!Dea Camp - Ideas for Involvement

The ‘One’ campaign released details from a study it did on those who were involved in their cause. The study revealed that of the entire Christian population, only 3% were involved in the campaign; of the secular or 'no faith' population, the number increased to 7%. Regardless of your religious tendency, these statistics highlight that very few in our society are seeking to make a difference. 


With a massive 150-200 millions orphans on the planet, can we afford for so few of us to be tackling this issue?

This is a collection of all the various ideas that were thrown around at the camp – look at the list: What fit your strengths? What draws you in? What ideas had you never thought of? What do you feel the spirit is drawing you towards?

// Practise vulnerability – be willing to be broken as you reach out to the vulnerable.

// Adoption

- Consider adoption. Not just as a back up plan if you cannot have children biologically, but as a way to build a family. You will attach to a child who lives with you 24/7 whether they are given to you through biology or adoption.

- If 1 person in every fourth church in America adopted domestically, there would be no more children needing adoption in the USA. Just ONE person/couple out of every four church congregations…

- Make sure your adoption is ethical, especially when it is international.

- Do not become anti-international adoption

- Encourage others to be adoptive parents

England: www.baaf.org.uk

USA: www.adoptionsbygladney.com

// Support those you know who are adopting:

- Help fundraise

- Provide rest opportunities for the parents as their family expands

- Be a listening ear

- Provide meals

- Pray for them

- Engage in their journey

// Foster care

- Consider being a safe place for local children to come to. A foster child/ren will stay anything from a few nights to over a year.

- Financial support is provided in both England and America for fostering

// Have your church participate in Orphan Sunday (November) where the plight of the worlds orphans are highlighted and opportunities to help provided.

// Ask your church to provide a monthly space to discuss, from the front, orphan care and how you can make a difference

// Find local agencies that support birth mothers who are placing their children for adoption and volunteer with them

// When on mission trips, seek to find out the stories behind the children you are speaking with

http://estherhavens.com/blog/

www.discoverthejourney.org

// Provide financial assistance to single parents/grandparents raising children

// When considering going on a mission trip to “help people” consider:

- Should I really be going on this trip: is it for me or for the people of that country? If it is more for you, then be open in that fact, and call it travel rather than a mission trip.

- Have a greater imagination of what could be done with the money for that trip

// Become a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for a child) – you become an advocate for a child who has been removed from their home

http://www.becomeacasa.org/

// Visit the local children’s shelter

// Use your artistry/gifting (art, poetry, blogging, photography, music…) to highlight the cause of the orphan

// On visits abroad, help find sustainable work for orphans, rather than just giving them money

// Research child trafficking – be aware of what is going on – W.E. Dubois describes the “coward that does not know”.

www.love146.org

www.notforsalecampaign.org

// Don’t just support fundraising efforts – engage in the stories of those who are asking for money, as well the stories of those they are raising funds for

// Sponsor a child with Compassion International, World Vision or any other organisation

www.compassion.com

www.worldvision.org

// Support children in your area with special needs

// Become more aware of domestic violence in your community – face it, be available, know what to do, be an open door, fund the root cause, collaborate with others, encourage your church to teach it from the pulpit, support local programmes, use your gift to reach out to abused children.

// If you encounter Domestic Violence or Sexual abuse – be calm & stoic, listen, be a “Safe” adult, open and empathetic, report judiciously, compose a safety plan with those involved, do not try to “save” child/family or get over-involved, do not underestimate the abusers desire to “control” or suppress or avoid potential consequences, charm or violence, Believe those who speak to you and locate resources.

// Raise up godly fathers and husbands – Be a godly Father and husband

www.fathers.com

// Mentor the fatherless – find a fatherless child/teen and meet with them once a week to pour into their lives. Invest in them. Show them they are loved. Fill the gap.

www.fatherlessgeneration.com

www.fathershousetrust.com

Each of us most look inside ourselves, not look to the right or to the left, in order to decide what to do.

Remember, Orphan Care is a mandate to us ALL!

There is a need.

See it.

Respond to it.

It’s that simple.

!dea Camp - Preemptive Orphan Care and Development

These notes are from what was for the me the real "out of the box" sessions...creative ideas that hit to the heart of the orphan crisis internationally and made me realise that by meeting so many other needs, we preemptively stop there being more orphans. 

--------

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

// Work to rebuild communities so that the children there can have a greater quality of life

// One family, who had adopted two children from Ethiopia, decided that they wanted to give back to the beautiful country that gave them two beautiful children

// This family are raise funds to transform the village - 27 water points, 3 school buildings, a library, a health clinic, and vet clinic as well as a bridge for the village of 6000.

//We need to think long term in transformational development

// Women in community desire to take care of these children – child sponsorship enables this to happen

SUSTAINABILITY

// When elder children age out of foster care, they are simply given money and sent out, creating crisis in their lives with no one to guide them

- They need to be taught money management, employment skills and how to find opportunities for themselves

// Don’t just give money, but provide opportunities for people in developing nations to work

// You cannot start something and then back out in a few years time – partnering with the local church is the only way for this to happen

AGRICULTURE

// Agriculture is important as we need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have produced in the past 8000 years because of the way the world has been changing in food consumption

// Approximately 1 billion suffer from chronic hunger – many of these are farmers

// The greatest limitation is access to resources – farmers need to be helped to develop and use relevant technology

// Sustainability and creating revenue is key to help build a model so that things can continue to grow.

// The need isn’t to help grow, but to create an actual liveable earning and economic model with added value

INTERNATIONAL CHURCHES

Note: An Ethiopian national who works with orphans delivered this talk

// The local church in a foreign country knows what they need better than a western church

// Get out of the way and let Father God lead

// Be willing to serve another person’s vision

// Use the systems already in place

// Do not get so involved in strategy that you forget narrative

// Family preservation needs to be a priority – this is what the children need.

- Keep with family

- Find adoption into the extended family

- if not family, then adopt into local community, so they can grow and be a productive part of their nation

 // Personal involvement is needed by Westerners (not just money & meeting material needs)

// Ethiopians have no idea on the theology of adoption – they don’t see the need – imagine if they were educated on it?

// Think about transferring the ownership to the churches and enabling them to take over – build their capacity. Help the church to say: “This is my project”.

Any surprises? Ever been guilty of the mentality that "West is Best" in terms of thinking and what you bring to the table to foreign countries? Had you thought about sustainability?

!dea Camp Morning #1 - The Global State of the Orphan

Steve and I are currently attending !dea Camp, a collaborative conference where everyone gets a voice and chance to throw in their thoughts, ask lots of questions and really engage with the topic. This years theme is 'Orphan Care'. 

These are just a snippet of my notes from the morning session (there will be three more notes like this to come in the next coming days) - there were 8 different speakers (with 5-20 minutes each) plus workshops where all delegates were actively encouraged to throw in their ideas. 

Some of these are statistics. 

Some are experiences from work in various fields. 

Some are just simply random musings. 

The point is not what they are, but what it triggers us to think...to feel...to see...to do. 

Feel free to comment with your thoughts, experiences, opinions!!

 ----

// The orphan crisis seems to large with 150-200 million orphans worldwide

//The people of God are the hope of the world

// Research highlights that in America we do not have the ability to be vulnerable. Americans are the most in debt, overspent, most overweight & most addicted – these are numbing mechanisms to cope with not being able to be broken

//80% of people on mission trips to orphans are women

// The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough Christians in the world – it is that the compassion of the Christians in the world isn’t enough

// If our only solutions to the Orphan Crisis are building/funding orphanages or international adoption, we will only reach around 1-2% of the orphans in need – we need to think outside of the box

// Fatherlessness is written in the hearts of this generation – songs, movies, blogs, TV shows…

// Fatherlessness is the engine driving our worst problems – teenage pregnancy, gang culture, homicide…

//The church needs to raise up mentors to help – In Portland, OR at the mentoring project, there  are 1000 kids on the formal waiting list for mentors

// Churches – start small, start with what is already going on, start with prayer

//Jeremiah 32:7 – Nothing is too difficult for God

// There is no reason the Orphan Crisis cannot be solved – Civil Rights: look at what happened 1960-1969? Global Warming: No one even talked about it 15 years ago.

// We need to work out what the “best interest of the child” really means

// Institutionalised care (orphanages/groups homes) are 5-10 times more costly than family care

// International adoption costs around $30,000. Figures suggest raising a child until their 18 in America costs over $200,000. That is $230,000 that could be spent on reaching multiple orphans, not just one.

// In USA, we have sought to eliminate many/most orphanages and group homes knowing these are not in “the best interest of the child” YET we continue to fund and see the solution oversees as building orphanages

// What if we invested our efforts in helping the people of those nations take care of the children in their nations?

// After the mass rise of international adoptions out of China, the government has put its efforts into foster care and domestic adoption solutions – in 2005 the number of children adopted that stayed in China, surpassed the number adopted internationally

// It is not popular to give to AIDS/HIV funding, but this is a major factor in reducing orphans

// Lets not pretend that a week in a foreign country on missions really benefits that place – it changes us MORE than it changes them

// International missions trips: we pay $2000 to go and paint a fence or orphanage in Uganda, but for $5 a day, we could pay a Ugandan national to do the same and provide him with a job

// Most of President Obama’s staff mentor young people

// Just showing up and being there is 90% of mentoring

// It can take over a year of mentoring before you can really break into the heart of a fatherless child

// How can you help?

            // Start small

            // Start with what is already going on

            // Start with prayer

----


Thoughts? Feelings? Comments? Reactions?