Summit Highlights

I can sum up my experience at the Summit in one word: AMAZING. I can also sum up my feelings after the Summit in one word: BLESSED. Okay, maybe two words: BLESSED AND HOPEFUL. Beyond that, I don't even know where to begin.

Perhaps I should begin with my favorite part of the two-day Summit: the fellowship. I had the privilege of spending two days with other orphan advocates and adoptive parents from Wisconsin, including the driving force behind Wisconsin's first orphan care Ministry, Mission:Hope at Oakwood Church (where I participated in Orphan Sunday last November), as well as ladies and gentleman from other local churches launching their own church-based orphan ministries. I also had the opportunity to spend a few days with two very amazing women from Alaska. Carly and Amanda are starting an orphan care ministry at their church, likely the first in all of Alaska. I loved getting to know them and hearing about their calls to care for orphans and to adopt (Carly adopted domestically and Amanda is in the process). I was able to connect personally with several women whose blogs I've been following for quite some time. In fact, upon check-in the first person I met was Jenny, a fellow blogger who had received guardianship of her little girl in India that day! I also got to meet the masterminds behind 147MillionOrphans. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures at the Summit but I did get one with my new Alaska friends and two fellow Wisconsinites.

Amanda, me, and Carly


Carly, Amanda, Dawn, me, and Tracy


Aside from the amazing fellowship and opportunity to network with orphan, foster care, and adoption advocates from around the world, I had the privilege of learning from some of the leading experts in these subjects including Tom Davis, one of my personal favorites. Another favorites highlight of the Summit was Mary Beth Chapman's talk about Show Hope, her adoption, and loss of her little girl. Steven also performed and obviously I cried like a baby when he sang Cinderella (the song my dad and I danced to at our wedding). I loved the group worship and music time... it was always so rejuvenating, exactly how I wish I could start and end every day.

I wish I could share everything I learned but I'm sure I'd lose lots of readers along the way. So I'll highlight some of the most important take-aways from the Summit:

1. Love for orphans transforms. It transforms the individual, the child, the Church, and most importantly, the community.

2. The eagerness to solve the need is always outstripped by the need. I'll let you ponder that one for a while. It certainly struck my heart and I'm letting it simmer there for a bit.

3. Adoption is infectious. Adoption, and even foster care and orphan care, is infectious. One person's example can cause others to stop and say, "I can do that". I look forward to infecting others in my own community when we adopt.

4. Hope is always the last thing people give up. Tom Davis shared this story of children running to him with big smiles, giving him big hugs. That image stuck in my head because that was the exact experience I had with the orphans in Tanzania. All orphans have hope - hope for a family, hope for a Father who saves.

5. In every orphans face is the face of Jesus. A former orphan shared this statement as a part of her testimony and it couldn't be any more true. God has called us to be his adopted sons and daugthers in the same way he has called us to care for the fatherless. All I have to do is look in an orphans face to be reminded of that.

6. The gospel is not a picture of adoption, adoption is a picture of the gospel. Amen!

7. Lead with your life. Be flammable. Be the fuel to God's fire. I will be the fuel, the wind, to God's fire, His passion to care for the fatherless.

And that's only the beginning. I learned a lot of best practice techniques for implementing an orphan care ministry within a church setting. I learned how to partner with indiginious churches, how to engage church leadership, and how to balance orphan care with foster care and adoption ministries. I learned so much in two days to help get me started within my own church. And I am so thankful to have the support, guidance, and partnership with other churches and orphan advocates in my state and across the nation.

I came home and as Dave expected, went on and on to him about how amazing the Summit was, how God re-affirmed the call for us to adopt, and how I prayed more than ever in those two days for God to lay that on his heart, too. I think he's glad I got home so late last night for the mere fact that sleep came sooner and the on-going chatter came to an end. Good thing I have an entire year to work on getting him to next year's Summit :)