After a grueling week, Phil and I returned from a friend’s funeral, threw our bags together and got a little sleep before leaving the house at 4:30 am. We flew to Denver, drove to Colorado Springs, and pulled into the campus of Focus on the Family, which was hosting the Summit for Adoption and Orphan Care, just in time for lunch.

We found the room by following children’s voices. We entered in the middle of a performance by a small choir of multi-aged, multi-ethnic, international children, most from traumatic backgrounds. They were dancing and singing robustly about trading in their sorrow, shame, sickness and pain for the joy of the Lord. They were beautiful. They were radiant. You could see the redemption of Jesus in their faces and hear it in their voices. These boys and girls, singing this song, have become a symbol of the summit to me.

This was the third adoption and orphan advocacy summit, initiated by FamilyLife’s Hope for Orphans, partnering with Focus on the Family and Shaohannah’s Hope. They are building a fellowship of churches, agencies and individuals who are committed to working together to glorify Jesus Christ by caring for the fatherless.

It was a privilege to share three days with 300 people who are spending their lives for the sake of vulnerable children. We heard emotional stories and saw gripping pictures and videos: children before and after being treated for malnutrition, a dad near death from AIDS and then several months later, having received medication, back with his family, holding his smiling child. Story after story of vulnerable children and those who are moving in to love them. Voices broke and tears fell as people told of their children or others they have cared for – the pain of loss and overwhelming need, and the joy of seeing Jesus start to bring healing. We shared stories and meals with men and women who have seen real redemption, who have tasted grief and also rejoiced in having a part to play as God reverses it. The bittersweet joy that we have known through adoption resonated all over the room and spilled out into the halls and hotel breakfast tables. The shared experience of caring for vulnerable children permeated everything, so that when we worshiped God together, it was multi-layered, memory-laden, and rich. Rick Warren spoke at the Summit. Steven Curtis Chapman came to lead us in worship. Dennis Rainey, president of FamilyLife, and Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, both spoke. All gave excellent talks, and it was encouraging to see how these high-profile Christian leaders are using their influence to speak up for the world’s vulnerable children.

But I was probably most inspired not by the big names, but by the ‘little guys.’ Men who have left stable careers and spent their savings to start African orphanages. Families giving up countless evenings and weekends to church-based adoption ministries, or spending all their resources to travel to visit orphans in Haiti and come back and advocate for the children they have met. Women persevering for years in the hard work of orphan aid and adoption agencies (with low pay and high stress), trying to care for their own families while also bearing the emotional tumult of this kind of work. Dads and moms who have adopted many children, special needs children, older children, children that others are afraid to take in. We shared meals with these men and women and heard their stories. They are ordinary people. And they are my heroes.

After we returned, our pastor, Chuck Jacob, preached from Luke 9: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” Pastor Chuck suggested that, deep down, we all really want to lose our lives for something bigger than our comfort-oriented, self-centered agendas. He played a clip from the movie Henry V (Shakespeare’s play, Kenneth Branaugh’s version). Henry’s men are facing the French army. They are outnumbered five to one, exhausted, and ready to quit. Henry’s stirring speech rouses them to engage in the battle wholeheartedly, honored to be the “few and happy” who are privileged to have a part in a dangerous but noble cause. He rouses his men by telling them that the scars they earn in this battle will be badges of honor for the rest of their lives, scars that they will share with him, the king.

Jesus invites us to be like this handful of weak soldiers, following Him into a battle that looks impossible, in which we are almost certainly going to be hurt. This is what we were made for. We long to throw ourselves into something bigger than ourselves, even if it means scars and death.

People I met in Colorado: you are living as “the few and happy,” courageously facing down the ravages of sin and brokenness. Many others of you who read this article are of those ranks, too. You may be a public leader, a director of an adoption agency or leader of a large orphans ministry. You go in to rescue children from the dominion of darkness and bring them, at personal cost and risk, into the kingdom of light. Or you may be waging more private battles – to persevere in loving a child with difficult behavior that comes from early trauma, to continue in the hard work of partnering with the foster care system, to make financial sacrifices that nobody but God sees for the sake of impoverished children.

Here are some links for you, my heroes, you who are losing your lives with and for the King – losing your lives as you care for children at home, pray with hurting families at church, sit in foster care meetings, or work in orphanages overseas – these are for you who are willing to take the scars in battles in which the odds sometimes seem overwhelmingly against you. May God strengthen you to keep going forward! Others will follow where they see you lead.

Chuck Jacob’s sermon from Luke 9 (scroll down to May 27, 2007)

“Trading My Sorrow” song by Darrell Evans as sung by Steve Angrisano

Children of the World International Children’s Choir

www.adoption-by-grace.com

Copyright 2007, Kristin Wong.