Grass and Tears and Orphans

As I mentioned in the previous post, school was in full swing for the Shoafs in the Fall of 2012. I signed permission slips and helped with homework while Tim wrote checks for lunch money to keep our seventh grader, fifth grader, and two first graders going. Again, I worked but felt more in control and less dazed in my second year as a working mom. Tim entered his busy season of spraying and fertilizing lawns. The house was buzzing (well, when we were home).

One lawn application from that Fall is etched in Tim's memory. I'm sure the lawn is amazing (he takes care of it!), but green grass is not what made the memory books that day. Tim was riding on his spreader/sprayer and listening to Dr. Dobson on his headphones. That's when Dobson introduced a woman named Stephanie Fast. In short Stephanie Fast was born and eventually abandoned and left on the streets of Korea as an orphan. As an adolescent, she was adopted and loved and came to a place in life when she knew that Christ identified with her hurt and accepted His grace given on the cross.

While Stephanie told her story and Tim sprayed that lawn, God made a connection between Tim and hurting children. Tim cried. No, Tim sobbed in that lawn. He heard the hurt in Stephanie's story and then the redemption of Christ realized. Tim's heart hurt for the forgotten children of the world. He wanted badly to reach a child so that the redemption of Christ could be realized for that child just as it was for Stephanie Fast.

I remember greeting Tim that night and he just said, "Well, I cried like a baby in a customer's lawn today." I briefly tried to picture this bronze man on a fertilizer spreader with wet cheeks and an ugly cry-face in some guy's yard. Then my thoughts turned to the guy...and the guy's neighbor. Oh, boy.

Anyway, he proceeded to tell me about the testimony he heard and insisted we sit together on the couch to listen to the radio broadcast together.

It was good. God is good. Stephanie Fast effectively advocates for orphans in the world today. Tim and I talked briefly about her story and then Tim said, "It just makes you want to adopt....I wonder if we should do that."

"What? Adopt?" I replied. And Tim just nodded. I thought he was weird.

All throughout our marriage, I have brought up some pretty crazy ideas. Even ministry ideas that were far-out...sometimes in an incredible way and sometime in the way of impossible. And here was perhaps the craziest idea that had ever been brought up, but this time by Tim. Yes, this was weird.

"Let's at least pray about it," Tim suggested. And I agreed that praying would be an excellent place to start. So that's what we did.


 

Listen to Stephanie Fast's testimony here.