Help the Hiestands Adopt

My friend and pastor, Todd Hiestand, and his wife, Melanie, are adopting a child from Guatemala whom they hope to bring home early next year. They have some major financial hurdles ahead, and if you would like to contribute to their attempt to live out James 1:27, you can read Todd's thoughts on the adoption and donate your contributions here. If you would like to follow them on their adoption journey, read more here. At the very least, I know they would deeply appreciate your prayerful support. Adoption is a beautiful and deeply communal act; through adoption people are brought together from different parts of the world. Adoption affirms the life of a child that would otherwise go unloved and uncared for. Adoption affirms the intrinsic worth of a human which, in a society that demands performance and success, offers the world nothing except its naked, needy self. Adoption bestows this unwanted child with the gift of being wanted, the gift of recognition by others without which the child would lose all identity. Adoption is most beautifully summed up in the act of naming, when an otherwise anonymous child is now affirmed, recognized, welcomed, and loved.