Monday, January 26, 2009

Orphan Hosting, What's That?



One Friday in late April, no different than any other day, I, unsuspectingly, opened an e-mail forward from a friend. Those can be really dangerous and life-changing! So, watch out! It had to do with orphan hosting. I had no idea what that meant. So, on I read... Parts of it are here for you, if you are interested: Our Ukraine partner has an appt. at the passport office next week and will only be able to process documents for kids that we have host families for at that point. We have 13 host families so far but we need 20 more! I would hate for these 20 kids to be left behind while their friends or siblings travel to the US for the summer.
Please pass this info along soon, as we only have a very short while to find these host families or these kids will not be able to come. Thank you so much. As always, call us anytime with questions. We will be working all weekend to find families so you can call day or evening for more info. Please take time to look at these kids photos and pray for them individually.
Blessings,
Laurel Boylan, Director
God's Waiting Children, Inc.
1865 Herndon Ave., #K125
Clovis, CA 93611
(559) 316-4823 local
(866) 468-3089 toll free
www.godswaitingchildren.com

Well, like any good Christian woman, I thought, "Someone should do this!" Pointed my mouse and promptly sent it off to everyone in my address book!

By early Monday morning, I had been on the phone with Laurel several times trying to figure out the best way to get the hosting fee (which pays for the orphans' travel expenses) to her fast so that they would have what they needed to proceed. We'd decided it would be alot of fun for our only Princess to have another Princess to play with for the summer! So, there was one sweet little girl face left, close to Charissa in age and she looked so much like my childhood photos it was rather odd. "She's ours!!" we said. And, three months later, she was, for six weeks!!
We had a great summer. It was a lot of work since our Summer Sister, Aliana, wanted to be first in our hearts and at the same time our own Princess had been bumped over to share her throne and was not so very pleased about it! But, overall, it was great fun: swimming, camping, surfing, zoo trips, corn dogs and ice cream were top on her list!

Part of the idea of orphan hosting is to allow the orphans to see and experience life in a healthy family. It takes them out of institution life for the summer. And, with our particular agency, it is to be a Christian family. Another big part of that is advocating for older, waiting children. It is our prayer that more families will consider adopting a waiting child throughout the world. This hosting program is an opportunity to educate American families about life in the orphanages and introduce them to some wonderful children. It is GWC's hope that this experience will open many families' hearts and minds to adoption in the future. Host families play a large role in building public awareness of the needs of children living in Ukraine orphanages. Often people have a preconceived idea of what “older” children who live in orphanages are like. This experience typically changes that notion. God's Waiting Children's experience has been that the children far surpass the host families’ expectations! Part of hosting a child or children is getting them involved in a church family and/or other community activities. One thing that was helpful with God's Waiting Children was that we had T-shirts made with their 800 number on them so at the fair, zoo or wherever, a person could remain anonymous to you if they chose to, but call to ask questions about adoption from a foreign country. On the other hand, it also brought attention to our little group and so many people just came right up and asked what God's Waiting Children was all about!

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