Since my post yesterday I've gotten a few emails and facebook messages asking me what the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit is all about. Well I'm certainly no expert on orphan care and I've only known about the Alliance for a short while but I thought I'd post a little more information and share my reasons for participating in this year's Summit.
The mission statement for Christian Alliance for Orphans explains that the Alliance's purpose is to "motivate and unify the body of Christ to live out God's mandate to care for the orphan with the vision to have every orphan experience God's unfailing love and know Jesus as Savior." Simply put, the Alliance exists for the purpose of helping individuals and churches to answer God's call to care for orphans. The Summit takes place each year to help individuals, advocates, pastor's, church leaders - anyone with a heart for orphans - come together to share their passion and build their knowledge, resources, and skills in the area of orphan care.
This year the Summit is in Minnesota and will feature more than 50 workshops and fabulous guest speakers including Steven Curtis Chapman, Tom Davis, and John Piper. I must admit I am quite excited about hearing Steven Curtis Chapman sing (my dad and I danced to his "Cinderella" at my wedding) and share his adoption stories. What I am MOST excited about are the workshops that will give me the knowledge and skills necessary to engage my church in orphan care ministry. I will be participating in workshops about starting orphan care, foster care, and adoption ministries within the church. I will also be learning how to engage church leadership in orphan ministry work. I'll be opening the eyes of my heart a little further to struggles and joys of adopting HIV-positive children. Overall, I'll be filled with knowledge, insight, and hope! And of course spending two days with people who share my passion for orphans is a blessing in itself!
Some people have asked if I'm traveling alone or if my church is involved in orphan ministry work. I will not be traveling alone but instead will be joining the only Wisconsin church that is a part of the Alliance. While I am not a member at Oakwood Church, I have been involved in Mission:Hope, their Orphan Care Ministry, since last Fall when I participated in their Orphan Sunday event as a guest speaker to the high school youth. I have been talking with leaders at the new church Dave and I are joining and hope that after this Summit I will be more prepared to help the church more forward on integrating orphan care ministry into the church's mission work. I'm not sure the church realized just what they were getting by inviting us to become members! Dave will not be joining me at the Summit but he is looking forward to hearing all about what I learn (and even if he wasn't, he'd still be hearing anyways). I promise I'll be sharing here too when I get back.
Another question I've been asked recently is how I even became interested in orphan care work to begin with. Certainly my mission work in Central America and Africa has influenced this significantly but so has hearing about orphan care work from others. So I am hoping to pass along a little inspiration myself. I'm also planning to post next week about my experiences in Africa that led me this passion.
It's not too late to sign up for the Summit if you're interested. You don't have to know a thing about orphan care or have ever been abroad. All you need to do is open your heart and mind and prepare to be changed by this experience!
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