Who can put a price on...

(Guest Post by Steve)

300 to Change a Life is our Campaign to raise the funds to bring our second Child into our Family (through adoption).

Sarah and I have been praying and thinking about adoption for a long time, and we feel that adoption has been on our heart for years. Recently, God has moved us forward and we have been accepted by an adoption agency called Small World Adoption. Caleb is excited to have "a baby brother or sister" and Sarah and I are incredibly excited  to think that we are going to add to our family soon.

Our adoption journey began as we attended Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We were led to consider adoption by the incredible atmosphere Bethlehem has. It is a church full of parents who have adopted and who value adoption. Everywhere you looked there were families who had been brought together by adoption. We were surrounded by it. And we loved it. I was most moved by a young couple who believed  so much that God had purposed that His church would lead the charge in caring for the fatherless, that they did not begin their family by having kids biologically and instead sought adoption as a means of beginning their family.

Adoption became more and more important to us as we met couples who had adopted. We saw the joy of parents who had recently brought their child(ren) home, and we also heard stories of pain as parents talked about adopted children who had caused trouble in their family. We read stories of God's redeeming love through adoption and we read stories of heartache as children were taken away after a year with their  family because their birth parents wanted them back. Through all of this, adoption permanently linked itself to our hearts.

We thought about the idea of adopting initially but then within the first few years of our marriage we saw incredible change: Just a year and a half after we married, God saw fit to give us our first child, Caleb, biologically. When Caleb turned just 9 months old, God also saw fit to move our family to South Korea and begin a new life as missionaries living in a foreign country. This put some of "Our Plan" to adopt on hold. But once we landed in South Korea we found ourselves surrounded by adoption again.  Our Pastor and his wife were adopting, families in another church near us were adopting and a Hope for Orphans conference came to Seoul and we were able to attend and the idea of adoption felt like it was continually being brought before us by one means or another.  And now that we are pursuing adoption, we are finding many young families in our Church are also coming forward with the same desire and a heart for adoption.  Praise God!

So here we are facing adoption: A daunting journey that comes with immeasurable rewards. Who can put a price on receiving a child into your family? Who can put a price on giving a family to a child who doesn't have one? Who can put a price on giving your son a brother or a sister? Who can put a price on giving hope to the hopeless? And who can put a price on teaching a child about the saving Gospel that is pictured in the way they entered their family? Who can put a price on such immeasurably joyful things?

The adoption process does. 

And we don't have enough.

If we can find just 300 people to donate $100, then we will have enough. 

Will you be one of the 300 who can donate to help us bring this new child into our home?