Adoption & Orphan Care Meeting Handout

I thought I would post one of the handouts from the Adoption & Orphan Care meeting we organized this past Sunday. Feel free to implement one or more of these actions or use these ideas in your own church. Adopting and/or fostering kids is not the only way you can care for orphans (although I will mention it is the only way to eliminate the orphan crisis in our world!).

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
James 1:27

ORPHAN CARE ACTIONS

1. PRAY for families adopting. PRAY for the orphans they are adopting.
“ADOPTION IS NOT CHARITY, IT IS WAR.” (Adopted for Life, Moore)
- Email pray.families.adopting@gmail.com to be on a prayer team for one or more families adopting orphans. Families will send out prayer updates regularly.

2. GIVE money to families adopting.
- Give to a specific family or give to the Cornerstone general fund, knowing that some of it goes to help support adoption. (Cornerstone gives grants to families adopting.)
- Plan a fundraiser for one or more families.

3. SUPPORT families adopting or fostering children.
- Hand down used clothes, shoes, books, games, toys, car seats, etc. See the "Needs" tab of the D6 Families Interchange page (Cornerstone's online community)
- Provide meals
- Give gift cards for groceries, clothes, etc. once the kids arrive.
- Make a habit of asking families what they need when you see them (before and after child(ren) arrive).

4. VISIT orphans and orphan workers.

5. JOIN Adoption & Orphan Care group on Cornerstone's Interchange website.

6. TALK to a family who has adopted or is in the process of adopting.

7. READ Adopted for Life by Russell Moore.
- Or read any of the following: Crazy Love, Forgotten God (Chan), Radical (Platt), The Hole in Our Gospel (Sterns)

8. FOSTER one or more children.
- Call 1.800.243.0756 and get an info packet mailed to you
- Attend info session Monday, Dec. 6
- Attend 10-week class to be trained beginning Feb. 15 in Ames

9. HOST a Rosebud student (providing hope for an underprivileged Native-American teen for a year or more)
- Email Roger Wheeler: rogw@iowatelecom.net

10. ADOPT one or more children.
- Meet with Sonja Brown, MLJ Adoptions C-country Program Director, on Sunday, December 19th at 4:00p at the Cornerstone Café. (Yes, that's right . . . she is flying in from Indianapolis!)

I spent the majority of the time talking in-depth about adoption, including how to finance an adoption.