Have you ever been in a church without a pastor? This often happens in our churches when a pastor follows another calling and leaves the church without a man at the top. Usually, this only lasts for a short time, while the church searches through a sea of resumes to find the right person for the job. And, often the church is really not without trained leadership. Other pastors and leaders are able to step in and fill the void.
But, what if your church were without a pastor for years? And what if you had little hope that one would be available any time soon? What do you think would happen to your church? Would it grow or flounder? Where would future leaders come from? What would you do as a church member?
The Tonga people of Zimbabwe are in this exact situation. According to the IMB, they are an unreached people group. This means that less than 2% of the population is evangelical. Furthermore, the Christians that are there have no biblical training. And no sound ministerial and/or theological training is available to them.
However, the churches among the Tonga have recently begun to multiply! A small group of Tonga Christians have become passionate about reaching their neighbors with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A lay pastor named Obert has developed an Evangelism Team that is engaging the northern half of the district in a systematic way. Through this program, the 10 existing churches are working to plant 13 additional churches within the next year.
There is only one serious problem: not one of these churches has a trained pastor. New churches may be planted and some immediate growth may occur, but real discipleship is quickly going to be a real problem. Without real discipleship and some resulting theological solidity, these churches will begin to crumble in the face of false teachers.
Pray with us that Tonga Christians will receive the training they need to lead their churches to faithfully honor God and to reach others with the Gospel.
Stick, fold, stuff! That is what William and I did this morning at Java (our local coffee shop). We are sending out letters to family and friends to ask for help, because we recently received a matching grant through LifeSong for Orphans. We are so grateful and excited for this additional help in raising the money needed to bring our baby home!
We estimate it will cost about $23,000 to complete our adoption. We do not have that much money just tucked away somewhere, so we have to push back our pride and ask for help. Please pray with us that God will provide all that we need for the adoption. We recognize God is the giver and that we are dependent upon Him for all our resources. Pray with us!
William actually enjoyed spending time together, drinking coffee, stuffing envelopes, and talking about what we can do to raise support! We so enjoy involving our family and friends in this beautiful family-building process. Thank you for being a part of this next step in the adoption process.
Filed under: Adoption
We are rolling along with our adoption. Though nothing exciting has happened in the last 2 weeks, we thought we would update you all anyway. We value your prayers and want to keep you up to date so that you can pray specifically.
Our last update was about the home study. That is finally finished. We received the actual document in the mail last week. A copy was also mailed to our adoption agency and to U.S. Immigration Services. We are moving along with the paperwork as best we can at this time.
Our next paperwork step is to begin collecting all of the documents for our dossier. This will include every bit of information about us that you can imagine. My understanding is that this is required by the Ethiopian government, but we really don’t understand it all yet. We just do what we’re told! 
We also mailed off our application to LifeSong for Orphans. We are hoping to receive a matching grant through Highview ’s adoption ministry. If this goes through, we will then begin raising funds for our adoption. Please pray with us that this application is processed and approved quickly.
In the mean time, Charis and I have stayed busy. The Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting was held in Louisville this year. So, we spent the last week experiencing that part of our denomination’s life. It was a new experience for me, and one that I was not sure I was looking forward to. However, between connecting with old friends and watching history in the making, we had a great time and were encouraged with the forward steps of the SBC.
It was also great to welcome Charis’ parents into our home. They were in town for the SBC, but we had a great time hanging out with them…and letting them explain to us what in the world is going on!
Finally, this past weekend, our friends Michael & Adrian Johnson came to Louisville for a short visit. We showed them around town and introduced them to a couple of the great Louisville Originals we have here. And, on Saturday we made the trek to Petersburg, KY to check out the Creation Museum. Pretty impressive stuff…and some great things to think about!
That’s all for now. Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to remember this whole adoption process in your prayers. We are excited to see how God is going to provide all that is needed to bring our baby home. And, please pray even for that child that God would have be a part of our family. Pray for his or her safety, warmth, nourishment, and love.
Filed under: Adoption
Thank you all for your prayers yesterday. The home study went great. The worst part of the home study is the build up to it. It is always nerve-racking when someone judges you. But, this really was not bad at all.
The social worker came to our home and interviewed each one of us separately. She asked questions about the respective makeup of our families, what our parents were like, and what our marriage is like. There was nothing to it. Now we just have to wait for her to finish writing it and to turn it in to our adoption agency.
We have also come to another big conclusion lately. We met with some friends a couple of weeks ago who adopted their first child from Ethiopia. It was great to talk to them and to hear about their experiences. But, also they re-introduced us to adoption agency we had looked over before.
Arise Adoptions is a small, local agency that only places kids from Ethiopia. Arise seems to be reliable, more affordable, and faster than any other option we have looked at. We love that is it Christian. We love that it is local. And, we love the community of support at Arise. So, we are excited to move ahead with our application. Pray they accept us!
So, I guess that is another big announcement in this blog post: we are adopting from Ethiopia. I don’t think we have posted that on here yet. We have had that in mind for a long time, so it is almost assumed for us now. But, don’t think we have posted it on the blog. So, Ethiopia it is!
Finally, we continue to be amazed with how the Lord is providing for our adoption. On Sunday, some friends of ours gave us a very generous gift for our adoption. As it turns out, their gift is exactly what we need to cover our application to the U.S. Immigration office, our fingerprinting fees, and our application for Arise! What a gracious God we serve!
Please continue to pray for us. Now that the home study is complete, we can begin moving forward with the adoption agency and with grant applications. These are both very important for moving forward in this process. Pray for speed and favor with everyone involved. Thank you!
While I type this blog my sweet husband is making homemade pineapple and ham pizza. When he lived in Zimbabwe he learned how to make several dishes from scratch, and this one we both love.
But that is not why I am writing. We would like to thank you for praying for us yesterday as we took another step in this marathon adoption process. We truly appreciate your prayers. Please know that we need them every step of the way.
Our first home study meeting went great! Whew! The social worker just asked us several questions about us, why we want to adopt, and how we think adopting a child will change our lives. We also scheduled one more home study meeting. This one will happen on June 10, and will be a bit more in depth.
Until then we are working on adoption agency paper work! Please continue to pray for us as we check things off the list. So far, so good!
