"Sympathy is no substitute for action." -- David Livingstone, missionary to Africa

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” James 1:27

We have had a lot of responses as we started down this path of adoption - good, bad and shocked. Here are a few of the things that we have heard.

*Wow - that is so neat, I have always wanted to adopt

*What a blessing!

*Are you collecting children? Don't you know there are less expensive hobbies? Ha Ha

*Why don't you adopt children from here?

*How are you going to do it?

*I guess you will need a bigger house.

*Couldn't you just sponsor a child or two?

*Why adopt when you can have your own kids?

We aren't offended by any of the comments we are just glad to take any opportunity to share what God has laid on our heart. I also know there are some of you out there that secretly have wondered some of these things so I would love to answer some of these questions/comments.

Yes - it is neat and it is a blessing from the Lord - we are not neat - It is our Lord that is great and it is because we love Him that we follow Him and obey where He is leading us.

No we are not collecting children or trying to get a certain # of kids (although whenever someone asks my husband how many children we want he always says, "Oh- just 1 or 2 dozen" :)). We know from God's word and our own experience that children are blessings. It is one of the only things that is consistently referred to as a blessing/gift in the Bible. Even $ and earthly things that people will often refer to as blessings have sober warnings, yet the average American, and might I say even many American Christians, are quick to welcome all "blessings" of pay raises, better jobs, bigger houses, vacations, more comforts and things - but when it comes to blessings of children - well, the response is "no thanks - I can't handle anymore" or "we are too old" We too felt the same way - we only wanted 3. We had all of our reasons that seemed pretty good, but we were convicted early on that we did not have God's heart for children. We had a greater heart for our dreams of vacations, a calm life and financial gain. Through prayer, fasting, discipleship and studies we decided to question all of our decisions and see if we were making decisions that were influenced by our culture and selfish desires or if our decisions were truly lead by scripture and God's heart. This change impacted Javier's job choice, our time with our children, the way we train up our children, our dreams, our desire to go to unreached people groups to share God's plan of salvation and our desire to adopt.

We want to go to the neediest of people, those who are truly orphaned and have no family that is able to take care of them. In many African countries the middle age group is dying of aids, disease, war, starvation and childbirth. Those adults that are left are already caring for many children. Did you know that the poorest in the United States are still in the top 11% of the richest people in the world! We are rich with resources and to whom much is given much will be required. Yes - we have supported children in the past - we even got to visit 2 of them. I truly believe that it is a great work, but somehow it didn't seem like enough. It surely did not seem pure and faultless like James 1:27 said, we knew that there was more that we could and should do.

It won't be easy and we are not getting a bigger house - we are just being creative with the space we have (more on that later). We don't know how we will do it, but the Lord has always provided faithfully for our family. Sometimes it is financially through Javier's work or gifts from friends and neighbors, sometimes it is through friends and family who have helped with the children or clean our house, sometimes it is through mentoring relationships that help us draw our strength from the Lord. Our kids are also growing up and we are already preparing them by giving them much greater responsibilities with the house work and the little ones. All we know is that His plans are far greater than ours!

"God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply" -- Hudson Taylor