We are visiting the covenant community in Harstad in the north of Norway this week and we are having a very good time. We have been meeting with several house churches and a group of leaders of the church. We have been blessed by our fellowship with the saints in Harstad. It is very clear to us that God is at work among his people in this place.

Yesterday a couple told us that they had kind of adopted some young adult students as their sons and daughters. They had opened their home to them and included them as family members. Once they had made a birthday party for a student from Ghana. As they were celebrating the birthday, the students phoned his family in Ghana. With tear running down his cheeks he told them that his Norwegian parents held a birthday party for him. It was not a big thing for the Norwegian couple to make a party, but it was a very big thing to the foreign young student to have people in this distant land arranging a birthday party for him.

My friends only did what was natural to them. They cared for the student. They loved him as a son. Therefore, they naturally celebrated his birthday with a party. By their action they showed that they were spiritual parents taking interest in others, loving and caring for them, without even thinking they had done something great.

One small action of love from spiritual parents can be a big miracle for people who have left their natural home and are trying to cope by their own.

There is a great need in the world today for spiritual parents to care for people who are struggling to manage their life on their own. There are so many lonely people hurting and suffering from lack of love. They need to be seen and taken notice of. They need to be loved as they are and appreciated for what they are. They need someone to come alongside them to bring out the best in them. They need some caring persons to bring them to maturity, so they themselves can show interest in others and become spiritual parents themselves.