I shared something on Facebook this week about how heartbreaking (and wrong!) it is to see so much negativity on social media regarding families who fundraise for their adoptions. It is so easy to have an opinion about something while never even taking one step in someone else’s shoes. I guess that’s just one of the many downsides of social media. It gives naysayers a platform to spew their judgmental, opinionated, nasty opinions so freely. Sad.
And while they carry on, there are families working their tails off to bring home children from hard places to a place of love and safety. After reading something so heinous and so hurtful (toward a fundraising family) this week, I was reminded about the second child I ever fundraised for here on my blog.
Five years ago, so many of us fell in love with a tiny, fragile little love in Eastern Europe who was clinging to life. At eleven years old and weighing just ten pounds, I honestly didn’t know if she was strong enough to survive the wait for her family, let along the grueling trip home. In every respect, a child imprisoned in a system of neglect and total abandonment. A precious family had stepped up, but needed help financially to pay for the astronomical adoption costs.
I just shared the need to a small group of people who read here.
The most incredible miracle happened over the next 48 hours.
You see, I believe that the body of Christ is just amazing! I believe that, no matter what anyone says and no matter the vicious judgment that gets shouted loud and clear over the darn internet….GOD’S PEOPLE ARE GOOD AND FAITHFUL!
I believe with all my heart that God’s people long to do something to help an orphan…even when they’re not called to go themselves.
Because within 48 hours, Amelia was coming home.
$23,000.00 was raised and her adoption was fully funded.
Fully loved by every single one of the 712 people who gave sacrificially to pay her RANSOM.
Seven hundred and twelve total strangers came together to say, “Yes! This IS my problem because I am called by God to care for the fatherless!”
Today, Amelia is home and blossoming.
She is loved, cherished, and gets all of the medical attention and therapies that she needs. I look at this sweet little now-fifteen-year-old and I get all teary. Had it not been for a group of people passionately coming together, she would not be alive.
Please try and convince me that fundraising for adoption isn’t from the heart of God?
When families step out in faith to adopt children, that’s a ministry that their family is called to. Adopting children with special needs is no walk in the park, no mission that a family takes on for the fun of it. No! It’s takes a lifetime of sacrificial love and commitment. It’s a laying down of their lives as they once knew it and embracing a life that God has CALLED them to. When one of these courageous families fundraises to bring their child home, I see it as an honor and a privilege to give what I can. Why? Because this IS caring for the fatherless. Because the seed that I sow literally changes the course of a child’s life–sometimes even between life and certain death. How can we possibly even try to put a value on that?
Coming alongside a fundraising family is we, the faithful body of Christ, linking arms with them to see them fulfill the mission that God has called them to. No different to sending missionaries to Third World nations. No different to giving to ministries that send relief where it is needed most in the world. No different to supporting a local ministry to care for the poor. Absolutely no different!
Fundraising matters, my friends! It matters so, so much.
No one will ever, ever convince me otherwise.
Praying for every family that is trusting God to provide the resources for them to get to their child. May you too see His faithful hand in your journey.
