Our call from the beginning, Part II: The people and families He used to open our hearts and minds: Troy McNeill

Our call from the beginning, Part II:

  The people and families He used to open our hearts and minds: 

Troy McNeill

 

"Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds."  Hebrews 10:24

 

     It is difficult to talk about our adoption journey without mentioning the very day that we felt the call to adopt. We had attended the main worship service at our church, Biltmore Baptist in Arden, NC. It was a special day, Global Sunday, raising awareness for the needs of people worldwide, specifically Kenya and Guatemala where our church serves. After a powerful service we went on to our connect group where Troy McNeill was our teacher that day.  Quite honestly, neither of us remember the specific topic of his teaching--and that is because of what happened at the end of his lesson.  (Let us interject that the way Troy spoke to us that day was very unique. We had neither heard Troy or any of our leaders speak like this and have not since. The Lord was at work...and it was a powerful thing!) Led by the Holy Spirit, Troy started to very loosely and candidly speak about how the Lord was working in his life. Being Global Sunday, partnered with the fact that his sister-in-law was about to do mission work in Zimbabwe, Troy was feeling the Lord heavily lay Africa on his heart, bringing it up to him over and over again.  He had been moved by the church service and moved by the Lord's still small, yet persistent voice.

     And this is when it gets good. After sharing the Lord's stirrings Troy turned his attention to all of us. "I know that there is someone here who has been getting a message like this...that God has been putting a particular place or a specific subject into your life and continues to bring it up. Have you considered...that God is CALLING you to something?"

     Molly instantly knew he was talking about us. It was adoption. The Lord was calling us to adopt.

"Pure religion is this: that you look after orphans and widows in their distress and you remain unstained from the world." James 1:27

"I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me."  Matthew 25:40 

 

A recent photo taken by our talented neighbor, photographer Linnae Harris of Linnae Designs.
Linnae is an adoptive parent herself with two beautiful children from Russia.