June 7, 2018 Show with Heather Watkins on “Guidelines for Adopting Children” AND Mark Lukens on “An Update on the Anti-Christian Discrimination Against Couples Desiring to Adopt in Massachusetts”

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, we're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday. On this seventh day of June, 2018, and I am so delighted that my dear friend of many years going back to the 1980s,

Pastor Bill Shishko, host of A Visit to the Pastors Study, and the director of Reformation Metro New York, which is a parachurch ministry under the oversight of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I'm so delighted that he strongly urged me to interview my guest today, who is a first -time guest to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I'm excited about the program she will be on for the first 90 minutes of the broadcast.

Her name is Heather Watkins, she's the mother of three adopted children and wife of Dr.

Eric B. Watkins, who is the senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, which is an

Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in St. Augustine, Florida, and we are going to be addressing for the first 90 minutes of the broadcast guidelines for adopting children.

The last half hour of the program, we are going to be visited by a returning guest,

Pastor Mark Lukens, who is the biological parent of six children and adoptive parent of seven children, and he's the pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts and a sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

He is going to be giving us an update on the anti -Christian discrimination against couples desiring to adopt in Massachusetts.

But first of all, we are going to, as I said, be welcoming for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Heather Watkins.

It's a joy to have you on the program today. Thank you so much. And I'm going to give our email address out right now for listeners interested in asking questions.

And of course, as always, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I could obviously readily understand why a subject like this would lend itself to someone wanting to remain anonymous on certain questions.

So we will grant you that request, but if it's not a personal and private matter, then please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

Well, before I go into your personal background, as we always do with a first -time guest, getting their personal testimony of salvation, what kind of religious upbringing you had, and what providential circumstances the

Lord used in your life to draw you to himself and save you, before we go into that,

I want to hear something about Covenant Presbyterian Church, which is, as I said before, a member of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination in St. Augustine, Florida. And I know that your husband, as I mentioned just a minute ago, is

Dr. Eric B. Watkins, the pastor of that congregation. Tell us something about that church. Yes, we actually, the

Presbytery planted the church 10 years ago. We just celebrated our 10th anniversary.

We were able to particularize the same year that we began services.

It was truly what is called a parachute plant. There was an idea, but no core group whatsoever.

And by God's grace, not only do we have a church building now, but we are looking, our intern just arrived yesterday from Canada, and Lord willing, in the next year, we'll be looking at planting a church nearby with another family in our church, planting a second daughter plant nearby as well in the next two years.

Well, praise God. And we will be giving contact information for that congregation before you leave us today.

But now let's hear something about your own childhood, your own upbringing as a child, what kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and how you eventually came to know

Jesus Christ as your Lord, God, and Savior, and had embraced the gospel. And of course,

I'd also love to hear how you came to embrace the Reformed faith.

Well, I was one of those people that was brought up in a Christian family. It was not

Reformed, but I never knew it when I did not know and love the Lord. I am actually a third -generation pastor's wife.

Wow. My dad was a Baptist minister, and when

I was 15, we went over to Barcelona, Spain, where he did one term as a missionary at an institute, a

Bible institute over there. And I'm the eldest.

My two brothers and my sister below me, so we are a family of two boys and two girls, just like my husband is a family of two boys and two girls.

We were one of the pioneers in homeschooling back when homeschooling was not done.

And we just always loved the Lord. We were very close -knit family, but very not

Reformed, which is totally fine.

When I was in college, I came home to visit my parents. My dad was an interim president of a very small

Bible college, and I met a man there who thankfully did not tell me that day that he had decided upon first seeing me that I was the one he was going to marry.

He played his cards far more carefully than that. That can be kind of a scary thing

I'm imagining. I'm talking about the other way that God told me I'm going to marry you.

And Eric had grown up in a non -Christian family, a military family, and had gotten saved following the

Grateful Dead cross -country. A person had given him a Bible, and his brother's name was Mark, and on a bus trip he opened up the

Bible, read the book of Mark, and by the time he got off the bus, he was a saved young man and very desirous to learn more about the

Bible, to preach or tell people about the Bible, which turned into a desire to preach the gospel.

So we got married and then immediately went out to California.

He had heard what the dispensational Arminian background had to say, and wanted to see what the other side had to say.

He wanted to learn biblical languages and really study the

Bible, and that kind of narrowed it down to him at that time to Westminster East or Westminster West, and he's a surfer.

So we went West. And I remember the day and the place that he came home and confessed to me that he had become

Calvinist. Confessed to you as if this was something horrible that he was hiding from you.

Yes. Well, it was a difficult year for us. It didn't matter as much to me whether I emotionally felt that Calvinism was the proper way to look at the scripture, but I had been raised in a very strong hermeneutical background, meaning the way that we read the scriptures was through a lens of a non -reformed framework.

And it wasn't until we were in a wonderful church out there, Harvest OPC, that the love and care and just fellowship of the people out there really wrapped their arms around me, helped me wrestle through all of the questions

I had, and it was actually on my way home from becoming a member that I realized that the same

God that for some arbitrary reason had saved me, had made me a female, had me born in the 20th century, had me born in America.

He also was the same person that gave me that grace completely apart from myself and any works or anything that I could perform, and it just began that transition to a more covenantal view of scripture.

And that was my first step towards Reformed Theology. Well, I'm looking forward to having your husband,

Dr. Eric, on my program. I did speak with him earlier this afternoon after I spoke with you, and he said that he would be delighted to be a guest, hopefully very soon, on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to discuss the book that he wrote,

The Drama of Preaching. So that is something that is a very compelling title, so I'm looking forward to exploring that with him, and that was also by very strong recommendation of our mutual friend,

Pastor Bill Shishko, formerly the pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square and now running

Reformation Metro New York. I probably made a mistake in the title

I gave him. I don't know if he's director. I know that you Presbyterians always have these weird and fancy names for everything.

I have a friend who is the, what do they call him, the stated supply of Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and I said, that's a horrible name.

It sounds like one of those warehouses where you buy lumber or licorice. Well, the ongoing joke is, so is the term

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but that's the name that we ended up getting stuck with, and we've learned to love it.

I'm assuming that because of the confusion, many people think it's somehow connected to Eastern Orthodoxy, maybe? Yes, yes.

That is a standing joke with people within the OPC because of the confusion there, yes.

Well, I have grown to love it because I've grown to love so many brothers and sisters in Christ from your denomination, and I look forward to having many more as guests on this program.

They always seem to prove to be excellent guests when they're from the OPC. Thank you. But, well, now you've told us about how you met your husband and the area of your lives that is directly connected to our subject is obviously adoption.

You are the adoptive parents of three children, and why don't you tell us about those circumstances, how this came to be, why this came to be, any kind of battle you may have been going on in your minds on whether or not to do this, any kind of anxiety or fear over this, etc.

If you could tell us all about this story. Definitely. It is definitely my pleasure.

My husband and I very much so wanted to have two boys, two girls.

We wanted to have at least four children. We wanted to be able to experience the blessing of burying children biologically, and so we began trying to conceive a couple years after we were married, and as time went on, realized that there may be issues, and as we explored our options and what may have been causing the problems, we discovered that when

I was 11, I must have had appendicitis, and my appendix exploded, and my body walled it off and absorbed it, and that's what caused my infertility.

And at the time, it was a true Jacob wrestling with the

Lord. Why me? Why would this happen? My greatest dream in life to be shot down, and there's just a beautiful section in one of Gerhardtus Voss' books that talks about learning to kiss a striking

Lord, and what I mean by that is, from a Reformed perspective of understanding

God's sovereignty, to be able to come to the point where you say, God did this to me, and I wouldn't have it any other way, because He knows best, and I trust

Him. And when we finally got to that point, we were finally ready to be the parents that God was calling us to be, and I truly view our family, our adoption story, as a calling now.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't change a thing, not just because of everything that we have learned about God, and about each other, and about ourselves, but because of how hard we have worked for each one of these children, and the particular children that God has sent our way, each with their own broken stories.

Well, praise God for that, yes, Gerhardtus Voss phrased that quite beautifully.

Can you repeat that phrase? Because I can recall having a fascinating interview on Gerhardtus Voss a number of years ago, many years ago, on the old

Iron Sherpins Iron radio broadcast, broadcasting out of New York.

I did a couple of programs on Gerhardtus Voss, actually, and I know one of them was with an

OPC author, in fact, it was Danny Olinger, I believe Danny's in the

OPC, is he not? Yes, yes, he's the one that makes the joke about our name. How did

Gerhardtus Voss phrase that? Well, actually, I just remembered that particular phrase was by Samuel Rutherford, and Gerhardtus Voss has a very similar one.

Samuel Rutherford is to learn to kiss a striking Lord, and Gerhardtus Voss talks about when

Mary entered into the tomb, the darkness of the tomb, that we can only truly see his face and the glory and the beauty there by walking through those dark places.

It's really the same concept with different phrases, and they're both just very beautiful.

I have found that different hymns have spoken to me at different times, and there's a hymn that falls right in line with this that says,

Whatever my God ordains is right. And there's this one part that says,

Though now this cup in drinking may bitter seem to my faint heart,

I take it all in shrinking, because my God is true. Wow, praise

God. Well, you realized that because of your medical condition that you could not have children.

Now, take us to the next step. Was adoption something that you both, both

Eric, your husband, and you said, we have to do this? This is a necessity? This is something we absolutely must move forward on?

Or was this something that you had to really pray for God's will, even though you knew you could not have children, that you still weren't certain, perhaps, that this was going to be the move you made?

I'm not sure. What happened in your life? Lord, God was very gracious, and we had actually wanted to adopt even before we found out that we could not conceive any of our children.

Wow. So, it ended up being a smoother process for us, and yet, one of the things that is just so ironic to me is, we're still human.

We have three, they may not be perfect children, but they are perfect children for us.

And yet, with each adoption, and you may not know, we are actually on the list to try to adopt one more time, and pray very fervently every day for that.

We're hoping to adopt a girl some day soon. And with every adoption, we still struggle with fear, and something that has really been driven home to me this year is the verse that says, there is no fear in love.

And just learning that even though we love our adoption story, and we love our adopted children, and we see so very clearly

God's hand in each one of their stories, yet we still fear and forget that our

God owns a cattle on a thousand hills, and that he cares for us. Well, you said that you already knew that you were intending to adopt, or that you wanted to adopt before you even realized that you could have not biological children of your own.

So, as far as other couples out there, what do you think needs to exist in a couple's lives, and in their individual lives as people, and in their home, for such an idea, and such a very beautiful and wonderful thing, a thing that mirrors, in many ways, the adoption of God the

Father adopting his children, meaning we who are his elect, we who are his children born again believers in Christ.

But obviously, this is not something to enter into lightly. It's not something for every single couple, or individual, or family, or home.

So, why don't you start telling us about what you think any couple and family needs to seriously consider before even treading into these waters.

Right. So, the first thing I would say is the same piece of advice that we received before getting married, is that one has to love the

Lord more. One of the things that can be a huge struggle for a couple, especially a couple struggling with infertility, is trying to juxtapose the

God -given desire to have children, and the struggle that involves making that desire into an idol.

And, if you cannot lay down, at the cross of Christ, all of that pain, and all of that desire, and all of that hope, and say, your will be done, it's difficult to be prepared to truly appreciate and be ready to handle the unique struggles that adoption brings.

So, go further into that concept. You know, you have families that are perhaps, they want children to be added to their home, not only because they perhaps have no children of their own yet, but sometimes they just have a heart of compassion, they have a heart to see underprivileged children, children who are orphans, children who may even be not on the top of the list at orphanages.

They may be minority children that are overlooked, they may be handicapped, disabled children, and I know that in this day and age you've got to be careful how you phrase things because there's politically correct language that we're supposed to use.

But there are all sorts of reasons that people want to adopt, but there are also inherent things in certain individuals and couples and families that may remove them from the loop of being appropriate candidates to do this.

Right. Many people romanticize adoption.

I cannot tell you how often I'm at a store and it's mentioned that my children have been adopted and the cashier will say, oh,

I've always wanted to adopt, I'm planning on adopting, which is a noble thing to say. But I think a lot of people romanticize the concept, almost

Hollywood glamour about it. And it is a wonderful calling that without the grace of God it is a very difficult road to follow upon, a lot of work, a lot of heartache.

I always say adoption is the life that follows death. It many times is the death of the reproductive body, death of innocence, death of dreams, families, of ties, and yet through that death is born a family that grows stronger because of that trial.

And I cannot stress enough if it is a calling to not only really wrestle whether or not you have an internal calling, but also seek the counsel of wise people, both in the church and people that have gone on before you in the adoption process.

We have people that have, as you said, they have biological children and they've adopted as well from foster care situations, internationally, infants, older, any different kind of situation.

And in each one of those, one was not better than the other, but it was what

God had particularly planned for their lives as being best for them.

And one of the ways they were able to determine that was through counsel of wise people.

And before we even go any further, I think something that I should have asked you in the very beginning,

I'd like you to tell us about your own adopted children, their ages and names and so on.

Yes. So Kira is 11. We say that she's 11 going on 30.

She is very firstborn, loves to read, and has an incredibly maternal heart.

And our son Carl is 10, and he's the gregarious joker of the bunch.

He actually has special needs. We did not discover that till later on, but we wouldn't change him for the world.

And we have an amazing church that just loves him exactly the way he is and a great support network around.

And then we prayed and wrestled and prayed and wrestled for several years.

And we had been on lists for close to three years. And one morning, I was upstairs doing laundry, and I said,

God, can you just give us a hospital drop -off? I'm ready for my William.

And half an hour later, we got a call. We were the fourth people on the list. He was a drug baby, and yet in God's providence, he has completely healed and is just our little joy.

He's now 19 months old. And as I said before, we're hoping to be chosen someday soon for one last girl.

So this was just, as you said, it was a hospital drop -off? Yes. Yes.

DCF was standing there ready to take him, and we had 30 minutes to decide.

Wow. So on those circumstances, this is something totally new to me.

In those circumstances, this can totally remove the long waiting periods of adoptive parents?

There are no two adoptions alike. Some people wait for 10 days after their home study has been completed, and they're immediately placed.

Some people wait for five, six years, and some people are never placed.

Now, this gets into the different kinds of adoption that there are. All three of our children are what are called private adoptions.

Two of them were through an agency, Catholic Charities, and one was through a lawyer.

And so if there were an adoption such as a foster -to -adopt situation, or an international adoption, or a personal familial adoption, those would look different.

And when we come back from our first station break, I'm going to have you go through some of those differences.

Sounds great. And if anybody would like to join us, we do have a couple of people already waiting to have their questions asked and answered, and we'll get to you as soon as possible.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

So don't go away. God willing, we will be right back after these messages with more of Heather Watkins and guidelines for adopting children.

That's 717 -254 -6433. Again, 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the

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A Visit to the Pastors Study, from Chris Orenson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I know that my guest,

Heather Watkins, and her husband, Pastor Eric Watkins, can give just as glowing a report about Bill Shishko as I can.

Yes, definitely. He was at our house earlier this year, and we had a lovely time with him and his wife.

Great, and if I remember, hopefully I'll be able to give you all the website for A Visit to the

Pastors Study, where you can hear archived interviews, including the one that he conducted with my guest,

Heather, and I'm assuming that he also interviewed Eric? Am I right on that? He has not had the chance to yet.

Oh, okay, well he strongly urged me to interview Eric, but I'm sure he will eventually because of that.

Yes. But you enjoyed yourself anyway on the show. Very much so.

So there are different types of adoption that people should be aware of, because there are misconceptions about adoption, and there are closed adoptions and fully open adoptions, and so on.

So why don't you describe them in more detail so our listeners know exactly what we're referring to. Definitely.

There are two sections here. One is the avenue of adoption, and the second one is the level of openness.

So with the level of openness, there are three main categories.

There's closed adoption, and a closed adoption means that there is absolutely no identifying information on either side.

A safe haven baby, in other words, a baby that has been dropped off at a hospital or maybe at a fire department with no information on the birth mother whatsoever, this would qualify.

There are other adoptions. This was very common 50, 60 years ago and before where everything was conducted through the agency completely anonymously, and the adoptees usually had zero information on their birth parents.

The birth parents had zero information on the adoptive parents. That form of adoption is much more rare today.

It becomes more the standard in an international adoption where the child may be in an orphanage with unknown background, but it is pretty rare today in the

United States. The semi -open adoption is where some identifying information is known.

For instance, first name, maybe some medical social background. This became very popular a couple decades ago, and the goal of this form of adoption was that the birth family and the adoptive family would both keep in communication with the agency or lawyer where they were moving any medical information so that when the adoptee became 18, they could petition through the agency to meet their birth parents.

If there were a medical necessity and more information were needed, there was a recourse for that.

Or, for instance, in the beginning months after placement, the birth mother was able to see a letter, see a photo, maybe even meet at the agency just to be reassured that she had made the right decision in placing her child with this particular family.

Agencies began to realize that this was very helpful not just for the healing of the birth family.

For the adoptive family, it gave more of the heritage and story to their child that they realized after the fact they really desired.

And even more importantly, it gave a foundation, a grounding, a story, a reason to the adoptee.

I was adopted because, and really gave a lot of peace to the adoptee.

The last form of adoption is what's called fully open adoption. And to be honest, in today's day and age where you have

Facebook, Twitter, everything else, it's a misnomer that there are semi -open adoptions.

If you type in Eric, Heather, Kira, and nothing else on the

Internet, our information pulls up. And we do not have Facebook, we do not have Twitter, or any of the other standard social media programs.

But it's a fact of the matter that in today's day and age, there is no such thing as true anonymity.

And in fully open adoption, it does not mean that people are in each other's homes all the time necessarily.

But what it does mean is you know identifying information on the other part of the triad.

Triad is the common term used nowadays to describe the relationship between the birth family, the adoptive family, and the adoptee.

And what they're beginning to find out is in a fully open adoption, the most healing can occur for the birth family, the adoptive family, and the adoptee.

And can you repeat that? The most healing can occur specifically in what? Go ahead.

In the fully open adoption. What's ironic is that most adoptive couples are afraid that the birth family will be the ones knocking on their door, eliciting a greater amount of interaction than they feel comfortable with.

And yet what tends to happen most often, and agencies will attest to this, that it's actually the birth family that closes the door.

And it's the adoptive family that end up wanting more of their child's history and heritage and story.

But in the birth mother knowing that she can ask via email or maybe a phone call or a meeting in a public place, in the next couple months after she has made the most difficult decision of her life, to be able to see,

I made the right choice. My child is safe, happy, he's well nourished, he's loved.

That gives so much healing to the birth family. It gives healing to the adoptive family because they are able to personalize a real part of who their child is, what has made their child.

This birth family who have the same freckles and dimples and eye color as their child, they now can see more of that picture.

And for the adoptee, it gives them so much more confidence that I am where I am because of love and sacrifice.

Because my birth family believed this was the best for me.

Because my adoptive family were not afraid. It just gives so much more healing to each part of this triad.

Interesting. Now can you, I don't know how much you know about the data as far as all the different kinds of reasons why biological parents or biological mothers specifically, probably more often than not, don't want any contact from the child they put up for adoption or from their families.

I'm thinking that, I'm guessing here that two of the primary reasons might be shame, that they had this child perhaps out of wedlock and then gave it up for adoption, and also a fear of having some kind of financial responsibility that they didn't want attached.

But that's just a guess on my part. Well, I can attest to two different stories.

One of our children's birth mother, she so very much so wanted to make sure that her son had a father.

And she actually took care of her child for two whole weeks, nursed him to give extra antibodies to him, slept with him, taking care of him, and still had that strength to place him in our arms, kiss him, and tell him that she loved him, and make the choice she knew she had to make.

And I know one birth mother very closely has said as much as she thinks about her child, her birth child, every single day of her life, there is a need to be able to move on and to start a new story.

There's also a fear many times of interfering in their birth child's growth and development and stability in the family.

But again, every single adoption is unique, and every single adoption has its unique story.

And so there are any myriad of reasons why each part of the triad may make the decisions that they make.

The desire always is that each one of them make the decision based on love and in trust in God's sovereignty.

How much can you tell us about the individual stories of your three adopted children?

Each one of them have very unique stories, and I can tell you this, that with each story, there was a lot of love put upon them.

Even in the one story that involved more addiction, this is something that's becoming very common these days.

Professional people becoming entangled in heroin and cocaine in such a vice grip that they cannot get out of the cycle.

Our one child was born and had to go through three weeks of detox in the hospital.

And that's just the fact of the matter. And yet she gave him life and chose to give him a better life than she knew that she could give.

So some of the birth mothers were younger. Some of them were much older, had grown children of their own.

Some birth mothers, it was for relational or financial, emotional reasons.

Each one had their own story. And the next thing that we're going to talk about is different avenues of adoption.

With two of them, the two that we met through Catholic Charities, they received excellent, excellent counseling.

They wrestled through this question with someone that could, without pressuring them, could answer their questions, could pray with them.

We're not Catholic, but we have a wonderful relationship with Catholic Charities, and we think they do wonderful work.

We actually, we sized out from being able to work with them, so now we're working with another amazing agency in Florida called

Christian Family Services. And both of those, as well as many other agencies such as Bethany, really take the time to counsel the birth mother and walk her through reasons why she may want to choose a parenting plan of her own or may want to choose adoption as her parenting plan.

We do have some listeners waiting for their questions to be asked and answered.

We have Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says,

How do you counsel people when they are considering adoption? Because I've spoken with such parents, or parents -to -be, who face the same kind of decisions and struggles in their minds as they faced before they were married.

Just as married couples sometimes say things like, we're not ready yet to be married, we don't have enough money, we don't have good enough jobs, and other kinds of things, sometimes people wait too long to get married and wind up falling into sin on occasion.

Sometimes they rush into marriage before they are ready. And I have noticed that the same kind of questions and hurdles are present when couples are trying to decide when and if they should adopt.

Yes. One of the things that we strongly recommend, this is something

Bill Shishko and I discussed, was ways that the Church could minister to families that want to adopt.

And this is something that Eric and I have a real heart for, just helping the Church body learn more about adoption to be able to help people from each part of the triad.

When it comes to finances, you always want to be responsible.

Even as recently as yesterday, I was given an adoption situation that sounded wonderful in many respects, but would definitely put quite a strain on us financially.

And wrestling through, could we manage that?

Is that extending ourselves past what is responsible for the family that we have? Again, trusting that God can provide.

At the same time, I know of another wonderful family with an international adoption.

The wife had a real heart for this one girl, but they did not have the funds.

And she continued to pray, and her husband was on board and was praying with her.

And this child overseas, who had been matched with another

American family, that match failed to go through, and the other American family left a grant for whomever would adopt this girl.

And it was within a couple thousand of what they needed. And God just paved the way.

We also know from personal experience, it's very difficult to afford an adoption.

And I can pretty honestly say that we've never really truly been able to see a way to afford each one of our adoptions, and that God has always provided.

And that is where one always needs to be responsible, to save, to be honest with what can be done and what becomes an act of desperation and ceasing to trust in the

Lord. And yet always resting in the Lord that if He has willed that this happen,

He will always provide a way. Because He is not constrained by things of this world.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Bibi, for sharing or asking that question.

Keep listening to Iron Trump and Zion Radio and spreading the word in Cumberland County and beyond.

We do have RJ in White Plains, New York, who asks,

Can you tell us about some of the scam adoption agencies and organizations that our listeners should be warned about?

This is going to get a little bit more into the different avenues of adoption. Just a very brief overview.

The main ones are international. International, the adoptive couple chooses a child.

The wait period tends to be shorter. They're almost always closed. The average cost is about $40 ,000.

The adoptees tend to be older, between the ages of one and three. And they're often physical or emotional disabilities.

There's the foster -to -adopt option, which is, for the most part, free. But rarely the child is an infant.

They're usually older. They've usually been forcibly removed due to neglect or abuse.

The process is managed by the state, not by a private agency. And it tends to be long and very bureaucratic.

The kind of adoption that we prefer is through an adoption agency, ones that I've already mentioned.

The average cost there is $18 ,000 to $28 ,000. There's usually an initial amount due upon application.

And then the next payment is due upon placement. That means when papers have already been signed.

And the final payment due upon finalization. Most of these are ministry -run.

The last main avenue is lawyer -enabled. And I will tell you right now,

I know of several adoptive attorneys that are wonderful.

So this is not speaking to lawyers in any manner. But it is more so a trend that is occurring in many states.

And remember, I am coming from the state of Florida. Each state has their own laws and different issues.

But with a lawyer -enabled adoption, the birth mother or birth parents choose the adoptive couple, just like with an agency.

The average cost is between $30 ,000 and $40 ,000. But a large amount of the funds are due upon match with no guarantees of the birth mother signing.

And many times the birth mother is not counseled. So, for instance, I've received an email recently.

A birth mother is four months along. Match will occur at four months. An initial retainer of $25 ,000 to $30 ,000 is due upon match.

She is given an amount of money. The lawyer is given an amount of money. And in five months' time, when she delivers, she is under no legal obligation whatsoever to sign any paperwork.

Wow, you're going to have to pick up on match when we return from our midway break. I hate to interrupt you mid -sentence like that.

But please remember where you left off and we'll continue right where you stopped there.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And Mark Lukens, the pastor of that church, will be our guest the final half hour of this program.

He is also an adoptive parent. He has seven adopted children on top of the six biological children that he and his wife have adopted.

And we are going to be getting an update on the anti -Christian discrimination against couples desiring to adopt in Massachusetts, some of which our guest

Mark Lukens faced. But before we return to our first guest, Heather Watkins, who is the wife of Dr.

Eric B. Watkins, the senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in St.

Augustine, Florida, who is discussing guidelines for adopting children, we just have a couple of brief announcements that we need to make.

First of all, the glory of the cross is the theme of the

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology coming up November 9th through the 10th at the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. I will be there, God willing, manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I hope to see as many of you there as possible. The guests, or should I say the speakers, include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, and Timothy Gibson and Carlton Winn.

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click Support, then click Click to Donate Now. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for our guest,

Heather Watkins on adoption, our e -mail address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And before the break, Heather, you were talking about the specific option for adoption that is involved with matching, and it can be very risky and financially dangerous.

If you could continue where you left off. So when you are matched, that means that the birth family and the adoptive family agree that this would be a good situation.

Typically in private adoptions in the United States, the birth mother is given a couple profiles from which to choose, and if she feels comfortable with the profile of an adoptive family, she then chooses that adoptive family.

The adoptive family has been contacted. There may be a meet -and -greet and an agreement, a non -binding agreement is made that this seems like a good match.

In an adoption agency such as Catholic Charities or Christian Family Services, no financial, no money is exchanged at that point in time.

And just like you were saying earlier, these agencies run on the donations of people that feel called to give to those agencies.

They work as a nonprofit ministry to all people involved. They give counseling to the birth family.

They give counseling to the adoptive family. They keep the records and make sure that everything is done legally.

In most situations, or in many situations, a lawyer -enabled adoption, funds are placed at the time of match.

In other words, no legal documents have been signed saying that this adoption will go through, but legal documents have been signed that the adoptive family puts in a certain amount of retainer of many times $20 ,000 to $30 ,000 that is then drawn upon during the rest of the pregnancy.

The next term is called placement. Placement occurs normally 48 hours after birth of the adoptee when the birth mother signs final papers and the baby is then placed with the adoptive family.

With most adoption agencies, that is when the next payment occurs.

So you have the initial set -up fee, and then the next payment that occurs is at placement, when legally this child has been placed in the adoptive family's homes.

With a lawyer, that is also when the next fee is given, but remember there is no legal responsibility for placement to occur.

And this is where I was going with the fraud, is that it has unfortunately become...

I'll read to you what a lawyer has on their website. Can you get paid to have a baby?

You can receive financial support for having a baby that you have placed into a new family through adoption.

Abortions will cost you, but adoption, you can receive money. You can also receive money from the adoptive family that will help you cover other expenses.

I'm very grateful that they are encouraging a birth mother to choose life over abortion.

However, it has become, in many situations, for lack of a better term, a racket.

And the real danger here is the birth mother is hurt because she's not receiving adequate counseling.

The adoptive family is put in a very tenuous financial position because of desperation.

In any given situation, you could have upwards of 50 couples applying for one adoption, because that is how desperate so many adoptive couples are.

I can tell you from experience, the nights laying awake at night, if only we gave a little bit more money, maybe we would get placed.

And that is where I would say is the heart of how I would counsel somebody about fraud, is do your research and then continually go back to, are you making this decision because of desperation, because of fear, or because after prayer and counsel, you feel called.

Again, one of our children was adopted through a lawyer, and we're very grateful for that.

But the trend that is occurring more and more is significant financial loss and pain through what's becoming a money racket instead of a ministry.

Wow. Yes, that is a difficult situation when you're saying to yourself, with women murdering unborn babies by the millions out there in society, you look for any reason why they wouldn't kill the child, but at the same time, you can't help but be repulsed if some people are using children as a marketing scheme or just as a method of making money.

It's one of those things where both things are distasteful, but I still rejoice every time

I think of a woman not having her baby murdered. Amen. Amen.

I want to make sure before we run out of time, because as I told you before our interview, that this would go by a lot faster than you'd ever thought it would.

I want to make sure that the things that you did not have time to say when you were interviewed on a visit to the pastor's study are said, as you mentioned before the show, that you wanted to make sure that you said certain things, that you ran out of time before you said them on Bill Shishko's program.

So perhaps you could give us some of that information, and then we'll move on to whatever we have left that time will allow.

That would be wonderful. First of all, remember always that I am coming from a biased point of view, a personal point of view.

For every statement made, there are always exceptions. And again, relying on the grace and wisdom of our

Lord, there are so many unique situations that seem impossible that God moves in and through.

So again, I'm not trying to belittle one avenue over another or one area over another, but to say that God works all things for His good and His glory.

Having said that, I think one thing that my husband and I have a real passion for, first of all, is for encouraging people that are already adoptive parents or for those that are looking at adoption.

A well -meaning person will inadvertently ask horrible questions.

For instance, my daughter has been asked how long she was in the orphanage or if it was like the one in the movie

Annie, where her real mom is, or why didn't her birth mother love her.

What was the second one before that, where her what is? Her real mom is. Oh, wow.

Her real mom. My husband and I have been told that my infertility was

God's way of telling us we shouldn't have children. Wow. And I would encourage people, instead of taking offense at something very offensive, think about the beautiful opportunity

God has just placed in your lap of being able to educate your fellow person in the beauty of adoption.

Adoption really is a glorious thing. It is so glorious that God uses the same exact terminology when he talks about us.

In fact, there's this wonderful part in every finalization paper.

This is the day that you go before the judge and you sign the last papers, and the child that you've been caring for is now legally yours.

And in that paper it says, the minor child subject to this petition is declared to be the legal child of these two people and shall be the legal heir and shall be entitled to all rights and privileges and subject to all obligations of a child born to the petitioners.

And Eric and I are hit every single time. What incredibly redemptive language that is.

Just like our adoption as daughters and sons of our Lord and Savior, and adoption on the earth is such a beautiful portrait of that.

Every one of us is broken. The birth family that can never raise the child that they're bearing, the adoptive family that cannot bear for one reason or another, whether by choice or by biological issues, bear the child that they are about ready to call their own, and the adoptee who can only become part of this family because of pain and sorrow.

Each one of us are broken pieces of a beautiful portrait that is put together by God's love alone.

And when questions like that are asked, instead of taking offense, instead of saying, this is a beautiful thing, let me tell you how, and using it to talk about the grace and love of our

Lord and Savior, it's just a wonderful ministry opportunity. And I have found, ironically being introverted, the best way to give the

Gospel to people around town. They look at my children. Everyone in my family is mixed, except for me.

People ask questions. And so it's a great opportunity to talk about the love and saving grace of our

Lord and Savior. Amen. We have an anonymous questioner for you.

This anonymous listener says, My wife and I have at times been given a guilt trip by parents who have adopted children and have insinuated that if we do not adopt, that we are in sin, that we are selfish, or any host of other horrible reasons why we don't adopt.

It's amazing how people can think they know what is going on in the hearts, minds, and lives of others, what is going on in their homes, what kind of trials they may have that would prohibit such a move to adopt a child, or at least make it a less desirable option, especially for the child.

But people seem to think that unless you have a lot of children under your roof, that if you are somehow selfish, greedy, or in sin in some other way.

How do you respond to people like that? Ironically, the same argument is given to people that have more than two children.

I have several friends that have been told that they're very selfish for adopting. That is a very bizarre and oxymoronic phrase.

You are very selfish for adopting. Yes, and it really comes back to Paul never married.

Was that selfish? God withheld children from Sarah and Abraham and Hannah, and in his time he ended up giving them children, but one, not a quiverful, and it really takes away what is

God's individual calling for each person, and I will tell you this is the best way to answer that.

I wear as my wedding ring and my daughter's middle name is the same name as an incredible woman named

Ruth, who she and her husband could never have kids, never had children.

Her husband died, and she felt that God was calling her to minister, pray for, help, counsel men, that she felt the

Lord was calling to the ministry, and my husband was one of those last people, and the woman that never bore children and never adopted children became the spiritual mother of so many godly men, and now there is a church in Florida, and my particular family and my adoptions are here because of her love for her spiritual son, my husband.

Praise God. Yes, and don't you think that it is very unwise to be pushing someone who may follow through and adopt a child or children because of the guilt trip or because of being pressured by their pastors, their fellow congregation members, their family, their friends, when they know, for the reasons that the public doesn't know, the people surrounding them don't know, they know why that's not a good idea, and they're going to wind up bringing some kind of harm or problem into the lives of children that was avoidable.

Yes, you never know the way that God is calling you. The things that, you know,

I think about the scripture that's talking about singles and how God may be setting them apart to pursue, in a very particular way,

His will for their lives to minister to others that they might not be able to otherwise, and it goes regardless of whether or not you bear biological children or adopt children or choose not to adopt,

God has particular roads for each of us, as it is called, to give

God glory and enjoy Him forever. Amen. That's from the

Shorter Catechism, the first question, correct? Yep. If you could, give us about three minutes of uninterrupted time where you, or I'm giving you three minutes of uninterrupted time, where you can unburden your heart and summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

I definitely can, and I would actually say that in terms of hymns, if I may.

With each of our children, there was a particular hymn that spoke to us at that time. As I said before, with Kira, it was,

Whatever my God ordains is right. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful hymn.

With my son Carl, it was, O Father, you are sovereign, the

Lord of human pain, transmuting earthly sorrows to gold of heavenly gain, all evil overruling as none but conqueror could.

Your love pursues its purpose, our soul's eternal good. And for our son, it ended up being

Praise the Lord the Almighty. And it said, Hath thou not seen how thy desires e 'er have been granted in what he ordains?

God chooses to mold our will to his and then grants us what he has placed upon our heart as a desire so we may glorify and enjoy him.

This year, the hymn that's really been speaking to me is Like a River Glorious.

It says, Every joy or trial falleth from above, traced upon our dial by the sun of love.

We may trust him fully, all for us to do. They who trust him wholly find him wholly true.

And to be able to rest in that sovereign God, knowing that he places desires upon our hearts, places trials in our lives, and then places himself at the center of it all so we can truly fall in love with our

Savior. Praise God, and I love all those hymns. Well, I do want to make sure that we have all the contact information for you and for your husband,

Eric, and the church. First of all, I want to make sure that our listeners know the website for Bill Shishko's radio program,

A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because you can find Heather's archived interview there. And, of course, you could later on this week, or tomorrow, in fact, look up the archived interview that she had with me today on irontreponsirenradio .com

if you came in late or you want to share that link with others. But Bill Shishko's website is visitthepastorsstudy .org.

Visitthepastorsstudy .org. That's all one word, no spaces, no dashes, no dots, no apostrophes.

Visitthepastorsstudy .org. And I know that the website for the church where you are a member and where your husband is the pastor, covenant -opchurch .org.

Covenant -opchurch .org. Do you have any other contact information that you can share with our listeners?

Yes. If they look on that link, there is an email that you can use, and you can ask my husband or myself any questions you may have.

We actually love to talk about adoption. We've hosted adoption dinners in our house, and we'd love to pray with anyone that is thinking about adoption, has questions about adoption, including pastors and churches that would like to know how better to minister to people in their congregation about adoption.

Praise God. Well, I eagerly look forward to having you back on the program, Heather. It's been a joy to interview you and to get acquainted with you.

And I look forward to Eric being on the program to promote his book.

That's Dr. Eric B. Watson. We look forward to have him on the program because of the drama of preaching, which is the title of his book that I would love to explore with him at the urging of Bill Shishko.

And I just want to thank you again, and I want everybody who is listening now to hold on, don't go away, because we do have a final half hour of the program with Pastor Mark Lukens, who himself is an adoptive parent of seven children, on top of his six biological children.

And we're going to talk about the trials he faced living in Massachusetts because of the fact that he was a

Christian parent seeking adoption, and on top of that a pastor, which actually amazingly worked against him, not in his favor.

But, Heather, God bless you, and give my greetings to your husband. Thank you so much.

All righty, bye -bye now. And don't go away, folks. This is our last break, and we'll be back shortly.

So don't go away. Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225

Earl Avenue in Lynnbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynnbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

Call Lynnbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

Or visit LynnbrookBaptist .org. That's LynnbrookBaptist .org. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?

Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the

London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect

Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do, than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

TV program entitled, Resting in Grace. You can find us at ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org,

that's ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Aronson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Well, we now have our second guest, Pastor Mark Lukens, who is joining us right now.

He is not only a sponsor of Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, but he's the pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

And we are going to be discussing an update on the anti -Christian discrimination against couples desiring to adopt in Massachusetts.

And it is my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, Pastor Mark Lukens. Pastor Lukens, are you there?

Oh, I'm sorry. I had you on mute, Pastor Lukens. Are you there now? Glad to be here again.

Thank you. Great. Well, before we go into your topic, give us a very brief description of Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts, even though we've been hearing about that church and the ads that people are hearing.

But still, why don't you give us a summary again of what that church is all about. Yeah, we're a

Reformed Baptist church and seeking to worship the Lord according to the truths of Scripture and also to impact our society with the truths of the

Gospel and the beauty of Christ. Amen. And we'll give the contact information before we go off the air for that church.

Well, why don't you tell our listeners about how this story begins with you when you begin to adopt children or go through the process of adopting children after already having biological children of your own and you began to realize that living in Massachusetts is not really always the best place to be when you are a

Christian and not only a Christian but a pastor and you want to do a noble thing, a wonderful thing, a good thing, a merciful thing, a compassionate thing, a glorious thing like adopting a child where you would think, many people might normally think, in fact, even your average non -Christian, unless they are totally on the ultra -left wing of the spectrum of ideology, your average person would probably think, well,

I think it'd be a great idea to have pastors and very religious people quote, quote, adopting children and in fact, if I was going to have somebody babysit my children and I had the opportunity to have a pastor and his wife or a pastor and his wife's children babysit for my children,

I would love to have them in a home like that because I feel much safer about leaving my children there, etc., etc.

But that is not necessarily the case with those in governing authority. No, not in the state of Massachusetts.

I wouldn't say that they would say they wouldn't let Christians adopt or do foster care but they have some guidelines that if you say that homosexuality or transgenderism or any of those sexual perversions, if you call them a sin, you're automatically dropped out of the training.

Wow. You know, if you ask, can a Christian foster? Oh, yes. Can a Christian adopt?

Oh, yes. But when you start the training, they even have you role -play and do different things to affirm these sexual perversions and that's where the wheels of the bus come off.

We graciously did not have any of those issues because our first two adoptions were an emergency rescue adoption and so once we had adopted those children through that process, it opened the doors up for the other ones but there was definitely some pushback from people not wanting to give permission, not wanting to give approval.

They never came out and said why because I think it would have looked so horribly on them, especially when the governor and our representative got involved and got these wheels spinning for us in a very gracious way.

But it's sad. I know people that started the process. In Massachusetts, you have to go through an agency to adopt and the first thing that you do through an agency is you have to be trained to do foster care and if they decide you're not the right people to do the training of the right people to pass their training, they just drop you from the list or never place a child with you and it's sad because I know a lot of great people that would make great foster parents or great adoptive parents and they're being told,

I'm sorry, your biblical views are hateful and we need to make sure of the children's safety.

Wow. And it's stunning. I have a video on my computer and I hope it never disappears but it's a video

I downloaded of a meeting that showed somebody in the system of the state saying that we want to get rid of all the people with the old -fashioned views.

You know the people I'm talking about. And the whole crowd laughs because it was an LGBTQ meeting that they were having about foster care and it just, it stuns me that a state where so much beautiful spirituality has existed in the past is now considered evil and hateful just by calling sin, sin.

And it's very heartbreaking. Yeah, I can imagine.

So, is this something that is only going on in Massachusetts?

Or, I mean, Massachusetts is not the only liberal state in the

Union, California being another and you have all different kinds of things that even some liberals that might be considered classical liberals or even liberals that understand what that actually really used to mean and really is, they understand there's a difference between being liberal and being a left -wing totalitarian.

But they even might cringe at what's going on with this kind of a thing.

Where else is this a problem? That I don't know about. I have not come in contact with anybody else that's had similar problems.

But two of the things that they think are just absolutely taboo is you can't call homosexuality sin and you can't see that spanking, disciplining by spanking is a valid means of discipline.

Those two things are red flags. They're no -nos. You have to sign a paper when you take a foster child into your home that you will not spank them.

And if they understand that that's your method of disciplining, it just causes all sorts of issues.

And yet the Bible says, spare not the rod, a father and mother that don't discipline their children, don't love their children.

So it's a hard thing for Christians to faithfully walk with Christ and at the same time desire to adopt, to show that beautiful picture of the gospel, to save children out of horrible situations.

And then they're told, sorry, your view of the Bible is making these two things impossible. And it's a heartache for people.

Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting, something that you just said, and I'm sure that there's going to be somebody out there somewhere that might accuse me of saying something racist, but I intend, actually, by saying this, the exact opposite of that.

I know quite a number of black individuals, brothers and sisters in Christ, and those that are not even

Christian, who will tell you that across the spectrum in the black community, although you cannot cookie cutter anyone and you can't broad brush anyone, it is a very dominantly held opinion in the black community, no matter what kind of political ideology you have, is that spanking belongs in the home as far as disciplining children.

Yep. And are black people being treated in the same way by those liberal governing authorities, or are they being treated with kid gloves on this issue?

How does this work? Yeah, I know of two different couples. There was a case in Massachusetts where a couple was turned down because they spanked their own children, mind you, not foster children.

Right. It was just their own children. They were turned down for that. And I know another family that was turned down because they called homosexuality sinful.

So I've heard two cases of each situation, but I haven't heard any from specifically on the

African -American community. The statistics are very sad in that as well.

There's very few African -American families that adopt statistically, and that's something we pray about, that that would change.

Because as you were talking with your other guest today, some people say some pretty crazy things like you shouldn't adopt black children.

That's hard for them. You shouldn't adopt children of different color. You're taking them out of their culture.

And my answer is always that a culture of love is always better than an orphanage or not having a family.

So it's just amazing how people throw rocks at your acts of kindness. Yeah, well, that's just reverse racism.

It's the insanity of treating somebody in a special or different way for better or worse because of the melanin content in their skin.

And racism is a huge issue in the state, and it's sad when it comes into the area of adoption, for sure.

Well, obviously, you being a Christian pastor, well, at least one that I know, you might hear a lot of crazy advice and counsel from people identifying themselves as Christian pastors.

But you are a Reformed Baptist. You are an adherent to the 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith. So I know that you would not be one who would be counseling people, oh, just lie about that when you're trying to adopt.

Just fudge that. Just do this, do that to be dishonest because the greater good will come out of it.

But obviously, I know that you wouldn't do that. So how do you counsel Christians wanting to adopt? Again, just be open and honest, but only be as open and honest as they ask you to be open and honest.

You don't have to volunteer information. That's not asking because that's not... People have confused that with lying.

That's not lying. If the government becomes a fascist regime and kicks in your door, you don't have to start volunteering information about where your children are hiding.

I mean, it is an absurd thing when people say that. But other than that, what can you say?

No, I just think that if we believe that Christ is Lord, that He actually rules over every situation, that He opens doors that no one can shut and closed doors that nobody can open, that we can be open and honest.

We don't have to hide our faith. It stuns me that out of the seven children that we adopted, we were never asked once on those areas of issues, which stunned us.

Again, I think it was because the first two that we adopted was an emergency situation. It came about in a very different way than most adoptions in Massachusetts.

And because we were already approved for them, I think it was easier as we went forward until the last four when they were really kicking and not wanting to give approval.

But again, God just knocks the doors down. If this child or this group of children that you're trying to adopt is really the will of the

Lord, then keep pressing on. It may cost you being ridiculed. It may cost you even your job, depending on the situation.

But we have to stand firm in the faith. We have to stand firm and be honest and open and loving. And at the same time, when we answer questions, answer them the way the

Bible does. Homosexuality is a horrible sin, but so are all other sins.

So when I'm always confronted on that issue, it's like, do you think homosexuality is a sin? I say yes. Like, I do murder, lying, stealing, rape.

And people usually won't press when you say that because they're on an agenda, and they want you not to merely look away and give them the freedom to sin.

They want you to give approval to sin. But when you include it in the list of murdering and lying and stealing and they push it, you can just say, so you think people should be allowed to murder you and steal your goods?

You know what I mean? And they just don't have an answer for that because they don't have a biblical worldview. They don't have a consistent worldview.

And every time the world calls something sin or wrong, we have to say to them, but you only believe that because God told us it's wrong.

Well, why don't you give us an update on these additional children that you adopted and give us a bit of a background about what you were facing specifically.

I remember the last time you were a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, you actually were one of the very rare times we have ever had a guest be anonymous.

Yes. And you had to do that because you hadn't completed the adoption process. So tell us something about that and the update on it.

Yeah, no, the adoptions were all finalized. We have adopted seven beautiful kiddos, two from Ukraine that were actually adopted in the

United States, and through certain circumstances we had to receive them into our home in a 24 -hour window due to a situation that was outside of everyone's control.

And then we adopted a little boy whose parents were from Haiti, but they were in Boston and we went through the process and adopted him.

And then the last four were four African -American children from the Boston area that we adopted.

And our family is a very diverse family. When the door opens in our car, we all come piling out.

So it's quite the view. You get a lot of, are you at daycare? You get all these crazy comments.

But they're great kiddos, and the Lord has made them a part of our family, just like he did our children that were part of our family by birth.

They're all equal in our family and all equally loved, and it's been a huge blessing to our family.

We always thought we would adopt when we were younger, and it never worked out. And the Lord just opened the door later in life, so it's a blessing.

Now, when we conducted that last interview when you were anonymous, how many of those children were the ones that had not yet been finalized?

Because you already did have some adopted. It was the group of four, the sibling group of four. The state didn't want to let us.

Somebody higher up in the state didn't want to let us adopt because they were blaming it on ten square feet in our house.

And so the governor got involved, and the secretary, I mean, yeah, the secretary of the state and our representative got involved, and they said, can we be serious and make this happen?

This is a rare situation where somebody wants to keep together, and because of their influence, the person could no longer push against us, whoever that was, because our social worker was for us.

There was other social workers that were for us, and somebody higher up just didn't want to say yes.

And for me, for knowing what I know from behind the scenes, that's the only thing I can assume. They knew I was a pastor.

They knew I was a Christian. And I think some of the people in the state, if they could say it publicly, would just come out and say it.

We don't want Christians to do adoptions. So this was a sham that there was something about the architecture of your home that was unacceptable?

Yeah, one of the bedrooms was ten square feet too small, and we put a large addition on our house now.

That was our goal all along, obviously, to help care for these kiddos, but it was just during that fostering stage.

We didn't want to commit to they wanted us to sign a contract saying we'd put an addition on our house.

But if we did that, that would just set a precedent for somebody else. To me, that was a little on the frightening side to say, oh, yeah, we're going to be able to tell people, put an addition on, put an extra bedroom on, put another room on your house.

And as your previous guest said, adoption is extremely expensive, and it's sad because that eliminates a lot of people that would be great parents just from the legal expenses and different things.

But in the state of Massachusetts, you've got to go through the state, you've got to get state approval, and it's really sad the direction that it's going in.

Now, we have here an anonymous listener who says, if you live in Massachusetts and you want to adopt and you are a

Christian and even a pastor, is it easier to get this accomplished by adopting overseas or in another state and then bringing the children back to Massachusetts?

I'm unaware of the legalities behind all this. Yeah, I wouldn't know the legalities behind it, but I know that you obviously can adopt from overseas.

It's getting harder and harder, but it's also the most expensive way to go. We knew some people that adopted from overseas, they had to make two or three different trips to the country, stay in the country for a few weeks, the travel back and forth, the money that these orphanages want to allow you to adopt these kiddos.

When we lived in Russia, there were some boys there that we would have loved to have brought home with us and adopt them. The mother had some mental issues, and yet she was a member of the church, and she gave us permission to adopt her children.

They were her children. And the Russian orphanage says, yep, you can adopt them for 15 grand apiece, and after you pay us the 45 grand, then we will decide which three children you get.

I don't want any three children. I want to adopt this lady's children. Well, sorry, she lost her rights, but we have the right to take your money and then give you whatever children you want.

Because if they could have guaranteed us the three boys, I think we would have done everything under the sun to raise the money and try to make it happen before we came back stateside.

But it was just stunning to me that here's an orphanage that they don't have much, and orphanages are so low, the children are not in good circumstances, and yet you're going to dictate this astronomical amount of money to adopt one of these kiddos that parents are giving permission to, which it's sad.

I think your previous guest said it well. There are a lot of people out there that are doing adoption for the right reason, for the love of kids, but yet there's a lot of people that are in the adoption, let's say, business, and they're in it strictly to make money.

And that, to me, is just sad. Well, you have about 30 seconds just to summarize what you most want etched on the hearts and minds of our listeners now.

Well, I would say love Christ with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength as you enjoy your adoption that Christ purchased for you.

I think every Christian should be involved in adoption. I'm not saying every Christian should adopt, but we should be praying for those that are adopting.

We should be praying for the children that are orphans. Christ says that a great act of worship is to take care of the widows and the orphans, and I just think the

Church in America is falling woefully short of that goal. And there needs to be more prayers, more money, and more hearts willing to adopt.

Amen. Well, the website for Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts is

ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org, and that MA is an abbreviation for Massachusetts. ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org.

I want to thank you so much for joining us today, Pastor Mark Lukens. I look forward to having you back for a longer period of time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater