We Can Make A Difference

Thank you for taking time to read this post. I'll apologize in advance for the length. There are a lot of things on my heart and I'm pouring them all out for you to read and contemplate.

Many of you know that adoption is near and dear to my family. We adopted Mary Elizabeth in 2007 and are in the process of adopting another child right now. We feel this is one way God is calling our family to care for little ones that have no home. However, there are limitations to the number of children we can adopt. For the last year, God has been showing me all the different ways to help the ones we can't adopt. There are a lot of wonderful organizations that are working to help orphans all across the world (Compassion International, World Vision, etc). I became aware of Children's HopeChest about a year ago after I read a book by the president of the organization. The book is called Red Letters: Living a Faith That Bleeds. I highly recommend it. It will change the way you think about poverty, orphans and how Christians are called to help.

I began asking God how I could help these little ones. I believe He is telling me to get moving. For too long, I've waited for somebody else to take this on and make it their cause. But that is not what God wanted. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been in contact with Children's HopeChest and another group called Red Letters Campaign. These 2 groups are working together to provide holistic care for orphanages in Ethiopia and Uganda. Holistic care means to meet the whole needs of the child - physical (food/water/clothing/shelter), medical, educational, spiritual and emotional. The goal is not just that orphans would live, but that they would thrive as productive, contributing adults. They are doing this through community to community sponsorship.

• Community - Each sponsor is matched with an orphan from the same orphan community as every other RLC community sponsor, which means that we build community together through serving orphans - what better way!
• Financial Support - Sponsorships will commit to monthly $35 contributions to care for the holistic care of their matched child
• Relationships with the children - Sponsors will be able to correspond with their children through email or through handwritten letters. We are exploring the idea of creating a password protected area of the Red Letters website that would allow you to see what’s happening with all the children in the RLC orphan community and their sponsors as well as enable sponsors to exchange emails through there.
• Visit the Children - With Hopechest, you will have the opportunity to travel to visit your sponsored child on regular trips with the other sponsors in the Red Letters community. These will be fun and enlightening trips where you can connect with these beautiful children and their historically rich land. Oh! And if you can’t travel, you can still participate by sending care packages to your child with the group and watching for pictures and video of your child from the trip taken by others.

This is very similar to what some other groups do but you are partnering with an orphanage not just sponsoring one child. The Red Letters Campaign has already received commitments from over 120 people interested in helping in Ethiopia. I talked with their founder on Friday and he told me they have enough people to sponsor one orphanage already. We also discussed the idea of taking sponsors for a 2nd orphanage. This would be OUR orphanage. Yes, I said OUR orphanage! If we can get at least 20 sponsors, we will have enough to begin sponsoring an orphanage. Some of you may think I'm crazy. I would have said the same thing about 10 months ago. All I can say is this is what God is telling me to do. I believe WE can make a difference. It only takes $35 a month to help a child. Here is one page summary of how sponsorship works.

Please take the time to pray about what you can do to help. Please send this to friends and family that you think might be interested in joining in. Feel free to leave me a comment if you want to get more information or just want to chat. I'll be posting more information after Thanksgiving once I've had another conversation with the folks at RLC. I'll leave you with a prayer from Saint Francis of Assisi.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

I look forward to what God is going to do in our lives and the lives of the children He is calling us to help!