Tuesday, September 25, 2007

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...).