The Day After Orphan Sunday - Village of Hope

Please enjoy this update from Village of Hope-Guatemala, 

Yesterday, all over the social media world, people were posting this:

Churches around the world will pause today to consider the growing orphan crisis... Our prayer is that they don't forget tomorrow! 

Have you forgotten already? 

Have you asked the Lord to break YOUR heart for the things that break HIS?

 

What is He calling YOU to do?

 

What can YOUR family sacrifice? 

Right now this very minute there are children waiting. Children who are living with HIV in a culture that rejects them. Schools do not want to accept them; most orphanages do not want to accept them either. And so they wait - in hopes that one day someone will welcome them in, wrap their loving arms around them and tell them they are valued, cherished, and loved. And we wait, for the body of Christ to come together to make the vision of Village of Hope a reality for these children. 

To date, the Lord has provided for 840 bricks... PRAISE HIM! This means that we still have a LONG way to go before we can build the first home for the children the Lord will send us. Stop. Read that sentence again. CHILDREN ARE WAITING... we will have to turn them away without the funds to build the first home. 

We have an AMAZING opportunity that a very GENEROUS donor has offered... For the next FIVE days (through the 9th only), the next 48 bricks purchased (up to $1,200 total) will be MATCHED!!!! AND, everyone that buys a brick during this time will be entered into a giveaway for a FREE Village of Hope t-shirt and bag! 

To hope GIVE faith, family, and a future to the children at Village of Hope, please visit our webpage here. Be sure to click 'Donate' next to the text, 'Buy a Brick, Give Hope'. 

*If you'd like to buy a brick as a gift or in honor of a love done, a card will be sent indicating your gift. This is a GREAT way to give a gift of purpose this Christmas season! 

Day 5 - Pray for Orphan Sunday

In honor of the upcoming Orphan Sunday (November 4^th), we are hosting a Prayer Campaign to prepare our hearts and minds for the day set aside to honor the orphaned, knowing that PRAYER is the best place to start!

If you missed our days earlier this week, check them out here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 & Day 4.

Well, we’ve come to the last day of our prayer campaign. Our hope is that your heart has been softened and prepared for this coming weekend when thousands of believers across the globe will spend dedicated time honoring the orphan. We hope you will too! (for local Orphan Sunday events or ideas for hosting your own, click here).

We’d like to dedicate this final day to praying for events, hosts, speakers and all those involved for Orphan Sunday this weekend.

Whether you know of a local Orphan Sunday event or if you need to look one up on Orphans Sunday’s website, please join us in spending in prayer for at least one event that will take place.

Dear God, we thank you for the past five days we’ve had to focus on the orphan and to learn more about Your character. Thank you for Christian Alliance for Orphans and their part starting this dedication of Orphan Sunday. 

We specifically pray for Olathe Bible Church in Kansas and for their event this weekend. Please prepare each heart to hear your Word.  Let Your love for the orphan be in their hearts and move them into advocacy and action. We pray that this group of believers would burn with a love for you and that your love would overflow to the orphans in their community and around the world! Prepare their way and walk before them as they speak on behalf of many who can’t speak for themselves. In Your Name Jesus we pray, Amen!

Praise God, OUR FATHER - Day 2

In honor of the upcoming Orphan Sunday (November 4^th), we are hosting a Prayer Campaign to prepare our hearts and minds for the day set aside to honor the orphaned, knowing that PRAYER is the best place to start!

(If you missed yesterday, be sure to check out our prayer for the orphan that started out our week!)

Yesterday we talked about the orphan, how the numbers can overwhelm us, leaving us numb.  Today, we are going to talk about our FATHER God.

 

To start, let’s find out what He promises about His character through His Word…

“In you alone do the orphans find mercy.” Hosea 14:3

“The helpless put their trust in you. You defend the orphans. Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.” Psalms 10:14,17-18

“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.” Psalms 68:5-6 

 “You must not exploit a widow or an orphan.  If you exploit them in any way and they cry out to me, then I will certainly hear their cry.” Exodus 22:22-23

“No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.” John 14:18

Isn’t that AMAZING? God, OUR Father, promises to defend, protect, hear, and comfort the fatherless.

Please join us in a prayer of praise to our loving, caring & compassionate Father God… 

Father God, THANK YOU for being our intimate Father. Thank you adopting ME into your family and treating me as your own. We are thankful that IN YOU ALONE the orphan will find mercy. We remind you of your promises—to set the lonely into families, to defend and give joy as well as justice to the orphan. Thanks for hearing our prayers and allowing them to come to your ears. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

We welcome you to include a prayer, verse or comment!

Praying for Orphans - Day 1

In honor of the upcoming Orphan Sunday (November 4^th), we are hosting a Prayer Campaign to prepare our hearts and minds for the day set aside to honor the orphaned, knowing that PRAYER is the best place to start!

Sometimes it’s hard to put into words the plight of the orphan today. When we hear numbers like 153 million as the amount of orphans there are worldwide, it goes way beyond our understanding.  Or what about the number of orphans just in our country alone?  Over 107,000 children are waiting to be adopted from the US foster care system.* Again, we struggle to really comprehend what that looks like. Sometimes we become numb to the numbers as facts and stats go in one ear and out the other. 

Why don’t those numbers make us jump into action?  What do those numbers really mean?

They mean that ONE little girl in Guatamala has no parents to tuck her in at night…

..that ONE boy in Ukraine turns to drugs, alcohol, and violence because he has nowhere else to go…

...that ONE little boy in Africa starves because there isn’t enough food for his caretaker to feed him AND her own children.

 

The stories, situations, and sweet vulnerable children are endless.  Instead of being overwhelmed with the many, let’s commit to focus on ONE child.

To start our prayer campaign, will you join us today in praying for ONE child, ONE orphan that you know by name? 

If you don’t know any orphan by name, please join us in this prayer for Nellay, a sweet 12-year-old girl who is deaf and lives and attends school at Lifesong Liberia.

 

Dear Heavenly Father, we lift up Nellay to you. We pray for her health and safety. We pray that if it would be your will her hearing would be restored. Lord, please give her spiritual understanding and growth as she hears the gospel from our staff in Liberia. We pray for healing of her soul for the hardships she has seen and experienced at such a young age.  We thank you that YOU are her Father and that YOU have shown YOUR love to her. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

We encourage you to share the name of the child you prayed for in a comment so we can pray for them too!

*Source:  U.S. Government “5th Annual Report to Congress on Public Law 109-95” and affirmed by UNICEF

This I believe: Blessed to Bless

Jessica Metcalfe, a high school student in Illinois was instructed to write a paper for her English class entitled, "This I Believe".  We were so impressed at the truth that she spoke on why many of us have been blessed by our Father God, that we HAD to share it. Please read and enjoy, praying that this truth would sink into each of our hearts stirring us into action...

Blessed to Bless: This I Believe

This morning, I woke up in a comfy bed, took a hot shower, ate a good breakfast, chose what to wear from a closet full of clothes, said hi to my family, walked to school, and talked to my friends.  In Russia another teenage girl woke up this morning, but she has nothing… only herself and the rags on her back. Prostitution is her only option.  In Kenya, there is a beautiful baby boy lying abandoned on the side of a dirt road.  In Guatemala, a four year-old’s parents died today.  In India, a girl was abducted and nobody noticed.  Why?  Why was I born to parents who care for me?  Why do I have clothes to wear and food to eat?  Why do I have opportunities and freedoms to learn and speak and think?

In the world today, there are over 143 million orphans.  Slavery and trafficking exist in almost every country.  There are people who feel hunger, poverty, pain, isolation and rejection every single day.  So many people have absolutely nothing.  From Germany to Jamaica, China to Brazil, South Africa to Eureka, Illinois, people suffer.  It is there, and it is real.

My brother’s birth parents died when he was five years old.  His uncle dropped him off in an orphanage at the age of seven, where he lived for two years.  He was separated from his siblings, and even the clothes he wore were not his own.  As our family went through the adoption process, my eyes were opened to the things happening around me.  It turned out that the happy little world I lived in was the exception, not the rule.  The hugeness and desperation of the things in the world astounded me.  Why did I have so much, when others had so little? 

This is what I have come to realize.  I have not been blessed because of me… I do not deserve all that I have, and it is not based on anything I have done.  I have also not been blessed for just myself.  I have been blessed so that I can go and be a blessing to others.  Whether that comes in the form of making advent calendars to raise money for orphans, helping someone whenever I have the power to do so, praying, or just smiling at someone to brighten their day, I can be a blessing to those around me.  God has given me much, and I can and should give to others because of what I have been given.  I have been blessed to bless.  This I believe. 

written by Jessica Metcalfe