First, Saddleback was amazing. The campus was huge and I kept having to consult my map to find out where I was and how to get to the next breakout. The youth building was my favorite. It looked like a themed restaurant and actually had a grill a deli and a snack shop inside as well as the whole second floor dedicated to recreation. It had a skate park outside with a waterfall/baptism pool defining the edges of the skate park.
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| Youth Building |
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| Baptism pool behind youth building |
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| Children's Building |
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| Dinner outside the main Worship Center |
Rick Warren gave me a hug- twice. That was cool. :-) Everyone was asking to have their picture with him so I resisted the urge and just got my hug. I got to hear him speak as well as Francis Chan, Dennis Rainey, Russel Moore, and Karen Purvis. All so wise. I could listen to them for hours- wait, I did!
I got to hear two of my favorite Christian artists, Steven Curtis Chapman and Geoff Moore.
I got to hear so many great speakers and powerful testimonies. We already have an orphan care ministry at our church and it is going well. I was mostly energized with the great sense that the Church as a whole is making a difference and answering God's call to defend the fatherless.
Some things that stuck out to me:
Rwanda is on track to be the first nation to have NO orphans! They are down to just 30 orphanages in the entire country and are diligently seeking families in their churches and communities to adopt these children. Just amazing.
Last year was the first year that Ukraine participated in Orphan Sunday and they had over 6000 churches participate from all denominations.
I learned so much about Saddleback and their orphan ministry. They do orphan care completely different than how they did when they first got started. At first they built orphanages, now they refuse to build orphanages, their goal is to empty them. Love that.
I found several ministries that I can learn from including some that help kids who are ageing out of foster care. This is something we've been led into as we've seen a few of the kids we're working with in the group homes age out and we try to come along side of them and help them in their adults lives. We've been exploring ways to best help these kids.
Here's one of my favorite quotes from the conference. It was spoken a long time ago, but it is still oh so good, "I have found there are 3 stages to every great work of God. First it's impossible, then it's difficult, then it's done." - Hudson Taylor
There are now over 167million orphans in the world. The church is God's answer for the fatherless. "God set the lonely in families." Ps 68:6
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