A Heart for Adoption

Episode notes:

This program was created from the following episode:

"A Massive Gospel Opportunity."

Dannah Gresh: Imagine growing up without the love and support of a family to guide you through life. That’s the stark reality for half a million children in the foster care system in our nation and over eight million kids worldwide. Kids who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves alone.

Today on Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I hope to open your heart and your life to be a part of this problem—or the solution really– as we explore the beauty of adoption. 

I think adoption is the hope for those family-less kids and erhaps just as importantly, it’s an object lesson for us to understand God’s love. 

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh.

Oh, how He loves us! Let me say it differently, oh how God loves you! And as we explore the way he “sets the lonely in families.” I hope you begin to sense that in a new way. 

To set the stage, let’s head to China. The year is 2006.

A beautiful thirteen-year-old girl named Zhang Cho Yun was waiting—waiting to be loved. You see, when she was born, her mother left her on the steps of an orphanage. Abandoned. But soon a young Chinese couple took her home as their own. Unfortunately, hard times fell on the family and Zang Cho Yun’s second mother couldn't take it and decided to leave.

Abandoned . . . again. Then, her father died. Abandoned . . . a third time, iff you’ve been keeping track.

With no one to care for her she began her life in foster care. When she was thirteen she approached a small group of people walking in the streets. They didn’t look like they were from China and she boldly told them, through a translator, that she needed a family. You see in China at age fourteen, she'd age out of the foster care system in China and  be placed on the streets. She was desperate. 

This small group of people she approached? They were from America and "just" happened to be in her village learning about international adoption. As the group flew back to the United States with visions of this beautiful girl in their heads, they were on a mission to find her a family.

One was soon identified, but there was one great big obstacle standing in the way—$25,000. That’s about what an international adoption cost at the time. Well, a private donor quickly offered to provide $12,000, but the remaining $13,000 was a big obstacle.

The family began to pray. It was now January of 2007 and the clock was ticking. They needed the money very soon, remember, Zhang Cho needed a family before she turned fourteen. The family has no idea where the money would come from, but they knew that God had called them to adopt Zhang Cho Yun. 

That very week as they prayed, they got a phone call. It was from their accountant. He said, “The IRS owes you money. In fact, they owe you $13,060.” Only God! That was exactly what they needed to adopt their new daughter. Only God could use the IRS as a savings account!

There were lots of other miracles along the way. But in August of 2007, Zhang Cho Yun met her forever family. Even though everyone else failed her, God did not. He never does.

How do I know that story? It’s the true account of how God brought me my second daughter Autumn Cho Yun Gresh. God really does, as Psalm 68:6 promises “set the lonely in families.” Why? He loves us. In fact, let me read Psalm 68:6  from the Christian Standard Bible. "God provides homes for those who are deserted." Isn’t that beautiful? Oh, the love of God.

It’s that incredible love and provision that we’re going to explore as we see how He’s used the Church to solve the problem of loneliness through adoption.

I know a couple through Life Action Ministries that truly lives by faith, Dan and Melissa Jarvis. Dan’s a pastor in southwest Michigan and gives leadership at Life Action, our sister ministry here at Revive Our Hearts. The Jarvises have ten children, you think that’s crazy? Listen to their ages: 15, 15, 14, 14 13, 12, 5 and three that are 3. 

The Jarvises have a saying in their home: "love one more." Dan sat down with my producer, Michelle Hill, to explain.

Dan Jarvis: It started off by saying, “We need to make room for one more,” and then I realized sometimes it’s not even about the physical space (have an extra bedroom or something), sometimes it’s actually space in your heart. That’s love one more.

We often will say that there are three Bible verses, if you want the math of “love one more,” that if you add them together they equal this challenge. One is James 1:27, to care for widows and orphans in their distress. You’re looking for the people most in need, the people who could never pay you back. Then you have the second greatest commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. You say, “Alright, however I’m choosing to love myself or my family, could I extend that kind of love on someone else who’s not related to me?”

Then the third part of the equation is Matthew 6:33. If you seek God’s kingdom first, above everything else, He will provide for your needs. Just when you would say, “I don’t think I have the resources,” whether they’re money or in my heart, energy, “to love the next person,” say, “Well, if I’m prioritizing God’s priorities, He will provide for my needs. I can trust Him, if I keep seeking His Kingdom, the resources will be there.” 

So, love my neighbor as myself, plus care for widows and orphans especially, plus trust God to provide for the needs equals, “love one more.” There’s always another one that God would have us love.

Michelle: That is beautiful.

So, love one more, and you’re inspiring your congregation as a pastor to love one more, and it became basically the Jarvis theme.

Dan: Right.

Michelle: What have you seen? How has God used that phrase, “love one more,” sort of as a ripple effect into the community?

Dan: Yes. Okay, I’ll start personally with that. One is, for us, “love one more” doesn’t just mean adoption and foster care; it also means looking at people differently. You look around you and you realize there are people who are sad, depressed, lonely, needy. There are people who need love everywhere. You’re looking at people saying, if literally, “Love my neighbor as myself,” or I think one way to look at it is, “Love my neighbor as if they were in my own family.” When I see that person who’s lonely or sad, now I’m looking at them going, “If that was my brother or if that was my mom or if that was my child, what would I do? I would help. I would reach out.” So, “love one more” has become a motto that actually overlays all of our relationships and outreach.

Our kids recognize that we’re doing this, because they are “one mores,” but they also now are called to live it with us. Sometimes we’ll be having someone over for dinner or we’ll be doing something for someone, and one of my kids, in kind of a whiny voice, will be like, “Is this another ‘one more’?” Yes, you got the idea! That’s what this is. We’re trying to live out the love of Jesus to one more person.

For our community, it’s been neat. In our church it’s become sort of a rally statement, mission statement. Actually, at Life Action Camp we had a whole year of that being the theme, and we’ll probably cycle around to do that theme again. That’s where we saw the most fruit. At camp it’s like a whole week where people come and they immerse in whatever we’re teaching. So, for a whole week we were walking through the “love one more” principles, and now, a few years later, the most amazing thing is when we’ll meet people at camp and there will be another kid there, and they’re like, “This is one more.” Wow, that’s the tangible result of that year where that was the theme. Families went home and decided to actually adopt or foster or add to their family tree somehow, and that is an amazing thing.

I think there have been many ripple effect results, and it’s not even because Melissa or I had anything particularly special to say or do. It’s actually because the power of that phrase and the Scripture behind it—once you capture it, it does change your view of the world. Then you realize, “Why not? If I have a household, why not use it as a platform to love one more? If I have a car, why not use it to love one more and have someone in it?” Everything you have becomes an opportunity.

Michelle: That is such a neat way to look at things.

Dan, how are you bringing in “love one more” inside your family? How are you teaching your kids to go and love one more?

Dan: Sure. We want them to capture a heart of generosity and hospitality, so those are two key words. Even for the little ones, they don’t know those words yet, but we’re helping them practice that.

We try to find ways that they can be involved specifically in loving other people and thinking beyond themself. So there’s a whole range of things that we’ve done.

One thing we do is that each Christmas we select a family, or sometimes two families, that we’re going to bless sort of extremely. All the kids will kind of help us; we’ll pick out gifts, we’ll wrap gifts, and we’ll just sort of show up and deliver a whole Christmas to somebody who doesn’t expect it. Part of that is it’s really neat to see the impact on the family we’re giving to, but it’s also neat to see the ownership that the kids take in that process.

We’ve done that with Operation Christmas Child and what Samaritan Purse does to deliver the shoeboxes around the world. We’re always looking for opportunities, not just to be generous and hospitable ourselves as a couple, but how can we include our kids in the story of that? So we’ll have people stay at our house that are in need. Just last year we had a couple stay with us for about four months that needed a place to land. When we sat down and talked to the kids about it, it was, “Hey, this is our opportunity to love one more,” or two more in that case, “so we’re going to need your help.” A couple of them had to give up some bedrooms, and we shifted everything around. We really want this to not just be our motto, Melissa and I; we want this to be our family motto, and hopefully that carries on into their future families as well.

Dannah: I love that . . . Love One More. Dan Jarvis has been giving us insight into loving beyond ourselves. For the orphan, but also for our churches, communities, neighborhoods. Love One More. I think that is a good phrase to think about today. As Dan said look for the people most in need, the people who could never pay you back. And then, watch what God can do. You’ll be amazed.

Christie Erwin is the executive director of Project Zero. Project Zero is a coalition of many different organizations and ministries. Their goal is bold: to empty out the foster care system in Arkansas. That is, to make it so their are zero children in the foster care system who are waiting for adoption. They want all of them to find forever families.

Christie was at an event for Project Zero a several years ago when God put Will in her life. Here’s Christie Erwin telling Will’s story to Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Christie Erwin: Last year we had a big event for Project Zero at Capital Hotel with the teenagers. It was called “Dream Big.” We’ve done it two years. And it’s just to help them experience this fun, getting waited, on and all that kind of stuff. And we have an inspirational speaker.

One of the boys had been waiting for a family since 2009. I’d sort of known him. I’d moved his Heart Gallery picture a million times. We were sitting at the same table together, and we were debating the fact that I really did have six children.

He said, “You don’t have six.”

I said, “Yes, I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

So I said, “Do you want to see my family?”

And he said, “Yes.”

So I got up from my seat, and I went around in-between these two teenage boys, who at that time were living at the facility in another part of the state, and I pulled up my phone, and I showed a picture of my family.

He looked right up at me in my eyes, and he said, “Do you want to make it seven?”

Nancy: Wow!

Christie: I got back to my seat, and I thought—something just changed, and I’m getting ready to advocate for William. I’m telling you, this is not going to die. I started this all-out avocation for him. We talked about him on social media. We told stories about him. I went down to visit him, and we just began to talk about him. And the most incredible thing happened.

He was seventeen-and-one-half, so he was going to be eighteen. (He just turned eighteen.) William’s home. He has a family. He has a family because of one “yes,” because of one family that said, “I’m willing to step out in something that’s uncomfortable—a seventeen-and-a half-year-old who’s been waiting since 2009 for a family—and I’m going to say ‘yes.’”

And because of their “yes,” this godly family who loves him so well—his life is forever changed. He’s to play football. Instead of a cinder-block wall, he’s in a home with a family. God did that, but somebody had to be obedient. William is home now, and he is a delight. His whole countenanced has changed.

I saw him a couple of weeks ago. We hosted a birthday party for him. He loves basketball at the university here. He saw me, and he said, “Miss Christie, I want to volunteer at Project Zero now.”

Nancy: Wow.

Christie: He showed up at our last event—and we have events connecting waiting kids and waiting families all the time. We have little wristbands that they wear. It’s difficult, but we have to do it. So if you’re available for adoption, you’re in a green wristband. And if you’re in a sibling group, you’re in a turquoise. But if you’re not available, and you just happen to be there for some other reason, you’re in a red one.

So all these years he’s had a green one. He and I had our picture taken together in August at this event, and I posted on social media, and there in all of its glory was William’s red wristband.

Nancy: Wow.

Christie: People that had been following his story just commented on how beautiful that little paper wristband was because of what it said.

Nancy: Yes.

Christie: And what it said is, “This kid is valuable. This kid is loved. This kid is worth fighting for. And this kid is home.”

And that’s what we need to happen with every single waiting child, but we can’t do it without the Body of Christ. We cannot do it without people who think they can’t do it, saying “yes.” It’s going to take all of us. It can’t just be a remnant. It’s going to take a family to make zero a reality. And God is in it. All we have to do is just say “yes” and be obedient to what He’s called us to do.

Nancy: You began praying that your church, which is a vibrant church here in the Little Rock area—your pastor and his wife are good friends of mine and ours.

Christie: Yes!

Nancy: How did you pray that the church would get involved?

Christie: Well, our church, our pastors have always been so open to hear what I have to say and to hear the need of the orphan. I just began to pray—on my own, not really publicly or mentioning it—that our church . . .We’re a great-sized church, but we’re not the biggest church in Little Rock, but I began to pray that we would adopt 10% of the waiting kids—which meant fifty—that we, our one church would adopt fifty waiting kids.

Now, to put that into perspective, one of the statistics we give is that if one family in every church in our city would adopt a child, one child, then all of the kids in our state would be taken care of.

So, to ask for a church to adopt fifty. . .

Nancy: hat’s huge.

Christie: That’s just really big. But I prayed that. I didn’t pray it consistently like I should have, but I prayed it. I told our pastors that’s what I was praying and just kind of left it there. It’s been a couple of years ago, or maybe longer than that.

I got an email maybe two months ago, maybe not even that long, from the person that heads up our orphan ministry at our church. She said, “I just wanted to tell you we’re about to hit fifty.”

Nancy: Wow!

Christie: She said, “Next week, number fifty is going to be finalized.”

Now, that is just kids from the foster care system. We have other adoptions that have happened, which are important too, that are domestic and international.

Nancy: Yes.

Christie: But my specific prayer was based on my specific calling, which was kids in foster care who needed us.

Nancy: How did the church get the burden for this? How did you increase awareness and get this into the hearts of the people?

Christie: It’s just part of the DNA of our church. I think people began to see kids of different colors, kids that didn’t belong to you one week and the next week they’re with you. There was support both from the administration, the staff, the Body, and the Lord honored that. So I just basically said, “Well, okay, our prayers are too small now. Let’s go for 100. We need to up our prayers.”

Nancy: Tell us a couple stories of some families in your church that have made room for one more.

Christie: Oh my goodness. There are so many of them.

It was really interesting, I got a call one day from a young woman, a mother of three, and she said, “I have to see you this week.”

I said, “Okay.” She was not a great friend, but a good friend. She said, “I have to see you this week.”

I said, “Okay.”

She said, “I could not leave the church building until I called you.”

I said, “Okay, I can see you tomorrow.”

So we went to coffee, and she said, “I was sitting in church, and the Lord just said—it’s been rolling around in my brain, but the Lord said—‘This is what you guys need to do: You need to foster.’”

So I told her how to get going, get started. What was really interesting to me was my own personal rebuke because I’d never been so shocked in my life. She wouldn’t have been who I would have expected to answer that call. They immediately went through the process. They have already adopted two children, and they fostered countless—I don’t know how many.

So it’s like this multiplication happens. People begin to see, and they begin to think, Hey, maybe we could do this. Maybe we should do that. Maybe we should look into that. And just by example and by . . . I can’t stress the importance of a pastor embracing it and understanding it and realizing the urgent need.

Nancy: Yes.

Christie: That’s the thing. We can’t keep putting it off. There are kids who are relying on us today that need a family, that are waiting on you and me and those of us who are in the listening audience to say “yes” today.

Nancy: I want to read a passage of Scripture that has been on my mind as we’ve been talking, and then I’m going to ask Christie if you would close our time in prayer. This is such a powerful thing, not only for these children, but for our witness in the world of what the gospel looks like, a God who welcomes people into His family.

Christie: Amen. Yes.

Nancy: We were all estranged—strangers, aliens, foreigners, orphans—spiritually, and God said, “I want you in My forever family.”

Christie: That’s right.

Nancy: So when we take in these children, infants, teenagers, we’re reflecting the heart of our Father God. God feels strongly about this, and He addresses it, and other similar kinds of issues, in Isaiah, chapter 58.

God’s people were going through religious motions. They were going through their religious festivals and feast days and fast days. And they said, “God, it doesn’t seem like You’re listening. It doesn’t seem like You’re doing anything. All the stuff we’re doing, does it really matter?”

And God said, “Is not this the fast that I choose?” (Not the way you’re doing it, which is just going through the motions.) But He said,

The fast I choose [is]” to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed to free, and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless and poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water (vv. 6–11).

Christie: Amen.

Dannah: That’s Christie Erwin talking with Nancy about the amazing things God is doing for foster kids in Arkansas. Christie and her husband have adopted two children and fostered over fifty. 

What a heart Christie has. She’s helping countless children find their forever homes. What a gift. If you want to listen to more of Nancy’s conversation with Christie, go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode "A Heart for Adoption." There you’ll see Christie and Nancy’s conversation "Opening Your Home to a Child."

One thing that many people face in adoption is fear . . . I had quite a few. First of all, how were we going to pay for it? That’s a common one and I’ll just tell you—God is our provider! He will provide. But I also feared how to parent a teenager who had been rejected over and over. Did I have the skills for that? I was afraid. Afraid I’d hurt her, or my other kids. Learning something I’d never done before. (PS: Autumn turned out really great! She’s about to give me my third grandbaby in just a few weeks!) The fears were unfounded.

Satan knows how to use fears to wreak havoc in our lives. Revive Our Hearts wants to help you face your fears and experience the freedom of fully surrendering your life to Christ. This month when you give to Revive Our Hearts, you will receive the booklet Facing Our Fears: Finding Him Faithful. Request it when you give a gift of any amount. Give online at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click the pink donate button at the top of the page, or you can call 1-800-569-5959. 

Next week, let’s spend our time looking at fears. Did you know that fear impacts our physical health, impairs our memory, interrupts brain processing and activity? It’s a lot. And then there’s the effect it has on our spiritual health—our walk with God. We’ll talk more about it next week. Please join me. 

Thanks for listening today. Thanks to our team: Phil Krause, Blake Bratton, Rebekah Krause, Justin Converse, Michelle Hill, and for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh.

Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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