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Winter 2009 Enewsletter

NOTE FROM PAUL PENNINGTON
Executive Director, Hope for Orphans

If you have been adopted through the ransom paid by Jesus, I have two questions for you: First, are you DEAD? Second, for the disciple of Christ, what is the definition of success?

When we enter into the family of God, we have an entirely new position. As Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade, would always say, “I am a bond-slave“ to the Lord. This new position means our lives should be not for our own personal peace and affluence (easily said, hard to do) but for what brings glory to the kingdom of God. In Colossians 3:1-3 we read this (from The Message):   

In this issue:
	Your Church and the Orphan Workshop In keeping with our mission to serve every church to reach every orphan, Hope for Orphans conducts Your Church and the Orphan Workshops throughout the year. Your Church and the Orphan is a powerful, interactive, and fun one-day event that will bring together a group of passionate, like-minded people from your church to pray, dream, and learn about how God might want to use your church on behalf of the orphan.   It is our prayer that this informative, biblical, hands-on group workshop experience will serve as a catalyst to help you and others launch an effective and sustainable orphans ministry in your church.   We currently have held or scheduled the following workshops this spring:   Date: Saturday, February 21, 2009 Location: Biltmore Baptist Church 35 Clayton Road Arden, NC (near Asheville, North Carolina)   Date: Saturday, April 25, 2009 Location: Calvary Church–Mid Rivers Campus 3998 Mid Rivers Mall Drive St. Peters, MO (near St. Louis, Missouri) Workshops are currently being scheduled for this fall.  For more information about these workshops, as well as an up-to-date schedule, click here.
	Summit 5: Christian Alliance for Orphans Announces Summit 5 The Christian Alliance for Orphans’ fifth annual Adoption and Orphan Care Summit (known as Summit V) will be held at Irving Bible Church in Irving, Texas (in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metropolitan area), April 30 and May 1, 2009. Featured speakers will include FamilyLife President Dennis Rainey, Pastor Tony Evans, and Rob Mitchell, author of the Focus on the Family book Castaway Kid. There will be a host of very practical breakout sessions for local church lay/staff leaders and for nonprofit ministries as well. The event will also include an extensive exhibitor hall. If you are (or would like to be) involved in adoption or orphans ministry through your church or profession, you won’t want to miss what promises to be a wonderful event. For more information on Summit V,  please visit Christian-Alliance-For-Orphans.org/summit/.
	We want your information!! Hope for Orphans is attempting to gather information on every local church orphans ministry in the United States. Would you take a few minutes to fill out a short questionnaire? As a thank you, we will send you a gift in the mail. With the information we gather, we believe we will be able to serve you better and build a community for our HFO partners. Thank you!  Click here to register your church orphans ministry.
	Lifting our Voices Together in  Prayer The second annual National Foster Care Prayer Vigil will be held in conjunction with National Foster Care Month during May. Last year’s Prayer Vigil brought believers together in 100 locations across the nation to pray for the children, the workers, and the families involved in the U. S. Foster Care system, as well as for the church’s response to the system. There are more than 500,000 children living in foster care in the United States, with over 120,000 currently waiting for adoptive homes. Prayer is the church’s first step in engaging the system and making itself available for God to use us in bringing hope, healing, and truth to those who need it. Look for more information on the Prayer Vigil, including a step-by-step guide for organizing one in your city, by clicking here.
	Cry of the Orphan Campaign The third annual Cry of the Orphan Media Campaign, led by Hope for Orphans, Focus on the Family, and Shaohannah’s Hope, was held the week of November 17-24, 2008. The theme of the campaign was that you and I are God’s plan for the orphan. The goal was to raise awareness of the orphan problem to the Christian community and to give believers tangible ways that they can be used by God to meet the needs of orphans in their communities and beyond. This year’s campaign had around twenty million impressions, including website views, people listening to broadcasts, etc...
	Organizational Spotlight All Kids Can Learn International  In 2001, Maryland businessman Benedict Schwartz knew that God was calling him to minister to children victimized by AIDS in Africa. God gave Benedict a vision to create self-sustaining villages for orphans, and Benedict acted on that vision. God was faithful, and as a result, All Kids Can Learn International is now helping to change the lives of numerous children in Namibia and Zambia, with the goal of spreading the model to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa as well.   When Benedict and his wife, Kathleen, went to church leadership at Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Bel Air, MD, they found listening ears and willing hearts. “It was unanimous to go ahead. We spoke to the pastor and then met with the missions committee,” says Benedict. “The missions committee was somewhat skeptical, and stated that they had no money to give. Over the course of the first year, once we had started building in Namibia, they changed their budget and gave $50,000.   The church began mobilizing to make the vision a reality, and in 2002 the Children of Zion Village opened in Namibia. It presently houses and serves fifty-five children orphaned by AIDS.   In 2004, Benedict founded All Kids Can Learn International, which aims “to spread the vision that churches and businesses can sponsor children’s villages; and collectively can rescue millions of orphans around the world.”   The concept behind the villages is simple: Eight to ten orphans live in homes with two houseparents as caretakers. Five homes make a village. Four villages make a cluster of villages. A missionary couple leads each cluster.   The children are taught to farm and raise livestock to provide for the basic needs. Some of the larger villages have enough land to grow crops, not only for the villages but to sell to others in the community as well. The money raised is intended to help other orphans in the community.   The children are also educated and taught job skills that they can take with them into adulthood. In addition, the children are taught about Jesus and instilled with a biblical worldview.   Numerous Mt. Zion members have given their time, talents, and treasures in order to serve the children. In fact, over 10 percent of the church’s members have personally taken missions trips to serve, staying anywhere from two weeks to a year.   Benedict says the ministry welcomes involvement from other churches. He says that churches can help by taking “missions trips to work with us in Zambia; ‘adopting’ a cottage of eight orphans by sponsoring the upkeep of the children for $500 a month, or by doing a container drive for used clothes, books, and bikes for us to send to Zambia.”   The impact on the church has been tremendous. “Young adults are now choosing missions as a career,” says Benedict. “Ten members of the church are in mission fields around the world. Over 100 children from all over the world have been adopted by church members, and 150 members have come to Africa to work in the orphan villages we started.” For more information about All Kids Can Learn International, please visit their Web site at AKCLI.org/.
	Update on Kyrgyzstan Adoptions    The United States Department of State recently issued an alert recommending that United States citizens not consider adopting out of Kyrgyzstan at this time. The concern is due to what the Department calls “serious, ongoing problems in the country’s intercountry adoption process.” The alert states that “a number of prospective adoptive parents have reported that their cases are not being processed.” Locals in Kyrgyzstan report that the government seems to be making efforts to improve internal controls over the adoption process. For up-to-date information on adoptions out of Kyrgyzstan, visit JCICS.org/Kyrgyz Republic.htm.