Pastor Keith? Yikes!

God is definitely stretching me out of my
comfort zone. It is not that I don't like public speaking, during support raising I really came to enjoy it! I feel very inadequate to preach the Word. Pastor Mark from the Church of God in the Chaisa compound asked me to preach. I tried to politely say no because I am not a pastor. Well, I finally agreed that I would come and give my testimony and tell about our adoption story. Sunday the 14th was the big day! I spent much of Saturday afternoon preparing my message. As Pastor Tracy can attest it takes time to try to make it culturally relevant to Zambians. There are many things that we as Americans take for granted, so it was a challenge to take the American in me out. I will post here the part about our adoption and the challenge that I gave them.

My testimony would not be complete if I didn’t take the time to tell you that we have adopted two of our four children. “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families…” Psalm 68:5-6a. God the Father deeply loves the orphan. I challenge you to look up the many passages in which the Bible talks about orphans. Through His great plan He laid it on our hearts to expand our family through adoption. When we married, we both had a love for children. The Lord quickly blessed us with two daughters, now ages 8 and 6. We often discussed the millions of fatherless children that were in the world. We still had a desire for more children but not necessarily through birth. It was after Christmas 2001 when I told Linda, my wife, that I thought we should adopt. She was so excited, finally, we could adopt. She says finally because she had even stuck a note in her bible marking John 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." dated March 6, 1998. God had led us years before.
So three years ago God gave us a girl and a boy now ages 4 and 3. Our sovereign Lord has worked in more ways than we can tell here or that we even know. We have a great story to share with our children as they grow. God was working in their lives before they were even aware. Indeed, God is the Father of the Fatherless caring for His little lambs!
Why do I tell you about our adoption story? Because it taught us to trust God more, to tell you He provided all our needs to take care of them and to encourage you to think about adoption. There are many opportunities in Lusaka to take in an orphan. You have the ability to make a difference for the Kingdom of God! I understand here in Zambia many of you have taken in dependents. It is also my understanding that most of these children are from family or a very close friend. In America when we adopt children, they are not usually from our family or close friends. They are complete strangers! They are given the same surname as if they were our own children. They also are treated as equals with our biological children. There is no discrimination shown to them! When God adopts us into His family by His great plan of Salvation, does he discriminate? No, we are all treated equally under Christ, 1Corinthians says: For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body- whether Jews or Greeks or Zambian or American, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. We are both children of God! Amen! Adoption is a beautiful picture of what God did for us!
Ephesians 1:4-6 for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves.