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Welcome to the KingZoo and Funny Farm, where we learn to live, laugh, and love together. Here you'll find snippets of life in our zoo, parenting tips we've learned along the way, reflections on shining God's light in this world, passions in the realm of orphan care, and our journey as parents of a visually impaired child with sensory processing disorder. Have fun!

Sunday, March 27, 2016

An Easter baptism

I interrupt the story of Andrew's surgery for another happening in the King household...

HopeAnne was baptized this morning!


Dear HopeAnne,

You can't possibly know how excited I am that you chose to be baptized to declare your desire to follow Jesus. When you were a year old, and still a foster child in our home, we didn't know if you were going to be reunited with your birth mother, or if we would be able to adopt you as our own child. We knew what we desired; to call you our daughter, but we would also have loved to see your birth mother make some difficult changes in her life so that you and she could be together in a healthy home. During this time I was so torn and Dad and I would often pray, "Dear God, please let her be in a place where she can know you and where someday she can make a decision to follow you."

And now here we are! You have made this decision. And the way you made it gives me great joy. You have told us that while your biological sister lived here, you wanted to claim Jesus as your own so that you could share Him with your sister. You may be too young to understand the implications of how that prayer of ours came full circle, but someday you will understand. We have prayed for your biological family since the day you came to live with us and we will continue to join you in praying that they would also know Jesus.

When choosing a name for you, the whole family talked about options. How fitting that three of us came to the table already thinking about the name Hope. For me, it was because when people asked us about your situation, I couldn't give them details, so I would simply say, "We're not losing hope. We know that God has a plan for her life where she can know Him and choose to follow Him some day." We're not losing hope came to have a second meaning when we found out that your goal was changed to adoption. We added Anne because it means full of grace, love, and prayer. Hope, grace, love, and prayer - this is the definition of you.

You know already at your age that life isn't easy. You've seen the consequences of bad choices. You've seen what happens when someone doesn't have stability and boundaries as they grow up. But you've also learned to love someone through the messy. To love even when it is not returned. Never lose that. You will encounter many hurting people in this world. Handle each person with hope, grace, love and prayer and you can't go wrong!

We are proud of you and of who you are.

Isaiah 40: 28 - 31

It's no accident that one of the songs chosen this morning was This Is Amazing Grace by Phil Wickham. These words couldn't be truer today:

Who brings our chaos back into order
Who makes the orphan a son and daughter
The King of Glory, the King of Glory


Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.


Love, Mom

*See HopeAnne's testimony here.

4 comments:

  1. What a beautiful way to remember such a special moment. This slice is perfect on Easter. Congratulations to HopeAnne!

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  2. Thank you for sharing HopeAnne's celebration and your beautiful letter. This is what Easter is all about!

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  3. Happy Easter! Thank you for sharing your beautiful letter.
    What a treasured remembrance of this day it will be for Hope Anne.

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  4. I love those verses in Isaiah and the way you have woven Hope's stories of salvation together. You and your husband gave Hope Ann hope and saved her first. She's a blessed girl.

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