Happy Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for my family on this Thanksgiving day. I hope someday that the 143 million orphans around the world can experience this same thankfulness. The number of orphans is almost half the population of the United States and we have over 500,000 children in foster care in the US.
Something else to be thankful for as an American... The United States has a great history and heritage. This was emailed to me by Brad Davidson this morning.
This is George Washington's 1789 day of Thanksgiving proclamation:
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness: "Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October,
A.D. 1789.

Where did september go?

September has been a busy month with lots of meetings. Actually, going back to August 29 in Raleigh, I presented to the North Carolina COLPAA (Coalition of Licensed Private Adoption Agencies)group about my work and the Global Orphan Care Initiative.
Representatives/Social workers from most of the larger national agencies and many smaller agencies from NC were represented. Besides sharing with them about GOCI, I was also able to present the work of Karyn Purvis and her upcoming meeting in Advance, NC next March. There was much interest in "The Connected Child" as it is becoming clearer that agencies and churches need to help families with pre and post adoption issues.
Then I spent August 30 and 31 in Houston in a focus group meeting with the CEO of a large Houston based real estate company and his wife. They invited several orphan care and adoption ministries to help them decide how best to get involved in assisting families with the financial aspect of adoption. This was a good meeting and I was able to travel with Eugene Allison from The ABBA Fund and have dinner with Karyn Purvis Thursday evening. We also meet up with Andy and Gary from Life International as well as several other folks from Texas.
This month has mostly been planning for the March conference with Dr. Purvis, and upcoming adoption and orphan awareness conference meetings in Charlotte, Raleigh and Cary, NC. It is great to meet more and more people interested in caring for orphans. I had lunch last week with a successful investor that recently traveled to Africa with his 5 children. His daughter is graduating from high school and looking for an opportunity to serve next summer and he and his wife are considering adoption! He forwarded an article that influenced him by Jonathan Edwards on Christian Charity. Caring for the poor, the widow, the orphan or the stranger is not a new concept but it is something that has been neglected and excused as the responsibility of the government or someone else. The Scripture is clear on giving and caring - Luke 6:35, Psalm 68:5 and James 1:27.
I'm in my new office that I have been working on in the Bennett Feed Mill and I'll be updating that site as we wrap up some of the work. I'm looking forward to being able to work a stones throw away from home (actually, I don't think I can throw a rock 350 feet but it's still pretty close...).

Planning week

Last week was very busy with planning. In Raleigh Tuesday, I met with three business professionals and we discussed the Global Orphan Care Initiative's mission and recent developments.
More details being worked out for The Connected Child conference in March, 2008. Possible venues are being being negotiated and we would like to make a decision asap. I met with the Bethesda Romania school board in Winston-Salem on Thursday and we worked on plans for the upcoming year. I'm also looking forward to meetings in Raleigh this morning and Wednesday with Walt Johnson and the NC COLPAA. Thursday and Friday I plan to be in Houston with Karyn Purvis, Eugene Allison and others with an orphan care focus group. Lots of interest in Karyn's work and it would be great if we could spread her message at least in a condensed format to OVC care givers worldwide.
Dwain Gullion
336-345-2369
"Sent via BlackBerry wireless device."

old proverb

"He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes" If you haven't read "Safely Home" by Randy Alcorn, then please read the book and when you get to this quote on page 88 you will understand the context. This is a quote that Li Quan shared with his good friend Ben Fielding...

Websites and phone calls

*Monday - Conference call with the ABBA Fund. Several new church partnerships are in the works and existing ones are growing. The matching fund from a donor is generating momentum for more funds coming in. I prepared for the GOCI call on Tuesday. Amy Vercler is in Indonesia and Korea until the end of next week.
*Tuesday - Global Orphan Care Initiative Call. Several members out of the country or on vacation so we had a small group on the call. Tuesday evening conference call with organizers working to bring Karyn Purvis to North Carolina in March, 2008. Karyn shared her vision for the future. Lots of planning to do for the conference.
*Wednesday - another Global Orphan Care call in the afternoon. we worked on plans to have Amy move to the Triangle this fall. Her full time devotion to GOCI will be a great step forward for the initiative. I spent most of the day working on a couple of websites.
*Thursday - More work on websites. Work was finished on my new office. I'm looking forward to getting settled in. We visited Chad Gullion and his family as they were passing through NC. He is ready for another trip to China and I promised to go with him.
*Friday - Working on a newsletter to be emailed next week. Also, more website work. I read the Smile Train's newsletter this afternoon. It's great that they have been able to complete 200,000 surgeries with no administrative cost coming out of the donations. Love without Boundaries is very similar and they seem to be great models for other organizations to learn from.

I just received a call from a lady in KY. Their Guatemala adoption has stalled and she is looking for advice. I gave her the contact info of a good friend that has recently adopted from Guatemala and is involved in orphan care. Hopefully she can help. I had never heard of the agency but I looked online and they have accreditation. Hopefully things will work out soon for this family and their little girl.

Busy Saturday

Spent the morning with our kids so Heidi could go to a ladies breakfast. Conferenced with a businessman in Charlotte and founder of a non profit in GA about development to expand both of their missions. The goals are to raise money to help families adopt and also to provide respite for ministry (missionaries,pastors, etc.) This afternoon I emailed a friend in Raleigh that we met in TN last Nov. Her family has adopted from China and is interested in China orphan care, raising funds to help Christian families adopt and also provide training and seminars using Karyn Purvis' new book "The Connected Child". Also, worked on a couple of websites and updated GOCI site with next conference call date. I guess this is a start on a blog if I can only stay consistent...

New blog on orphan care and adoption

Here goes! Scott Hasenbalg told me this week that I need to start blogging, so here it is. I've set it up and I look forward to updating folks and reminding myself about challenging and amazing experiences as my family advocates for orphans here in the US and around the world. More coming soon...