Orphans And The Church

Fall has arrived, kids are back in school, and it's a great time to get connected, learn, and gain the tools to help your family and other families! Whether you are new to orphan care, or have been around a long time - there is a spot for you to grow and learn! Gain some new insight to help your kiddos, or to serve vulnerable children locally and globally.

We hope to see you at one of these great opportunities:

Orphan Care Skills Training – Oct. 24 from 9am-1pm in the upstairs Refinery classroom

Learn how to end the orphan care crisis by helping children remain in families, reunite with families or regain a family through adoption can only be done through healthy churches helping launch healthy families. You’ll learn an overview of the practical advanced skills that you can use in your own family and give away to a church. Learn the skills churches need in parenting children from hard places using Trust Based Relational Interventions, Adult Attachment and Trauma Informed Care.

Adoption/Foster Care Support Group – Meets Tuesdays 11am-1pm, starts Oct. 27

Join other parents as we listen, learn, and grow together. This season's Adoptive and Foster Family Support Group meets on Tuesdays from 11am to 1pm in the upstairs Refinery classroom on the Lake Forest Saddleback Church campus, starting October 27. The support group will be studying from the DVD curriculum The Connection: Where Hearts Meet written by Dr. Karyn Purvis and Elizabeth Styffe. Unfortunately, no childcare is available.

Questions? Email orphans@saddleback.com or call the orphan care line at 949-609-8555!

“If one family out of every four churches in the U.S. would adopt a child, there would be no more orphans in the United States.”

Elizabeth Styffe, Director of the Orphan Care Initiative at Saddleback Church, recently spoke with Ruth Bell Olsson, from Bethany Christian Services during their "Every Child" podcast, about the orphan crisis facing our world today and how the global Church can be equipped to end this crisis by learning about God’s heart for the orphan.

“Not every believer needs to adopt, but every believer needs to say, ‘What can I do to end the orphan crisis?’” Elizabeth says that the Church is the only entity that cares for people from cradle to grave and that God has called each of us to care for the orphan: “Every night, including tonight, children are going to bed praying what my children say they prayed. Every night they prayed for a mom and dad…It’s not overly dramatic, it’s not overly emotional, this is real as it gets. This is reality.”

The local church can end the orphan crisis by helping children remain in family, reunite with family, or regain a family of their own through adoption. Elizabeth notes, “This is about doing for a child physically what God has done for us spiritually.”

Listen to the full podcast here. 

If you are interested in becoming involved with the Orphan Care Initiative, email orphans@saddleback.com or call 949-609-8555.

When Amerita learned from her local church that there were children in her community who needed loving families, she took a step of faith and made the courageous decision to adopt 13-year-old Felix from the orphanage. One year later, Felix now enjoys life as a much-loved son and spends his days playing with his three siblings - Claude (also age 13), Diane (10), and Fifi (8).

Amerita is excited to share via video all she has been able to do to care for her growing family through the generosity of her local church and Orphan Care Sponsorship.

WATCH THIS VIDEO to hear how sponsorship has impacted her family and her ability to care for her new son.

“GETTING TO ZERO” UPDATES

• Orphan Care PEACE Teams have been helping raise up adoptive families and train lay social workers in Rwanda all summer! You and your family can go to Rwanda to be apart of the amazing transformation God is doing – email orphans@saddleback.comfor more information.
• Two new churches in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city, have taken an important first step in receiving training on God’s Heart for the Orphan and starting Orphan Care ministries.

To begin sponsoring a family like Amerita's, visit Saddleback.com/Sponsorship.

Adapted from a blog that originally appeared on www.EmpoweredtoConnect.org

There are no perfect parents, only growing parents. When parents make mistakes it can actually be healthy for both them and their children, so long as parents are quick to repair the ruptured connection. This is certainly good news, given that all parents are prone to their fair share of mistakes.

So here’s a challenge for all parents — let’s practice making mistakes with our children (not intentionally, of course) and repairing them so that we and our children can grow and learn, and our connection can be strengthened. Here’s how it works:

Choose a two to three day period when you will be with your child for most, if not all, of the waking hours in the day. Over the course of these days, be mindful to repair each and every mistake you make when interacting with your child. Whether you lose your temper, raise your voice, speak sarcastically, become frustrated, cut them off, fail to give them voice, ignore them, hurt their feelings…the list could go on. Regardless of whether the mistake is big or small, intentional or unintentional, be sure to quickly, humbly, and sincerely repair each and every mistake you make.

As you do this, make a mental note of (or actually write down) any observations that stand out, particularly in terms of your own feelings and your child’s response (to both your mistake and your repair). Also make a note of any changes in your relationship with your child that you witness throughout the course of this time. We have a hunch that by practicing making mistakes and repairing them, your relationship with your child will grow.

For more on the importance of parents repairing their mistakes, watch this video featuring Dr. Karyn Purvis.

As the distribution center for hope in the community, the local church is uniquely positioned to intervene on behalf of the orphan. In Saddleback’s Rwanda Orphan Sponsorship program, the local church in Rwanda determines which families will receive sponsorship and is responsible for providing families with volunteer social worker support. The partnership between Saddleback Sponsors and the local church is changing lives-getting children out of orphanages and into lifelong families! This month, check out a sponsorship update filmed by local Rwandan church volunteers highlighting the difference the program is making.

We no longer live a lonely life; we live a peaceful and happy life.

To learn more or become a Sponsor, visit www.saddleback.com/sponsorship.