Monday, August 27, 2007

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."

Saturday, August 25, 2007

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...

Friday, August 17, 2007

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.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

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...