A gift from one who was once an orphan ~

I wanted to share this wonderful story with you from a fellow Christian who has a heart for orphans.  (Note: The “Beveni Challenge” was started to encourage people to support children in an orphanage in Swaziland through Children’s HopeChest.)

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As many of you know, we are parents to two sons: Anthony, our 14 year old who started the Beveni Challenge with the money that would have been spent on his Christmas presents, and Aidyn, our 13 year old. Both boys came to be our sons through the joy and miracle of adoption.

Aidyn was 4 ½ years old when he joined our family. He had lived in an orphanage in Karaganda, Kazakhstan called Nyezabutka, which is Russian for Forget Me Not. That name has reverberated through these years as a reminder to never forget the children we left behind.

Aidyn is a hard working kid, always willing to lend a helping hand on tasks that require extra help around our home and business. He is also very frugal: he has been saving every penny he has earned for the last 14 months.

When we first talked about the Beveni Challenge, he knew he wanted to participate in it by giving a donation. We encouraged him to pray about it, and waited patiently for him to let us know how much he wanted to give.

The other night, as I walked through his room, I glanced at his computer screen. He was working on writing a letter to Tom Davis about his gift. Without sharing his entire correspondence, I will tell you the part that made my eyes tear and my heart swell with pride.

He told Tom that it had taken a long time to earn the money, but that he could always earn it again, and that he knew the children of Beveni needed it more then he did.

The next morning, Aidyn asked me if I wanted to know how much he was going to give to the Challenge. You all know I said “Yes”, right?

He answered: “All of it, Mom”.

His earnings of 14 months, totaling $400, is what he desired to give to children who still face the hunger he well remembers from his days as an orphan.

And so one who was once an orphan, who still remembers the pain of hunger, has gifted his entire savings to stop the hunger of other orphans in a far away place in Swaziland.

Every time we care for a child, every time we pour ourselves into their lives, every gesture of love we offer through our bodies as His Body, is an opportunity for that child to know Christ. And that gift goes on, in their own understanding of what it means to love and sacrifice and pour themselves into another child’s life.

I am more than proud of Aidyn. I stand amazed and blessed by his heart of generosity, his grasp of how high and wide is the love of the Father for His children and his willingness to obey the call on his life to care for the widows, orphans and strangers.

This young man named Aidyn is more than my son. He is my brother in Christ, even as he is yours.  ~Deb Gangemi

Kirov #1 orphanage

UPDATE:  55 sponsored and counting!  You can also keep up with the orphanage sponsorships at justinandrebekah.com.

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We have reason to rejoice – 51 orphans from Russia have been sponsored!  We also are continuing to pray that God would provide sponsors for those who are left. 

135 of God's children from Kirov #1

I found out something about Kirov #1 that has given me a new perspective.  It seems that several other churches had passed over this orphanage.  You can imagine the discouragement of the director and the children.  I learned recently that our church was this orphanage’s last hope.  If we chose to pass by, they had requested to be taken off the list of prospects.  Rejection is hard…especially when it happens over and over.

 

These children have been rejected by their family and seemingly by life itself.  But, there is One who will never reject them.  In fact, He wants to reach out to them through us.  God loves these children.  As the Body of Christ, we are called to do the same.   Hands of Hope will continue to pray and to work until all of these children are sponsored.

To find out more about orphanage sponsorship, go to Children’s HopeChest.

 

In God’s time ~

It’s funny how excitement and passion for something can make you want to jump in with both feet and speed ahead.  We humans aren’t very patient.  But God is.  God has His own timing and His own plans.  And, when we slow down long enough to stop and seek Him, His plans can become our plans.  We just have to be obedient.

From the beginning of this ministry, we have felt led to help orphans in other countries.  Two years later, after patiently waiting and seeking God’s will, that dream is becoming a reality.  This weekend we are launching an orphanage sponsorship program in our church.  Our congregation will have the opportunity to sponsor a child from an orphanage in Russia.  With the help of Children’s HopeChest, we will reach out and be Christ to the fatherless.

Please join us by praying for the orphans and the families who will sponsor them.  If you are in the Hendersonville, NC area, then join us in person.  Daniel Clark from Children’s HopeChest will be presenting the sponsorship information during the evening service (2/22 @ 6pm) at First Baptist Church, Hendersonville.

Adoption is a miracle

Here is an excerpt from a great article in the Southwestern News.  Click on the link below to read the entire story.

 

As Miraculous as Childbirth

by Benjamin Hawkins

 

“It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and for Southwestern alumnus Bart Barber one photograph captures the essence of life. It is a photo of Bart sitting in the children’s wing of First Baptist Church of Farmersville, Texas, where he serves as pastor. He is ready to preach, prepared with suit and tie and with a microphone around his ear. Nestled in his arms is his daughter, Sarah.

“That’s my little girl in my arms,” he says. “She was sad that day when I walked by the nursery, so I stopped in to console her and we had a brief rock. I was singing an old hymn to Sarah while she burrowed up into my chest.” For Barber, this photo reveals the priorities of life: God, family, ministry, church.

“God is the maker of families,” Bart says. Adoption is just as miraculous as childbirth, especially given the waiting, the closed doors and the unexpected difficulties that can arise in the process. Bart and Tracy firmly believe that God intended for them to raise Jim and Sarah, so that He might fulfill His purposes in their lives.”

To read the entire article, click here

Help provide food for orphans in Ethiopia

Some Children Are Hungry
While we in the United States are facing our own financial crisis, the worldwide recession is hitting Ethiopians even harder than we can imagine. Christian World Adoption’s Ethiopian staff report widespread famine and hardship. The price of teff, the grain used to make their food staple, injera bread, has tripled. Inflation is above 20%. As we face concerns about retirement, millions in Ethiopia struggle for the next meal—and those who suffer the most are children.
We have the opportunity to feed some of the hungry children in Ethiopia now through a project called Food4Kids.
So Let’s Feed Them
We are inviting you to participate in Food4Kids. A donation today of $25, $50, $100, $500, or more, will positively impact the famine in Ethiopia. Our goal is to provide at least $30,000 of food to the community surrounding Acacia Village before Christmas 2008. Will you help? In lieu of a material gift this Christmas, make a donation in honor or in memory of a loved one. CWF will then send an card acknowledging your gift. You can make your donation online here »

From Christianworldfoundation.org

Making room in your heart

From Radical Living in a Comfortable World – a blog by Seth Barnes

I’m writing this at the beach on an island off the Thai coast. Our debrief is off to a roaring start. Our racers have been in some very rough places and tonight as we prayed over them, I could sense the Spirit fall as the tears began to flow.  Our team of racers had held children orphaned by the cyclone in Myanmar; they had worked hard to get through its police state barriers – the first aid workers in that part of the delta.  A number of our women had ministered to prostitutes in Pattaya, a town that sees two million sex tourists pass through in a year.  And as we prayed, I sensed that the darkness still weighed heavy on their shoulders and in their hearts.  God had been breaking and expanding their hearts with the things that break his own heart.

This concept of expanding hearts is something God has been showing me lately.  The other day I was talking to Jumbo (my main man in Swaziland).  The ministry in Swaziland has grown a lot in the last year or two.  We didn’t used to feed orphans, but these days, we feed a lot.  More and more orphans are showing up at our centers looking for food and love.  I figured we were probably feeding a thousand or so of them, so I asked Jumbo what the number was.

“2700,” he said.

That blows my mind.  AIM is not an orphan ministry per se.  We minister to a lot of orphans as we seek to engage in “true religion” around the globe.  But somehow I’d misapprehended reality by 1700 orphans.

Churches in Uganda are not orphan ministries per se, but many of them devote the lion’s share of their tithes to the work of caring for orphans.  And I suppose a lot of us might say that “I’m not an orphan ministry person.” But the problem with that is that God has got lots of orphans and he’s an orphan ministry God.

More of us need to make room in our churches for an orphan-loving God.  He wants to make room in our hearts for his orphans.  As long as our hearts are filled with our own stuff, it can’t accommodate God’s orphans and other objects of his affection.  He must perform heart surgery to expand our hearts’ capacity to love.

Several years ago, he confronted me with the proposition that his orphans were going to start taking over my life.  He informed me that he wanted them on my porch and in my kitchen.  He made room in my heart for them. I like the privacy of my front porch and I know that Karen likes children out of the way when she cooks. 

But God was more interested in his orphans than our comfort.

What is taking up room in your heart that God may want to clear out of the way? My counsel is to go ahead and give it to him now.

Piecing Hope Together

There is an awesome new ministry at First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, NC.  The members of a beginners quilting class are using their new-found skills to make a difference in lives of orphans by wrapping them with God’s love.   

 

 

 

The needs of children in Ethiopian are staggering.  Here are a few facts:

• Nearly 15% (800,000)of children are orphans due to AIDS. 
• Four out of five people in Ethiopia live on less than $2 per day.
• Ethiopia is listed in the top 10 countries for the worst human development index worldwide. 
• Only 6% of births are attended by a trained attendant.
• One in every 13 Ethiopian children dies before reaching a first birthday.
• UNICEF lists the number of orphans in 2005 to be 4.8million. 
• The Ethiopian Aids Campaign lists 5.4million orphans in Ethiopia for 2007.

The goal of the quilting ministry is to give each child that goes into Acacia Village, a facility run by Christian World Adoption, a quilt of their very own.  “We want the children to have something to take home on the airplane that has the smell of Ethiopia on it” says Lynn Easler one of the quilting instructors.  “Also, we would hope that one day they would understand that they were prayed for during this very pivotal time of their life,” says Easler.

They hope to have 80 or more quilts made by May of 2009.  To achieve this goal, they will need some help.  A few of the needs are:
1.  Quilters or anyone that wants to learn to make these simple children’s quilts.
2.  Donations of fabric, anything bright and colorful
3.  Donations of money to buy more fabric

If you would like help in any of the above ways, please leave a comment with your contact information.  Hands of Hope will forward your information on to the leaders of the quilting ministry so they can contact you directly.

Together for Adoption Conference 2008

If you are a Christian and believe that, as Christians, we are called to care for orphans, then you’ll want to consider attending the T4A conference in November.  Below is an excerpt from the Together for Adoption blog.

Who should attend Conference 2008?

by Dan ~ August 21st, 2008. Filed under: Conferences, Theology.

As all of you who frequent this blog know, we have our first Together for Adoption conference on November 1st. Over the past few weeks a couple people have asked me this question, “Who should consider attending your conference?” So I thought I would answer it here. Our conference is for anyone who has been adopted. In other words, if you are a Christian we want you to consider attending Conference 2008. Every Christian has entered God’s household through adoption (Ephesians 1:6; 2:19).

Our conference is first about vertical adoption (i.e., God adopting us in Christ). It is second about orphan care and horizontal adoption (i.e., couples adopting children). If you desire to learn more about what it means to be adopted by God, you will find this conference to be very profitable.  We are convinced that the more we think about God’s gracious provision of vertical adoption, the more we will see and appreciate His glory, grace, beauty, love, etc. Adoption is first about the glorious God of the universe coming to profoundly needy people in the person of His Son to give us the adoption as sons (Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5). When we grow in our understanding of who this God of grace is and what He has done to adopt us through Jesus Christ, we will find our love for and our pursuit of Him progressively increasing.  So, ultimately, we want to see people grow in their enjoyment of God as their Father to the “praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). If this kind of talk resonates with you, let us encourage you to consider attending our upcoming conference.  You will not be disappointed.

Even though our conference is first about vertical adoption, don’t think that orphan care and horizontal adoption will be a conference afterthought.  No, we believe that Christians who are deepening in their understanding of God’s gracious provision of adoption as sons will find themselves joyfully compelled to extend this same kind of compassion to orphans, both here and abroad. Christians who love the wonderful provision of vertical adoption will become increasingly passionate about “visiting orphans in their affliction” (James 1:27), whether through short-term mission efforts, humanitarian assistance, adopting a child, or assisting others in the adoption process in some way.  Certainly, God does not call every Christian couple to adopt, but He does call the church to care for orphans—adoption being one way that the church can fulfill this calling. 

So if you have been adopted by God and believe that God has called the church to care for orphans, let us strongly encourage you to prayerfully consider attending Conference 2008.  We believe that you will walk away from this conference better understanding why it is that vertical adoption is the highest blessing of the gospel, rejoicing afresh in God’s grace to you in the gospel, and joyfully motivated to act on James 1:27, both locally and globally.

You may register here.

Successful Foster Parenting Can Require New Approaches

When they became foster parents Jim and his wife, Stella, were full of passion and confidence. Raising their children hadn’t always been easy, but the kids were all grown and living successfully on their own. They felt sure their experience and their open hearts would allow them to provide an excellent home for teens in foster care.

Now they have doubts. The 14-year-old in their home, DJ, is giving them trouble. No matter what the issue—school, house rules, behavior—nothing they do seems to work. Everything becomes a power struggle.

Jim and Stella feel as if, overnight, all they know about getting kids to listen and cooperate has simply evaporated.

A Common Problem
Jim and Stella face a common problem. Many foster parents tell children, “I’m going to treat you just like I treated my own children. What I expected of them, I’ll expect of you.”

In some ways this is a good message because it says “I will treat you fairly, as one of my own, not as a foster child.” In practical terms, however, this approach doesn’t always work.

Why? Because the behavior of some children in foster care has been shaped over time—by inconsistent parenting, abuse, neglect, multiple previous placements, and other factors—to the point where “typical” parenting techniques will not work.

Kids in foster care often require more structured parenting interventions to address negative behaviors and increase positive, pro-social behaviors. These interventions are seldom in the average parent’s repertoire. To succeed, foster parents must learn them.

“Back to School”
If you are a foster parent we hope that this is a message you have heard in the pre-service training you received before you were licensed, in conversations with your agency, and through your contact with other foster parents.

If you face challenges in managing the behavior of children in your home, your first step should be to contact your agency for support. Asking for help is a sign of strength!

Also, there are many resources out there about parenting children with difficult behavior. Two we recommend are:

• Off Road Parenting: Practical Solutions for Difficult Behavior by Pacifici, Chamberlain, & White (2002, Northwest Media Inc.)
• Foster Parent College, which offers a variety of affordable online courses related to behavior management and parenting strategies <www.fosterparentcollege.com>

Copyright © 2008 Jordan Institute for Families

From the Fostering Perspectives newsletter

Shoes for Orphan Souls

Here is another opportunity to help orphans in a very practical way.  The information is from the Shoes for Orphan Souls website.  The ministry is sponsored by Buckner International.

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“We (Shoes for Orphan Souls) have distributed more than 1.6 million pairs of new shoes to at-risk children in the United States and to orphans in 55 countries around the world. While our program has made a difference in many lives, there are still millions of children we can reach – all through a pair of shoes. We are seeking donations of new shoes, socks and shoelaces from individuals, corporations, churches and civic groups.”

There are several ways you can help:

• Donate a new pair of shoes and/or socks
• Organize a shoe drive in your work place, church or civic club
• Make a cash contribution, to help underwrite international shipping cost
• Help distribute shoes by traveling, with other volunteers, to China, Guatemala, Kenya, Latvia, Peru, Romania or Russia

Contact Us:
* Click here to email us.
* Toll Free 1-866-774-SHOE(7463)