Missions

And then he told them, "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone." Mark 16:15

What do you think of when you think missions or missionaries? Maybe people in other countries handing out Bibles and praying for the people of that country. Maybe a group of teens visiting another country and helping hold babies, build schools, or paint orphanages. Do you ever think of missionary or missions and think the adoptive family down the street with a little United Nations in their home?

During the wait I have had a lot of time to think. Lately I have been thinking about missions. It's pretty much the norm at churches to support missions. Some churches have a board full of pictures of places and people they support each month. Since not everyone can be a missionary churches and people feel the best way to help is to give their money and prayers to the missionaries. I think that is great! Really awesome. I know I can't go to Africa and show the gospel to them. But I would love to help someone who is there who can do that.

Then I started thinking.....adoption is a lot like missions and missionaries. How many times have you heard "Well I can't adopt because..." And sometimes it is followed up with a "but I would love to help you." That's so cool. Those people get it. I can't adopt 5 more kids who desperately need money for shoes, food, and school but I can sponsor them and their families in their countries. Missions.

What if the church thought about adoptive families as missionaries. Missionaries to the least of these. The hurt and the lost, the broken, the sick, the ones with special needs. Adoptive parents are taking missions to a whole other level. They are financing a child who needs a family and raising the ransom, going into the country and bringing home the child to care for them as their own. They take on their medical costs and needs, their food costs, their dental cost, their pain, their hurt, they take it on as their own and raise up a child who has heard about the love of Jesus and felt it through these families.

Every month there are new bills that come up and more issues they had not been aware of prior. Every day they are there through the good and the bad. They deal with the hurt these children have gone through. They hold them as they cry uncontrollably for the loss they suffered. They express their pain through acting out or hurting themselves and yet the family stays. The parents clean up the vomit and bile, they stay with them through every surgery, they pray over them as they sleep and hold them as they wake from nightmares. They never get a day off. 24/7 they are there in the trenches and front lines. It is often times a thankless job, but that one smile or one word the non verbal child spoke, or the first bite of food the child takes by mouth or the first steps they take even if they are 14 years old, that....that makes it all worth it and they can do it again the next day.

So what would it be like if churches thought of adoptive families as missionaries? People in the church who can not adopt would step up and say "I will pray for you daily." Others would offer financial support. Maybe a small token each month to say, "we can't imagine doing what you do but we appreciate you for doing it and for obeying the call God has set on your life, here is some money we hope it helps." Maybe offering babysitting services one night a week or a dinner one day.

I really believe if the body of Christ saw adoptive parents as missionaries then no one would have to fundraise 24 hrs a day for a year trying to raise the ransom for their child to come home. They could focus on therapies and on doctors appointments and attaching and caring for all the other children without the heaviness of trying to make sure all the money was there. We would have strong families who are being built up through the daily prayers of the church. After the airport we could have wonderful cooks from the church step up with ready made dinners to ease the burden of the jet lagged mama who just came home with number 8 and the over worked daddy who had to go back to work so he wouldn't lose pay. Yes. I believe that would be a world I would like to live in.

Adoption isn't for everyone, but it is a ministry commanded by God for some of us to take on. When we follow that call and it gets crazy and life gets hard and weird we shouldn't hear," you chose this now you deal with it!" We should see open arms coming to hug us saying, "how can I help you?"

Please consider helping an adopting family today. You don't have to give money sometimes all they need is an ear to listen to them.

Be blessed