In YOU the orphan finds HOPE! (Hosea 14:3)
It was so wonderful to be able to celebrate Orphan Sunday with my church family this past Sunday!!!
It was also a very special day because we got to officially launch our
Orphan Care Ministry :
“His Children”
we had available many resources for families to take to learn about adoption, sponsoring, fostering, and praying for the Fatherless!
We printed out a special page for all my snowdrops and we handed them out to those who would commit to being a prayer warrior for a special child!
I am so thankful and excited to think of my snowdrops being prayed over…to imagine what miracles God will do through His Church!!!! Exciting stuff!!
I also got to celebrate with the kids in our church!!
We got to talk about what an orphan is.
Then we discussed the “plight of the orphan” by comparing the difference between their lives and an orphan’s life!
Comparing (through pics) their beds, their bathrooms, their playgrounds, and finally their food with what an orphan has.
We got to taste and eat an actual orphan’s meal!
Some children thought it was gross!! And, so the message was clear!
Some actually liked it but after I asked them if they wouldn’t mind eating it EVERYDAY for EVERY meal…then, they said NO WAY!
It made a lot of the kiddies stop to think and be so thankful for their lives…for having a mommy and daddy and warm bed and nice warm meals with meat and deserts…
But I also saw sadness as they imagined the sad life of an orphan.
Then, I got to tell them the GOOD NEWS!
I got to share with them about GOD’s PLAN for them to help the orphan!!!
I got to share with them HOSEA 14:3:
“In YOU the orphan finds HOPE!”
I got to share with them how God’s plan is for HIS children to be an instrument of HOPE to HIS Children with no mommies and daddies!!!
I loved their looks of amazement when I shared about how THEY can make a difference in an orphan’s life by praying FAITHFULLY for a special child, God’s special child!
…and that their prayers were POWERFUL AND EFFECTIVE and can change a child’s life!!!!
So, they each got to choose a special snowdrop to take home, hang on their ‘fridge and pray daily for!! Because GOD wants to use them as tools to bring HOPE!
They also got to decorate a lunch bag for the “brown bag movement” to encourage their parents to participate and pack their lunch once a week to save money for orphan care ministry…
They were very excited about this and I am praying that lots of mommies and daddies got to take lunch to work today in a colorful lunch bag! 😉
Probably the best part was when a sweet young boy (who recently came home from Africa) said, “I USED TO BE AN ORPHAN but NOW I have a home and a mom and dad!!!!!” with a HUGE smile on his face!!
It made me tear up with joy.
THAT is what “HOPE” looks like, people…
THAT is what it looks like when the CHURCH rises up.
His short testimony: “I used to be an oprhan, but now I have a mom and dad and a home!”
WOW.
All in all it was an incredibly special Sunday!
We were so blessed to have so many families come up to us and talk to us about how God was moving in their hearts for the orphan!!
…we felt the Holy Spirit working!!!
One thought kept coming to my mind:
“This is what the body of Christ (young and old) needs to be doing on Sundays… EVERY sunday!!!”
every sunday should be filled with chattering about the many ways we can RISE up to make a difference as a church for the “least of these.”
every sunday, brothers and sisters freely challenging each other to step out, to pray and to support each other as we navigate God’s calling in our lives for the Fatherless!!!
BECAUSE THERE IS A CRISIS, and we CAN not turn our faces away any longer!!!!!
153 MILLION CHILDREN WITHOUT A HOPE!!! 🙁
Defend the weak and the fatherless;<span class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(A)”> uphold the cause of the poor<span class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(B)”> and the oppressed.
(psalm 82:3)
Let’s keep RISING UP CHURCH…beyond Orphan Sunday!!!
where is God calling you in HIS plan of Hope for the orphan?
there are so many ways…
DEFEND. SPONSOR. SUPPORT. GIVE. ADOPT. FOSTER. ADVOCATE. PRAY.
And to top it all off, we got to celebrate Orphan Sunday in Lancaster at Steven Curtis Chapman’s Glorious Unfolding Concert!
WE LOVE HIM!!
It is safe to say that this special concert was a wonderfully perfect ending to an incredible, yet emotionally exhausting day!
How blessed we were to just be led into a spirit of worship by SCC and Laura Story!!!
It powerfully ministered and encouraged our hearts!
Finally, I’d like to share the video that Brian and I recorded that was shared on sunday at church on the JUMBO SCREEN (next time someone please remind me to NOT look up and watch my oversized face, which can i say, was the size of Georgia!!) LOL
……and let me tell you friends….you know me!!
you that I do NOT have the gift of “powerful brevity” in telling stories…
You know I like to write LONNNNG posts and take at least two hours to share GOD’s workings in our life!
…so, you know it was a challenge to fit what GOD’S been doing in our lives in a short 4 minutes!!
HA!
but I have an awesome hubby who knows how to be brief and we had an awesome videographer who really helped us to simplify, and be concise and hone in…and THANK GOD for the gift of awesome editing because “wow”… the amount of re-takes that were needed were quite comical!
But, here’s
what’s important…..
GOD’s message OF HIS FAITHFULNESS was documented and shared!!!
…despite the fact that I came down with a full blown tooth infection and fever that day and was in my bed an hour before being filmed, crying from “off the charts tooth pain” telling my hubby that there’s no possible way I will be able to do this because I can NOT talk without holding my face and wincing from pain, and that he would JUST have to do it without me!!
but (and this another reason why I love him)….he told me: get up, we are doing this!!
And, you know what….there was a miracle…
God lifted my pain for one hour to be able to talk and be recorded!!
HE WON!
So here’s the video (see my intro can’t even be short! LOL) :
Our Prayer is that GOD uses it to encourage others to STEP OUT!!
And to challenge others to listen for HIS small voice and HIS calling on their lives and to not let it be drowned out by the world’s noise or (as it almost did for us)
by FEAR!!!
BECAUSE HE is FAITHFUL and we can TRUST HIM!!
//player.vimeo.com/video/78572253
Johanna and Brian Cannelongo’s Adoption Testimony from Glasgow Church on Vimeo.
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