Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Get Your Shine On

 Miss Annah who was adopted by Liesel was a child sponsored in our program in Liberia. She has a special need involving her back and ability to walk properly. I cant begin to tell you how thrilled I am to see her home with her new America Ma. Its what her Liberian aunts wanted for her and the only way she was ever going to have a fighting chance at life. Congratulations Liesel and family. Welcome Annah to America! Look at her Shine!

 I, with Annah, in Liberia a year ago, giving her gifts from her American Ma.


Who can forget Baby Anthony who was barely a year old when he came to America on a medical visa to deal with his Hydrocephalus. Anthony is still here working on medical issues. He just got glasses this past week. His doctors did anther extensive update and discovered this beautiful boy should not be alive. He is a living miracle. He has a skull bone that is thicker than anyone has ever seen and his brain is only a 1/4 inch wide doughnut shape with a massive fluid in the middle. They said he should not be able to communicate, move, interact, or exist. Yet he he is doing all that and then some. He is even scooting across the floor even though his head far out weighs the rest of his small body. He is an absolute joy to his host family.  Look at him Shine!



And now Anthony has a new baby sister who is just like him as his host family has been asked to foster a baby girl with the same issue. God does know what he is doing doesnt he? Anthony is so taken with her. What a blessing Marilyn and her family are to these kids and they to them. God's design- a family for EVERY Child!

Monday, August 5, 2013

Do you Personally know an Orphan?


Many times I get asked when helping children in Africa if they are “real” orphans or are they partial orphans? Can you imagine? Should it matter- really? What makes a real orphan- real?  Some laws say that a “true” orphan is one with no parents. While others call a “social” orphan, a child living without parental care.


 

Webster Dictionary says it’s a child deprived by death of one or usually both parents.

Wikipedia states it is a minor bereft through “death or disappearance of, abandonment, or desertion by, or separation, or loss from-both parents. 

UNICEF says it is ANY child that has lost one parent as an orphan. In this approach, a maternal orphan is a child whose mother has died, a paternal orphan is a child whose father has died, and a double orphan has lost both parents. This contrasts with the other use of the word- half orphan- to describe children that had lost only one parent.

Even our U.S. Immigration laws have a description of what the word orphan means to them. (For the purpose of adoption)
A child may be considered an orphan because of the death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation or loss from, both parents. The child of an unwed mother or surviving parent may be considered an orphan if that parent is unable to care for the child properly and has, in writing, irrevocably released the child for emigration and adoption. The child of an unwed mother may be considered an orphan, as long as the mother does not marry (which would result in the child’s having a stepfather) and as long as the child’s biological father has not legitimated the child. If the father legitimates the child or the mother marries, the mother is no longer considered a sole parent. The child of a surviving parent may also be an orphan if the surviving parent has not married since the death of the other parent (which would result in the child’s having a stepfather or stepmother).

Regardless, the need is all the same. To have someone say they value them and want them.
Does it need a specific label? Should it matter whether they are real, partial, social, half, paternal, maternal, or double orphaned? 

And while the name Global Orphan Outreach is construed at times, as an orphan outreach organization only, we have made it our mission to demonstrate the Love of Jesus by supporting outreach in all areas that build Godly relationships, increase awareness of opportunities to help others in need, and promote the collaboration of our resources and talents when helping others. 

For that matter we are all at one time or another “Orphaned”.  Not in the sense that we are starving children with no clothes or a home. However, we all have that core need, as God created us, to want, to need someone in our lives to “choose” us. To show us value and that we really matter.


 Whether it is an orphan in a third world country...



 or my elderly neighbor who is all alone.



Whether it is the child whose parents are too busy to notice he exists ...


or the girl prostitute working the streets for money and yes for love. (If only for an hour) 

No, orphans need NOT be across the ocean, a half world away needing us, to actually get our attention. One just needs to become aware of their surroundings here to see them. It is personal. It should be personal. Personal involvement requires us to help someone else needing to feel valued. Invest in them and you invest in God’s Kingdom. Some call it the “Social Gospel”. I say it’s God’s love in action.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

A Beautiful Transformation...




“for such as a time as this”…Ester 4:14

How many times have we as women read about the Proverbs 31 woman? The pressure or fear that we would never measure up to her? That our faults would show and that God would never see us as a virtuous women? Did you think you had to be perfect to be used by him for his kingdom? Do you ever feel like you want to make an impact but your life doesn’t feel big enough?

It’s not that she, this Proverbs 31 women, is really wonderful at caring for her family and home, has a great marriage, has wise business sense, or even knows how to balance all this that makes her a valuable Godly women.  It is not about her being perfect, but about living life with purpose- God’s purpose! She can be perceived as “perfect” only because she is a product of Jesus Christ who lives within her. The only thing that is perfect about her - is him.  She doesn’t have to wait until she has achieved a level of perfection that exists in her mind in order to be effective.

As I lead a nonprofit organization in Africa, direct businesses from my home, raised my children (10 in all) , struggled in my marriage, and questioned my relationship with Jesus Christ,  I saw that God had a way of redefining my expectations. I couldn’t no longer put him in a box or expect him to show up on my time table like I did with everything else in life.  How often I felt guilt and shame as a woman, as a mom, for thinking that aspects of my life were not “God worthy”. I confused my worth or value with what the world said it should be.  What was controlling my value? Where was I placing my security? And just how do I combine God’s calling in my life while actually living my life? It’s been a couple of years of restructuring and redesigning for Global Orphan Outreach too. God has taken us through an unexpected transformation.


I found that God has a way of using the details of my life to bring about his greater plan even when it felt contrary to my heart’s desire.  Learning to trust not in my circumstances or what I could do to fix them on my own, but in God’s power to overcome them. Even the unknown details of my life. I was not forgotten or unusable. I don’t see what God sees. I cannot let my “reality” determine what I believed about God. I could rest in knowing he has a plan I could not see. He really is who he says he is even during immense disappointments in life. And there seemed to be many.  I needed to believe and have faith that he is still in control and trusting that he has my best interest at hand.

God’s truth and his calling for me permeated all my insecurities, doubts, and misgivings about what I had to offer. I need not focus on my weakness that I perceived in myself or wish away all the things God created me to be.  He had already equipped me.  His divine plan for me  and for Global Orphan Outreach was occurring now. I need not wait. I had hope. Hope helps you hold your head up high even when multiple trials are hitting you. Hope lifts your perspective and helps you focus on what is really important. To follow Christ and his divine calling for me burdens, brokenness, control- freak tendencies, and all. I was going to be a refuge, an encouragement, a reflection of the One I served.


I know he will continue to build where the hurt and betrayal has been. God redeems hurts. The places that seem hallowed out and destroyed hold the greatest potential for a Beautiful Transformation both in me and in those we touch through Global Orphan Outreach ministry.


We ARE God Worthy. We ARE valuable to him.  What is he asking you to do today-where ever you are at?

Yes, such as a time as this.  You go Ester!