To Inspire and Equip Christians

With Haiti’s earthquake drawing global focus to the plight of orphans, Christians from across America and beyond will gather in Minneapolis, MN, for the Christian Alliance for Orphans’ Summit VI on April 29-30, 2010.  

The objective:  to inspire and equip Christians to “care for orphans in their distress” through adoption, foster care and global orphan care ministry rooted in the local church. 

 What you can look forward to:

• More than 50 workshops delivering nuts-and-bolts for adoption, foster care and global orphan programs – designed for both laypersons and leadership
• Orphan care resources for church ministries, as well as personal orphan care and adoption journeys
• Breakouts will also include 5 “Hague Hour” Credits for Adoptive Families.
• Q&A sessions and networking opportunities with respected adoption, global orphan and foster care organizations and veteran ministry leaders.
• For Christians stirred by the plight of orphans, Summit offers the biggest and best opportunity of the year to learn how to act upon conviction.  To learn more and register now, visit the Summit website here.

A taste of breakout topics:

• Haiti and the Local Church: What’s Next?
• Bridging the Great Divide:  Building Positive Relationships Between Church Ministries and Government
• Understanding Childhood Development of Overseas Orphans
• A Lifelong Love:  Keeping the Gospel at the Center of Orphan Ministry
• Church-Based Orphan Ministry 101
• Fundraising for Orphan Ministry
• Starting in the Right Direction:  Helping Pre-Adoptive Couples Make Sound Decisions
• Now What? Helping Children Age Out of Foster Care
• The Financial Challenge of Adoption and How the Local Church Can Respond
• Engaging Church Leadership
• A Child’s Journey Through the Foster Care System
• How Does It Work? Models of Global Orphan Ministry Based in US Churches
• Practical Ideas of Orphan-Focused Events
• Understanding HIV/AIDS and the Orphan 
• And many more…

And there’s more!  Five sessions will provide pre-adoptive families with needed Hague credits.

• Adoption and Orphans:  Becoming a Multicultural/Multiracial Family 
• Adoption and Orphans:  Attachment and Trauma (Part I and II)
• Adoption and Orphans:  Grief and Loss
• Adoption and Orphans:  Acclimating to a New Family Member

American Christians are stirring to the needs of orphans both at home and abroad as never before.  What’s thrilling is that even small ministries in local churches can make such significant impact.  There are millions of parentless children worldwide, but a single statistic matters more than any other:  it only takes one caring adult to make a lifelong difference in the life of an orphan.”

-         Jedd Medefind, President, Christian Alliance for Orphans

The Big Build

The Big Build Project on 3/20/10 is the first annual fundraiser by Both Hands Foundation. Our goal is to raise $100,000.  That money will be used in three ways –

1. Adoption funding (grants and loans)
2. Orphan Care projects
3. We have a generous philanthropist who has agreed to match whatever we raise, dollar for dollar. In other words, all the money raised will go towards adoptions and orphan care and the operating expenses of Both Hands will be covered by the matching funds.

What a great way to leverage your charitable donations and get a great return on your investment. In 2010, Both Hands will help 50 widows with home repairs, help more than 50 orphans get to their forever families by raising between $250,000- 500,000, and give approximately  1500 people the chance to give their lives away by dedicating a day of service to a widow in need.
 
We invite you to be a part of this awesome opportunity. You get two for the price of one!!  Think big!!

  

Lifesong Honduras

Please enjoy these updates from Guy, director for Lifesong Honduras orphan care -

Over the last month, the staff has been adapting to the many new changes caused by the new class hours.  Yes, we are all being stretched, but change is always a good thing when it is for the better.

The weekend of February 6^th all of the students arrived for the school year 2010, we registered around 450 students.   This number is up from past years, but we also have more new enrollees than in previous years. We literally have had to clear out storage rooms to create more space to house all of them. It is obvious which direction we will need to take with the next building project, adding on to the existing boys’ dorms to accommodate for the increase in enrollments. 

It  was brought to my attention this week that 40 of our 150 new students, primarily our 7^th graders, are way below the normal weight and height of someone their age, they clearly have not received the nutrition that they have needed to start the adolescent growth process. It is our desire to provide each of them with vitamins and minerals to help compensate for where they have been lacking in the past, their diets will obviously improve with the food they will receive from the cafeteria. We are used to that here, to some extent, but not to the extreme that we are seeing this year.  However, after consulting with the ministry medical clinic to see what we had available, I discovered that we have only two bottles of adult vitamins available. We would appreciate any help that could be given to help us offer this to them regularly, it would benefit many, to say the least.

We started classes this Wednesday on schedule, only to discover that we are lacking in providing 75 students with desks.  Currently, these students are sitting on the floor or standing, until this problem can be remedied.  We will need $2000 to construct the amount of school desks we are lacking. The beauty is we can do that right here on campus in our own welding shop.   

Until next time, God Bless!”

We hope to see you in Louisville this weekend!

Adopting For Life Conference- Friday & Saturday, February 26-27th 2010 from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

We’ll be presenting at a conference on adoption entitled, “Adopting for Life”. You may be wondering whether this will be a conference about the doctrine of adoption or “real” adoption. Well, one of the things that we’ll be discussing is the fact that you can’t talk about the one without talking about the other. Read more here.

What a blessing!

We just wanted to say thank you once again for helping us bring these incredible children home.  It was an adventure to say the least, but we are so blessed that you helped make the impossible, possible!!! 

 In Him,

 Chris, Carrie, Colin, Mykah, Madeline, Jackson, Gracen Elliott