October 2008 – Maridel Sandberg is almost 50 years old. She is a wife, the mother of eight children, ages 5 to 27, and a grandmother of three. She has children and grandchildren the same age. She’s been potty training for 24 years, and this is the first time in 27 years that she has no children at home during the school year. 

Why? Because she and her husband adopted. Not because they couldn’t have children, for they have three they birthed. Not because they wanted to do a good deed, for life can be full of empty works. 

The Sandbergs, a Caucasian family, adopted five African-American children because they realized something amazing about adoption. “The deepest and strongest foundation of adoption is located not in the act of humans adopting humans, but in God adopting humans,” said Pastor John Piper, in an article titled “Adoption: The Heart of the Gospel” at www.desiringgod.org. 

“And this act,” he continued, “is not part of His ordinary providence in the world; it is at the heart of the Gospel. Galatians 4:4-5 is as central a Gospel statement as there is: ‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.’” 

“There are so many scriptures [Romans 8, Galatians 4, Ephesians 1] that inform our horizontal (human) expression of God’s love through adoption as an outflow of the Gospel,” said Jordan Thomas, pastor-teacher of Grace Church in Memphis, Tennessee (www.gracechurchmemphis.com). 

“To make the understatement of the ages, we did not choose to be adopted by God. He chose us. He loved us with an everlasting love in Jesus,” Thomas explained. “And every Christian longs to see others know God’s adopting love. 

“Evangelism is a necessary outflow of a true relationship with Christ,” he added. “We feel that adoption is one of the strongest pictures of the love of God and is also one of the most conducive imaginable environments for evangelism (with your own children).” 

The Sandbergs couldn’t agree more. “I think the biggest wow moment was when we received our first son, Joshua,” Sandberg recalled. “It was like God came down from heaven and said, ‘This is how I have chosen you. And this is how I have called you by name, and you are mine. As much as Joshua is yours, you are mine.’

“It became the heartbeat of our lives that this is a reflection of God,” she said. 

Loving 
Sandberg is director of The MICAH Fund (Minority Infant Child Adoption Help, www.micahfund.org), at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Piper is pastor. Sandberg is also president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans.

According to its Web site, www.christianalliancefororphans.org, the alliance “is a group of Christian organizations and churches that are joining voices to make caring for every orphan a reality. … The goal … is to inform, educate and engage churches and individuals in orphan and adoption ministry. 

“Our goal and our purpose is to proclaim with one voice the crisis and the needs around the world of 143 million orphans,” Sandberg explained. “Then the other arm of our organization is to provide Christians with lists of approved agencies that are dedicated to our vision, which is that every orphan would know Jesus as Savior and experience God’s unfailing love.

“[After all], is there any better evangelism in all of creation than to raise up children who love Jesus and know Him well?” she asked. 

To meet both the physical and spiritual needs of orphans, the organizations that make up the alliance have laid down their logos and egos to work together toward a common goal. Still somewhat new, the alliance has gained about 85 organizational memberships since its official launch in November 2007 and hopes to add at least 1,000 churches that are working toward a church-based orphan, adoption or foster-care ministry. The alliance also has individual members and media partners. 

“I strongly believe that this alliance is the most profound, most strategic thing on the face of the earth that will reach the 143 million orphans of the world,” said Ed Schwartz, president of Loving Shepherd Ministries (www.loving-shepherd.com), a member of the alliance. 

“The most beautiful thing about this is to watch individual organizations wrestle through what it looks like to love well,” Sandberg said. “My dream is that at some point we would be a unified force and be so effective … that the world would take note and … say, ‘Wow, look at how well they are caring. It must be God!’” 

Reflecting
In order to care truly for the fatherless, it is imperative to grasp the magnitude of the present orphan crisis while coming to grips with a right understanding of God. 

“Because we’re not close to the actual crisis, it doesn’t seem to touch us,” Sandberg explained. “[But in reality] the crisis is beyond anything that we could ever begin to put our hands around by ourselves.”

Think about it this way: If the 143 million orphans in the world stood shoulder-to-shoulder, they  would wrap around the 10,913-mile perimeter of the U.S. nearly four times. And if that number is still too hard to comprehend, consider adding the number of people who live in the 50 largest U.S. cities plus the entire populations of Ireland, Nicaragua, and Norway, plus all the people from Denmark and Costa Rica plus the entire population of Greece plus the people who live in France to equal 143 million. 

“We need to be ‘gloriously ruined’ by this crisis,” said Sandberg, quoting Kay Warren of the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Church in California. 

“We’re going to need every Christian, anywhere in the world, to fulfill their part in God’s plan for how He is going to use us in caring and living out the Gospel.”

But living out the Gospel through orphan care and mobilizing churches and individuals to action involves more than just recognizing the problem. Before people can live out the Gospel, they must understand the Gospel.

“We don’t understand our God, and we don’t understand who He is and what He does for us,” she said. 

“We [must] … feel the weight of the reality that we were the most unlovable, least-likely creatures to ever be considered for adoption … by anyone, especially God! But in sheer mercy, He has set His love on us, and at great cost to Himself – the death of His only begotten Son,” Thomas explained. 

So the more a person understands his spiritual adoption and experiences the amazing love of God in his own life, the more natural it is for him to give himself away to care for others.

“A large number of Christians – at some point in their journey – consider adopting, but they don’t know where to go or who to trust in that process,” Sandberg said. “I always say to them: ‘Of course you would consider adopting. You’re just like your Father because He adopted you. If you’re a child of God, naturally you would want to reflect Him.’”

Encountering the Father and becoming a true reflection of His glory is what it’s all about for His children. 

Obeying 
“[I]f only 7% of the world’s professing two billion Christians would adopt, there would effectively be no more orphanages,” Thomas quoted from Shaohannah’s Hope (www.shaohannahshope.org), an orphan-care ministry established by Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman. 

However, both Thomas and Sandberg are quick to clarify that not every Christian is called to adopt. But every Christian is called to care for “the least of these.”

“Adoption isn’t ministry,” Sandberg said. “Adoption is choosing to parent and choosing to love and calling a child my own, as God calls me His own.

“So if you’re looking for a ministry, you shouldn’t adopt,” she added. “You should … care for orphans … [in some way].”

Caring comes in many forms, such as financial assistance, supplying humanitarian aid to orphanages, visiting orphans and meeting their physical and emotional needs or starting a church ministry to create awareness and spur action. 

Regardless, the need is great. The call is real, and the ways are many.

For Grace Church, a plant of Bethlehem Baptist but not a member of the alliance, caring comes in the form of the AMBER Adoption Fund (Adoption Magnifies the Beauty of Eternal Redemption). Thomas said the fund “is an effort of Grace Church to encourage Christian families to pursue adoption, and to seek to assist qualifying families with the sometimes burdening financial responsibilities involved.”

The fund is named in memory of Amber Mathenia, a young adoptive mother and friend of the church who died in a car accident in early 2008. The church’s prayer is that every child adopted through the fund will come to know Christ.

“The fund was established … through the leadership of elders who led the church to a partnership with The ABBA Fund (www.abbafund.org),” Thomas explained. “The ABBA Fund services many different expressions of adoption funding, one of which is that churches are able to set up private adoption funds through ABBA.” 

Thomas said it seems only natural that churches would be advocates for adoption. 

Sandberg added, “I think the mere fact that the ministry [of orphan care] and the movement [of adoption] are growing is, in and of itself, a glorious thing to be a part of.”   

Five ways to help
1. Tape a picture of a child awaiting adoption to your dashboard. Pray for the child when waiting in traffic. 
2. Become a foster parent or a Court Appointed Special Advocate for a child in foster care. 
3. Host a shower for a family adopting an older child. 
4. Mentor a child who is “aging out” of the U.S. foster care system. 
5. Launch an orphan care ministry in your church. 
Adapted from www.hopefororphans.com

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To make a donation:

AMBER Adoption Fund
Grace Church
P.O. Box 1801
Memphis, TN 38101 
(Designate “AAF” on check.)

Christian Alliance for Orphans
c/o VisionTrust International
3710 Sinton Rd., Suite 100
Colorado Springs, CO 80907