Orphan Justice Mission

From an email announcement on February 2, 2010 by Char Lanning, Executive Director of Families Through Adoption:

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Thank you for your willingness to help the children of the earthquake in Haiti. It is an encouragement to see so many people express concern and dedication to make a difference in these children’s lives. I will try to highlight the ever changing information with you and update you on Families Through Adoption’s plan to help provide loving care to children in need.

The media is reporting on a case where children may have been removed from the country without proper documentation. The Haitian government had already had concerns that children could be separated from their families. This concern has led them to currently close the door to all adoptions until the reunification process can be completed. The children who have been moved to the United States were already identified as orphans by both the Haitian and the United States Government and had been matched with their families.

In the best of conditions reunification is a difficult and lengthy process, and given the state of the country we do not know when adoptions will resume. Current estimates by Non-Government Organizations are about 2 years. Families Through Adoption is committed to help in the process when it has been determined that legal and proper procedures are in place to move known orphans into new families. We will work with only programs who have well established connections in Haiti and who are committed to providing ethical and responsible services to the children and to our families.

In order to be prepared to move quickly once approval is given Families Through Adoption will maintain a waiting list of prospective adoptive parents. We will also ask that families prepare the home study background paperwork while waiting. This agency will not charge any family until they begin the home study process.

Families Through Adoption is willing to start home studies for families who know that they want to adopt, and if the opportunity does not present itself in Haiti they will complete an adoption in another country. We will help you determine where you are qualified to adopt from if you need that assistance.

Once we are given the approval to start home studies the plan is to do an orientation meeting for prospective families to review the overall process complete background checks and explain the dossier requirements. After this meeting, Families Through Adoption will host a required risk counseling day. It will be a day long event with information, education, panels, and experts working to prepare families not only for the initial placement but to be ready to parent these children through adulthood. Families will also be required to read the book The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis. I am reporting this to you now so that you may plan and be prepared to move quickly once the opportunity presents itself.

Again, Families Through Adoption would like to thank you for your interest. If you would like to be on our waiting list we will be setting up a registration form on our website www.FamiliesThroughAdoption.org by February 8, 2010 or contact us at 616-242-9696.

We look forward to working with you in the future.

Sincerely,

Char Lanning
Executive Director
Families Through Adoption

We are making a brief stop in Kyotera again, back from an early morning visit to the birthplace of the AIDS virus, a small fishing community on Lake Victoria called Kasensero (Kah-sin-say-ro). There is a potential partnership opportunity we were exploring there: a small church which is operating a school for several hundred children as well as running an aids clinic. As a fishing village, the community is mostly transient with very little health or educational infrastructure (the school we visited is one of two for the estimated 2,000 children in the village). 40% of the village population has AIDS. There are already connections between the people of Ddwaniro and the church in Kasensero, making it a natural possibility for expanding OJM's work. We'll see where the Lord leads. We will also be visiting a school in Masaka tomorrow on our way back to Kampala.

The Simply the Story training has gone phenomenally well. Braumell, the Kenyan leader of the training has said he's never been in a place as rural and with such a high percentage of illiteracy as Ddwaniro, which is exactly the type of place the oral evangelism training is designed for and it is exceeding all expectations. On the first day of training, he said an old man, 100% illiterate, heard a story read to him and within 10 minutes had memorized it and repeated it to the group perfectly. Braumell said he wanted to cry -- the program was working exactly as designed! Each day of training has had its own successes and overall, we are thrilled with the results. Also, because of the success here, STS has called down their translation facilitator, Jesse, who will run a clinic to begin working on narrating the film "The God Story" in the village languages found in Ddwaniro (Luganda, Rutooro and Ruyankole). This is an amazing partnership the Lord has brought together. I'm thankful for Ted Manning's work on behalf of OJM to facilitate it.

We have our final two meetings today, the Education Sub-committee and the General Board. Paul and I have made it through all the current proposals, made revisions and action steps and work is moving forward. There is much to do, which is evidence of the growth of the community. Each success brings new capacity-building and development challenges -- signs of progress.

John and Kelly are well, though they've each had to deal with stomach "issues" (thankfully, I have been clear so far). They have been awesome assistants, learning the language, loving the people, doing computer and health training, and assisting me where needed. Yesterday, they did the bulk of the processing of 398 PenPal students, a seven hour job in a hot little office.

Tonight we "rest" a bit and tomorrow we leave for Kampala early in the morning. We will visit with Sharon and Michael Mbabazi, family friends of mine in the city, and then head to Paul's. Sunday morning I'm preaching at the morning service at Glory of Christ Kampala (the service begins at 6:30 AM!), then we will do a bit of souvenir shopping and board our flight home in the evening. Please keep up the prayers, especially for the community as they continue the work after our departure.

I may be able to post one last summary before heading for the States.

The shrill laughter of about twenty kids has just died down as I start this post. After a long day of worship and meetings (my kind of day), we took tea back at the pastor’s house, then played with some of the local kids who kept peeking in the door. Kelly (of the John and Kelly Sanders duo) took the lead with about 10 minutes of copy cat. We then took it up a level and tried Uganda-fying Duck Duck Goose. We went for Chicken Chicken Cow (or “enkooko enkooko entay”). It was a hit and thus the constant laughter. I had to duck out (no pun intended) when Teddy, one of the girls taking care of us here softly but demandingly told me it was my time for “shower” (I couldn’t tell if it was because I stunk or because she didn’t want the water they had graciously heated for me to cool). So now I’m clean and using up some precious battery power to make a post.

John and Kelly are well, apart from having their luggage lost on the Amsterdam to Entebbe flight. They’ve been three days in the same clothes and aren’t dead yet– they’re troopers. The bags should arrive tonight at 9pm and Paul will bring them to us in the morning. John and Kelly have been awesome companions and have taken the cultural adjustment (and lack of clothing) in stride.

We started today off with another amazing, joyful, jubilant, watery-eyed worship service. Kelly and John led Sunday school and shared the story of Joseph. I was invited to preach and spoke from Nehemiah, encouraging the community to work together to “rebuild their wall” and stay faithful to the Lord. After a quick lunch, we returned to the church in the afternoon for a meeting with the business committee and the 30 proposed loan recipients. The community has done great work in preparing loan applicants, and we were able to share about a business training plan and the micro enterprise strategy, which will be employed shortly. John assisted me by wonderfully explaining the economic principle of supply and demand.

The leadership structure here continues to grow and I am more and more optimistic about the success of our partnership. They have identified two assistant administrators to work with Fredrick Makumbi, Pastor continues to demonstrate integrity and effective management, and the community members are successfully accomplishing the projects. It’s truly a work of the Lord here, and I am privileged to be a part of it.

Lastly, the Simply the Story (STS) training team has arrived after more than twenty hours of travel from Nairobi. We had a wonderful chat with them over tea and I think this week of evangelism training is going to be incredibly impacting on the community.

Tomorrow, we will join in the STS training as well as have our first computer training session with the administrators. Please continue to pray for us, for wisdom and humility in all of our dealings and pray that the STS training team would be refreshed and effective in the training of community members.

Here it is, 11:38 pm, and I'm making final preparations for my trip to Uganda tomorrow. This will be my first visit of 2010 as well as my first visit since going full-time with OJM. I'm excited to get back and see my friends, evaluate some of the projects we've been working on recently, move other projects forward and do some training.

The primary objectives of the trip are to observe the final stages of the 2009 Seed Project (February is harvest time), observe the Simply the Story evangelism training that will be happening, make headway on the land project, the micro-loan project and others that are in the queue. We will also be doing some computer and business training, part of which is introducing a new project management system that is based online (I'm hoping this system is more efficient and promotes broader collaboration on projects). We hope to return with PenPal letters and of course, we'll spend time with the beautiful children and wonderful people of Ddwaniro.

Traveling with me are John and Kelly Sanders, who were in my youth group back in the day. Kelly has been volunteering with OJM for over a year now and is very interested in Africa. She is looking into getting a Master's Degree in Public Health. John has a degree in business administration and will be helping lead the business training session. It will be their first time in Africa. I'm really excited for them!

Please pray for us, especially right off the bat with traveling mercies. John and Kelly live in Washington, D.C., which is under more than 30 inches of snow presently! Pray that our plane takes off and for good weather.

I'll be posting here as I'm able. Please check back for updates and progress reports. I'm expecting another awesome experience as we join God in his work in East Africa. Stay tuned.