Together For Adoption 2010 - Session Five - Karyn Purvis - Counting the Cost: Preparing Churches for the Adoption Journey

You can save a child in an instant but the process of healing is most-likely a journey.

We have to be prepared for the journey. Parenting a child from the hard places is a different matter completely. Business doesn’t happen as usual for these children.

We have to count the cost. For those who are called to wade into these deep waters with these children we have to count the cost. Your life is going to have to slow down and you have to treat them differently. We have to count the cost.

There was a study recently done with 57 children who were fostered or adoption. Average age was 10 years old. They were found to have a developmental age of 4 years old. We have to understand this is a marathon not a sprint.

We can’t have a “law and order” mentality in our churches when we are dealing with children who have altered brains due to starvation and other horrors they have endured.

If you are seeking to adopt but you are not connected to a loving community, the church, you are going to have a hard time in your process.