Orphan Care

Orphan care has been really important to me for several years now. I have had the wonderful opportunity to serve orphans and other children with absent parents in Peru, Mexico, and right here in the United States. One thing I was not looking forward to about working at Camp Rivercrest is that there really isn't much of an opportunity to serve orphans here. (During the summer, part of my job was to go through camp registration papers and make note of any health or emotional issues. Some were adopted, a few had lost a parent, and a couple were in the process of being adopted by their foster parents. But the overwhelming majority were kids in well-off situations.) However, after a year and a half of working here, the Lord has finally proved me wrong in this. There are plenty of of opportunities!

I don't think I have too much influence at camp, but from time to time people will actually listen to my suggestions! I know of a few musicians from the region who donate their proceeds to orphan care. Because of my research and suggestions, we are considering hiring Gracie Schram for the Rooted Girls Only Retreat and Orphan's Cry for the Memorial Weekend Family Camp. Hope these work out!

I give to two sponsorship programs, Amazima and Every Orphan's Hope. I appreciate both of these programs for different reasons, but they have a few similarities (such as both of these programs are specifically in Africa). Most childcare organizations have donors pay $25-$35 per month to take care of a child. But when you think about the costs of food, housing, clothing, medical care, and education, this is really only means to keep them alive, not to get them out of poverty. Both of these organizations charge a low monthly fee ($25 for Amazima, $27 for Every Orphan's Hope), but there are more sponsors than there are children. Neither establish orphanage institutions, but rather provide a way for crisis children to be cared for while still being part of their community. And besides providing education and the essentials, both of these programs have a Biblical foundation and seek to provide discipleship to all the children in their program.

Amazima was started by Katie Davis, who moved from Nashville to Uganda as a single young adult. She adopted Ugandan children on her own, and also started a program to care for the rest of the abandoned and extremely impoverished children in her community. The goal is to actually try and keep children out of orphanages, because local parents try to give their kids away in hopes that they'll have a better life. After reading the book Kisses from Katie this summer, I knew I wanted to be a part of this ministry.

I actually only found out about Every Orphan's Hope a few days ago. This program is in Zambia, and instead of orphanages, they build typical homes. They hire a widow with a passion to for children to take care of eight orphans in each home, essentially making them family. Instead of sponsors contributing to a general fund, they actually are matched with an individual child, and each child has twelve sponsors. One of the things I really like about this program is the commitment to James 1:27, which they publicize as ONE:27, because ONE hundred percent of your $27 per month goes straight to the children. I also appreciate the communication between the sponsor, the child, and the organization. The organization takes several mission trips to Zambia each year, but even though I don't think I'll be able to go on a mission trip there, they will still take any gifts I want to give to the children. (Yay, domestic shipping fees!) Every Orphan's Hope even sent me a story that I can use in Girlz 4 Christ Magazine! They matched me with a 14-year-old named Nelly:

Although I have given one-time gifts to ministries such as the Global Orphan Project, I never personally got involved with a child sponsorship program until this year for a few reasons (such as many of them take too much out for administrative costs or advertising, many lack Christian discipleship, and many don't actually do what they say they do). However, the main reason I have not given like this in the past is because I would rather become involved on a personal level, not a financial one. I'm happy to say that I finally found a way to get involved with the fatherless right here in Fremont! Months ago, I applied to volunteer at The Jefferson House, a group home for local children. After an incredibly long background check wait and a miscommunication among staff, I will finally start helping there soon! It sounds like they would like a craft or cooking workshop for the kids.

Finally, I wanted to share some very important news. I recently entered a contest called Reel Hope, which is sponsored by the American Bible Society. They will take one person who has entered their video contest to Africa, where they will help orphans and distribute Bibles. My video is up there, but I will need to get the most votes in order to win. Click Here to Watch and Vote for My Video!

Christmas is Coming

The Christmas festivities have begun! Here's a bit of a timeline of how Christmas has been going this past week:

Wednesday: While others were decorating around camp, it was discovered that there was one Christmas tree that wasn't needed anywhere, so it was put up in our living room! (Since that's a busy night with Awana and all, the only decorating I did to it was topping it with a pineapple.) I bought some ingredients to make fudge that night.

Thursday: Made fudge! The final decorations were put up around camp. (Now we're just waiting for some snow!)

Friday: Last week, many of Emily's relatives asked me to come back on this night for an all-family "Thanksgiving" dinner. That was a fun night, even though it meant we didn't get back to camp until after midnight.

Saturday: Even though we were only serving one meal that day, since there were only a few of us it still meant nearly seven hours in the kitchen. But we did get to enjoy a nice meal among the finally-finished Christmas decorations.

Sunday: Got to attend church for the first time in months. (The last time I went to ANY church was while I was in Tennessee, and the last time I attended Fremont Alliance was in July.) After church, I headed over to Walmart to buy some holiday stuff and a few toiletries. Out of all the things on my shopping list, conditioner was the only thing I got, but I still ended up with a basket overflowing with things to buy. It all started when I saw a Phineas and Ferb popcorn tin, which grew into a cup and wrapping paper that also had Phineas and Ferb.

While at Wal-Mart, I ran into Jon. He said a quick "hi" to me before turning in the opposite direction, as if he had something to hide. (But more on that later.) A few seconds later, Mikayla ran up to me, saying that she was there with Chris.

Although Wal-Mart almost felt like a staff and family Christmas party, it wasn't. However, just a few hours later there actually WAS a Christmas party for staff and their families. We went to Sempeck's and started off with an hour of bowling. The girls wanted Emily and I in their lane. Since we had more people than any of the other lanes, we only got through one "real" game of bowling with only a few minutes to spare. For the last few minutes, we put the bumpers up and just did random things, like bowling between the legs, laying down and pushing the ball down the lane, spinning before bowling... you get the picture. After that, we all played a lively round of Laser Tag. We decided that a kids versus adults would be fair. (I am only one week older than Chris, but we decided that in terms of maturity, I should be an adult and he should be a kid.) Apparently the laser tag employee gave the grown-up team extra points to start out with, but we didn't even need them because we dominated! I got the high score of 9275 and only got shot three times. My technique was to stay on the second story and snipe the kids below. Kirk said that I was his main target, but he only ended up actually shooting me once. We even got in a mano a mano fight, pushing each other's guns out of the way while trying to shoot the other person's vest, but we soon realized that we were in too close of a range for it to work. (He blamed his poor aim saying that my sensors must have been broken.)

After laser tag, we all went outside to cool off for a few minutes. Then most people went to watch the kids play go-carts, but the rest of us went into our party room. Pretty soon, we were noshing on pizza and enjoying each other's company. Then, Jon pulled out a bag from Wal-Mart. Inside were two stockings, two dice, a Santa hat, and three wrapped gifts. He explained that this was a game where one person had to wear the Santa hat on their head and the stockings on their hands while trying to unwrap a gift. Everyone else would pass the dice around the table until someone rolled doubles, when they got the chance to wear the ridiculous getup and attempt to unwrap the present. All the gifts were wrapped several times, so it took quite a long time to unwrap even one gift. Mike rolled doubles so often that we considered sending him to Vegas with some of camp's money! Although he wasn't the one to actually finish unwrapping any gift, his kids got the first two! They probably would have unwrapped the third gift too if they hadn't decided to sit out that round. Since Emily had to leave before the game started, I was the only person there without a family, so the odds were very much against me. However, I managed to finish unwrapping a Ghirardelli Peppermint Chocolate Bar right before Paula rolled doubles!

And this is just the beginning of the Christmas season. I found several recipes this morning that I'm excited to make. I'm also probably going to do some Salvation Army bell-ringing this week. Oh, and I still have lots of shopping to do!