This year we pressed on with our fight for justice, to see redemption come to the lives of precious children who need fathers and a family of their own. With my own children now fatherless, my passion only grows deeper. Every time I see a child step into the arms of a loving family,  my heart leaps inside of me. I am blessed by so many families who have linked arms with us to rescue, adopt and restore orphans.  I am so moved by the emails that I still receive,  sharing about how Derek’s life and passion have spurred others on to walk out the journey of redemption in their own lives.

As real as the pain and loss are,  and as deeply as we still grieve,  the love of the Father remains as our steady and constant hope.  He loves us.  This we know!  He is watching over us,  He cares for our hearts, and without Him,  this journey would be impossible.  I cling to my Jesus and lean hard on His unfailing Love.

As we honor Derek’s memory on this, the second anniversary of his death, I am grateful for the mercy of God.  I am grateful for children who love Jesus and press on in the midst of pain.   I am so grateful for those who have loved, supported and prayed for our family  in so many ways.   And,  I am grateful,  more than I can say that the mission God gave Derek and I together, still carries on.  Our staff at the Orphan Justice Center are amazing and I am so thankful that they too,  have an undying passion to see justice walked out for children around the world. They have worked tirelessly to see children restored through the love of their Creator,  the One who considers them priceless and beautiful and so worth fighting for!

A few weeks ago The Orphan Justice Center released a beautiful children’s book “Redemption,” written by our dear friend Tiffany Larson and illustrated by another precious friend, Bethany Hackman. This book tells the story of our journey to Ukraine to adopt our three boys, Ethan, Silas, and Sasha and was inspired by Derek’s “Redemption” blog post written in 2008 while we were in Ukraine. It was three years ago yesterday (on December 22, 2008) that a Ukrainian judge decreed that three precious little boys would become our sons forever.  Yesterday, we celebrated their adoptions.  Our eyes filled up with tears as we looked into each precious face and saw in their eyes,  the reflection of a daddy who fought hard to rescue them and fought even harder to see them restored.

You can read more about the book release and purchase it if you’d like, HERE.  Any profits from the book (above and beyond the printing costs) will benefit our work at The Orphan Justice Center.

We are also thrilled to announce that in the next month or so, we will be releasing an album that Derek had been working on  months before his death. This is a priceless treasure to us as a family. This album is full of  the depth and passion of what the Lord was doing in Derek and speaking to his heart in the last year of his life. We can hardly wait to share it with all of you.

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas this year, I ask you to join our family in truly reflecting on the power of redemption that is offered to us because of Christ’s humble birth,  His death on the cross and His resurrection. Because He loved us so well and sacrificed His very life, we have been made his sons and daughters through the spirit of adoption. He redeemed us,  restored us and calls us His own.

Derek’s life was a challenge to many,  to walk out the message of the gospel by literally living it, by  rescuing and restoring orphans through adoption.  I’ve included (below) a video that our precious friend and partner in justice, Marci Lewellen, put together last year  in memory of Derek.  It is a true celebration of so many of the lives that have been rescued.

God’s heart for justice is beyond what we could begin to imagine. His love for the orphan is priceless and I know that each time a child is rescued, all of Heaven rejoices!

Thank you again to all of you who have loved us so well. Your prayers have carried us far and we are so humbled by the love and the support you’ve shown our family.  We are truly rich in love….

As most of you know, Derek and I founded the Orphan Justice Center to do our part to help the over 143 million orphans around the world. I am so blessed by our staff who have tirelessly, served along side us to do their part to walk out God’s mandate to care for the orphan (James 1:27).

The Orphan Justice Center’s new hardback children’s book called “Redemption, a true adoption story,” has now been released. You can buy it for $25 and all royalties will go to the Orphan Justice Center. Please, won’t you think about buying one as a Christmas gift? It’s a beautiful book about the adoption of mine and Derek’s three boys from Eastern Europe (Silas, Ethan and Sasha). It will move your heart and will help children to understand more about God’s heart for his priceless ones…the orphan. And please help spread the word! Thanks so much!  Lulu has a sale right now 25% of any order through the 14th of December! Use the coupon code: COUNTDOWN at checkout.” CLICK HERE TO ORDER!

As a family,  we are approaching the 2nd anniversary of Derek’s death on December 23rd. The pain of his loss is still very real and yet we are so thankful for the fruit of  the message that God challenged him to carry.  Our OJC staff and I,  still carry this message in our hearts and through the efforts of our labor. We would so appreciate your prayers as we continue to help orphans from around the world to be rescued, adopted and restored. We want to see these priceless ones come to an understanding of what it means to be loved by their Creator, and by parents, who with God’s help, will do whatever it takes to see them restored. We need God’s strength, his wisdom and finances as we link arms with other ministries, organizations and families,  to make a difference in the lives of these precious ones who are living without much hope.

This book is a labor of love by Tiffany Larson and Bethany Hackman, two of our Orphan Justice Center staff and very dear friends. Tiffany drew the story line from Derek’s “Redemption”  blog post which many of you are familiar with.  I’ve included it below.  Tiffany also was one of our family support staff volunteers, who helped care for Silas when we first adopted him. Bethany is the illustrator for this book and her work is beautiful!  She also serves and volunteers with our family one morning a week. We pray and trust that this book will be a tool that will reach the next generation and capture their hearts with passion to love and care for the orphan.

God bless you all!

From Derek and Renee’s Blog
Friday, December 12, 2008

REDEMPTION

“Renee’ and I are sitting in the office of a telephone company in Novograd Valenski, Ukraine, using wireless internet. We are in the middle of adopting three special needs boys from an orphanage here. Two of the boys have Down Syndrome. Roman is high functioning, energetic and happy. Dimitri has serious mental retardation, failure to thrive, and though he is five years old, he is the size of a 1 year old. He has sores on his face, a distinct smell of death on him, and yells out if we try to do anything with him other than hold him. Because he has less ability to respond and learn, he naturally gets less attention and care from the orphanage workers in this world of limited resources. The harsh reality of the “survival of the fittest” principle is a life and death struggle that this little boy is losing fast. Our third boy Sasha, is a brilliant six year old who has Spina Bifida (the condition our son Josiah died from in 1996). He is like a learning sponge that can’t get enough! He is happy and alert and thirsty for knowledge and experience. So with two of our boys, we get an immediate return on any investment we make. With Dimitri, there’s not much immediate gratification. In fact, it’s unknown when and if there will be a return at all. This is the kind of situation that makes the carnal, fallen, human reasoning think, “Why try? What’s the point? What will this produce? What good will this do? Why not select a boy who has more potential? This looks like a lost cause.

Two days ago we drove for hours into the Ukrainian countryside to the village where Dimitri was born. We met with officials there and signed papers and answered their questions. We also went and saw Dimitri’s house. The day had been long, we were still recovering from jet lag, I was beginning to really miss my six daughters at home and all the familiar things our fragile human hearts entangle themselves with in feeble attempts to feel secure. Sitting in the dark on our very long drive back to Novograd that night, the Holy Spirit began to whisper to my heart, and new understanding about redemption began to take shape.

I was thinking, “Man, adopting this little boy has been so much work. This is exhausting, expensive, uncomfortable … and it doesn’t feel very rewarding right now.” What am I doing in some little Soviet car in the dark, in the middle of rural Ukraine in frozen December, as the driver dodges cats and potholes? What if Dimitri doesn’t improve at all? What if we get “nothing” out of this? … Ahhh, there it was; that dark, fallen, unreedemed, selfish human love, rooted in the tree of the knowledge of “good and evil”. The love the Greeks called “erao” love. The love where we treat someone as precious and treasured for what we can get out of it. This is unlike “agapeo” love, the God kind of love that treats someone as treasured and precious for their good, not for my good. It’s when I love a person in order to meet their needs, having no expectation of them meeting any of my needs. At a whole new level, God is working His kind of love into my weak heart, and He’s using little Dimitri to do it.

On the drive home that night, the Lord whispered in my ear, “This is Redemption. Derek, do you know how far I travelled to get you and bring you back? I had to be separated from my Son, in order to get you, just like you are separated from your children in order to get these boys. Do you know how expensive it was for Me to purchase you? It cost me everything. Do you know how broken, sick, damaged, twisted, dirty, smelly, and hopeless you were? And at the end of it all, you had nothing to give me or add to me. I did it for you. I emptied myself and became nothing so that you could have it all. This is redemption.

My friends, adoption is redemption. It’s costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him. And when He redeems us, we can’t even really appreciate or comprehend it, just like Dimitri will never comprehend or fully appreciate what is about to happen to him … but … he will live in the fruit of it. As his Daddy, I will never expect him to understand all of this or even to thank me. I just want to watch him live in the benefits of my love and experience the joys of being an heir in my family. This is how our heavenly “Papa” feels towards us.

Today, settle your busy heart down and rest in the benefits of redemption. Enjoy the fruits of His goodness, and stop trying to “pay Him back”. You’ll never get close you goofy little kid.”