Good input from Chris Horst of Hope International on the pluses and minuses of sponsoring children overseas.

Since you are reading this, I’m assuming you know the positives.

Here are some concerns:

• Child sponsorship can undermine the role of parents.
• Child sponsorship can have the same impacts of a bad welfare system.
• Child sponsorship can inadvertently send the wrong message and yield an unhealthy relationship.
• Many of these programs are wrought with fraud.
• These programs can foster jealousy and encourage dependency.

The points are fleshed out more here.

Full disclosure:  Cross International does NOT have a child sponsorship program.

Here’s a follow-up from an earlier post, illustrating that compassion and good intentions are not sufficient elements in helping the poor:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A group of 10 American Baptists were being held in the Haitian capital Sunday after trying to take 33 children out of Haiti.

The church group, most of them from Idaho, allegedly lacked the proper documents when they were arrested Friday night in a bus along with children from 2 months to 12 years old who had survived the catastrophic earthquake.

The group say they were setting up an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.

Full AP story (via OneNewsNow) here.

Cross International has many years of ministry experience in Haiti, and works with churches and missions (and orphanages) already on-the-ground.

For more about our efforts, go here.

Good word here from Together for Adoption about Haitian orphan adoption:

Given the current situation in Haiti, here is my question to those who are interested in adopting a child from Haiti: “How long are you willing to wait to give a Haitian orphan a home?”

My concern is that our compassion for Haiti’s orphans, our desire to give them a home, won’t have the necessary patience (endurance) to see it through.

What Haiti’s orphans need once adoption opens back up is Christians who have gospel-endurance.

Also see the very fine book When Helping Hurts (Moody).

Wisdom should guide our compassion and actions, all of which should bathed in prayer and washed in God’s Word.

School of the Good Sower - Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Borrowing from another good post by Dan Cruver of Together for Adoption over at The Gospel Coalition blog.

In short, orphans need Christians who fully understand that God’s pleasure in them is equal to the pleasure He has in Jesus:

When Jesus was about to go public with the mission of God, his Father declared over him, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). As Scripture makes clear, Jesus had been sent to fulfill the Father’s mission to redeem humanity and renew creation—which includes, by the way, the removal of the word “orphan” from the human vocabulary. The Gospel writers tell us that God’s Son went forward with the mission of his Father in the strength and knowledge of his Father’s delight (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22).

What orphans need are churches that are full of people who wake up each morning hearing and rehearsing these amazing words that are declared over them. “You are my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased. Yes, you were once without hope and without God in this world, but I have brought you near by the blood of Jesus. I have embraced you in the Beloved. Live in my love as you move out in mission.”

Full post here and worth the read.

Dan Cruver of Together for Adoption has a good series of posts on why the gospel is central to caring for the widows and orphans in their affliction (James 1:27).

His conclusion from “Caring for Orphans While Soaked with a Sense of Exile“:

The gospel takes those who are marked with a deep sense of exile, frees them from the “need” to self-medicate, and moves them out to serve the orphan, the widow, and the marginalized. Only by the power of the gospel can we do the self-sacrificial work of caring for orphans while soaked with the sense of exile.

Read how a ‘sense of exile’ is crucial to adoption from the whole post here.

Thoughtful and worth the read.

Calvary Baptist Home & School, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Would you please pray for me the next few days?

I’m planning to be on-air in Indiana (Elkhart/South Bend) at WFRN Radio raising awareness and funds for Cross International.

Our focus will be providing for critical care orphans and children in Mozambique, Africa.  Only $68 provides food, clothes, preventative medical care, educational expenses, or other basic needs of one child for an entire year.

Many of these kids have been orphaned by the African AIDS epidemic.

To stream WFRN live during the broadcast (Tuesday & Wednesday), go here.

Read the story here of 16-year-old Sandra and her siblings – ages, 12, 10, and 6.

To support one child for an entire year for $68, go here.

Thanks.

If you’re near Tallahassee, Florida this Saturday…

…please come out to the Cross International Benefit Concert hosted by Fisher Creek at Grace Baptist Church in Crawfordville, FL.

Three bands, no tickets or cover charge, with food available for purchase.

All donations support African orphan partners of Cross International.

Details here.

Facebook event page here.

MySpace page here.

Under “putting your money where your mouth is” folder you should find this story:

In a speech that discussed abortion, the President, and the sanctity of life, the most provocative statement from Pastor Vic Pentz of Peachtree Presbyterian Church came towards sermon’s end:

“I make a promise to you now and I don’t want you to keep this a secret,” the pastor pronounced, “the Peachtree Presbyterian Church will care for any newborn baby you bring to this church.

“We will be the family to find a home for that child, and there’s no limit on this. You can tell your friends, you can tell your family, you can tell the whole world …”

Reflected Pentz a week later, “I seem to have touched a nerve by saying that to the congregation.”

It’s a speech he repeated this past Sunday, and it can be found on the church’s web site under the sermon title, “Ethics of Life”.

Pentz says the church will partner with Bethany Christian Services, which promotes itself as “the nation’s largest adoption agency” and will handle the “how” of making this happen.

Sermon based on Psalm 139 and the “My 95” campaign which Peachtree Pres has held the past few years.

Some questions:

• How many babies have found homes thru Peachtree Pres since this offer was made?
• What if every church in the U-S made this offer?
• How many overseas orphanages could we empty?

Here’s a wonderful opportunity for you to become faithful with a little:

The Reencontro Orphans Project in Mozambique provides direct support to more than 7000 orphans and other vulnerable children in Mozambique, Africa.

Reencontro is composed of local Christian laypersons and cares for these children, many of whom have lost parents to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Incredibly enough, $68 provides food, clothing, health care, education or other essentials for a child for approximately one year.

Orphans receive food, education, citizenship registration (documentation they need in order to attend school), healthcare, housing, vocational training, income generation projects, and spiritual and psychological counseling.

Would you and your worship team be willing to be musical advocates for the Reencontro Orphans Project this fall?

If you would present a song during one of your services in September or October, I will provide you brochures, free music, free DVD/audio tracks to support these parentless children in Mozambique.

Every single dime raised from your event will go directly to the Reencontro orphans.

Call me for details:  1-800-391-8545 ext. 174.

Download details on Reencontro here:  Reencontro Orphans

• Click here for music samples
• Click here to preview DVD accompaniment tracks
• Click here to order free music

The World Harvest Children’s Home in Cazeau, Haiti provides food, medicine, and care to 80 orphaned, sick, and handicapped children in Cazeau, Haiti.

Here’s the description:

Traveling to remote, impoverished villages, founder Miriam Fredericks rescues handicapped, abandoned, and starving children – children so hungry they are unable to walk or even crawl, with little bodies ravaged by TB, malaria or dysentery.

Though some are so ill they do not survive the trip back to the orphanage, so far more than 100 children have survived and been carefully, lovingly, nurtured back to health.

Gifts contributed to World Harvest Children’s home help Miriam and her staff meet these children’s nutritional and medical needs, and give them a loving, caring place to live.

For $23.50 per month or $282 per year, you can provide one child with:

• Three nutritious daily meals
• Tuition to attend local public school
• Proper medical care
• Bible instruction and education

Would you and your worship team be willing to present a song on their behalf?

If you could present a song and pass out our brochures during one of your services this fall, every dollar will go to the World Harvest Children’s Home in Haiti.

I will happily provide free materials for your music department and information for the congregation on the impact they can have for the orphans in Haiti.

Just contact me for details and free music.