Summit of the Orphan VI

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to fly to Minnesota to attend The Summit of the Orphan VI which is put on by The Christian Alliance for the Orphan. There were over 1,300 people in attendance from all over the U.S. and also from ministries that do global orphan care like what Back2Back does. I've been meaning to blog about this for a while and you can expect many a blog post about this conference in the near future.

To begin, I'd like to give you a link to where, if you are interested - you can watch some of the main speakers. Here is a link to John Piper speaking on Living by Faith as you serve the fatherless

Honestly, I feel like there is so much to say about this event and what I learned that I could write a book.

But in response to John Piper's message which you can watch yourself by clicking the link above.... John Piper and his wife adopted at age 50. You are never too old to adopt. There are 148 million orphans worldwide and they don't care how old you are - they just want a home. There was a question and answer session before he gave his talk and John Piper was asked to respond to a question like... "why is it that the wife or women hear from God first about adopting a child and it's not usually the man who hears this call first?" Piper then proceeded to say, "It's because men in our culture don't understand Fatherhood. They need to quit dinking around on their ipads and cell phones and video games and be a man. Not just men who are married and have kids - I'm talking about young men who are not yet fathers - they need to understand Fatherhood and they don't. They don't understand God as a Father. God is mentioned more in the Bible as a father and not a mother. God is our Father. God has adopted us as sons and daughters. God fathers us." I found that super interesting and honestly just loved that he said everyone needs to quit "dinking around on their ipads."

more thoughts on the summit to come soon... i've only just begun