The “Seed Adoption” conferences taking place in Ethiopia began this past week.  As we’ve discussed before on this blog, I believe that although there is great need for a vast spectrum of creative ways of “caring for orphans in distress,” the single most strategic opportunity is to seed and support indigenous adoption movements among local Christians around the world.  Many Alliance member organizations were part of the coalition that hosted the Seed Adoption conferences, led by Kidmia.  Here are some tremendously exciting snippets from a report from my friend, Matt Kouri:

• Those present felt a strong sense that this is a spark that will soon become a flame across the country for indigenous adoption in Ethiopia, led by the Christian church.
• A member of the Ethiopian parliament was the first keynote, and he highlighted the importance of this issue at the federal level
• The other speakers were equally impressive both in terms of their content knowledge and their stature and positions in the country
• The Prime Minister’s office contacted Aschalew (Kidmia’s Ethiopia director) after the training to get all the materials and get his help in preparing the country for what is to come!
• At least 16 families from the first training alone committed to adopt immediately after the training, and at least 5 more pastors from Zeway later reported they were close to deciding to adopt
• Also, in our debrief with the 16 Zeway pastors who attended, they committed to doing another conference in Zeway just for their church members, and it will likely take place in the next month or so
• As you probably know, there is significant need for federal and local legal infrastructure to support adoption, and some of the agencies involved with Seed Adoption might be able to help tremendously
• In general, there were many clear Spirit-led events/testimonies/messages that made it clear this was a spiritual movement!

Finally, a quote from one of the speakers particularly struck me as worthy of repeating:

“Pure religion calls for men of courage and boldness, men who will march into dark and diseased places, take a child with difficulties and look at them and say you will be mine. Your identify will be in me and in this family, I am your father and you are my child. Pastors, men, my brothers, we must be the ones to lead the way in rescuing the fatherless.”