Great orphan conference

January 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment

If you are passionate about the orphan there are two large “main” conferences each year. First is the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit, the second is Together for Adoption. The latter is going to be in Phoenix in October so you’ll hear plenty about that later this summer and fall. In fact I will personally hound all my friends until you sign up.

But I’m getting super excited for CAFO which is May 12-13 (so I’ll spend my birthday in airports) in Louisville, KY. Last year CAFO was my first orphan conference and I loved every bit of it. So much awesome worship and energy coming from like-minded people. Fantastic keynote speakers and so many great breakout sessions it’s hard to choose.

We’ve got a couple World Orphans staff people presenting breakouts and taking part in panel discussions related to what we do as an organization. Then I get to share about a personal passion of mine – creative fundraising for adoption.

Mark and I did our entire adoption debt free and I know that the cost is what holds a lot of people back from adopting. I want to help them understand that there are so many ways that you can raise funds. I don’t want dollar signs to stand in ANYONE’s way.

Registration is up and there’s tons more details on the web site.

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Help a girl with her Starbucks addiction!

January 17, 2011 by 3 Comments

There is power in numbers. We want 2011 to be the year that World Orphans starts a movement of people who care about orphans and want to spread the message. So much that our boss has thrown out a little challenge to us staff members and is bribing us w/ Starbucks gift cards out of his own wallet :-) There’s a competition to see who can recruit the most members to two causes on Facebook (see links below).

Help orphans AND fuel my caffeine addiction – it’s a double win :-) The competition ends at our staff retreat in just a couple of weeks.

Will you take two minutes and “JOIN” both these causes? (These link give me “credit” as the recruiter.) Feel free to post them on your FB as well :-)

World Orphans

Traffic Jam (Our anti-trafficking campaign)

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Truth Pandemic – Spread It! (+ a Giveaway)

November 30, 2010 by 12 Comments

December 1st is World AIDS Day.

It is 2010.

Yet studies show that levels of knowledge about HIV have not increased since 1987.

Think back.

Do you remember the kind of reaction words like “AIDS” and “HIV” got in 1987?

I was 14 at the time so it wasn’t at the forefront of my daily concerns, but I can still vividly recall the fear and the stigma associated with those two words.

To think that the majority of people are still living with those ideas is scary.

I’ll be honest – a lot of my knowledge has only come in the most recent 3-4 years as I learned more about the global orphan crisis. Then I got to learn even more over the last year as our friends the Slonigers brought home their HIV+ son from Ethiopia. It was through Jen that I learned of Project Hopeful, a non-profit organization dedicating to education and encouragement for families adopting HIV+ children.

This week Project Hopeful launched an awesome campaign called the Truth Pandemic. Let’s get out of the 80′s and learn the truth about HIV/AIDS.

Watch this video and then read below to find out about the giveaway…

GIVEAWAY!!!

Gotta love a giveaway right? Well I have the perfect one. It’s another piece of jewelry from the Entoto Outreach program in Ethiopia that teaches HIV+ women to make jewelry so they can support their families. I thought this piece was especially fitting because the cross kind of looks like the + sign as well.

How You Can Enter

You can do any or all of the following things. Leave a comment (just one) telling me which things you did. For each thing you will get your name in the hat and I’ll let one of my kids draw a name. I’m also putting this on my FB profile and letting people comment there so I’ll put all the names in one hat.

  1. Post the YouTube video above on your blog
  2. Post the video on your Facebook wall
  3. Tweet about the Truth Pandemic w/ a link to the video
  4. Change your Facebook profile picture to the Truth Pandemic icon for the day (see below for instructions)
  5. Change your Twitter icon to the Truth Pandemic icon for the day (see below for instructions)
  6. Email a link to the video to friends and family
  7. Follow @ProjectHopeful on Twitter
  8. “Like” Project Hopeful on Facebook

I will draw the winner on Friday!

P.S. Watch CBS Evening News with Katie Couric Wednesday night for more on PH during the “American Spirit” segment

P.P.S. Oh yeah, PH Founder Carolyn Twietmeyer’s family is featured in the Dec. 6 issue of People Magazine (the one w/ Kate on the cover).

P.P.S. Project Hopeful has some super cute things in their shop if you want to do some Christmas shopping with a purpose.

TRUTH PANDEMIC ICON

Right click on the image below and select “Save Image As…”

Save it to your desktop.

In Facebook go to your Profile, hover over your profile pic until the little pencil comes up. Click the pencil then choose “Upload image”. Select the image you just saved to your desktop.

In Twitter go to Settings, then Profile. Where it says “Picture” click “Change Image”. Select the file on your desktop, then click save at the bottom of the page.

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Orphans & Social Justice Tagged With: , , , , ,

Absolutely Ordinary

November 13, 2010 by 1 Comment

Last Saturday Mark got to speak at a local Orphan Awareness Seminar at Vineyard Church in Peoria. It was all coordinated by Marianne – awesome mom to the awesome Jen.

Mark did an awesome job talking about God’s call to care for the orphan. Then Jen followed it up talking about their family’s story and how they are not extraordinary. They are perfectly ordinary.

That’s been playing over in my head since then. (Of course she said a bunch of other REALLY great stuff too.)

Then today I read this post over at Storing Up Treasures.

Adoptive parents are not to be idolized. We are human. We are broken and we do NOT have it all together.

We are ordinary.

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I love a good adoption story!

October 14, 2010 by 2 Comments

Kristen was one of the bloggy friends I got to meet at Together for Adoption. This is their Haiti adoption story – all in the midst of the earthquake.

God Story: The Howerton Family from ROCKHARBOR on Vimeo.

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Together for Adoption conference insights from others

October 9, 2010 by Leave a Comment

There have been a ton of blog posts by fellow conference attendees so if you want to hear some insights from others, here’s some you can visit. Kristen’s is my favorite (Rage Against the Minivan).

Rage Against the Minivan – ” Would we be subjected to watching countless slideshows of shiny happy adoptive families set to (gasp) Contemporary Christian music?”

Owlhaven.net has several

We Are That Family – Miracles Happen when you Speak Up

Abort73.com – Though abortion and adoption are inextricably linked, it’s not a connection that everyone in the orphan care movement sees yet. Mike shares some great things he learned in one session on foster care. Loved this quote “Visiting widows and orphans does not always mean taking them away.”

Kennedy 6

Erica’s thoughts part 1 and part 2

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Interpretative Art

October 7, 2010 by 6 Comments

During the Karyn Purvis pre-conference at Together for Adoption she talked a bit about kids from hard places and how they see themselves. She showed us several drawings done by these kids and explained what they meant. There is a real science to this – extremely fascinating.

Some of the pictures showed the adopted child off to the side of the rest of the family – they didn’t feel like they were part of a family. Others demonstrated how they felt trapped or angry or hurt.

Of course all us adoptive moms had a sudden urge to go home and ask all our children to draw a family picture.

Before I could even ask, I got this.

This is me, as drawn by Beza at school.

In real life I have short brown hair. It definitely would not go in pigtails. Does this indicated I’m not the white mommy she really wanted?

She drew me with a crown. Does that mean she sees me as a princess? Or the wicked queen?

I have cape. Am I Superwoman?

Then I asked her about the bikini top. Because I don’t wear a bikini.

“It’s not a bikini mom. It’s those things….”

<long pause while she searches for the right word>

“Coconuts!”

Um yeah, because I walk around in a coconut bikini top A LOT.

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Conference Reflections Day 1

October 4, 2010 by 3 Comments

I find myself really at a loss for words as to how to describe the last 3 days. I have cried abundant tears and laughed until my sides hurt. I have been angered, saddened and encouraged all at the same time. To say the Together for Adoption Conference was a roller coaster of emotions would be an understatement.

But the ride was amongst an AMAZING community. Hundreds of people indescribably passionate about the orphan. While we are fortunate to have friends and family who understand our passion and support us I know there were many at T4A who spend most of their time feeling alienated because of their strong passion. How amazing for us all to come together and support and encourage one another.

Worship with this group was goose bump-inducing. The Holy Spirit was there – fully present – as Aaron Ivey led us to the throne in worship so many times during the two days. I will totally cop to crying – like full on, can’t-sing-a-word UGLY crying! It was beautiful (the worship, NOT my face). And I know I wasn’t the only one. Thank you Aaron and band!

I have so many thoughts to share from the conference that I know it will probably be several posts worth.

Today I’m going to camp on this one.

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.”
Psalms 68:5

The verse is not a new revelation. In fact as an orphan community it’s one of our favorites. But on Saturday Robert Gelanis of Colorado Community Church said something that made so many of us go “Wow!”

If God is father to the fatherless then that means he is a husband.

Who is his bride?

The church.

That means the church is the mother of the fatherless.

Of course we know that as a church we need to be caring for the orphan, no one was clueless on that. But to put it in that perspective was like a light bulb going on.

God is not father to SOME of the fatherless. He is a father to all of them.

So how, as the church, are we going to become a mother to ALL of them.

Not some. All.

Filed Under: Faith, Featured Articles, Post-Adoption Tagged With: , , , , ,

Paying the blessing forward

August 12, 2010 by 1 Comment

UPDATE: Friday 7:44 a.m. DONE!! You guys rock!

UPDATE 10:41 p.m. We are $173 from reaching our goal of sending 20 Ugandan kids to school. That means if we can get $86.50 in donations  and add our match, we will meet the goal! Would be SOOO cool to do it in one day!!!

Two years ago we decided to start sending the kids to Christian school. It was actually the year that Beza and Luke would be coming home (mid-school year) and we felt the smaller classroom and biblical-based curriculum would ease the transition and give them the Godly foundation for their life in our family.

Last year we struggled with the decision of re-enrolling the four kids – torn by the cost and whether we should be spending that money on a Christian education when it could go so far to help those in need across the world. It’s that continual balance we fight to find between our needs and wants (and what we feel is important for our kids) and helping others.

Well, two weeks after school started last fall we found out that Luke and Beza qualified for a $6,000 scholarship, reducing our total tuition by half. We were also blessed with friends who used the Arizona Christian School Tuition tax credit which further reduced our costs.

God knew the desire of our hearts (Christian education AND helping others) and provided.

While we originally thought the scholarship was a one year only thing we have been blessed to apply for and receive the scholarship for this year as well.

Because of God’s blessing we want to pay it forward and one of the ways we’re doing that is to help these beautiful kids at one of World Orphans projects in Uganda go to school. Education is a VITAL piece in breaking the cycle of orphaning and abandonment.

There are 20 kids. School fees are $62 each.

So here’s the challenge…

You pay half, we pay half!

We’ll match every dollar you guys donate on our campaign page
until we reach the goal ($1193) and all these kids school fees are paid.

If you donate $36, we’ll donate $36 and that’s one child educated.

We’ll match any amount $1, $5, $100.

Because no challenge is any fun without a deadline we’re going to give you ONE WEEK!

How to Give:

  1. Go to our campaign page.
  2. There’s buttons for $5 and $40 donations or you can click “other” and enter any amount you want.
  3. You can pay by debit, credit or echeck.
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Meeting My Online Peeps

July 21, 2010 by 2 Comments

This fall I’ll be headed to Austin, TX to attend the Together for Adoption Conference where I get to be a featured blogger. Besides all the great content at the conference I’m super excited about meeting up with some online friends “in real life”. These is just a sample of some of the awesome gals I’m excited to hang with.

Brandi McElheny – This girl is like a fireball of passion, energy and prayer aimed at injustice. I’ve known her online for a couple of years but got to meet her at the CAFO Summit in April and then I got the opportunity to hang with her one night in June while in Colorado. She’s the real deal and a total blast!

Angel Weir – I “met” this girl online when researching Ethiopia adoptions. She had just been on a missions trip to Ethiopia, had one adopted daughter and another on the way. Then through her and her husbands work on the Red Letter Campaign we became friends. Imagine my delight when she was in Colorado at the same time I was and got to meet her at the aforementioned night as well. And now she’s paperchasing for an Ethiopian adoption.

Wendi Henry – Wendi and her husband Sam have a huge heart for orphans and started the micro-giving site HopeMongers. She’s another Colorado-dweller and was in on the fun girls night last month with Brandi & Angel. Totally excited to hang out with her again and get to know her better!

Amy Bottomly – Hooked up with this gal via Red Letters Campaign and got to design a web site for the book her and Josh wrote about their adoption “From Ashes to Africa“. Turns out she’s a John Brown University grad although I don’t think our paths crossed while there. They just brought home a darling daughter from Ethiopia (to join brother Silas) and I’m super excited to get to meet Amy in person.

Jody Landers – Found this beautiful gal a couple years ago when I was adoption blog stalking and have read her off and on since then. She’s a huge advocate/fundraiser for clean water (Water for Christmas). Jody pours out her heart on her blog and has walked through some extremely tough stuff in the last year and it has been such a privilege to read her honesty and be able to lift her up in prayer. I have probably only commented on her blog a couple of times so my behavior might be borderline stalkerish at T4A :-) But since she knows Brandi and Wendi hopefully they’ll vouch for my sanity!

Mary Ostyn (aka Owlhaven) – She’s got 10 kids from 3 countries – another blog I found in my early adoption journey. She’s a woman after my own frugal heart and her blog has tons of great ideas on saving money, great recipes and fun family stories. She’s written two great books as well – both in my personal library: “A Sane Woman’s Guide to Raising a Large Family” and “Family Feasts for Under $75 a Week“.

There are so many more, maybe I’ll have to save some for another post…

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