God has a special place in His heart for widows and orphans. Throughout the Bible we see many important people raised as adopted children. Moses, Samuel, Esther, King Joash, and many others. God has adopted us into His family and we should be prepared to do foster care and adoption too. There is no person or child that God doesn’t have a plan for.
Merle tells a personal story about a child they took care of and Edith’s continued prayers for her even after she left their home. The power of a praying mother cannot be completely comprehended.
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Transcription:
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(00:01) God loves children and he has a heart of compassion especially for orphans and for widows. We have this account from Mark um chapter 10 where the children were coming to Jesus and uh the disciples rebuked them and and then Jesus said uh suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for as such for such is the kingdom of God.
(00:36) And then in the book of James, he says, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” And then throughout scripture, he’s given a number of uh commands about taking care of the fatherless, the widows, and how God has a heart for those who are without the protection of a father.
(01:05) And uh God has uh his heart for the fatherless and the widows. My family and I lived in in Haiti for a year. And after we lived there for a year, I went back twice a year for about 25 years. On one of my trips back to Haiti, I got there and uh the Haitian pastor told me there’s a a widow lady here.
(01:28) She has five children and one of her daughters is about 9 years old had gotten typhoid fever and had gotten very sick from typhoid fever and then uh through the uh typhoid fever she got a bowel blockage and became even more ill. They took her to the hospital.
(01:52) Uh this there was a surgeon there that did surgery on her, removed a section of her bowel and told her uh when you sit up after the surgery, when you sit up, don’t sit straight up. Uh sit up sideways. And I don’t think she really understood the instructions. A day or two after the surgery, she sat up and she burst the incision. And the surgeon said, “She’s so skinny. there’s so little to work with. He said, “I can’t uh can’t do anything.
(02:20) ” So, he sent her home and she got home the day before I I got there. So, I went to see her and there is her mother uh with her in their little two- room house. She’s in the back room lying on the bed, curled up in a fetal position. Her mother’s there fanning flies off of her. And um she was so emaciated.
(02:45) Her uh knees were bigger than her legs above or below her knees. Her elbows were bigger than her arms above or below her elbows. She just looked like the pictures you see of starving children. And she had this um incision in her abdomen that was standing open about an inch, an inch and a half. And um I said to the pastor, “Why did they send her home?” And he said, “They sent her home because she’s going to die and they didn’t want her to die at the hospital because if she died at the hospital, the family might blame the hospital. So they sent her home so that she dies at home.” I said, “Well, that shouldn’t happen.
(03:19) She doesn’t have to die. That can be fixed. I’m sure it can be fixed. She shouldn’t die from that.” And he said, “Well, there’s if that surgeon that operated on her couldn’t fix it, there’s nobody in Haiti that can fix it.” I said, ‘ Okay, well then I’m going to take her to Canada or the US and we’ll get that fixed because she shouldn’t die. And he said, “You can’t do that.
(03:41) ” And I said, “Don’t tell me I can’t do it. Uh, I’m going to do it.” He said, “You can’t.” I said, “Well, why can’t I do it?” He said, “The reason?” He said, “There’s some things you don’t know.” And one of the things you don’t know is that both of her parents are illiterate and they never registered her birth.
(03:58) So, as far as the government is concerned, she doesn’t even exist. She has no documentation. And by the time you do all the paperwork to get the documentation that you’re going to need to get her out of the country, um, she’ll have died anyway. So, you can’t do it. I said, “Okay, I guess you’re right. I guess I can’t.
(04:23) ” Uh there was another man with me and uh said to him, Ricky, um you know, she shouldn’t die and uh we can pray and we can ask God to heal her. And so we stood by her bed and we said, “God, you say that you are the father of the fatherless and you are the husband of the widow and uh if we could, we would take this girl somewhere where she could get medical treatment, but we can’t. But she should not die and you can heal her.” And that’s our request.
(05:04) We just ask that you would heal her and that her life would be spared and that she would not die. And if it’s true that you are a father of the fatherless and the husband of the widow, here is an opportunity to show that that’s true. And uh after we’re done praying, the Haitian pastor said, “Well, I’ll try to make sure she doesn’t die a painful death.
(05:26) ” And uh he would go and change the dressing and I think he sprinkled some antibiotic powder in there or something. I don’t know. But uh when I left at the end of the week, she was still alive and and I would phone back and the Haitian pastor would say, “Yeah, she’s still alive.” And after maybe a week or two after I left, um he said, “Uh, you know what, Pastor Merl, there’s skin growing over that incision.
(05:49) ” And uh and you know what, that healed and she survived and she’s alive today as a vivacious Christian adult woman. And now she has a horrendous scar on her abdomen. But God has a heart for the orphan and for the widow. And he has proven that over and over again throughout history. And we look at scripture and you know God has God took some very significant people in scripture out of their biological home and had them raised in a foster or adoptive family.
(06:30) Moses is one of those. You think about Moses. If you would have been a neighbor to Amram and Jochebed when Moses was born and you would have come home from your brickmaking job and your spouse would have told you, “Well, Jochebed her baby today.
(06:47) Your first question would have been, “Is it a boy or a girl?” And when you heard that it was a boy, you would have said, “I’m sorry for them. That’s too bad.” And your prediction of the survival of Moses would have been that his lifespan is going to be pretty short. And there was Moses in a very dangerous situation, in a very dangerous home to be in, not because it was an ungodly home, but just because it was in a dangerous environment.
(07:13) And it was dangerous for him to be who he was in that moment. But God reached down and God rescued Moses out of that home and he took him into the royal family. And there Moses was trained in all the education, all the the the knowledge of the Egyptians. He learned to know the royal family. He learned how the Egyptian government worked and he got all of that.
(07:37) And then he tried to rescue the people on his own and that didn’t work. And then he goes out in the wilderness and he lives out in the wilderness for 40 years. And I just think there were days when Moses was out there in the wilderness taking care of sheep and he was kind of wondering God like what’s this about? Here I am in my third family, my third culture, my third language and it doesn’t make any sense.
(07:57) And then one day God shows up in a burning bush and God says, “I’ve heard the groaning of the people. I’ve seen their suffering and I’ve come down to deliver them.” And I think Moses thought, “Good. I thought that should have happened a couple decades ago. So, I’m glad you’re here. And then God turns to Moses and says, “So, I’m sending you now.
(08:14) That changes the equation, right? Because now he’s” and Moses could be like, “Well, I already tried that and it didn’t work. So, who am I that I should go?” And you would think that God would say to Moses, “Well, who else?” Like, what do you think this has been about? Like, you are the only Hebrew man your age. You know all the people in the palace. You have You know how the Egyptian government works.
(08:35) you know how to get things done in the Egyptian government and now you have wilderness experience so you’re going to be able to lead the people through the wilderness but it’s like God paused and said um I’ll be with you and God took Moses and then God walked with Moses as he went to lead the people out of um out of Egypt.
(08:56) Samuel is another one of God’s adopted children, one of God’s foster children. God took Samuel out of a godly home. Uh their family went to Shiloh every year and offered sacrifices. It wasn’t that he wasn’t born into a godly home, but God took Samuel out of that home and he raised him in the tabernacle.
(09:29) He helped him to understand the the responsibilities of the priesthood and he also uh saw the impact of ungodly men as uh Eli’s sons were were abusing their positions as uh as priests and God called Samuel and Samuel served God faithfully and he became a transitional figure between the judges and the kings and he was a very significant people in the whole progression of God’s plan of uh redemption. And so he was placed in a foster in an adoptive home for the purpose of training.
(10:06) And then we have Joash, a man who was a baby who was born into a just a family of wickedness where his grandmother Athaliah had killed her children and and grandchildren and and she um was had turned Judah away from the Lord. But God rescued Joash out of that dangerous situation and out of that wicked family and had him hidden in the house of God for six years.
(10:37) And then at the age of seven, he became king and he served God faithfully and followed the advice of Jehoeda as long as Jehoeda was alive. And then there’s Esther. And we don’t know anything about Esther’s biological family. But God took Esther out of her biological family and placed her in the home of Mori.
(11:02) And there he was an influential and a wise man. And Esther dedicated herself to the advice of Mororti and she followed his advice and and she obeyed his commands as she was growing up. And she became the queen of Persia and Media.
(11:26) and she served God faithfully and God used her to deliver the people from the uh wicked plans of Hmon. And we have also uh another person that we’re perhaps um don’t have as much in the biblical record about and um you remember uh Cyrus the um the king that gave the um the command for the Jews to go back to uh Jerusalem. And 150 years before he was born, Isaiah said this about Cyrus uh talking about saying quoting God saying, “Thus he saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure.” Even saying to Jerusalem, “Thou shalt be built into the temple thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saeth the
(12:13) Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two levied gates. The gates shall not be shut. I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight.
(12:29) I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and the cut and sunder the bar the bars of iron. I will give thee the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
(12:52) Isaiah 44:28 to 45:4. Cyrus was born about 585 and Herododus the Greek historian wrote about the life of Cyrus about 75 years after the death of Cyrus. So we’re not quite sure about all the details of what Herododus wrote, how much of it is true, and how much of it is is um is a story.
(13:19) But the if we think about the the general outline of what Herodotus wrote about Cyrus’s life is interesting. Um Cyrus’s grandfather was the king of the Mes and he had a dream that his daughter’s son would one day overthrow him as king. And so when Cyrus was born, he had his one of his generals, one of his chief adviserss. uh he ordered him to take Cyrus out and kill him.
(13:52) And so uh the um the the the general the adviser took Cyrus, the baby Cyrus out, but he couldn’t kill him. And so he found a shepherd family whose infant son had just died. So he gave Cyrus to the shepherd’s family, brought the dead baby in and passed him off as Cyrus and said that he had died.
(14:15) and there was Cyrus was living in the house of this in the family, the shepherd family until he was 10 years old. And then he was discovered and he was brought back and and his grandfather accepted him into the royal family and eventually uh he did overthrow his grandfather and uh consolidated the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians and then invaded Babylon and overtook Babylon.
(14:40) And in the first year of the reign of Cyrus, Ezra tells us um that uh now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus sayeth Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among all of you of his people? His God be with him. Let him go to Jerusalem which is in Judah and build the house of God
(15:12) in Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. And you know Cyrus um Cyrus was a person who had a compassion for the common people. And in his empire he he had a he had a heart for the commoners, for the peasants. And he was very gracious and very generous toward them. And God took him out of his biological family, had him raised in a shepherd family.
(15:42) And it’s interesting that in Isaiah when he starts his discourse about Cyrus, he says, “Thus sayaith Cyrus, he is my shepherd.” And just like David had um um was raised as a as a shepherd, so God arranged for Cyrus to be raised as a shepherd as well. And then there are the then there are other figures in u scripture that are didn’t finish their lives or weren’t raised in their biological families.
(16:22) We have Joseph, Daniel, men who probably as teenagers were taken out of their biological families and finished uh their um growing up years, their formation as adults in outside of their uh own homes. Then we have Mphibicheth who um was um adopted into David’s family. And I just think there’s something illustrative of that uh in our own adoption into the family of of God and how David took Mphibicheth and he brought him into his family.
(16:56) He’s seated at the king’s table and and and is there with with the king’s sons. And so if you came to David’s house for dinner, there would be Solomon and Absalom and all the other boys and and there would be Mephibosheth. And as far as you would know, he’s one of the king’s sons. And Jesus has brought us God has brought us into his family and he’s adopted us into his family and he has um he has made us one of his own.
(17:20) There’s the Israelite girl that was in uh non’s household that um told him about the power of God of the God of Israel. And then Jose Jesus had Joseph as a foster father and we have been adopted into the family of God. I think that as Anabaptist people, we have a an opportunity to do adoption and foster foster care as as a ministry.
(17:53) Uh we are pro-life people. We have strong uh stable families. We have stable marriages. We have multigenerational support. Um, we have Christc centered close church communities. You know, God has designed the church to be a place where we can gather and where we can be healed from the wounds of our past and from the effects of sin.
(18:27) And the church has an opportunity to be a place of healing for children that have um been wounded not because of their own choices or because of their own bad decisions but simply because of the choices and the decisions of their parents. We have uh the ability to bring into our homes children that may be significant people for the for the kingdom of God. Sometimes we have concerns and um about doing foster care or adoption and um these are real.
(19:13) Uh my wife and I were foster parents for 25 years and we have two children that were permanent placements in foster care that became part of our family. We would have adopted them but they were never uh available for for adoption. Um and so uh these concerns are are legitimate. Uh they are things to consider and things to think about.
(19:39) And I don’t want you to hear me saying this morning that uh if you do foster care and adoption, it’s just going to be, you know, a real breeze and everything’s going to be just great and it’s h going to be really smooth. No, there are there are challenges. Uh there are difficulties. Uh one concern can be uh well, it’ll disrupt our family. And yet we know that Jesus calls us to self-denial.
(20:04) He calls us to give up our um the our comforts and to and if God is is speaking if God speaks to your heart about doing foster care or adoption. Uh it may be it may be a way of sacrifice. It may be a call to self-denial. And we are called to love our neighbor as ourself. And love um love involves sacrifice. And one thing I will say is that um Edith and I really don’t suggest that uh if that you bring foster or adopted children into your family that are older than your your biological children.
(20:47) I I just think that the older children in a family kind of set the pace and become the role models and uh so bringing younger ch children that are younger than your own children into the family can be can be helpful. Um well we say another concern can be children the children may have difficult backgrounds.
(21:08) Uh there are there are challenges there are things like fetto alcohol effects and and those kinds of things. that do make it difficult. But Christ welcomes broken people. Uh the church is a place to bring healing to the world. And we get to introduce broken people to Christ in the church to where there can be healing for the effects of sin and there can be healing for the problems of of the past.
(21:42) Um, and people say, “Well, it’ll it’ll hurt when they leave.” Uh, my parents did foster care. We did um at that time the way the whole system worked was that children would that would go into adoption, they would be born and then they go into a foster home until the adoption was arranged. And so often that was six months to a year.
(22:06) And so my parents did foster care uh for we would keep babies from we’d get them from the hospital when they were a couple days old and they would stay with us until they were adopted out. Uh and so we had a number I I don’t really remember how many children came how many babies came through our home but you do get really attached to an infant and you do get really attached to a baby and then goes into an adoptive home.
(22:37) And one time the the foster uh agency was coming to pick up the baby and take the baby to its adoptive home and and we’re all there. The neighbor children were there and we’re all crying and and oh this is so sad and this baby’s going to be leaving and and then one of the neighbor girls said, “Um, this is really sad. This is even worse than when the steers go to market.” And you know that’s true. It is.
(22:57) It’s painful. Uh but you get to have you get to have a an effect on the life of of a child. And you know for an infant those early memories that aren’t even u that don’t don’t even have words put to them but they’re emotional experiences that a child has very early in childhood that can be very foundational uh for a child.
(23:28) And the love and the pain of separation can motivate heartfelt prayers for a child that will follow the child throughout life. And just having a child that has someone who has prayed for them can be really really uh really really powerful. Or uh we might say, well um we’re not experts. Um well, God is looking for faithfulness, not perfection. um and the extended family and the church brotherhood can provide support because it is challenging and it is a challenging ministry and so and I know that God doesn’t call every family and God doesn’t call every person to do
(24:11) foster care and adoption but what if each church what if each congregation what if each fellowship would at least have one family that does foster care or adoption and we as a church fellowship could could be supportive and could uh could stand by that family and help them through the challenges that they face in foster care and adoption.
(24:36) How many conservative Anabaptist fellowships are there in North America? And if each fellowship, if each congregation would have one or two families that were doing foster care or adoption, how many children could be rescued out of difficult situations and be raised in a godly environment and be raised in a church community? And I just challenge you to think about what God might want you to do in relation to uh foster care and adoption.
(25:11) So, how do you get started? Well, I think to pray about it and to seek direction from the Lord and then as a family to discuss it with your children. Discuss with your children what God says about caring for the fatherless and how we as a family can be part of what God is doing for children that have not been uh cared for.
(25:38) And then to talk with other foster and adoptive parents and and find out what their experience has been and to go into it with being knowledgeable and being educated about foster care and adoption. And then research foster care and adoption agencies and find an agency that fits with your uh spiritual philosophy and and with your uh your spiritual values.
(26:05) And then consider starting with restbite care or emergency placement care. Um, one of the things that I did for a period of time was, um, there were single mothers who had adolescent boys that they were really struggling with and, um, without some help, those boys were probably going to wind up in foster care.
(26:31) And so for a period of time, what I did, what we did is, uh, we would take an adolescent boy for the weekend. And so we would have him from when he got off of school Friday afternoon until Sunday evening and then he’d go back to his mom. And and it helped the mother to be able to cope and be able to to to to work uh with her son.
(26:54) And it gave the son an opportunity to act interact with a man and to do things with a man. And it was it was helpful. It was um it was a way of of providing support for single mothers in the community. and providing uh care for for adolescent boys. We did also some emergency placements.
(27:20) Uh one night they called us about midnight and said we have uh three teenagers that ran away from their foster home and uh the police picked them up on the street and the foster parents say they can’t come back. So, can we bring them out to your house uh until we find a place for them to to go? And you know, we I mean, I just woke up at midnight, right? So, I wasn’t fully awake yet. And I said, “Sure, yeah, bring them out.
(27:44) ” And then after I hung up the phone and Edith and I kind of looked at each other said, “We didn’t ask enough of questions like who are I mean, what are we what did we get ourselves into and who are these teenagers and what are they like?” And so about 1:00 they showed up with them and well, they were just three scared teenagers. they were 13, 14, 15 years old and and uh so we played some games with them and put them to bed and had them a couple days until they were placed into a into another foster home.
(28:11) But there are opportunities to just provide care um in kind of an intermittent or a short-term basis and ultimately follow God’s leading. But don’t underestimate what God might be able to do and the people that God might bring through your home and the the influence that you can have on the life of a child and what God might do in the life of a child.
(28:43) Because when you look at some of the people that we went through this morning, Moses and Samuel and and and Joash and and Esther, um God had a plan for their lives. And there is no person alive today that God does not see potential and that he doesn’t have a plan, that there’s a reason for their existence.
(29:14) and our involvement in their lives in any way can be helpful to them as they go through through life. You think about Samuel and how Hannah was praying for a son and she was praying for a child and God um promised her a child and then she goes home and she realizes that she is experiencing what she dreamed of experiencing. She’s experiencing pregnancy and she goes through that pregnancy just with the joy of experiencing what she had longed for but also at the same time recognizing in her own heart that when the child is born if it’s a boy she won’t be able to keep it. And then she goes through the birth experience and she has a son.
(30:01) Now she looks at that son as she nurses him and she looks in his eyes and she realizes, “I can’t keep him. Uh, I promised God that I would give him back.” And the time comes for them to go to Shiloh and she says, “I’m not going.” And her husband says, “Okay, you can stay here and you can keep the child until he’s weaned, but do what you told God you would do.
(30:35) ” And I’m guessing that that was probably one of the world’s longest weaning periods, but eventually the truth of the matter came where she had to go and give Samuel to Eli. And I think there probably could have been a lot of rationalization in her mind. Does God really want me to do that? I mean, look at Eli. Look at his sons. We’d be much better parents. Does God really want me to do that? And I just think there were her mind must have given her lots of excuses for or ways out of what she had promised to do.
(31:08) But eventually the time comes where there she goes and she walks to the temple and scripture tells us that she’s carrying a basket of of of flour and and leading a bull and and there she and it says and the child was young and uh unless you’ve given up a child I don’t know that we can experience identify with the emotional turmoil that Hannah must have been feeling walking over there with Samuel’s hand in hers and trying to tell him, “You’re not coming home with us.
(31:46) You’re going to stay there and God’s going to watch over you and you’re going to be okay.” And then she comes and she presents him to Eli. And her comment is for this child I prayed. And uh there are many many children in the world for whom for whom no one has prayed and uh we can fill that void of prayers. We uh our second foster child was a baby girl.
(32:27) The foster agency called us and they said um there’s a baby that I think had just been born or was going to be born very soon. I think she had just been born and they said this family uh had I think four children before this and all of those children were abused. They were taken out of the home and adopted out into other families.
(32:50) And somehow through the prenatal care, the doctor found out that this mother had had these four children before that were had been abused in the home and were were adopted out. So, he contacted Children’s Aid and Children’s Aid said, “Well, when the baby’s born, we’re going to apprehend the baby. We’re going to get um crown wardship or here be a ward of the state, I think, and have this child adopted.
(33:14) ” And there were two of the children I think that were adopted by a family in British Columbia. And they said, “Our plan is to have this baby adopted into that family in British Columbia.” So they asked us if we would keep her until she was adopted by the family in British Columbia. So we said we would.
(33:33) So then they called and they said, “Uh, it’s going to be a day or so before we bring her out because we checked into the history of the family and we’re scared to pick up the baby. So we’re going to get the Dryen Town police to pick up the baby.” I said, “Okay.
(33:58) ” So, a day or so later, they called and said, “Uh, it’s going to be a little longer till we bring the baby out because the Dryden Town Police checked in to the record of the father and um they don’t want to pick up the baby. They want the Ontario Provincial Police to pick up the baby.” Okay. So then a day or so later, they called and they said, “Ah, it’s going to be even longer because the local detachment of the provincial police checked into the history of the family and the father and they’re scared to pick up the baby.
(34:28) So they want to bring a SWAT team in from Toronto, which was like 20 hours away, to pick up the baby.” They’re like, “Okay.” So eventually they got the SWAT team up from Toronto and they picked up the baby and brought her out to our house and they said, “Don’t ever take this baby to town because it could be really bad if you would meet the father.
(34:45) ” And so somebody had to stay home with her all the time. Uh we had her about 6 weeks and then it went to court for them to get crown wardship so she could be adopted to this family by this family in British Columbia. When it went to court, the judge said, “You can’t take a child out of a home because of abuse that happened to other children in the home.
(35:08) If nothing happened to this child, you can’t take her out of the home. She has to go back.” Wow. We were heartbroken. Like, you’re going to send a two-month old baby into a home where, you know, the other children have been abused. the police are scared to go there and you’re going to send a two-month old baby back into that home, but there was nothing we could do and so packed up her things.
(35:41) I think the next day she went back to her family and Edith wrote out a schedule when she gets up, when she eats, when she takes naps, and just kind of the the daily schedule she had. And at the bottom of the daily schedule, she just put a note there saying, uh, I’ll be praying for her. And, um, she went back. The foster agency had six months where they could have home visits. They did that.
(36:06) When the six-month period was over, the family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba. They moved out of the province. They moved away from anybody who knew them uh, or their situation with the child. And we didn’t hear anymore. That was in 1995. Uh she was born in July of of 95. In May of 2024, 29 years later, we got a Facebook Messenger message from Sabrina and she said, “I think I was in your home as a foster child.
(36:36) ” And sure enough, it was her. And uh she uh was living in Steinach, Manitoba. And um we were going to Winnipeg 2 weeks later for our foster son to have a medical appointment. And so we said, “Well, we’ll get together with you and we’ll have dinner with you and your husband.” And so we did.
(37:01) And we got together with her for dinner with her husband. And she kind of went over her life story and she said, “U my life was horrible.” Um, and she said, “My father not only abused me, but he trafficked me to his friends uh until he died when I was 7 years old.
(37:27) ” And she said, “When I when he died, it was a mercy and my life got marginally better.” But her mother was an alcoholic and was an unstable person and wasn’t really able to care for her either very well. And when she was 14 years old, her mother threatened or tried to kill her and she ran away, called the police, and she went back into foster care through a Menanite uh restbite foster family.
(38:03) She came to know Jesus and um she uh got involved in the church and the youth group. She married a a Russian Menite man from Steinbeck that was in in the youth group. And uh she said that her dad was high up in the Hell’s Angels organization and that’s why the police were scared to go there. But she said when she got her foster care records from Ontario, she got the schedule that Edith had written and she saw the note at the bottom of the schedule saying that Edith would be praying for her and that’s why she reached out to us and she
(38:42) said, “I the difference that Jesus has made in my life, the transformation that he’s made in my life, I just want every child to know who Jesus is. And today she’s the regional coordinator for um child evangelism for southern Manitoba. And this summer she’s organized a couple of dozen camps for child evangelism, telling children about Jesus.
(39:15) Our prayers for children can follow children through horrible experiences and God can rescue out of what seems to us to be very challenging and difficult situations. Men and women who will rise up and have a testimony for Christ. God cares for children and we as his people can reflect that care and be part of what he’s doing in caring for the fatherless and for the widows. May God bless you.