Blog

June 20, 2009

We had a wonderful day today! We went out in the country to the boys orphanage “Amparo De Ninos” (Protection of the Boys). We spent the day loving on 80 orphan boys between the ages of 10 & 18. Everyone of these boys is eligible for adoption and is just waiting for a family to come and take them home. First, we were given the grand tour of “their house” a beautiful and very old Catholic monastery now an orphanage. They showed us their bakery and insisted that we try some of their pastries which were delicious. They showed us their laundry room and nurses station and kitchen and their rooms. It was so precious to be surrounded by 10 or 15 boys at once trying to hug you, hold your hand, and talk to you in rapid fire spanish. I was glad I knew how to say “hable mas despacio por favor” which means “please speak more slowly” :-). After the tour we sat around in a huge circle and introduced ourselves. Then I gave a message from Eph. 2:1-10 through a translator and told them how all of us are boys who have ran away from God and been lost “But God” rich in mercy and full of great love provided a way back to Him through the death of Christ on the cross and now He calls us to faith in His son so that we may have a Father (God), a Brother (Jesus), and a family (Christians), and never be alone again. Some boys cried and others smiled and nodded and some fell asleep :-). Then we had lunch and then we split the boys up into 4 teams and gave all the boys on each team a T-shirt. One team was red, one was blue, one was white, and one was gray. Two teams played soccer while two teams played kick ball (which was new to them) all with sports equipment that we had brought to give to the orphanage. They had a marvelous time. When it came time for us to go, they begged us to stay and held onto the van until we drove out of the gates, all the while telling them “Hasta Manana!” (See you tomorrow). One little boy clung to Beverly all day and was really sweet. It was hard for her to leave him. My little friend that held my hand all day was so cute. Tomorrow we will go back there with 200 hot dogs, buns, catsup, mustard, mayonnaise, cokes, and candy and have a feast with them and another man from our group will give a devotion and then we will teach them some new games.

Posting pictures of orphans on the internet is illegal but suffice it to say that we have some amazing shots that we will be showing around when we get home.

Thanks for helping us to get here and for all of the prayers,

Pastor Matt

Well, after God dropped Mercy on our doorstep, I was feeling pretty satisfied that I had discovered the reason for the burning in my heart at the men’s retreat as Allen was speaking. I had prayed my “safe” prayer and God had answered immediately and miraculously. Furthermore, He had healed Mercy physically and was in the process of healing her spiritually and emotionally. Surely this was God’s complete plan for my being involved in orphan ministry… And then in April 2009, my dear brother in Christ, David Richardson, who had also been recruited into the orphan ministry by Allen Pate, emailed me and said, “Brother, I would love for you to consider going with us to Bogota, Colombia in June and help us love on some orphans and tell them about Jesus.” The thoughts began to run through my mind, “I’ve been out of work for 5 months.” “I don’t have time.” “I… you get the idea. So I said, “no.” But fortunately my brother David is a very persistent guy. He would send me emails like, “Brother, I really believe God wants you to go to Colombia. I’ve prayed about it and the Lord told me He wants you there.” 🙂 He was relentless. Just about the time I decided to go I landed a good paying job that was to start right about the time the trip was scheduled. I wrote to David and told him that God had closed the door on going to Colombia because I had just got a job and couldn’t go. He wrote right back and told me that he understood but that he was still going to pray that God would make a way. Well, the next morning the company I was to go to work for lost the contract and I was without the job. The hair stood up on my neck when I was informed of this and I looked up to the sky and put my hands up and said, “Ok, Lord, I am yours, do with me as you will, I will go to Colombia.” I came home and told my wife that I thought God wanted me to go. At that moment I remembered that it would be my sweet daughter Beverly’s 18 birthday the same week as the trip was scheduled and I said to my wife, “I can’t go and miss Beverly’s 18th birthday” My faithful wife smiled at me and said, “Why don’t you take her with you?” “What better way to turn 18 than in Colombia loving on orphans with her Dad?” I was stunned. My wife is the careful one in the family. I am the adventurer. I said, “what about the money?” Her reply was, “well we don’t even have the money for you to go so if we can pray down one persons trip fee we can pray down two persons fee.” And sure enough the next week the money came in for both of us to go. Beverly had never even been on an airplane, much less been out of the country, but we packed up and off we went with our dear friends David and Allen to Bogota. In the next several posts, I will share my daily journal entries from that first trip. To God be the glory…

My introduction to orphan ministry came in February of 2008. I was speaking at three day men’s retreat called Tres Dias and my dear friend Allen Pate was also speaking there. During his message on Christian Action, he told the story of how he and his wife Cindy had been called into orphan ministry and had consequently adopted two sons from Kazakhstan and two daughters from Colombia. During his whole message my heart burned and hot tears rolled down my face. I recognized this feeling as the moving of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I had felt it before with life changing results. At the same time thoughts were running through my mind such as, “I’m a busy pastor, father of five, author, conference speaker, construction manager, and I am fighting an incurable disease.” “What business, Lord, do I have getting involved in orphan ministry?” “I don’t have time.” “I don’t have money.” “Surely this is my imagination and not You Lord.” And then I had an idea. A safe prayer that would get me off the hook. So I prayed, “Lord, you know my heart. You know that I am willing but I don’t know where to start. If You will drop an orphan on my doorstep, I will take it in.” I gave Allen a big hug after his message and told him how moved I was and asked him to pray for me as I sought how the Lord would have me be involved in orphan ministry. I went home and told my wife about my “safe” prayer. She responded, “Great!” “IF GOD DROPS AN ORPHAN ON OUR DOORSTEP… we will take it in.” Be careful what you pray for… God takes you seriously.

Two weeks later we received an email asking us to help a 13 year old girl from Liberia, Africa who was 48 lbs. and dying and needed a life-saving surgery. We said yes and over the next several months we helped this girl named Mercy and eventually on July 3, 2008, some people brought her and dropped her on our doorstep. We took her in and loved on her and ministered to her for 22 months before she moved on. Having Mercy in our home and hearing her horrible stories of abuse, poverty, famine, disease, danger, and war softened our hearts for the orphans of the world and made us ready for the next calling of God on our family which I will share in the next post.