Waiting. As a parent, you do more than your share. The sluggish minutes drag by as you wait or the sound of the key in the door and the soothing relief of "Mom! Dad! I'm home!" It's an all-too-familiar parental vigil.

The father of the prodigal son portrayed in Luke was well acquainted with waiting. He had grown accustomed to sleepless nights and to the weight of a heavy heart. But he believed in the power of love, so he left the light on in his home and heart for a child who had lost his way And when his son finally came home, bone weary and smelling of pigs, this faithful father ran to him - with arms wide open.

Tip and Laurie Killingsworth of Orlando, Florida, are kindred spirits of that father who never gave up hope that, someday, his child would return and become all God wanted him to be. Today, Tip and Laurie stand at the threshold and wait for Karis Love Killingsworth, their effervescent African-American adopted daughter, now 18, and on the run for the ninth time.

It could be said that Karis, whose name means "God's grace," is attempting to weave continuity into the fabric of her tattered past. She is, in many ways, running from God, propelled, perhaps, by the same lust for self-determination that fueled the prodigal son in Jesus' parable.

Karis may be far from home, but she is not far from God. He knows her every move, grieves her poor choices, and still loves her unconditionally - for she, too, is His adopted child, saved by His loving grace just two weeks after coming into the Killingsworth home as a foster child in 1994 at age 9.

This is a story of light and love. Unconditional and unending love with its happiness and sorrow Its smiles and tears. Its undying hope. It is a story of personal sacrifice for a higher calling. It is a story of faith - and of lighting the way home for a child in need.

By all accounts, Tip and Laurie Killingsworth, now married for 32 years, embraced a full life even before the thought of adopting a child was a seedling. Thirty-year missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ, the couple already had four children (Trey, Jason, Josh, and Trinity). A nice even number. But by the time Trinity could talk, she was asking for a sister.

"I was 37 when Trinity was born, and my answer was always the same: 'Trinity, you are the sister!' The Lord didn't move me at all about having a fifth child until Trinity was 9. And all I can say is it was one of those Holy Spirit things, because I was 46 at the time."

"She loves domestic things," says Laurie. "She loves to help in the kitchen, loves to cook, loves to sew doll clothes by hand. She's very artistic, beautiful, and loving." The unity of the family was completed 18 months later when the Killingsworths legally adopted Karis. The following Father's Day, Laurie gathered the kids together and asked them each to share something they appreciated about their dad. "What I really appreciate about Dad," replied Karis without hesitation "is that I never had one before, and now I do." "I had a lump in my throat the size of a grapefruit," confesses Tip. 'And Karis had tears in her eyes when she said it. It's one of those moments you forever hold in your heart - the kind that you celebrate during the good times and cling to during the tough ones."

Those tough times came just a few years later when Karis turned 14. One day, without warning, Karis ran away. "It was such a shock," says Laurie. We had no idea where she was, who she was with, or why she had run away. The entire time we were frozen with fear and weighed down by a sense of failure. We felt that we were somehow to blame; that we had failed her." With the help of a friend, Tip and Laurie found Karis and a girlfriend on the other side of town. 'By the time we got there, police were everywhere; the girls were underage and with much older boys," explains Laurie. "It was quite a scene. Karis was sitting on the side of the curb with her head in her hands, looking like the most dejected person on the planet. I'd gone on a prayer walk just before we received the call that she had been found, and the Lord had given me such a peace about emulating the prodigal's father. I went to her, pulled her to her feet, hugged her tight, and said, 'Karis, I love you.' I hugged her for a long, long time. She didn't run away again for several months."

But Karis, so loving yet so easily led by her peers, eventually did run away again. Ironically the person she was with this time made her phone home. Laurie continues, "Just before she hung up, I said, 'Karis, I love you, Sweetheart.' "At that point, Laurie heard Karis' companion burst into tears and say, "Karis, have you lost your mind? They really love you, and you're doing this to them? Are you nuts? I've never had my parents tell me they love me.

Love has made a world of difference in the Killingsworth home. Tip and Laurie know firsthand that difficult times can either drive a couple apart or draw them closer together. By God's grace, the difficult times with Karis have not driven them apart but to their knees together in prayer. "There has been such a bounty of God's sufficiency throughout all this," says Laurie. "We've had to rely on God; many days the whole thing was just so far beyond us. Throughout long days and nights, God has softened our hearts and made us more understanding of other parents who struggle and face tremendous heartache - even when they are trying so hard for their kids."

Tip and Laurie have shared their story at Fall Festival of Marriage Conferences with heart-wrenching results.

The unexpected calling to adopt a child was conceived during a short car ride with Dee Brestin, author of And Then We Were Women (Chariot Victor Books). Brestin had three children of her own but chose to adopt two daughters from Korea and Thailand. To Laurie's amazement, the idea of following Dee's example grew in her heart, and when she shared her growing desire with Tip, he didn't flinch. There was plenty of room in his heart for another child. But the Killingsworth's fifth child would not come from another land; she would come from another world: a world of pain and neglect.

Tip and Laurie had always taught their children to be colorblind, to see the person, not the color of his or her skin. Little did they know those early lessons would create a family environment that would open their hearts to an African-American child.

Initial inquiries into adopting from a foreign land proved financially daunting to the couple, whose income depended on raising their own support. Foreign adoptions added up to thousands of dollars the Killingsworths didn't have. Adoption was placed on a back burner until a co-worker became a foster parent to two boys from Girls and Boys Town, a non-sectarian group home whose mission is to "change the way America cares for her at-risk children."

"Tip was excited about that possibility for us, but I wasn't," Laurie confesses. "1 was afraid to run the risk of getting attached to a child and then have to give her back to an abusive or neglectful home."

But Tip felt God's strong leading, and through prayer the Lord began to change Laurie's fearful heart. "I finally said, 'Lord, you know I really want to adopt; I don't want to be a foster parent. But if you see something I don't see in all of this, I'm willing to at least go through the process of getting licensed for foster care.'"

After numerous foster-parenting workshops and mounds of red tape, Tip and Laurie received their license and shortly thereafter received a life-changing phone call: A 9-year-old African-American girl, just six weeks older than Trinity needed a home. Taken from drug-addicted parents at age t, the girl had lived in two foster homes until she was 6, when she was adopted by a woman who abused her. From ages 6 to 8, she lived in a group home, and later she was placed at Girls Town.

"We hadn't given any stipulations to Girls Town as to the type of child we wanted," says Tip. "We let the Lord choose the race and background. We had told the Lord whomever He chose was our choice also."

That weekend Karis, whose personality is naturally outgoing, walked into the Killingsworth home and almost immediately nestled into their hearts. "She latched on and became a real part of the family immediately," says Laurie. "I was amazed that she was so willing to become our child. We had prayed for a lot of things, including her temperament. And God answered all those prayers, including that she would come to know the Lord. Karis trusted Christ two weeks after she came to us. In fact, I didn't share the gospel with her for two weeks, because I wanted her to feel settled and at home before I brought that up. But she was open from the very beginning to the Lord."

Of course, where there are multiple kids, there are sibling rivalries. The Killingsworth boys accepted Karis in an unflinching and openly protective way. Trinity who had begged for a sister, was thrilled - until the reality of sharing her room, her stuff, her private world with another girl set in. During that first year, Trinity determined, at intervals, that it was time for Karis to go, that she'd been there long enough messing with her stuff But Tip and Laurie explained to all their children that there was no going. Karis, they hoped with all their hearts, was home to stay. And in this loving Christian environment, Karis blossomed.

"We've had couples come to us afterward and thank us for being so open about our struggles with Karis," says Tip. "And then they tell us stories of their own kids. We walk away deeply grateful that God would give us the sweet opportunity to experience bitter sorrow so that we can embrace these parents and say, 'We understand. We know how much it hurts.' We're much softer and far less judgmental than we used to be," confesses Tip. "It comes back to the fact that we need to be on our knees for our kids" reflects Laurie. "Lamentations 2:19 says to pour out your heart before the Lord for your children like water. I tell women at conferences, 'No one loves your kids more than you do, and if you're not praying your heart out for them, then who will?'"

Tip asked Karis after she returned home from yet another run, "What have you found out there that is so good it's better than what you have here?" Karis didn't have an answer that day; she still doesn't t. So Tip and Laurie pray as they wait for Karis to return home from her ninth run. During these difficult times, they cling to two verses for strength and guidance: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27). And "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Galatians 6:9).

"We cling to those verses, and we refuse to relinquish our prayers and dreams for Karis," says Tip. "God has called us to be here for Karis, even though it's not always easy Even though it may seem like she doesn't want us to be here for her, we know it's our calling to love her unconditionally to show her how a loving, Christian home lives and breathes through good times and bad.

"In fact, we believe that every godly family should consider opening their home and their hearts to a homeless child. There's nothing more important than parenting a child into the future. What a dramatic change Christian families could make in the foster care system if they did that!

"Actually, the way we see it, it's the next step to the Right to Life cause to take a hands-on approach to helping neglected and abused kids. If you're against abortion but you're not willing to stand in the gap, then you are part of the problem, not the solution. There are thousands and thousands of kids out there who have been abandoned, abused, neglected. Who better to show them the love they have been missing than Christians who have been embraced by the Father of love? If we don't do it, who will?"

Laurie and Tip Killingsworth, popular speakers for Fall Festival of Marriage, currently lead two ministries: Passionate Hearts, whose goal is to lead women into deeper intimacy with God, and Masterlife International, which exists to help True Love Waits. As parents, Laurie and Tip are living the lessons of I Corinthians 13:4-8a: "Love is patent, love is kind. It does not envy it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

And they will persevere with ever-abiding love. Their love for Karis is so deep and their faith in her Heavenly Father so strong, Laurie and Tip are convinced that someday Karis is going to shake her head, as the prodigal son did, and say: "What am I doing? This is a dumb place to be! I'm going home!" And Laurie and Tip will be waiting there for her - with arms wide open.

individuals and organizations grow by developing godly leadership, improving organizational focus, minimizing interpersonal problems, and pursuing goals that are truly worth achieving for eternal impact. To learn more visit www. passionatehearts.org and www.masterlife.org.

Photo location courtesy of House of Hope; P.O. Box 560484; Orlando, FL 32856; phone: 407-843-8686; Web Site: www.houseofhope.com. House of Hope for hurting teenagers is an outgrowth ministry under the umbrella of Fellowship of Faith Ministry, Inc.

Ivey Harrington Beckman is a freelance writer and editor from Smyrna, TN
Photography by Jon LeMay