Archive for category The child and the church
Why the Church is important in the Orphan Care Solution
Posted by Keith Moore in Current Affairs, Issues, Orphan Care, The child and the church, The church on February 17, 2011
Cost of Providing care for 40 Million Orphans vs. The Cost of Sin.
I will admit it upfront that this might be a stretch comparison, but do you think God might see that it all fits together.
For the sake of a comparison, using $400 a year to care for an orphan works out to be about US $ 160 Billion, for the estimated 40 million double orphans in the world. While that’s a lot of money, in the world view of things it isn’t much.
“Annual Estimate of the Cost of ‘Structures of Sin’
Money Laundering . . . . U.S.$ 1.5 trillion
White Collar Crime. . . . U.S.$ 1.5 trillion
Financial Fraud . . . . . . . U.S.$930 billion
Gambling . . . . . . . . . . . U.S.$ 815 billion
Organized Crime . . . . . . U.S.$ 750 billion
Tax Cheating . . . . . . . . . U.S.$ 250 billion
Drug Traffic. . . . . . . . . . U.S.$ 200 billion
Shoplifting. . . . . . . . . . . U.S.$ 100 billion
Computer Crime . . . . . . U.S.$ 51 billion
Pornography . . . . . . U.S.$ 25 billion
Arms Black Market . . . . U.S.$5.8 billion
Electronic Warfare . . . . . U.S.$5.8 billion
Credit Card Fraud . . . . . . U.S.$1 billion”
—Bryant Myers, Exploring World Mission, 2003, pg 47.
By this comparison the annual cost of caring for 40 million orphans falls somewhere between the cost of shoplifting and drug trafficking. It’s no where close to the “white collar crimes” that are in the trillions of dollars each year. Cutting drug trafficking and shop lifting in half, would cover caring for each double orphan.
Do you think that if the church impacts the lives of those involved shoplifting and drug use, they could turn that into a way to care for others?
“Urban Halo”- affirmation to the Home Based Care model.
Posted by Keith Moore in Books, The child and the church, The church on September 13, 2010
Jesse Blaine recently suggested a book, "Urban Halo" by Craig Greenfield, as a book for new staff members. After spending a few minutes banging around on the book website, www.urbanhalo.org I could see similarities between his approach and the Continuum of Care and Holistic Care. Here is part of his solution through the local church.
"THE SOLUTION
Role models, disciplers and mentoring for orphans
One of the greatest needs of orphans is someone to take an interest
in them, to care about how well they are doing in school and to simply
spend time listening.
Our vision is to see every orphan matched up with a mentor who will
disciple and encourage them in the context of a long term relationship.
The movement: an overview
Mentors (18-30 years old) are recruited from local Christian
churches, and volunteer to become a ‘Big Brother or Sister’ to one child
each.
The mentors meet together regularly for prayer and visit the
children on a one-to-one basis every one or two weeks. They often
organise themselves to go out as a group to visit, then return to base
and debrief. Once a month they organise an outing for all the children
and mentors. It has been a joy to see the bonds forming between bereaved
children and their new older ‘siblings’.
Key Principles
1. Encouragement
Meet and pray with the leader(s) of the youth mentors regularly to
encourage them. Hear their feedback and ask how you can support their
efforts.
2. Ownership
Give the young people as much control as possible to develop
ownership. For example, our mentors decide on and plan the monthly
outings. They decide who should be a mentor and have so far made good
decisions.
3. Sacrifice
Encourage the young people to use their own resources to help the
children, even though they may be poor themselves. Mentors have
contributed spontaneously in our experience, helping to repair houses,
for instance, and bringing gifts of food.
4. Activity resources
Provide activity resources for the mentors to use when visiting the
children. This gives a reason for the visit and something to do with the
child while they are there. For example, we provide a children’s
magazine which the young people help the children to read and fill in.
5. Flexibility and creativity
Be creative in solving problems and flexible enough to accept local
ways of implementing ideas. In one situation, for instance, young women
did not want to visit by themselves, so now they go as a group.
6. Non-financial incentives
Ensure that mentors are motivated by compassion rather than money.
Incentives can encourage and motivate, such as: monthly outings,
identification badges and T-shirts, a notice board at the young people’s
meeting place showing photos from outings and information about
upcoming events, small Christmas gifts"
Check out the website at www.urbanhalo.org for more affirmation of the Church-to-Church model, and the Continuum of Care.
Thanks Jesse!
Expressions on Mothers Day
Posted by Keith Moore in Orphan Care, The child and the church on May 7, 2010
This Sunday is Mother's Day, a time to honor our parents, by focusing on our Mothers. It can also be a day of expression in many ways, expressions of honor, love, admiration, plus a host of others. The front of the card I got for my Mom this week has a black & white photo of three toddlers sitting on a couch. Each one has a different expression on their face. The caption below describes their looks, "grumpiness, confusion and pure happiness…"
The back of the card has a short caption on it about the photo and the author Liz Simpson. "Liz and her friends were trying to get a group smile out of their kiddos when a funnier photo came along . . . one that speaks perfectly to the experience of parenting. Liz says of this photo her friend Angie snapped, "Anyone who has raised children can easily agree that they've felt each of these emotions, and many times all within the same day!" I think that most would agree that a day filled with all three would be a day to remember. I hope you get to make it a day to remember with your Mom and your kids.
Yet, for close to 40
million orphans around the world it will be another day without a Mom
or a Dad. The expressions of honor, love and admiration might have been pushed out of their mind by the loss of Mom and Dad at an early age. These children are not in a hopeless condition, the Father to the fatherless is there for them. The expression of hope in the Father comes from the group of believers the Father has strategically placed around each child. The church can bring that expression of honor, love and admiration back into the life of the child, by offering them a bridge that leads them to Christ.
You can make a difference in the life of an orphan by equipping churches around the world to provide that bridge in the life of an orphan. By giving $44.00 to the World Orphans Bridge Fund you can help a local church rescue and care for orphans in their community. You can be part of the expression of hope in the Father to the fatherless.
To give to the Bridge Fund go to www.worldorphans.org
Mar 23 Pray4projects @WorldOrphans
Posted by Keith Moore in Orphan Care, Prayer, The child and the church, The church on March 23, 2010
Praise!- Four of the projects that were without western church partners at the beginning of the year are now in partnerships.
Fountain of Life – Juja is now partnered with Hill Country Bible Church – Northpoint in Austin TX
Fountain of Hope – Nairobi is now partnered with River Oaks Church in Knoxville
Lunkon Thmei – Cambodia is now partnered with Rutherford Bible Chapel in Rutherford N.J.
Jesus Savior Church – Moldova is now partnered with Restoration Church in Arlington VA.
This is a great answer to prayer!
- Christian Life Centre Chatsworth, South Africa
- Ebenezer Bible Church Temba, South Africa
- Nayla Presb. Evang. Church Darfur, Sudan
- United Community Methodist Church Jinja, Uganda
- Bethel Gospel Chruch Hyderabad, India
- F. S. Training Center China
- A total of 138 former orphans being cared for by these churches.
- Pray for the Haiti Orphan Relief Team as they roll out
the strategy to connect the
first 10 churches in the US with 10 churches in Haiti to provide care for
the orphans. To learn more go to, www.Haitiorphanrelief.org - Pray for the team deploying to South Africa on April
8th, led by Mike Krick.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah unknowingly supports the World Orphans model of orphan care.
Posted by Keith Moore in Books, Issues, Orphan Care, The child and the church on February 25, 2010
This is a lecture by a former child soldier who has the wonderful ability of story telling. During his account of the events he chronicled in his book, he tells the stories of his life before, during and after the war. His story is remarkable, and the time it takes to hear the entire lecture is well worth it. He makes several points about the orphan cycle of child soldiers.
Ishmael credits his recovery to the passion of people that wanted him to recover. Ishmael placed great importance on two things: The fact that the people who worked at the recovery center were from Sierra Leon, and the sports they used to help them make break throughs in their recovery. He said:
“Thank God that the people who worked at the center were Sierra Leonians, who were deeply interested in helping us. It makes a tremendous difference when people who are from your country, help you to recover. Somebody who is from the outside can easily forgive you, who have not been there during the war. But when somebody, perhaps some of the peoples whose family you had actually you had destroyed, will want to come to take care of you, it makes a tremendous difference.
Another way they did this was sports, football, soccer.”
Without knowing it, Ishmael gave a great testimony for two parts of our strategy. The importance that the work is carried out by the indigenous church. Not only it is important for the community to identify the work being done by the church, but it matters to the children as well. The second part being, our strategy to use sports in the process of growth and healing.
I hope that someday the result of the work of World Orphans means that there are thousands of kids like Ishmael, who are able to tell how the members of their church helped them recover from the cycle that caused them to be an orphan. And that their story does not end there, but it goes on to tell how they also lead them to eternal life.
Listen to his story then leave a comment about what impressed you.
The numbers from Haiti can be staggering
Posted by Keith Moore in Current Affairs, Orphan Care, The child and the church, The church on January 26, 2010
Some of the numbers of orphans in Haiti are beginning to be reported in articles like this one from the AP,
"Haiti's children on their own on shattered streets". This article estimates there are now 1 million orphans in Haiti; children that have either lost one or both of their parents.
I'm not going to get into the debate concerning single or double orphans. I think it is fair to say that the orphan population will have at least doubled, if not tripled since the quake.
The AP article points out how the response is falling short when it comes to the needs of children. UNICEF, the Red Cross and Save the Children are all doing the best they can under the circumstances. Save the Children has set up 13 "Child Spaces" zones in the settlements. These zones are not meant to provide the care needed by 600,000 new orphans. The Red Cross has begun to search for parents and next of kin for children, and the effort will go on for months if not years. The task is bigger than relief agencies alone can provide. A larger network is needed.
Using the numbers available from one of the networks, the Florida SBC, the estimate of the number of Protestant churches in Haiti could be extrapolated to be 1600. Is this network big enough to care for 600,000 new orphans? The answer is: with a strategy, Yes.
If each church cared for 20 to 40 children in family style homes on church property they could care for 32,000 to 64,000 children. Which leaves 536,000 children to care for.
So some of the 'experts' will use this staggering number as justification to set up large institutional orphanages. The rationale being that the warehouses are better than the streets. But there is a better strategy, the Continuum of Care. Residential care is one point on the continuum, but another point is community based foster care.
Churches will be able to facilitate and support the care of hundreds of children in foster homes in the surrounding community. If only the 1600 evangelical churches are involved, it would mean that each church would only need to facilitate the care to 335 children their surrounding community through foster and kinship based care.
Another sad fact is that the earth quake that produces orphans also produces widows. The widows are also in need of support and resources. Eighty-four (84) widows in a community surrounding a church could care for 335 children, with a ratio of 1 care-giver to 4 children.
So the numbers may be staggering, but this shows that a church based network response is feasible. Yes, many other factors come into play. Will the number of orphans needing care be 600,000? Probably not, it could more, it could be less. Will all 1600 churches get involved? Probably not, but other faith based organizations will most likely also respond. A big factor that I have not covered yet is that the scripture is clear that it is totally possible since it's what the Father wants, Eph. 3:10, James 1:27. That trumps all the other strategies of the world.
Churches wanting to get involved in a strategy to partner with Haitian churches can contact World Orphans by emailing me, or info.worldorphans.org, or calling 720-386-4881. World Orphans is working with several network partners and agencies to formulate a strategy to tackle this issue. Contact us now to get on the distribution list for the strategy when it is completed. Churches that begin to participate now by giving to World Orphans Haiti Response Fund on our giving page will be the first to be partnered with churches, and the first to go on trips when the time is right.
Words From Haiti.
Posted by Keith Moore in Current Affairs, Issues, Orphan Care, The child and the church, The church on January 14, 2010
'Disaster and chaos' in Haiti after major earthquake 1/12/2010
These are the words taken from an Associated Press headline after the earthquake struck Haiti. The article went on to quote people that were on the ground and their descriptions of the events there. Unless you have been away from the media over the past few days you have seen your share of the words in headlines, and are probably close to being overwhelmed by the news. Words like disaster and chaos are catchy, I’ve even used them here. Words like providence or provision don’t seem to go with disaster and chaos. Yet, they can be found in Haiti.
If there is one thing that I am learning in my new role at World Orphans, it is that there are no coincidences in God’s plan. In his blog, Paul Myhill gives an account of a group arriving in Haiti just moments before the earthquake with supplies and provisions to help a church-base home for orphans there. I’m limited to the information that Paul has given us, and I doubt that this story will ever end up in an article by the Associated Press. But I think it is a great example of God’s providence. A group of people made plans to go and help, well in advance of the earthquake. They gathered provisions and went. Then in God’s timing, they were on the ground just as this event was unfolding. That is more than just a matter of timing.
Still, some will say this is just a coincidence. I am convinced it is more than that, it is the providence of God at work in the midst of what the world calls chaos. From this tidbit of a bigger story we can see how the church really is the best instrument for long term response and change. This church-based home is not a current World Orphans partner but it is at the center of this story. The help this group will be able to give the people of Haiti is in part possible because the church is there, and the church is responding to the community by caring for orphaned and abandoned children.
In the coming days I hope we get to hear more about the story of Jodi’s friends and the response they were able to help the church make in Haiti. I’m sure the story will be ripe with words that describe God’s grace and mercy, His providence and provision more than disaster and chaos.
Would you like to help the children of Haiti, by helping the churches that are already there to rescue them? You can contribute to the World Orphans relief efforts online at our giving page. Simply make a”miscellaneous” gift and type “Haiti” in the memo box. Or you can send a check to:
World Orphans
P.O. Box 1840
Castle Rock, CO 80104
Thank you in advance for being part of what God is doing through the church and for the orphan.
Keith
Psalm 145
Posted by Keith Moore in The child and the church on April 21, 2009
Ps 145 reveals a thread in the overall tapestry of the
scripture, God intends for the testimony of His grace and mercy to be passed
down from generation to generation, from father to son.
“One “generation
shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts.” Psalm
145:4.
“Descendants will serve Him; the next generation
will be told about the Lord. They will come and tell
a people yet to be born about His righteousness— what He
has done Psalms 22:30-31 (HCSB)
“…a father will make Your faithfulness known
to children.” Isaiah 38:19 (HCSB)
(How will this declaration of God’s goodness happen
for the fatherless?)
When God rescues a child, his testimony will have an
impact on those who know the story.
“On the glorious splendor of Your majesty
And on Your wonderful works, I will meditate.” Psalms 145:5 (NASB)
(How will the story of the “wonderful work” of the
rescue of that child be told and remembered if the rescued child is removed
from that community?)
When that rescued child grows up in a church, that
community will remember the events of his/her rescue. The child and all those
involved will tell others about the story of God’s goodness.
“Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts,
And I will tell of Your greatness. They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your
abundant goodness
And will shout joyfully of Your righteousness.” Psalms
145:6-7 (NASB)
“The LORD is
good to all,
And His mercies are over all His works.” Psalms 145:9 (NASB)
“Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And Your dominion endures throughout all generations.” Psalms 145:13
(NASB)
(How will they know of the mercies and grace of God
without the church?)
The rescued child needs the church, but the church also
needs the child. God has knitted the two together. Each is dependent on the
other.
“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God
and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep
oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:27 (NASB)
“The LORD
sustains all who fall
And raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to You,
And You give them their food in due time. You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
The LORD is righteous in all His
ways
And kind in all His deeds. The LORD
is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those
who fear Him;
He will also hear their cry and will save them. The LORD keeps all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD,
And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.”
Psalms 145:14-21 (NASB)
(What is your “desire” for the child and the church?)
