselves on this journey now with dear friends and family linking arms into the unknown together. Children are encouraging parents to take a childlike leap of faith and parents are teaching their children that caring for others with Christ's love is just what Christians do. We dream of raising our children together and rallying for the unadopted in their birth countries. We pray to spur one another on and encourage even more hearts to link up with ours.
"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken." Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
There's something to be said for traveling a windy path with comradery.
com·rad·ery (noun): The spirit of friendship and community in a group, like the comradery of soldiers at war who keep each other upbeat despite the difficulty of their circumstances.
(example): the special comradery that exists between soldiers that have experienced the crucible of combat together
There's something to be said for normalizing adoption and orphan care as it should be....a GIVEN. God's Word commands us to defend those who can't defend themselves. God says He is a father to the fatherless, but He accomplishes this through His body...me and you. Jesus said:
"Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40
"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds." Hebrews 10:24
May we spur one another on as we seek God's will for our lives on earth. May we realize that He is in control and we are not. May we link arms, rise up, and realize that God is looking for people to be His hands and feet. May we find joy and comradery in the body of Christ as we obediently do what the Bible says to do, even when it comes with a cost. And, by God's grace and for His glory, may orphan care and adoption become more and more contagious!
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute." Proverbs 31:8
"Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed." Psalm 82:3
"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing...Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."
James 1:22-25, 27
"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them." Matthew 7:12
One man wakes, awakens another
Second one wakes his next door brother
Three awake can rouse a town
And turn the whole place upside down
Many awake will cause such a fuss
It finally wakes up the rest of us
One man wakes with dawn in his eyes
Surely then it multiplies
Surely then it multiplies
"Therefore encourage one another and build one another up." 1 Thessalonians 5:11
