A few months back if you remember I posted a link to the Christian Alliance Orphan Summit. Well, Josh and I attended the conference earlier last month . WOW! The two days were great! I expected the conference to be every bit as inspiring as last year's and it was. People gathered from all over. Everyone there had at least two things in common. They love Jesus and want to know how to better care for the fatherless.
I wanted to share a few highlights of the jammed-packed two days. There were way too many to write all in one post. Hopefully, I will be able to share more later.
On the first day, we listened to Russell Moore speak. He is the author of the book Adopted for Life. I have not read the book yet. Josh has and says it is a must. After hearing Russell speak, I now have it on my ever growing reading list.
He discussed the things that are really holding us, as believers, from adopting: fear, cost, and unpredictability. He stated that we have an impoverished sense of freedom and fear of not being in control.
How true is that??? How many times do we claim how big and powerful are God is and yet we hesitate to get out of the boat when He commands us to.
We also sat in on a forum over our lunch. The topic was International Adoptions 2011: Challenges, Changes, and Difficult Questions. There were three speakers from the CCAI, NCA, and JCICS. One of the things that stuck out to me most was a comment made about doors closing on international adoptions. It was stated that International adoption is one of the only causes that when a minority of injustice occurs, it causes someone to propose for it to be shut down. They went on to say the same things happen in disaster relief, foster care, and etc. However you don't hear of anyone proposing to shut those programs down. Again..how true!
I believe the truth is there are injustices in all kinds of social services. We must fight to resolve the injustices and to improve the services, not to just wash our hands of them. The "systems" will only get better and the children get taken care of, if we are willing to go the distance. In other words if we are willingly to make sure we have jumped through every hoop necessary and have made sure we are responsible for investigating the agencies we use and help fund.
Well, I think that is enough for tonight. I am getting all charged up again just writing about it! Like I said hope to share more later. Praying what new info we have does lay dormant with us. Praying that action follows and we seek the direction of the Lord and continue to leap without hesitation.
~ANDREA
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