A Plea.

We can hardly believe we really have the enormous privilege of caring for this remarkable child. Matthew is amazing and fitting in so beautifully! Oh, he is treasured and loved!!!

All the months of hard work, the piles and loads of documents, the extra financial expenses, the pain of being misjudged, the excruciating waiting times, the unnumbered intense spiritual battles with the accuser of the brethren, the heart-stopping drama that God decided to heap on thickly…

…the cost.

Adoption should be hard. We are glad it is hard. And no matter how hard, how painful, how steep the cost…

It doesn’t come close to the value of the life of one precious human being.

My church friend, Kellye McDowell and her family are finally at the end of the long process to bring home their 5-year-old son from Lithuania. He has PKU- also known as Phenylketonuria. God led them to this little boy by giving them a biological child with the same rare disorder. This is NOT something than an average family would be able to handle lightly. The McDowells are already so well versed and well trained in this disorder that their son, Matthew Paul, will have the best care you can imagine! In Lithuania, there is no chance of him growing up healthy.

Kellye has gone back to work to raise money for this adoption. She is saving every penny and has done countless fundraisers. The expense are just soooo high with Eastern European adoptions. They are already over $24,000 out of pocket.

However, within the next month, they will need to come up with another $6,000.

Could you please pray fervently that God will preserve his life so that she may come into this special family that has abundant love to lavish on him?

That God will show His mighty strength through his little life, sweeping aside every obstacle like the nothings they are to Him?

When you pray according to the known will of God, you can always pray boldly, with full hope and confidence.

Your love compels me, Lord,
To give as You would give,
To speak as You would speak,
To live as You would live.
Your love compels me, Lord,
To see as You would see,
To serve as You would serve,
To be what You would be.
~Doug Holck 

Do we consider ourselves to be Christ’s people?

Have we enjoyed the benefits of the love of Christ?

Do we understand that the love of Christ is a compelling love?

Do we understand what it compels us to do?

Well, what did Christ’s love compel Him to do?

It compelled Him to give His life for ours.

Why did Jesus give up His life for us?
To give us life? Yes!

So, now we have life.

But what is it for?

Did Jesus really die to give us life so that we could tell Him thank you, and then…

…spend it trying to make self feel good in whatever way works for us?  Protecting, preserving, preferring, pleasing, pleasuring self?

Could we not expect Christ’s love in us to compel us to give our life for others?

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.


 “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.”

The McDowell Family

Matthew Paul

There is a need so great right now for the fatherless. He is the Father to the fatherless, but He does it THROUGH US, His people! Would you please consider making a sacrifice for the McDowell family?

If you are able, you may donate through PayPal via the link on her blog.
http://mcdowellfamilyjourney.blogspot.com/