Visit and Serve Again

We knew that adoption would change our daughter’s life; we did not realize how much it would change our lives. After adopting our youngest of our four children from China in 2010, we realized that adoption doesn’t end with red inked stamps on (a lot of) paperwork. It’s a journey that is just beginning when you receive your child. Mark and I were led to start The Sparrow Fund in 2011 to support families in that journey, providing (a) grants to families to receive preadoption counsel and support and medical reviews of their referral and (b) training and support as they move forward as a family.

While The Sparrow Fund is committed to encouraging and supporting adoptive families, we also care deeply for the children around the world who are waiting for families and the men and women who have been called to care for them everyday. That is why we are going to China, a country our family has come to love. That is why we’re partnering with America World Adoption Agency and I’m leading a team as we all leave our families and our jobs and all our comforts of home to go to an orphanage in Shaanxi Province and serve.

Is He nudging you to join us? Is He nudging you to go? Caring for orphans is not an act of service reserved for people who are the passionate types who want to change the world. God has called every one of us to care for orphans. If we believe His Word that they are close to His heart, than why would we who identify ourselves with Him and desire to be more like Him not also hold orphans close to our heart and act accordingly? We’re looking for a few very ordinary people who love Him and believe He can and will use us to do extraordinary things as we join Him in His work on the campus of an orphanage behind gates in a bustling city in central China.

Together, we’ll watch little moon-shaped eyes marvel at bubbles for the first time, feed bottles to babies struggling to overcome physical challenges to eat, build friendships started with charades because of language gaps, study little ones waiting so that we can advocate for them once home so that they may become beloved sons and daughters, and eat some pretty amazing food unlike any takeout Chinese you can get in the States. But, most importantly, we’ll experience God together and see Him more clearly as the God of the universe who can redeem all things.