W. C. Martin

I have mixed feelings about this book. I read it as follow up after also reading [b:Counter Culture: A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture in a World of Poverty, Same-Sex Marriage, Racism, Sex Slavery, Immigration, Abortion, Persecution, Orphans and Pornography|21539466|Counter Culture A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture in a World of Poverty, Same-Sex Marriage, Racism, Sex Slavery, Immigration, Abortion, Persecution, Orphans and Pornography|David Platt|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1417202326s/21539466.jpg|40873824] by David Platt. Platt's church basically empty their local state childrens homes by adopting/fostering all of the children within their church family. Platt exhorts other churches to do the same suggesting that as it is biblical every Christian should be involved in this "project," at least this is the implication. I enjoyed the book as I felt he made some very good points in relation to some controversial subjects.

"Small Town Big Miracle" is Platt's idea in practice. A church in Possum Trot, East Texas beginning in 1997 adopts a total of 76 children within its congregation over a three year period of time. These children are violent, disruptive, abused, unloved and unwanted. Some have already developed criminal patterns of behaviour. Some of them have experienced severe trauma, all of them are emotionally damaged. The story is told in part by the Pastor of the church with heavy input from his wife. There is insufficient detail in the book for the reader to really get into the story or to become attached to any of the children.

On the positive side, all 76 of the children remained with their adoptive families....one family adopted 8 children in addition to their own (they took 3 additional kids when relatives died unexpectedly having also adopted.) I liked the sense of community here and the fact that the church members really took this "calling" seriously. They loved these children and took the parental role lacking in each of their lives. They determined not to allow any of them to be returned and made sure that they helped and supported each other through periods of ill health/financial problems. According to the book, which has a list of many of the children at the end with a brief summary, all of the children (at least those listed) fully or partly reformed and now have big future plans (the book was published in 2007.) This really seems unbelievable in light of their backgrounds but it is obviously something God could do....I believe this church community had good intentions and that these were at least in part motivated by their Christian faith and desire to be obedient to God.

However, I struggled with the way this project began. The wife of the Pastor believes God told her to do this which begins the whole chain of events as she sweeps others along with her. The initial phone call offering to become a foster parent she seems to make without reference to her husband and on the spur of the moment after hearing the voice of the "Holy Spirit." Many of these parents adopt a lot of children...one wife convinces her husband to take 5 girls after he initially doesn't want anything to do with the project. One parent ends up in the hospital due to the emotional stress of it all after becoming severely dehydrated. One woman adopts 2 children as a single working parent. There seem to be a lot of emotionally driven impulse adoptions and pressure coming from people within the church for everyone to "get involved" whether they believe they are called to this type of ministry or not. It takes a special gifting from God to adopt a child and it seems that this wasn't considered by this church community.

I found the spiritual aspects difficult as well as the Gospel message is not in the book and there is no mention of any of the children's spiritual progress or whether any of them made professions of faith at any stage. There are various references to God and thanking Him for blessings but He doesn't seem to be a central feature in this book. At the end of the book the author lists all of the reasons (excuses?) why people might not adopt, he then gives examples from their church community of people who have overcome these obstacles thereby proving that the excuse cannot be valid. I didn't like this section as it will put undue pressure on people and may "guilt trip" people into getting involved. The author does use Bible verses to support his statements but he tends to take them out of context, he does tell readers to pray first but he doesn't really leave an option for them not to adopt.

I really didn't like what happened towards the end of the book. The Pastor's wife had had a dream for some time to build a "youth" centre of some description as an addition to the church for all of these children. The church made global headlines as the story began to circulate. The Pastor and his wife practically became famous and speakers on "adoption" in any and all locations they could get access to. They appeared on shows like "Oprah" and gave interviews to all of the major news channels. The suggestion was made that they had done all of this for state money. I obviously don't know about that but it's a shame that it was suggested.

In the end a reality TV show picked them up and offered to renovate the Pastor's home as they had adopted a handful of children. His wife asked if they could instead build the youth centre that she had been dreaming about. She had previously estimated that the project would cost over 1 million dollars. The show agreed and built the centre which sounds like something out of Disney world. The project put the show out of business due to the huge financial cost so staff members began forking out money to complete it. I think it is sad that this project which began in such a good spirit turned into something focused on material gain and worldliness instead of a miracle of God.

I found this article in 2009 which details what happened next...basically the community are struggling to cope with all of the kids and the Pastor is now angry with neigh-bouring communities for not helping them

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28981345/ns/us_news-life/t/no-miracles-town-heeded-ado...

This book makes interesting reading due to the subject matter but it is not particularly well written and is very short. It also contains graphic detail of some childhood sexual/violent abuse which might upset people as the details are shocking. There is no bad language.

Both Platt and Martin boldly state that the church should take responsibility for all of the orphans in their city. As Christians God does encourage us to help these children but what form should that help take? Where are these children now spiritually? Were any of them saved from an eternity in hell through trusting in Jesus during this church project? Those are the questions I would like to see answers to and they are not addressed in the book.

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