Both Hands project

Watch for our upcoming Both Hands project! 

This is a great opportunity for you
to both help support our adoption 
AND help a widow with a home repair project!

Check out Both Hands and stay tuned!

Last days of Summer ...

Good morning! We'd like to update all of you on our adoption. We understand that it's more exciting to support an adoption when you have a picture of the child you're helping to bring home and there are some more concrete dates... but here's where we're at currently:

All of our Home Study paperwork has been submitted to Holt Korea and we're now waiting for a child-match or child referral to our family. That could happen as soon as this Fall, people! We're looking forward to seeing who God has planned to join our family! 

Right now our family just finished a Safe Families hosting that lasted 3 1/2 weeks of July. It's a blessing to serve these children who we also hosted last Summer! Being able to build onto that relationship was such a neat way to share our Summer.

Now as Summer is officially winding down, we're focused on getting our homeschool course mapped out and general "family busyness" helps to pass this waiting period in our adoption!

As everyone knows, bringing a child home from overseas through adoption is expensive. From government paperwork, court costs, travel to the country (twice), and adoption agency fees, we're dipping deep into the resources God has blessed us with. (http://www.holtinternational.org/adoption/fees.php)

To those of you who have expressed a desire to gift us financially, we thank you!

Donation checks should be payable to "Lifesong for Orphans" and in the memo, note: Schurter #6219.

Please mail to:

Lifesong for Orphans

P.O. Box 40

Gridley, IL

61744

Lifesong has been blessed with partners who underwrite all U.S. administrative and fundraising costs. That means 100% of your donation will go directly to our adoption costs.

www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donateSelect "Give to an Adoptive Family". Complete the online form and fill in "Family Account Number" (#6219) and "Family Name" (Schurter) fields. Note PayPal charges and administrative fee (2.2% + $.30 USD per transaction). Your donation will be decreased by the amount of this fee.

In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization (Lifesong) retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor's suggested use (donation to our adoption fund).

Individual donations of $50 or more and yearly donations totaling $250 or more will receive a tax-deductible receipt. Receipts for donations under $50 will gladly be sent upon request. Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.

Thanks to all of you who have encouraged us in our adoption!

Sign Posts along the way!

Stephanie Fast

when she first came home

as a Korean orphan.

Friendly note: In case you think by our earlier post that people should not be adopting from Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, or Uganda; please let us reiterate in this post that we believe South Korea is the country that God has for our family at this time. We don't want to discourage anyone from checking out other programs which may be a better fit for your family!

"Dear God; if You have a child who is waiting to be loved in a forever family, please bring them to us; or lead us to them!" - a friend encouraged us to pray this prayer at the start of our adoption journey!

I walk by faith but pray for "sign posts" along the way... These "spiritual mile markers" bolster my confidence while traveling an unfamiliar path; kind of like a gentle nudge from my Shepherd, reminding me that He's on this adventure with me, and that I should keep walking in this way! 

While this is not a complete list of "sign posts" (our adoption journey is far from over!) they did serve as confirmations, especially in the early stages of our adoption, that yes, South Korea was the country where God has a child waiting for us to be his or her forever family!

Luke's first cousin married a Korean man. He was such a strong man of God; a teacher with a servant's heart. We all loved his smile and his humor; he was a wonderful addition to our family. 

Tragically, he passed away in his early 30s; just a few years into their marriage, from a rare form of cancer. He left behind Luke's beautiful cousin and 2 precious children who strongly favor their Korean ancestry.

One of the things told to us as perspective international adoptive parents, is the importance of preserving our child's culture. Having Korean family members from the start, brings their culture so much closer to home!

Shortly after our decision to adopt, at the suggestion of a friend actively involved in orphan care ministry, we looked into Holt International. Holt International is a 60 year-old child services program; the first, in fact to make the rest of the world aware of the plight of orphans in Korea, following the Korean War and many other conflicts in that region.

Holt has been a fabulous! From the moment we started our paperwork and processing with them, doors begin to open so readily ... their staff has been so helpful and thoughtful and things have gone so smoothly ... it's been a real peace and answer to prayer.

We first heard about Stephanie Fast when a friend loaned us her DVD copy of Stephanie's testimony "She is Mine". Stephanie was an orphan from Korea; her father was an American serviceman during the war and her mother had no choice but to abandon her as the aftermath of that conflict ravaged their country.

To say that this woman's testimony is powerful, is an understatement of the year. Luke and I sat watching with tears as she told her incredible story of God leading her out of that war-torn country and placing her in a loving family where she thrived and grew to love the Lord and serve Him with her whole heart! 

A friend asked if we wanted to volunteer with their family at Winter Jam. Holt International is one of the sponsors of Winter Jam, bringing awareness to orphans and vulnerable children around the world through their child sponsorship program. 

Volunteering meant we wore a Holt apron filled with envelopes that had the names and faces of children from around the world who needed child sponsorship. Our job was to walk around during the intermission and urge people to consider child sponsorship.

(We were also able to arrive early and pick whatever seats we wanted in the house! Front row seats to watch For King & Country, Matthew West, New Song, & Lauren Daigle anyone?!)

A couple days before the concert, I found out who the guest speaker was going to be this year: yep; it was Stephanie Fast!

After the intermission when the concert begin again, I got lost in the throngs of people walking through the outer corridor around the Event Center. Being only 5 foot tall, this is not an uncommon occurrence for me ... but I was starting to feel a bit panicky and claustrophobic! When I finally saw an opening and broke through the crowd of people, I was standing right in front of Stephanie Fast!

She was sitting quietly behind her table ... there was no one in line ... she had finished her intermission message and was taking a break. I sprinted toward her and she stood up with the warmest smile on her face.

Stephanie Fast

"Oh, Stephanie I'm so thrilled I get to meet you! I thought I was going to be trampled in that crowd!! My husband and I just watched your documentary,...we were moved to tears... we just started our Korean adoption through Holt!" 

My words tumbled out over one another as she embraced me tightly and whispered in my ear "Bless you!" and shoved one of her books in my hand.

"Oh, I definately want to buy this," I blurted. "Can you please sign it for me!"

"Oh no," she insisted. "This is my gift!" and she signed a copy of "She is Mine" to me and Luke.

I was beaming when I walked back to meet up with the others ... happy to tell them that I had met my new-found adoption hero, and chalked it up as another signpost along our journey!

Luke had attended the International Justice Mission Global Prayer Gathering in 2015 and after being so impacted by the event, bought me a ticket to attend with him in Spring of 2016! We flew to Washington D.C. the end of April 2016 for a 4-day weekend where we also enjoyed catching up with friends who live in the D.C. area. 

We spent 2 days before the event seeing historic sites and touring the Smithsonian Museums on the National Mall. When we went into the Museum of Natural History (the one featured in the film "Night at the Museum"), we were surprised to find a country exhibit on the second floor. Can you guess which country was featured?

"Oh, Luke! Let's go through the Korea one, first!" I was very excited, but clueless; till Luke informed me that it's a traveling exhibit and Korea was the only country exhibit featured in the museum that weekend. 

There was no doubt in my mind that God had given me another special sign post along the journey - for what else could explain how we "stumbled" onto the Korea exhibit in the short time window we spent in D.C.?? 

As we looked through the exhibit and realized what a rich culture and beautiful heritage our child would have, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I told Luke, "I almost feel guilty for taking them out of their home country..."

Adoption is always second-best to children staying in their original families in the land of their birth... no matter how much we love our child, we cannot fully replace any of that. Viewing the Korea exhibit made me much more committed to preserving as much of our child's culture as we can and to teaching them about their heritage. 

There have been many more "sign posts" along our journey... some of them may seem silly, but they all meant something to me!

When we traveled up to Naperville to get our photos and finger printing done for the FBI, my officer was surprised to see that we were Americans (probably the only Americans in an out-the-door line of immigrants). She was further interested to hear we were adopting from Korea and instantly said, "an-nyeong-ha-se-yo" (in Hangul: 안녕하세요) which is "Hello!"

At this point, I'd seen enough sign posts from God to come to expect them along the journey... so I immediately started laughing. Luke stuck his head around the partition where he was being printed and I said, "Of course, Luke. She's speaking Korean to me!"
I kept laughing, when Luke's not-as-friendly-officer barked at him, "Sir; please stand on the line!" and his head quickly disappeared.

The officer in charge of me had lived in Korea for a time and taught me the phrase. She mentioned a Korean Grocery Store not far from the office called Super H Mart. So, of course, we went! 

We bought some bamboo trivets made in Seoul, South Korea, for the grammies to use as reminders to pray for their future grandbaby (as if they needed a reminder! They're already so excited they can hardly stand the wait!) We bought some chop sticks to learn with, and some delicious produce we've never seen before: Korean Melon and Lycee. 

I continue to be amazed by the way that my God cares so supremely for us! He looks after every detail and surprises us with glimpses of His loving preparation of our 5th child. 

There's a Korean church literally a block (one block, people) away from our house. On Saturday afternoons they have a Korean cultural school that is open to the public where they teach Hangul (Korean lettering), spoken language, customs and celebrate the holidays. We can walk or bike ride to this church for services, cultural classes or special events as a family to preserve our child's heritage. 

Isn't our God incredible? He cares about every detail... He's carefully putting into place everything our precious baby will need when he or she makes their debut in America!

Square 1: Open Doors

The beginning of our adoption journey was definitely kick-started by the series of events that Luke described in his testimonyhttp://theschurterfamily.blogspot.com/2017/06/journeying-on.html?m=1... but there was still a lot of concentrated prayer and life circumstances that prepared us for our decision to adopt.

Our pastor began a sermon series surrounding The Daniel Fast in January of 2016. We decided in addition to a time of spiritual growth & prayer maturing as individuals, our personal focus during the Daniel Fast would be on the next big step for our family. Would we look seriously into purchasing a larger home for our growing family? Did God want to build our family through another biological pregnancy? Or should we adopt?

Toward the end of the 21 day Daniel Fast, we began to sense a strong peace whenever the subject of adoption came up... for a number of reasons we'll outline in this post, we were beginning to believe now was the season for our family to adopt.

We believe it will be beneficial for our children to bond at a young age and grow up with an adopted sibling. We sit in church behind our friends who have several adopted children and think, "Our family is supposed to look like that!"

We're so moved by the lyrics in Worship music about God placing orphans into families... The subject of adoption came up regularly in conversations with friends, on Christian radio programs, as well as at church.

Through the horrific child abuse call Luke had experienced at work, our family had started child sponsorship. Our family was now loving and supporting an unadoptable orphan in Darfur, Sudan through Make Way Partners and sponsored a sweet little girl and her family in Columbia, through Compassion International.

Our family was already serving in the ministry of Safe Families together... and we are Freedom Partners through International Justice Mission; a wonderful organization that played a huge part in Luke's healing from injustice burn-out.  

We had been attending International Talk Time on Friday nights with International Student Ministries at ISU (more about this fabulous ministry in later posts!) and loved watching our children interact with international students and the children of families who moved to our area for continuing education. And Luke and I both took a course called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement that was held at our church in the Winter/Spring 2016 semester.

We had attended the Connecting Hearts with the Forgotten adoption conference when it was held in our community, and learned more about caring for children from hard places by attending the Empowered to Connect Conference held at our church. The Trust Based Relationship Intervention we learned from Dr. Karyn Purvis at ETC proved to be vital parent training; not only in raising our own children, but in hosting children from hard places!

There could be no doubt that God had been in the process of expanding the borders of our hearts big-time and had turned our pain into a passion to help vulnerable children ... we knew adoption was the next logical step!

Luke said, "Suse - we can't mess this up. We're following God's heart - and if He doesn't want adoption for our family right now, He'll close the doors. If He opens them; we'll keep walking through 'em!" But how does one even begin to open adoption doors? I think the first one - our willingness - had already been opened, and we'd walked through it!

At a baby shower in January, I spoke with a sweet mama who had a house full of biological blessings but was now pursuing international adoption. She encouraged me to check out Loving Shepherd Ministries; an organization helping orphans and vulnerable children around the world. They had an online assessment form families can fill out to determine which country and adoption agency your family qualifies for.

In that very same weekend, the His Little Feet Choir sang and shared at our church. Their program was powerful; Luke and I pretty much wept through the entire service. Not only had our hearts been softening toward children from hard places for a while at that point, but adoption was weighing so heavily on our hearts that we knew we couldn't ignore it.

We had a family over for lunch after church; they have 1 biological child, 3 adopted children, and are also a Safe Families host family. I spoke with my friend about our strong adoption pull and she also mentioned the evaluation from Loving Shepherd Ministries. That was all it took! Two mentions in one weekend... I knew this was the first step.

Valentine's Day weekend, we made the decision to pursue international adoption (more on why we chose to adopt internationally, later). We got on the Loving Shepherd Ministries website and filled out their evaluation. A short time later, we received our results and were surprised to discover that we only qualified for only 3 countries!

Because of our keen awareness of child trafficking and human slavery, we were hoping to qualify for a country in Southeast Asia... but because we have 4 biological children, we currently only qualify for adoption programs in Bulgaria, Korea and Uganda.

(A friend had suggested we look into Kyrgyzstan: a country just starting to accept international adoptions; but after further investigation, neither one of us felt it was a stable enough program yet for our family...)

On one hand, we could look at our small list with disappointment - but we choose to be thankful that God narrowed down our choice of countries to help bring clarity to an otherwise immensely overwhelming task! 

I think I had a romanticized notion that the country we were supposed to adopt from would leap out at us and we would know instantly that was the place God had for our family.  I was quickly learning that this Faith walk was going to cover every square inch of the journey in our adoption! 

We decided to continue with Luke's open-door policy... and went ahead with further research into our short country list.

We looked into Uganda, but learned some families were experiencing significant delays in bringing their children home. We felt our children are too young to understand why Daddy and Mommy couldn't bring their new brother or sister home if we became involved in that program and ran into problems.

As in our research of Kyrgyzstan, we didn't feel like the Bulgaria program had enough stability for our family, so we checked that one off our list.

That of course, left only one option: Korea. It seemed as though the country had "found" us...

Praying that God would give us visible green-lights if Korea was indeed the country where He had a waiting child for us, we charged ahead into the unknown!

"For the LORD your God is God of gods and LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing." - Deuteronomy 10:14

Safe Families for Children

"God sets the solitary in families;

He brings out those who are bound into prosperity..."  - Psalm 68:6

What does it mean to be the hands and feet of Jesus?

We grew up in church learning about Jesus, where He walked and had His ministry here on earth, and we know we're supposed to be like Christ in every way; but what does that look like in our day-to-day?

I had to come to terms with realigning my walk with my talk in a very real way over a year ago in the restaurant of a local hotel. It was there that we met our pastor and his wife to talk about a program called, "Safe Families for Children"; and I had gone prepared with lots of questions... and they were all written down, to be exact!

"Safe Familes for Children" was founded 13 years ago in Chicago, Illinois, by a man named Dave Anderson. Dave saw the gap widening between children who actually qualified for DCSF protective custody (i.e. they were being physically endangered by the adults around them), and children who had loving parents but were facing a personal crisis so overwhelming that they were literally unable to care for their own children.

Dave created a program where parents could voluntarily place their children into the care of loving, intact homes, where they could be cared for until the date agreed upon by both parents and host families. With their children in safe hands, the placing parents could now pursue areas they needed to work out in their lives to get their own homes back to a status where their children could return to a safe environment.

Safe Families is a remarkable program, mainly because it runs entirely on volunteers! No one who hosts a child ever receives a check (as in typical foster care) and the parents don't get incentives to achieve their goals before their children are returned to them. It's all voluntary. It's simply Christ's people stepping up to help a family who has no other support structure to fall back on. It's the Church being the hands and feet of Jesus!

I wish that I could say I wholeheartedly threw myself into the ministry of Safe Families - but honestly, I tip toed into it with a lot of hesitation. I questioned the legality of it all, wondered how the accountability worked, and was generally more concerned about outside influences on my own children, than for the children of hurting families.

Thankfully, our pastor's wife saw through my fears of the unknown, to my genuine desire to minister to hurting families and she spoke wisdom into my nervous little heart! 

My friend reminded me that when Christ stepped from Heaven into the darkness of this world, He did so, not to pluck us out of the darkness, but instead chosing to walk beside us while we were yet in the darkness - never leaving us or forsaking us; offering us His blessed Hope and salvation.

Slowly, I began to understand Safe Families was created to walk beside hurting families and be a safety net for them - someone they can trust to care for their children while they're working out whatever crisis is going on in their lives. Someone to talk to when they really miss their kids or have had a hard day and need encouragement! Someone to call when they've run out of money for diapers or need to find another place to live.

To date, Safe Families has spread internationally; serving over 24,000 children through it's program of Christian hospitality. And that's exactly what Safe Families does... give Christians a way to open up their homes in the Biblical spirit of hospitality; no strings attached, no expectations from the placing parents... just offering love to their children as Christ loved us! And the children we've had the privilege of hosting have blessed us, in as much as we've blessed them!

In 2015, our family hosted 4 children in 2 separate 3-week hostings, and 2 other sibling groups for 24 hours of respite care for another host family in our community. Luke and I quickly caught onto how the Safe Families program worked and fell in love with this opportunity for our whole family to serve God together!

Every child has a different background story on why mom or dad needed someone to care for them... and every child taught us how to love like Jesus loved.

Our own children learned that they're not the only fish in the sea and that mommy and daddy can love and care for other children; even those we've never previously met! I found that our children looked forward to having new friends come stay with us - and it was a blessing for me to talk with the placing mamas and assure them their children were being well cared for.

I encourage anyone who has ever considered caring for families in need to check out the Safe Families program! There is currently a tremendous need for more hosting families... as Illinois loses more and more control of their fiscal responsibility, DCFS is forced to resort to foster-care for children who only need respite or other social services. Families are being broken up unnecessarily and it is heart breaking to have to turn people away because there aren't families to take in their children.

We have a friend who recently took an Uber cab... in witnessing to the cab driver, our friend discovered that the driver was Buddhist. He stated he used to be a Christian; but left the faith because "Christians segregate their churches, and no body loves."

This should not be the way the world views the Church! We need to be the first ones to step in and help those in need - especially in our own neighborhoods and surrounding communities. 

Honestly; we can tell our children to be the hands and feet of Jesus, or we can show them what that looks like. Together as a family, we learned the joy of serving with Safe Families!

The beginning of our story...

Every adoption begins with a story...
Ours is no different.
But the story God is writing with our family now, didn't begin with happiness or the overwhelming joyous decision to adopt.
Our story began with death.

My husband is a firefighter/paramedic for a town of about 55 thousand. Luke said he loves his job because it enables him to help people in critical need; to bring rescue to those who have found themselves in really bad situations and may even die without intervention.

Of course, not every call brings him to a person fighting in a life or death struggle, but every call does come from someone who needs some kind of rescue that they cannot do for themselves. 

Luke has worked as a paramedic/fireman for over ten years. He was heading down this road when I met him, and I'm so proud of the dedication to service he exemplifies. But obviously, being a firefighter/paramedic doesn't come without challenges or pain.

And our story from 2013-2015 turned out to be one painful nightmare after another.

Here's how Luke recounts it in the words of the testimony he shared at our church last November:

"What is fair and just?"
I’ve never been particularly emotional, but I’ve always had a strong sense of what’s right and wrong. In my work as a firefighter and paramedic I’ve encountered some pretty tragic and devastating situations, but the worst of those to deal with was the loss of one of my own brother firefighters, who was on my crew. And it came during a period of 18 months in which we attended six funerals for active firefighters in our community.

My grief and the difficulty I faced in processing the loss of brothers on the fire dept, some personal situations, and some terrible calls, stemmed from that question; “What is fair and just?” 

As I wrestled with bitterness and the anger that it produced, my heart became hardened toward any lesson the LORD would have for me.

I want to say some things out loud, not to anyone in particular, but just because you don’t get a chance to say them in the moment:

I’m sorry that your husband died at 40 from an unknown heart condition and that your autistic teenage son no longer has a father.

I’m sorry you can’t work as a firefighter anymore because the last thoughts you had before going unconscious while trapped in a fire were, “I can’t believe this is happening, I can’t believe I’m going to die like this.”

I’m sorry that you were raped the weekend you moved to school, while your parents were still in town, and that the college experience will always have a terrible meaning for you.

I’m sorry boys, that at 8 and 5, you are fatherless because your dad died of cancer at 32.

I’m sorry that your dad passed away unexpectedly just a few days after he celebrated your son’s 1^st birthday.

I’m sorry that your friends ignored your last cry for help, and that you succumbed to the darkness of depression and took your own life as they were sleeping in the next room.

I’m sorry that although you spent a career of being there when you were needed most that no one was there when you needed them most, and you died alone.

 I’m sorry that when our brother grabbed your leg in the ambulance and desperately cried out, “I can’t breathe,” that you had to be the ones to try and vainly save him from a fatal problem that could not have been fixed had he been on an operating table.

I’m sorry that you were shot as a teenager but your greatest obstacle will be to overcome the lifestyle you were brought up in.

I’m sorry that when your husband left home as a volunteer firefighter for a call, the firefighter that returned was the Chief; and he did so to inform you that your husband, the father of your two boys, had been struck and killed on the interstate.

I’m sorry that when you were diagnosed with cancer, your family turned their backs on you, and didn’t support your choice for treatment.

I’m sorry boys that you will struggle with guilt your whole lives knowing that your dad died from an injury he sustained while playing with you, his two favorite people in the world.

I’m sorry that no one had your best interests in mind and that you were left in the care of an abusive person whose mistreatment led to your death within weeks and that the last days of your 3 years of life were filled with suffering, confusion, and a lack of love.

What is fair and just? These are all references to events I dealt with in that 18 month time-period. Someone tell me what could possibly be redeemable about these situations!

Now, I have a unique job that requires me to remove my emotions from the situation in order to make the right decisions and best solve problems. I was pretty good at it too, until the lines between work, brotherhood, and home life were terribly upset by some of these situations.

As you can probably guess by now, bitterness began to creep into my heart and grew and grew and grew until my heart was harder and more calloused than would ever be useful to my job.

In fact, during this time we also got caught up in a mess of a home purchase gone wrong and ended up with threats of lawsuit and a weak attorney.

The stress finally got to Susi as well and I remember her pleading with me one night to do whatever was necessary, to give up any amount of money, in order to get our family out from under some of the stress that was pressing down on us.

“Do it for us? Don’t you love me or the kids enough to give it up?” she said between tears. “Don’t you have any concern left for us?”

And with the same sincerity and resolve that I said “I do”, I looked at Susi and said, “All I have left is anger.”

That was it. The waves of tragedy had pounded me relentlessly for months and I was drowning. That was a hard place to be.

The thing about bitterness is that it robs you of compassion, and as you see more and more situations that need a compassionate response, the only response your mind can produce comes from that backdrop, that canvas of bitterness; and for me it was anger. And I was burning with it.

The problems of everyone around me were too petty, people were upset about things that didn’t matter; at least your friends aren’t dead!

I was running out of things/people to direct my anger towards. And praise the LORD that I was able to see that from that place, because I would have hated to see where else that anger would have taken me.

I sought out help and began seeing a Christian counselor. The lawsuit went away, the home purchase fell through, I was able to grieve, and some of the stress began to dissipate. But my heart was still hard.

And...

I couldn’t leave well enough alone! Due to the tragedy involving the young child, we had begun orphan sponsorship and through that organization I was referred to a book by the title of "The Locust Effect" by Gary Haugen. The book opened my eyes to some of the most grisly sins committed against children, orphans, widows and the poor.

I had lost compassion while dealing with a few of my own experiences and now, I was learning about all this other horrible stuff! That bitterness and anger were right there again.

Susi had begun the habit of playing Chris Tomlin’s song, "God of Angel Armies" while I had carefully put on my dress uniform for the many FF funerals and naturally I had come to despise it. I was spending my time getting ready trying to figure out what to say to these kids; “I’m sorry” just didn’t seem to cut it and “God has a plan” was too cliché.

One Sunday at church, I was surprised to see "His Little Feet" choir comprised of orphans from Compassion International’s program. They had a wonderful performance and powerful testimonies of the situations they had come from and where they were now. But at the end, guess what song they sang?

I was a mess, crying in my back corner pew. I had become so angry, so hard, so calloused, so bitter, that I thought my heart would never break again. But in that moment, my heart broke for those children; for the victims of injustice, for the situations they come from.

As they passed by to leave, the kids began giving high fives and as each hand touched mine the thoughts of where they could have ended up came to mind. Truly the God of Angel Armies had been by their side.

I suddenly realized that if my heart was burdened for the situations I had seen, how much more was my heavenly Father’s heart burdened for all the horrific things He sees, and cannot look away from?

This isn’t just my story; it’s just made up of the stories of many others, who I’d love to tell you more about; but more importantly, it’s God’s story: I was just in the middle of it and need to share it.

This was a very costly lesson... remember that it took me months after holding a child beaten to death to realize that my heart was far from God’s concerning the compassion I had for those around me who are hurting the most.

I thought the things I had experienced were bad, but they were nothing compared to the sufferings and injustices experienced by so many around the world.

Now, let’s face it; we all have or will wrestle with difficult situations at some point in life. We’re all going to have times when we are asking ourselves,

 “Why has this happened? How can God work good through this terrible situation?”

I don’t know what is redeemable about these events I experienced, and I have no other choice than to leave that in God’s hands. But I do know that through some of the worst imaginable situations, God has given the opportunity for His people to show up! Whether by bringing food, medical care, justice, freedom and rescue, or simply the Good News that Jesus has paid the penalty for our sins and provided a way for us to have a relationship with God!

This is why we do Safe Families; this is why we’re still in our small house; this is why I went to Honduras. We are simply trying to offer the menial things we have and let the LORD work through them as He desires.

As far as me though, these past two years ruined my life. I had my plans for a perfect house; I had my idea of what my career would look like, of exactly how I wanted to raise my kids, all these different things; and those just aren’t priorities anymore, once you see how they can all change in an instant.

But a long time ago I said that I gave my life to Christ. So maybe all these things really just helped me to get back to where I needed to be; to be giving my life to Christ. These things ruined my life, but they helped it to become GOD’s life again in a more genuine way... and though I fail, I try to honor that daily."

That's an abbreviated account of the beginning of our story... but good news, things just kept getting better from then! And I don't think it's because our life's situations have really changed... I believe it's because our perspectives have been radically changed. More on that, later!

We choose to share our story, because we want to give God GLORY for turning our pain into passion.

With joy in the journey,
Luke & Susi

In front of the sign at our church... that week`s sermon was impacting.