|
Hi...
It's amazing that I have visited this forum for over 3 years now and am still finding my way to places I have never seen...like this part of the thread. (Hi Jody!)
Three years ago we started an orphan ministry at our church with three other families who had adopted. In our church there are several families who have either adopted or their families have been touched by adoption in some way or another. Since we live in a comfortable suburb we are able to quickly forget about the needs of orphans in our own country and around the world. We felt it was an important step to equip the local church to pray for and reach out to orphans. Starting this ministry was very helpful for us as we were in the process of waiting on our first adoption at the time and this helped to channel our energies.
In the past three years we have "adopted" a few orphanages and have collected money to send some children to school in Mexico and drill a well in Uganda. We have teamed together with the church's sunday school program and VBS to challenge families to reach out to orphans. We have had two Sunday morning services and two Sunday evening services specifically relating to the topic of God's call to care for the orphan. We started an adoption fund for members of our church and have helped to bring home five children (2 from China, 2 from Colombia and 1 domestic adoption). Grants given depend on the amount of money in the fund, but we have been able to give an average of $2,000 to each family. This has been a tremendous encouragement to the older members of our church who are unable to adopt, but want to come along side the younger families in the process. This past summer through fall we coordinated a baby bottle campaign and handed out over 100 baby bottles to families in the church and asked them to collect their spare change for 6 months in order to encourage a family who had not considered adoption (becuase of the financial aspect) to step forward. We will be giving all that was raised to a family who is researching their adoption options at this time.
Our most recent endeavor is that my husband and I started an adoption support group open to all families in the North metro area of St. Paul/Minneapolis. It meets at our church and is definitely a Christan support group that is currently comprised of 10 adoptive families. We meet monthly and try to arrange a speaker/special topic for every other month with the off months being time to just fellowship, share ideas and offer up prayer requests to the group. It has been an incredible blessing to my husband and I as we learn how to lead a group like this.
I realize that I've answered way more than was asked, but am very excited about this!
Megan
|