Julie Gumm - Author

Setting up House…in Haiti

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Oh wait, no we’re not moving…

But World Orphans is doing something very cool.

In the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, World Orphans opened the Orphan and Vulnerable Child (OVC) Program in Haiti – a country we had not previously worked in. We identified 24 churches who are already caring for orphans but need the financial resources to continue to do so.

What our team saw on their trips to Haiti was that 90% of the orphans in these church communities had already been taken in by the other families – the church of Christ in action! But the reality is that, in a time of dwindling resources, those families may later find themselves unable to provide for these children and they are still vulnerable for abandonment.

The Haiti OVC brings U.S. churches alongside those Haitian churches to provide the financial resources for food, medical care, education and trauma counseling for those kids and families.

As we partner churches together we realized that we are going to have a ton of U.S. church teams traveling to Haiti to visit, encourage and help their Haiti partner church. It became clear that it would be more cost-effective for us to secure our own guesthouse that could be used by these teams as people from other mission organizations.

A generous church partner has paid for the lease on the building for a year and now we just need to finish it out – make it a home. We need to raise approximately $8,000 by June 11th for things like a generator, furnishings, kitchen appliances, security measures, etc. We have a church team traveling on the 11th ready to do all the work to put it all together. Then the first mission team arrives on the 19th!

There are five (5) bedrooms and three (3) bath rooms, and it is big enough to accommodate 24 guests at a time. It survived the earthquake and is built to withstand the hurricanes.

If you feel led to help, you can donate to the “Home Away From Home” campaign I set up on the new World Orphans web site.

Here’s some more pics of the house “as is”…

Raising Children to Change the World

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The international adoption journey changes you. It changes your family. And not just because you suddenly have new family members. Or because you have ties to another country that now feels partly like home.

But somehow, along the way, it is impossible to not look beyond the children whose faces stare at you from the photo on the refrigerator. And you begin to see the other faces; 143,000,000 orphans, countless single moms struggling to make ends meet, fathers desperate to provide for their families.

For Mark and I, our adoption journey changed the entire course of our lives. The things we learned and the things we saw contributed to a major shift in our lives that caused us to forge new careers and put our family onto an entirely new path.

But next comes the task of influencing that same sort of heart change in our children. How do you make your kids care more about widows than the wii?

That question has been weighing on us even since we had the chance to visit Wears Valley Ranch in March and see their Biblical Family Care model. We realized our kids were capable of so much more than we had been asking.

It was just a couple weeks later that I received an email from Julie Ferwerda asking if I’d like to participate in the blog tour of her new book “One Million Arrows: Raising Children to Change the World.”

Um, YEAH!

One Million Arrows is call to raise our kids to impact their culture, community, and world for Christ  – for them to be sharpened with education, faith and a heart for the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) and then be launched into the world to save lives.

If we want our kids to discover their purpose, if we want them to live with passion for the Kingdom, then WE as parents need to be intentional in our parenting. It is not the churches job to do this, it’s not the job of the Christian school we send our kids to. It’s our job!

Julie’s book includes a whole chapter with the stories of other families, including the Tebows and the McDowell’s, and the intentional choices they made along their parenting journey.

Is it overwhelming? Definitely! Are the outcomes guaranteed? No. But all God calls us to is OUR part just King David encouraged the temple builders.

“Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Don’t be afraid or discouraged by the size of the task, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. He will see to it that all the work related to the Temple of the Lord is finished correctly.” I Chronicles 28:20

There’s way more than one post worth of highlights so I hope to post more as I have time to delve into them even further. I highly recommend this book for any parent who wants to raise their children to make an impact on the world far outside themselves.

Links:

P.S. Check out that World Orphans mention on page 101 🙂

About the Author

Julie Ferwerda is recognized for making the Bible exciting and relevant to everyday life through her writing and speaking. Her articles are featured in many Christian magazines and websites for both adults and teens, and she frequently volunteers her time and talents to international orphan ministry. Learn more at OneMillionArrows.com.

Book Review: Addition by Adoption

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Laughs, Memories and Inspiration

I’m a sucker for a good adoption story. Combine that with the brevity of Twitter and numerous laughs provided by his now 4-year old daughter, and you have Kevin Hendricks latest book “Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters.”

When I first began following Kevin’s blog and Twitter feed it was because of his writing on church marketing, my profession at the time. But a few months after the Hendricks embarked on their adoption journey, my family began traveling the same road that would eventually lead us to the same destination – Ethiopia.

“Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters” cleverly weaves 19 months of Kevin’s tweets into a heart warming and funny look into the life of a work-at-home dad, a Sesame Street-loving four year old and their family’s journey to adopt a baby boy.

In between laughing (often out loud) at Lexi’s antics, I experienced waves of nostalgia as I remembered feeling the same emotions conveyed in Kevin’s book during the different steps in our adoption process.

I was also relieved to find out that I am not the only parent who sometimes feels it necessary to hide behind closed doors and eat large amounts of chocolate in order to regain sanity.

Like many adoptive parents, the Hendricks journey to Ethiopia changed more than just their family structure, it changed their focus. “We embraced other causes and the realities of Ethiopia began to have their subtle affect us on us,” Hendricks says.  His book details his Bald Birthday Benefit which raised money for charity:water and his efforts to bring attention to the plight of homelessness.

The book itself continues their families theme of helping others by donating a portion of the proceeds to fund a clean water well in Ethiopia. By buying a copy you get a great book and get to chance someone’s life.

Available for pre-order April 13-20th here. (More $ goes to charity:water w/ pre-order…plus Lexi will autograph it.)