Thursday, September 12, 2013

8%

In the past couple years we have heard a lot about "the one percent."  Today I want to talk about a different number: the 8%.

I'll get to that in a minute. Lately Facebook has been exploding with baby/pregnancy posts. It seems like everyone we know (well not everyone but I'd say over half) is either pregnant or had a kid in the last year.  Which is great and we are super happy for our friends and family, but it leads us to question: why aren't we part of that group? Ry asked me that the other night. It is hard wanting to be a parent and not being able to especially after spending several months as a parent. I want to be mommy again. So why not us? My answer to Ry (and I don't know where it came from) was, "Maybe we aren't parents yet because we haven't met our kids yet." Over the course of the past five years of trying we have talked a lot about adoption. We've read books and done research. We were even foster parents. We want to adopt whether God allows us to conceive some day or not.

A statistic I read the other day blew me away. I have been reading Kisses From Katie (amazing book). In it Katie Davis writes,

"The truth is that the 143 million orphaned children and the 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and the 8.5 million child slaves, prostitutes, or under other horrific conditions and the 2.3 million who live which HIV add up to 164.8 million needy children. And though at first glance that looks like a big number, 2.1 billion people on this earth proclaim to be Christians. The truth is that if only 8% of Christians would care for one more child, there would not be any statistics left." 1

Whoa. Let that sink in for a minute. All it would take is 8% of us. And that is just 1 child. What if some of us took in multiple children. I know not everyone is capable of adopting or supporting another child. But what if the other 92% got behind the 8% and pitch in to help make it possible. There are churches that are doing just that and I think it is amazing. Anyone who adopts- you are amazing. Ry and I hope and pray to join you. We are going to Africa with the door to our home and hearts open. My prayer is that we can foster/ adopt multiple children. When I think of the children and the impact we could make I get really excited for Africa.

Not going to lie, our fertility struggle has been rough. But it will all be worth it if we can make a difference for a needy child. I don't know what is in store for us but I have hope.  We can make a difference. :) Jesus tells his disciples that others will know they are disciples by their love. That is something we (myself included) don't always get right. Most non-Christians think of the church as "judging." So let's change that. Go love someone today. God is the one who changes the world but we are blessed that sometimes He uses us.


1 Davis, K. (2011) Kisses From Katie Howard Books, NY p. 121-122.


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