Ridgewood Community Church's Adoption Ministry

Written by Mike DeVries, member of Ridgewood:

About a year ago Ken Warners approached my wife Deb and me along with another couple, Greg and Jolynn VanWienen, about establishing an adoption resource committee. Since we all understood the blessings received through adopting children we all wanted to be a part of forming this committee in our church. Our meetings initially consisted of three couples having coffee after church and dreaming about what God might be calling us to share.. We didn’t have any set expectations, we simply decided to establish the committee, and see where God would lead us. Our vision was to provide support to those exploring the adoption of a child needing a family. Support would include being a resource to those seeking answers to adoption and financial assistance, if needed, to bring it to reality. We also knew that we would need to educate our congregational members on the needs and how they could participate.

At one of our first ARC meetings Ken Warners shared that he was praying that God would work in the hearts of families in our congregation to consider adoption. “Some of these people don’t know that we are praying for them, but I’m praying anyway”, Ken said. Even though we have just begun, we have seen God answering prayers and working in the hearts of people in our congregation and others. At least four children have been adopted since forming our Adoption Resource Committee and I know of others that are in the process of adoption as a direct result of sharing our stories.

This past summer we hosted a picnic at a local park, which provided for another informal way of sharing our stories and our children with those who might be considering adopting. It was about that time that we set a goal of establishing a fund at our church for the direct purpose of supporting those that make a decision to adopt a child. With some initial seed money we were able to offer our first family financial assistance. Last month we involved our congregation by taking a collection for the fund. We praise God for the money that was collected and we feel that the money already has a purpose that will be discovered soon.

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