Showing Hope as a Family—and Experiencing Hope in Return
This blog was written by Nate and Julie, who are LifeHope Donors. As a LifeHope Donor, they fund an entire Adoption Aid grant, which is $418 monthly or $5,000 annually, each year. This act of loving generosity has had a profound effect on their family as they have engaged in orphan care together. You can become a LifeHope Donor or a Sponsor today.
As Christ’s ambassadors in the world, we all desire to transmit his love in ways that help make permanent transformations in the lives of others. One of the most encouraging ways our family has discovered to help accomplish Christ’s life-transforming work is through Show Hope’s LifeHope sponsorship program.
When our family first became LifeHope sponsors, we did not have a full understanding of how Show Hope specifically intended to direct the resources. We trusted that Show Hope was going to make sure the gift helped a child enter the love of a family through adoption. But we thought that was the end of the story—at least, as far as we would know in this lifetime.
We were joyfully surprised (and moved to tears) when we received a LifeHope sponsorship package in the mail some weeks later, blessing us with a picture of a family who received a grant and providing us with a synopsis of their unique adoption journey! All of a sudden, we were connected in spirit to a real family taking a step of faith to open their hearts and home through adoption. And we felt like we were walking arm-in-arm with them.
Receiving this package as a response to our grant gave us an opportunity to show our four young children a tangible example of how God invests our gifts to bear amazing fruit for his kingdom. Our kids previously seemed to intellectually grasp the importance of sharing the resources God entrusted to us to help another family bring home their child. But it resonated in a profoundly emotional way with our kids—and strengthened their faith (as it did ours!)—to receive a window of insight into how God was using our family in the lives of others who were also following him in faith.
Our experience as LifeHope sponsors allowed us to connect real faces with the desire God had given us to share our love and resources for the sake of Jesus Christ. It motivated us to want to find more ways to be conduits of God’s love. It also inspired the opportunity for our family to pray together in a focused, purposeful way for a family who received one of Show Hope’s Adoption Aid grants.
Adoption is such a beautiful metaphor for the permanence we all have in the family of God through Christ Jesus. And as we are adopted into God’s family, we can all gladly claim the promise that “nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then receiving a photograph of fellow Christians to whom you are now eternally connected in the mission of adoption is worth infinitely more—producing a palpable, prayerful thankfulness that words cannot fully express.
— Nate and Julie
The need is great, but there is hope.
With the cost of adoption ranging between $25,000 and $50,000, this is simply outside the reach of many families. But with God’s faithfulness and his working through donors and supporters, you can help make an impact in the lives of waiting children and families too. Give a one-time gift today or learn more about becoming a Sponsor or LifeHope Donor today.
