Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 29, 2010
Before I hit up the session, I want to comment on how God uses humble people in amazing ways. Sharen Ford, whom I met between sessions, is an amazing woman and is the head of the Colorado Foster Care system. I seriously doubt that she truly understands the impact that God is having on the foster care system throughout the entirety of the US through her.
Also, as I was waiting to talk to her, I met someone from So. NJ who is trying to do the same thing that we are doing. I can’t wait to get in touch with her after the conference.
So the Monroes (Tapestry) are speaking and have a truly powerful statement. He truly has a passion that is quite similar to mine. He believes that the churches should be doing the work of orphan care, not so much the para-church organizations. Those organizations should be supporting the church instead of the other way around.He strongly believes that the church is uniquely positioned to handle certain aspects of the orphan crisis.
Also as a note, he made a comment as to how God cares for all orphans, not just those around us. He recognizes that adoption is not the right solution in all cases and in most cases it probably is not the right solution. He pointed out that only a fraction of a percent of the millions of orphans worldwide will be adopted and that there needs to be other methods used to handle the orphan crisis.
Posted by Patrick Corkum on
I am here sitting in a session with a panel about engaging the church for foster care and models that exist. The panel includes members of Project 1.27, 4KIDS of South Florida, the Call (Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime), and Royal Family Kids Camps.
When the panel was asked about how the state is responding to their ministries, the response kind of surprised me. The gentleman who started RFKC said that the problems he has is with the church, not the state. That was enlightening, but not so surprising to me. The surprising thing is how the state is responding so positively to their ministries, largely because those who are helping in the church are doing such a great job with it! Now if only the church would step out in all states, imagine the bridges that could be crossed.
What I love hearing the most from these stories is how people are confused by the people of the church because they don’t understand why people would do these kinds of things. I love it!
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Church Ministry, or 501c3? That is the question that Michael is trying to help us answer. He is the founder of Tapestry, an awesome ministry out of Irving Bible Church in Texas. My favorite statement so far is “God doesn’t want our ideas as much as he wants our faithfulness.” He’s brought out several things that we need to work on before we jump into the 501c3 arena. Glad I know!
While I am at it, I met a man who had n awesome story about how God transformed his life through his daughter. His daughter has started a ministry who’s goal is to help kids help kids. She is 17 and started it when she was 11. They handed out free kits… I can’t wait to dig in!
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The former first lady of Guatemala and current first lady of Guatemala City is speaking about her journey with the children of Guatemala. All I have to say is, What an AWESOME woman! We need more people like her in this world. Her heart for the people of her country and God is amazing. What a story. I hope you can download her talk when they post the sessions online! Praise God for this awesome woman!
Posted by Patrick Corkum on
I am sitting here among many many people with a passion for caring about orphans worldwide. It is pretty awesome walking around with those that I have heard on recordings and read about on the internet. I know that I am going to forget to do something while I am here. I’ve already met a few different people, the first two from Oklahoma, how strange is that?
I love what people are doing here, but I must say that I think that people are missing something. Everyone seems to have James 1:27 posted in their booths. My issue is that everyone is using ellipses. People are either ignoring widows, the “remaining unstained by the world” part or both. People are missing a profound truth by doing this. There is an important aspect of what James is trying to tell us: caring for orphans AND widows is how you remain unstained by the world!
Looking forward to my first breakout with Michael Monroe of Tapestry – “Organization Matters: Church Ministry v. 501c3.
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 17, 2010
Okay, I am going to be a bit more serious in this post for a change. There has been a significant amount of news and discussion around this family who took their adopted child and sent him on a plane with a one-way ticket back to Russia. People are so quick to judge this family and their action. Did they do the right thing? Absolutely not! I cannot condone what they did. However, who was providing them with the needed support?
We in the US are horrible at this thing called community. It is indeed true that it takes a community to raise a child. It is especially true when the child has been adopted and even MORE so if the child was not an infant when adopted. However, in the US, we are a “strong”, “independent” people that cannot show weakness or request help from others. This is just pure hogwash. We are no different than anyone else; we need other people. There are not enough people supporting adoptive parents. I know first hand that raising an adopted child that was not an infant when adopted is hard. It has been much harder than raising my biological children.
The Church needs to step in and support these families. If we as a Church do not step in and support these families with whatever it is that they need, meals, counseling, an ear, anything, then we are as much to blame for these kind of events as the family. We need to stop complaining and step up and make a change. We cannot simply hope that somebody else is going to take action. YOU must take the action and help. And if you need help helping, Melissa, myself, and several others are here to help you!
Via con Dios!
Posted by Patrick Corkum on March 31, 2010
I cannot, by any means, do justice to the topic of orphan care in the church in this post. I just want to ask people a couple simple questions:
1) Is it the church’s responsibility to take care of orphans?
2) If yes, who in the church? If no, who should be caring for the 143,000,000 orphans?
3) Is the group that should be taking care of orphans doing a good job with it?
I had the pleasure of checking out the following post: http://danyacoviello.blogspot.com/2010/03/10-ways-to-orphan-orphan-care-in-church.html
Also, check out our website: www.graftedfamilies.com. We have a lot of work to put into it, but it is there.