adoption

This weekend we had our Spirit of Adoption conference. Derek Loux and Marcus Meier were here talking about that very subject. It was an amazing time for those of us who were there.
I'll tell a quick un-detailed story. Derek has 3 adopted daughters from the Martial Islands. Him and his wife Renee adopted them about 7 years ago when they were all 3 10 years old. Two of them (twins) were sexually and physically abused by their father and the other one was beaten with a frying pan when she was a baby so her spine is completely crooked. In the time when they adopted, it took them totally off guard. they were at the time intercessory missionaries, had a broken car, not much money, a 2 bedroom home and 2 girls of the Lord side-swiped them and ended up adopting these amazing girls. They are now saved, love Jesus, are living a lifestyle of prayer and are probably the most joyful girls i have ever met. This year alone they are in the process of adopting 3 handicapped young boys and 1 girl that has also been abused who is 12 years old. All 4 of these children weren't expected in their minds. Derek gave his story and was encouraging us from James 1:27 "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit (help, tend to, etc.) the orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." If you look at the greek form of this verse the "and" is not present and there is no punctuation. So the verse actually reads this: "to help the orphans and widows in their trouble to keep oneself unspotted from the world."
I don't know about you but i want to be unspotted from the world. I want to be holy and blameless before the Lord and not given over to the world's ways.
From all that he was giving statistics that there are 237 MILLION orphans in the world and if we are coming close to the end times (which everyone is getting closer as each generation passes) then there will be a TON more orphans. In end times, it's for sure that the anti-Christ kingdom will not be quick to take care of the widow and orphan. (and by the way, back in the bible days a widow was defined as any woman who has been 1. divorced 2. their husband died 3. they were married at one point and no longer are) If there are going to be that many orphans and widows in the earth more than there are now, we should be prepared and start caring for them. He wasn't saying everyone is supposed to adopt a child (although I don't think that's a bad idea) He thinks if you're not specifically in a place where you're directly helping widows and orphans, then you're not going to be unspotted from the world.

After this weekend, Ben and I have and are doing a lot of praying. After hearing the stories of Derek's we set a goal. There is in our hearts the desire to adopt. It has always been there but we never have discussed it. We don't know how many or when. So we decided to set a goal that within 3 years from now we'd like to have adopted at least 1 orphan. We felt good about this because we would want our adopted children to grow up in the midst of having our biological children so we feel like a family. So we figured that'd give us enough time to have 1 more biological child then adopt 1 child and then have more of our own too.

then we got side swiped last night. I was challenged with the fact that I think my needs and my little perspective of how i need to wait til the right time to adopt (which i don't think you ever get to the "right time" to have a child) is actually very shallow and selfish. My needs are not higher than an orphan who is being abused, hurt, possesed etc.

we're not sure where this lands us. but pray for us.