Our Family Passion: the Orphan and Adoption!

Last weekend, Tommy and I were honored to be a part of the first Heart Gallery at HPC! You can read more here!

Chapman Family

Our prayers are with you, Stephen and Mary Beth and the entire Chapman family! We cry out to God for His strength for you during this time! No words can express the deepest sadness we have for this news! I am numb at this news!

Please pray for Stephen Curtis Chapman his wife Mary Beth and their entire family. Yesterday they experienced tragedy at their home. Their youngest daughter Maria was hit and killed in their driveway in Tennessee. Maria was one of three daughters they adopted from China. Stephen Curtis Chapman and his wife had just returned from doing mission work in China and he is currently doing a tour to bring forth awareness about adoption! Please lift their entire family up to God for His strength for them! They are a very close knit family and I cannot imagine the pain they are going through as they grieve the loss of their youngest daughter, grieve with the son who accidentally was involved in this and also their oldest daughter Emily got engaged yesterday. They need everybody crying out to God for them!

READ MORE HERE AND LISTEN TO HIS SONG CIDERELLA THAT WAS INSPIRED AFTER TIME WITH HIS YOUNGEST DAUGHTERS!

5 for Fifty!

I will be back to blogging soon. In the meantime, I wanted to mention some of what was mentioned in Tom Davis' new book Red Letters: Living a life that bleeds.



There are 5 things that every one of us can do to help the 50 million people in our world suffering from HIV/AIDS. Here's how it works:

Give 5 minutes a day to pray for those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
Give 5 hours a week to fast for those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
Give 5 dollars a month to the Five for 50 Fund and support worthy causes.
Give 5 days a year to travel overseas and help alleviate poverty and suffering.
Give 5 people an opportunity to join you on your journey. More details are given in the book.

But this is a way everyone can participate and be part of the solution to a world-crisis. All proceeds will go directly to HIV/AIDS projects around the world. The children are worth it!

BOOK TOUR Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds!

In 2004, when Tommy and I were researching resources to start an orphan adoption ministry, I came across a man with compassion for the orphan.....his name is Tom Davis. I spoke to him once on the phone and could tell immediately his heart for the orphan! His first book, Fields of the Fatherless, touched my heart in an amazing way. His new book, Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds is no different. Tom, with all his passion that he has for the orphan, takes the reader on an amazing journey of how to live out the gospel! His passion is contagious!! His stories are real life. This book is not for the person who is satisfied with mundane living. This book is for the person who wants to live a faith that bleeds, who wants to know how to be Jesus' hands and feet to the HIV/AIDS orphan, to the abused lonely child in Russia, to the outcast and the downtrodden!

Tom Davis is the president of Children's HopeChest, a Christian-based child advocacy organization helping orphans in Eastern Europe and Africa. Click here to order your copy!

40 Days of Prayer!

Orphans

Challenges facing waiting children in the U.S.
Each year, an estimated 20,000 young people in the U.S. foster-care system turn 18 and are turned away from further support and services. What happens to young people who are removed from foster care after turning 18?
54% Earned a high school diploma
2% Obtained a Bachelor's degree or higher
51% Were unemployed
30% Had no health insurance
25% Had been homeless
30% Were receiving public assistance
30 percent of all U.S. homeless adults have spent time in the foster care system.
60 percent of young women had children within four years after leaving foster care.

Ordinary people like us can change these statistics.
Did you know only 4 percent of families with children (1.7 million households) contain adopted children.

Where the orphans are living
87.6 million orphans live in Asia.
43.4 million orphans live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
12.4 million orphans live in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Almost 1.5 million children live in public care in Central and Eastern Europe.
More than 800,000 children pass through America’s foster care system each year.

The Scriptures are clear that the Lord gives the family of God the responsibility to care for the orphan's needs — to love and protect them. In fact, God's concern for orphans is so central to his plan for us here on earth that he inspired James to write:

"Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this:

to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained

by the world," (James 1:27)

Why would God tell us that caring for orphans is "pure and undefiled religion"?
Maybe it’s because the world sees God’s heart when he works through his people to help the helpless. And maybe it’s because caring for orphans is such a perfect picture of our relationship with God. In our inability to please God in our own efforts, in our utter helplessness to initiate a relationship with him, we are more like orphans and strangers than we like to admit.
It’s time for the body of Christ to step up. The urgent needs of orphans around the world are calling the Christian community today to a radical faith. One church, one family, one person can make a difference.

information from http://www.voiceoftheorphan.org/

Voice of the Orphan

If any would like to follow and read about the work of an amazing woman of God who has a passion for the orphan then I encourage you to read Kerry Hasenbalg's blog at www.voiceoftheorphan.org Click on Learn and then Devotional Blog. You will be blessed by her mission testimonies and her Godly wisdom!