I am really excited about the launch of ABBA Canada! Our passion is to see a movement of adoption and orphancare grounded in the gospel spread across the land, impacting the children in need of family here and among the nations.
Over the years I have had the humbling privilege of a front row seat to the story God is writing for the orphan around the world. It is amazing to watch the incredible things happening in the church for the orphan in the US, the Ukraine, Ethiopia, Australia, and now Canada.
One common thread that God is using to awaken His people is a realization that we “visit orphans in their affliction” because Christ first visited us in our affliction (James 1:27) It is a gospel issue. It is the visible gospel.
Please join me in praying for God to do more than we can ask or imagine for His glory in the church in Canada and around the world in the declaration and demonstration of the gospel for the sake of the orphan.
A letter from your future son-in-law
This is an excerpt from the letter sent from Adoniram Judson (missionary to Burma for 42 years) to John Hasseltine, the father of Ann, the woman Judson wished to marry.
“I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world? whether you can consent to her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death? Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him who left His heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?” (Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore (New York: Little, Borwn, 1956), 83.)
[HT: ericbancroft)
These two have so much fun together (Taken with instagram)
It’s the little things…like rolling all the windows down (Taken with instagram)
I think the reason the church is not good at telling stories is because we’ve not taught people that they have a powerful story to tell.
Practitioner #4 (via mikerusch)
Big Themes Work out in Small Scenes
When you get to know a person well, you come to know both the panorama and the details. But change walks out in the details. The patterns, themes, and tendencies are like the view from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. From one hundred floors up, everything spreads serenely before you. But the action and noise of life happens at the corner of 5th Avenue & 34th Street and takes the Lincoln Tunnel home to Hoboken. Our lives work as stories, in a running series of scenes. Like a novel or movie, big themes work out in small scenes. This is how God has made it to be. This is how He works. This is something that would-be counselors often don’t get. It is something that preachers who do not counsel— and counsel well—often don’t understand. When you counsel (or preach) in great and good generalities, people will nod, but they rarely change. They rarely really change. Jesus works for a turn-the-world-upside-down reorientation and redirection. Ministry needs to know the big picture, but it always takes the elevator down to “G.” Get involved on the corner. Talk into the traffic noise. Drive over to Hoboken at rush hour. Change actually takes place in the watershed moments, choice points, and decisive incidents of everyday life.
David Powlison, ‘Think Locally, Act Globally,’ The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Fall 2003
