We got to volunteer at the "Night with the Chapman's" tour for the Show Hope booth! It was so so much fun and was especially fun being our first time with Chayah there with us! Chayah absolutely loved being our little helper for the whole evening. She even stood behind the Show Hope booth after intermission and helped the new Show Hope sponsors fill out their sponsor forms! Sarah had a very fun time too, seeing as she has proclaimed herself to be Steven Curtis Chapman's "biggest fan" :) She was playing before the concert started though and fell on the stairs at the venue and hurt her ankle..so she spent the rest of the evening either sitting and watching the concert (always fun, and also does not require moving), hopping on one foot, or being carried around. Poor girl, her ankle was in a lot of pain but she was a little trooper and still had a lot of fun watching SCC and helping out for Show Hope!
Show Hope is such an awesome ministry, started by the Chapman family. For those of you that aren't familiar with Show Hope, they offer adoption grants to families with financial need to help bring their child(ren) home. They also have started
Maria's Big House of Hope in Luoyang, Henan province, China which is a special care orphanage for special needs orphans in China. They have also started two special care units in other orphanages in China, each as an entire floor caring for special needs orphans and have a vision to start many more!
Both Sarah and Chayah were special needs orphans in China. Then God spoke to our hearts and led us to bring them home. And He provided the way-- every step of the way. Sarah and Chayah both came home through Show Hope grants and we are SO grateful to them!!
At the concert, we had the opportunity to represent this amazing organization that is making such a huge change in the world- through care of orphans and through helping orphans become beloved children with forever families of their own.
And for $35 a month, we saw lives changed by signing up to become Show Hope sponsors- giving to help children still left as orphans and also helping to provide grants to families who otherwise would not have been able to adopt.
This little girl, my Chayah Elizabeth, came home through a Show Hope adoption grant. Show Hope and those partnering with Show Hope as sponsors made her adoption possible.
I just don't know what I'd do without my Chayah! I am so happy that God chose me to be her big sister-- I am
so incredibly blessed!
The fact is that the world we live in is so far detached from the orphan's world. And that makes it so easy to just turn away. It makes it easy to say that we've done enough already and to question whether what we have to give is really good enough.. It makes it easy to say that someone else will step up, or someone else will show hope..
But with over 145 million children as orphans throughout our world today, I think each and every one of us needs to step up and follow God's calling to care for the "least of these".
And when you do that, you may just get to see a life totally transformed from being a six year old orphan in China, with hair almost shaved off, and no one to call "Mommy" or "Daddy" to being the happiest, silliest, and sweetest, most beautiful little eight year old girl you will ever meet.
Or see a little girl go from being the most fiercely independent and self-sufficient two year old the world has ever known to being such a sweet, loving six year who is so breathtakingly beautiful inside and out and has a huge heart for those children left as orphans and a desire to show them hope!
Or you may find that by changing an orphan's world, your own world is completely different. Your goals, your hopes, your passion, and your life mission have been totally shifted. And it's all so worth it because it is so much better than anything you ever could have imagined for yourself.
The concert was awesome and the message shared for showing hope to orphans is the best!
Steven Curtis Chapman
"Once our eyes are opened we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and and keeps our souls, knows that we know and holds us responsible to act." Proverbs 24:12
"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me." Matthew 25:35-45
How will you respond?
There is an amazing story behind these A*merican G*irl Dolls!! A few months ago, Sarah and Chayah were playing with some good friends at their house and their girls told our girls about how they were getting AG dolls and showed them the ones they were getting. Since then, Sarah and Chayah have loved them. On top of that, Chayah has recently decided that J*on and K*ate plus 8 re-runs are her favorite things to watch on TV..one of the episodes that she kept seeing was where the twins get AG dolls. Needless to say, this led to even more desire on the girls' parts for AG dolls. Then--just several weeks after all of this, we were at church one night and the sweetest lady just "happened" to come up and ask the girls if, by any chance, they had AG dolls!! She said that her daughter had grown out of her dolls and was willing to give them to Sarah and Chayah! What an amazing answer to prayer!!! This just amazes me! It's just one more thing that shows how awesomely God cares for His children! He cares for even the desires of our hearts--even the desire of the hearts of six and eight year old little girls for special dolls! How amazing is that?! Sarah and Chayah absolutely adore their dolls and have had such a fun time playing with them all evening since they got them earlier today! It was hard getting them to put them down this evening for bed time! Sarah's is beautiful "Mya" and Chayah's is beautiful "Sonali" (Chayah had her heart set on the name "Kate" though, so I'm fairly sure she will be called "Kate").. A huge THANK YOU to our friend for the dolls- they are beautiful and such a blessing!!!! And what an awesome reminder of how God answers our prayers! I'm still in awe! :)
