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Expressions on Mothers Day

This Sunday is Mother's Day, a time to honor our parents, by focusing on our Mothers. It can also be a day of expression in many ways, expressions of honor, love, admiration, plus a host of others. The front of the card I got for my Mom this week has a black & white photo of three toddlers sitting on a couch. Each one has a different expression on their face. The caption below describes their looks, "grumpiness, confusion and pure happiness..."

The back of the card has a short caption on it about the photo and the author Liz Simpson. "Liz and her friends were trying to get a group smile out of their kiddos when a funnier photo came along . . . one that speaks perfectly to the experience of parenting. Liz says of this photo her friend Angie snapped, "Anyone who has raised children can easily agree that they've felt each of these emotions, and many times all within the same day!" I think that most would agree that a day filled with all three would be a day to remember. I hope you get to make it a day to remember with your Mom and your kids.

Yet, for close to 40 million orphans around the world it will be another day without a Mom or a Dad. The expressions of honor, love and admiration might have been pushed out of their mind by the loss of Mom and Dad at an early age. These children are not in a hopeless condition, the Father to the fatherless is there for them. The expression of hope in the Father comes from the group of believers the Father has strategically placed around each child. The church can bring that expression of honor, love and admiration back into the life of the child, by offering them a bridge that leads them to Christ.

You can make a difference in the life of an orphan by equipping churches around the world to provide that bridge in the life of an orphan. By giving $44.00 to the World Orphans Bridge Fund you can help a local church rescue and care for orphans in their community. You can be part of the expression of hope in the Father to the fatherless.

To give to the Bridge Fund go to www.worldorphans.org

Mar 23 Pray4projects @WorldOrphans

Praise!- Four of the projects that were without western church partners at the beginning of the year are now in partnerships.

    Fountain of Life – Juja is now partnered with Hill Country Bible Church – Northpoint in Austin TX
    Fountain of Hope – Nairobi is now partnered with River Oaks Church in Knoxville
    Lunkon Thmei – Cambodia is now partnered with Rutherford Bible Chapel in Rutherford N.J.
    Jesus Savior Church – Moldova is now partnered with Restoration Church in Arlington VA.
This is a great answer to prayer!

We still have six more projects without partners. Please pray for church partners for these projects:

• Christian Life Centre Chatsworth, South Africa
• Ebenezer Bible Church Temba, South Africa
• Nayla Presb. Evang. Church Darfur, Sudan
• United Community Methodist Church Jinja, Uganda
• Bethel Gospel Chruch Hyderabad, India
• F. S. Training Center China
• A total of 138 former orphans being cared for by these churches.

• Pray for the Haiti Orphan Relief Team as they roll out the strategy to connect  the first 10 churches in the US with 10 churches in Haiti to provide care for the orphans. To learn more go to, www.Haitiorphanrelief.org 
• Pray for the team deploying to South Africa on April 8th, led by Mike Krick.

Feb 26 Pray4projects in South Africa, Haiti & Nicaragua @WorldOrphans

• Please pray for the Christian Life Centre in Chatsworth, South Africa. Pastor Siva has remarkable church caring for 18 former orphans plus hundreds of other orphans in their community based programs. A team from the Midwest lead by Mike Krick will be traveling to South Africa in April.
  
• Pray for the Haiti Orphan Relief Team as they start to wrap-up their contacts with churches today and head home tomorrow. 
  
• The Nicaragua team has returned from a fruitful trip. Please pray for the US churches as they begin to strategize how to partner with the Verbo Churches to rescue and care for orphans in some of the poorest and least reached areas of Nicaragua.
  

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah unknowingly supports the World Orphans model of orphan care.

This is a lecture by a former child soldier who has the wonderful ability of story telling. During his account of the events he chronicled in his book, he tells the stories of his life before, during and after the war. His story is remarkable, and the time it takes to hear the entire lecture is well worth it. He makes several points about the orphan cycle of child soldiers.

Ishmael credits his recovery to the passion of people that wanted him to recover. Ishmael placed great importance on two things: The fact that the people who worked at the recovery center were from Sierra Leon, and the sports they used to help them make break throughs in their recovery. He said:

“Thank God that the people who worked at the center were Sierra Leonians, who were deeply interested in helping us. It makes a tremendous difference  when people who are from your country, help you to recover. Somebody who is from the outside can easily  forgive you, who have not been there during the war. But when somebody, perhaps some of the peoples whose family you had actually you had destroyed, will want to come to take care of you, it makes a tremendous difference.

Another way they did this was sports, football, soccer.”

Without knowing it, Ishmael gave a great testimony for two parts of our strategy. The importance that the work is carried out by the indigenous church. Not only it is important for the community to identify the work being done by the church, but it matters to the children as well. The second part being, our strategy to use sports in the process of growth and healing.

I hope that someday the result of the work of World Orphans means that there are thousands of kids like Ishmael, who are able to tell how the members of their church helped them recover from the cycle that caused them to be an orphan. And that their story does not end there, but it goes on to tell how they also lead them to eternal life.

Listen to his story then leave a comment about what impressed you.

A Cord of Three for Haiti

A strategy has been compiled to coordinate the response of churches to the crisis in Haiti that will bring focus to what needs to be accomplished for the church and the orphan at the same time. The Haiti Orphan Relief Team is a multi-disciplined team that will begin to map out churches in Haiti that have the heart to rescue and care for orphans, and will include some members of our staff. We are all aware of the setting they will be going into and the need to have a prayer team backing them up every step of the way.

The decentralized World Orphans model does not afford the staff with the luxury of being in close proximity to one another, we can't all gather together in one place at one time. Yet, being spread across the country does afford us the luxury of being in several time zones, having influence in multiple regions and churches. We need to begin today to use the disbursement of our staff to the advantage it affords us, in corporate prayer, as preparations are being finalized and while the team is on the ground.

I do not mean to imply that you are not praying for the crisis in Haiti, I am saying that we need to ramp it up. I'm not saying that the needs of the team are over and above the needs of those already on the ground and in the midst of the suffering chaos, the need is different but the same in importance. I'm not saying this is more important than the upcoming teams going to Nicaragua and South Africa, the difference is that the HORT Team will not have the focus of a sending church to form the chorus of prayer that will be needed like the other trips will have. Our ministry, You and I will be the sending body that needs to be standing in the gap for those going and their families. You and I need to include this strategy in every aspect of our daily conversations with God. It needs to be on the minds in in the prayers of everyone you and I  have contact with.

The situation they are going into is tough. Yet, the bible reminds us about the need for a team. "And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken." Ecclesiastes 4:12 (ESV) We need to build a strong team. Building off the theme of three, the Lord, the Team, and you and I, this team can stand tougher than the circumstances they will face.

Taking the theme  of three further, I am asking each of you to join me in adding an additional layer of prayer to what has already been discussed above. I am asking you to pray at :03 past the hour every waking hour during your day for this strategy and the team. You may need to set your watch, your phone or a clock as a reminder, but take a moment at :03 past the hour to pray. Praise the Lord for what He is doing, lift up the team at that moment, and pray for the rest of our ministry. Encourage others in your life to do the same.

This is not meant to be a ritual, but a reminder that "in all these things we are all more than conquerors [only] through Him who loved us."

If you want your church to get involved in caring for the hundreds of thousands of new orphans in Haiti go to the Haiti Orphan Relief Team page.

You can keep up to date with the teams progress by following them on Face Book and invite your friends to join the fan page as well.

The numbers from Haiti can be staggering

Some of the numbers of orphans in Haiti are beginning to be reported in articles like this one from the AP,
"Haiti's children on their own on shattered streets". This article estimates there are now 1 million orphans in Haiti; children that have either lost one or both of their parents.

I'm not going to get into the debate concerning single or double orphans. I think it is fair to say that the orphan population will have at least doubled, if not tripled since the quake.

The AP article points out how the response is falling short when it comes to the needs of children. UNICEF, the Red Cross and Save the Children are all doing the best they can under the circumstances. Save the Children has set up 13 "Child Spaces" zones in the settlements. These zones are not meant to provide the care needed by 600,000 new orphans. The Red Cross has begun to search for parents and next of kin for children, and the effort will go on for months if not years. The task is bigger than relief agencies alone can provide. A larger network is needed.

Using the numbers available from one of the networks, the Florida SBC, the estimate of the number of Protestant churches in Haiti could be extrapolated to be 1600. Is this network big enough to care for 600,000 new orphans? The answer is: with a strategy, Yes.

If each church cared for 20 to 40 children in family style homes on church property they could care for 32,000 to 64,000 children. Which leaves 536,000 children to care for.

So some of the 'experts' will use this staggering number as justification to set up large institutional orphanages. The rationale being that the warehouses are better than the streets. But there is a better strategy, the Continuum of Care. Residential care is one point on the continuum, but another point is community based foster care.

Churches will be able to facilitate and support the care of hundreds of children in foster homes in the surrounding community. If only the 1600 evangelical churches are involved, it would mean that each church would only need to facilitate the care to 335 children their surrounding community through foster and kinship based care.

Another sad fact is that the earth quake that produces orphans also produces widows. The widows are also in need of support and resources. Eighty-four (84) widows in a community surrounding a church could care for 335 children, with a ratio of 1 care-giver to 4 children.

So the numbers may be staggering, but this shows that a church based network response is feasible. Yes, many other factors come into play. Will the number of orphans needing care be 600,000? Probably not, it could more, it could be less. Will all 1600 churches get involved? Probably not, but other faith based organizations will most likely also respond. A big factor that I have not covered yet is that the scripture is clear that it is totally possible since it's what the Father wants, Eph. 3:10, James 1:27.  That trumps all the other strategies of the world.

Churches wanting to get involved in a strategy to partner with Haitian churches can contact World Orphans by emailing me, or info.worldorphans.org, or calling 720-386-4881. World Orphans is working with several network partners and agencies to formulate a strategy to tackle this issue. Contact us now to get on the distribution list for the strategy when it is completed. Churches that begin to participate now by giving to World Orphans Haiti Response Fund on our giving page will be the first to be partnered with churches, and the first to go on trips when the time is right.

Word on Jodi's friends in Haiti

Yesterday I wondered what the story of Jodi's friends would be like. She posted a news cast report on her friends that arrived in Haiti.

"got to work immediately . . . doing triage work, and have already delivered several babies."

God's goodness amongst the chaos of the world.

Jodi, thanks for sharing the update.

Words From Haiti.

'Disaster and chaos' in Haiti after major earthquake 1/12/2010

These are the words taken from an Associated Press headline after the earthquake struck Haiti. The article went on to quote people that were on the ground and their descriptions of the events there. Unless you have been away from the media over the past few days you have seen your share of the words in headlines, and are probably close to being overwhelmed by the news. Words like disaster and chaos are catchy, I’ve even used them here. Words like providence or provision don’t seem to go with disaster and chaos. Yet, they can be found in Haiti.

If there is one thing that I am learning in my new role at World Orphans, it is that there are no coincidences in God’s plan. In his blog, Paul Myhill gives an account of a group arriving in Haiti just moments before the earthquake with supplies and provisions to help a church-base home for orphans there. I’m limited to the information that Paul has given us, and I doubt that this story will ever end up in an article by the Associated Press. But I think it is a great example of God’s providence. A group of people made plans to go and help, well in advance of the earthquake. They gathered provisions and went. Then in God’s timing, they were on the ground just as this event was unfolding. That is more than just a matter of timing.

Still, some will say this is just a coincidence.  I am convinced it is more than that, it is the providence of God at work in the midst of what the world calls chaos. From this tidbit of a bigger story we can see how the church really is the best instrument for long term response and change. This church-based home is not a current World Orphans partner but it is at the center of this story. The help this group will be able to give the people of Haiti is in part possible because the church is there, and the church is responding to the community by caring for orphaned and abandoned children.

In the coming days I hope we get to hear more about the story of Jodi’s friends and the response they were able to help the church make in Haiti. I’m sure the story will be ripe with words that describe God’s grace and mercy, His providence and provision more than disaster and chaos.

Would you like to help the children of Haiti, by helping the churches that are already there to rescue them? You can contribute to the World Orphans relief efforts online at our giving page. Simply make a”miscellaneous” gift and type “Haiti” in the memo box. Or you can send a check to:
    World Orphans
    P.O. Box 1840
    Castle Rock, CO 80104

Thank you in advance for being part of what God is doing through the church and for the orphan.

Keith

Continuum of Care?

Why is the continuum of care so important? Why should we have a plan that goes beyond the rescue? “Go make disciples… teaching them...and surely I am with you always…”

“Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to God. One life wholly devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit.”  Oswald Chambers

One “value” of the orphan child in the Church is that of a fully devoted disciple. God working through the rescued and discipled life of an orphan child will change a community. (ec)³