Last week I posted a link to a report coming out of Ethiopia that the country would decrease the number of international adoptions by 90% in the coming weeks. Obviously I was heartbroken as were thousands of others when reading this. But that is nothing compared to the heartache that thousands of children who would be with their forever family will experience if this goes through.

There is much speculation that some of the push is to weed out child trafficking, but throwing out the baby with the bath water is not the answer. There are 5.5 million orphans in Ethiopia today, who need homes. Who need parents. We are praying that God would raise up families in Ethiopia who would adopt these children within their own culture and context. While we pray for a domestic adoption movement to sweep over Africa, these children need homes now…

As most of you know, my wife and I are adopting two brothers, Surafel and Esrael from Ethiopia. We have a current court date of April 13th. We do not know how this will effect that court date if at all. In so many ways, our heart can’t see beyond our own boys, but we are feeling the pain of all the families and the fatherless out there who will be effected by this.

We are asking you all to join us in prayer for the government of Ethiopia. I believe it is pretty much common sense that children were created to be in families, not orphanages. They need wisdom to not forget this. They need wisdom to not make a rash decision right now. They need help with administration and they need a better system to eradicate child trafficking. Please join us in prayer, and if you feel led, fasting.

This is another excerpt from the book Reclaiming Adoption in the chapter by Scotty Smith. It was too good not to share.

To have the hope of a final adoption is both a personal and cosmic reality. Not only in our hearts, but the whole creation is groaning for the day when adoption in part gives way to the fullness of adoption. We are pregnant with glory!

Because the whole pan-national family of God will be adopted (Just as God has promised), because Jesus is going to finish making all things new (Just as He has promised), we can and must give ourselves over to offering this world the first fruits of the new heaven and new earth. This is why Christians should be the front-line lovers and servants in the world of human trafficking, poverty, hunger, injustice, and indeed, in the world of orphans. Because Jesus has signed on for eliminating the very category and word “orphan” from the human vocabulary, let’s partner with Him, one adoption at a time. We cannot fail. We cannot and will not possibly fail. Our labors in the Lord are, and never will be in vain!

I’m getting ready to lead worship for The Idea Camp: Orphan conference this weekend and I will have the joy and privilege of getting to serve alongside Dan Cruver and Jason Kovacs. So to prepare, I went ahead and picked up their book “Reclaiming Adoption.” I’m only a chapter in and Dan’s section has pretty well blown me away with the rich content it holds. Here are just a few excerpts.

“Adoption was not a divine afterthought. It was in God’s triune mind and heart before the first tick of human history’s clock. Adoption therefore predates the universe itself. Only God and His triune love are bigger than adoption.”

“Paul identifies the glorification of our bodies as a final outward manifestation of our adoption…missional living is not directionless living. Missional Christians daily fix their eyes on the climax of God’s work for adoption – God’s renewed heavens and earth.”

“The Parable of the Prodigal Sons is truly about adoption. From God’s perspective, adoption is not essentially about orphans at all. it is essentially about estrangement. Adoption is about God taking into His home those who have rebelled against him. All humanity is naturally estranged from God… the ultimate purpose of human adoption by Christians, therefore, is not to give orphans parents, as important as that is. It is to place them in a Christian home that they might be positioned to receive the Gospel, so that within that family, the world might witness a representation of God taking in and genuinely loving the helpless, the hopeless and the despised.”

“To live missionally means to live each waking moment in light of the Gospel so that it increasingly affects every part of our lives for the glory of God’s grace in our fallen world.”

“Christians who doubt God’s love for them will not mobilize for mission…If we are not confident of His love, our eyes will turn inward, and our primary concerns will be our needs, our lack, our disappointment, rather than the needs of those around us…Or we will do the externals of missional living as an attempt to earn God’s acceptance or keep him and our fellow Christians off our backs. We will relate to Him as if we are wage earners rather than as His dearly beloved children, the ones in whom He delights. The logic of wage-earning does not flow out of the gospel of grace. The gospel is joyful news because it speaks to us of the Father’s love that has come to us freely in Jesus Christ.”

That’s just from the first chapter! I recommend you get this book. Grab it here.