Preliminary Adoption Application

Tonight we submitted a preliminary application for international adoption. The process can take 3-5 years. Yes, we know that we don't have any money. Don't discourage me from obeying the Spirit.

These numbers are overwhelming. (Graphics from Bethany)

But I try to remember that changing the life of just one can have a profound effect, not just for the one, but for countless others.

An except from our April snail mail letter:

Some of our college freshmen come with an attitude of self-entitlement. But I am refreshed by the gratitude and pure motives of my friend Wang Zhao, a seventeen year-old orphan who was abandoned as a child because she is a midget. We met at the orphanage last year -- she was looking for an English tutor and a friend. Once a week I tutor Wang Zhao and play with her younger roommates, and every week I think “What is stopping me from taking a couple of these darlings home?” Let me know if you have any ideas about how we can fund a couple international adoptions.

You know what is so satisfying about my relationship with Wang Zhao? Justice. I ran into some of her high school classmates at the bus stop once. Those students can only dream of having an American oral English tutor, because they’re impossible to find and even harder to pay at US$20 an hour. Wang Zhao, who has nothing and can’t pay, secured such a tutor for free! Psalm 82:3 says “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.” I am instrument of justice to Wang Zhao.