Friday, September 18, 2009

Women on Mission at Coaling Baptist- Special speaker about Adoption

This month for the Women on Missions meeting Tim Foster will be the guest speaker. He will tell about how God led he and his wife Mandy to adopt Seth, a little boy from Guatemala, several years ago. God clearly showed them in several ways this was the little one for them. Tim is one of the owners of the Pottery Grill. Mandy taught 1st and 2nd grades at Vance Elementary before taking a leave of absence to bring Seth home.
All are invited to come and hear their story, men and women, at Coaling Baptist Church on Sept. 28th at 6:30pm in the new fellowship hall.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Heart Gallery Exhibition at Ferguson Center in Oct

Hello to all,

Defend the Orphans fall focus is to help promote the Heart Gallery Alabama exhibition that will be held at the U of A Ferguson Center for the entire month of Oct. The organization displays professional portraits of the children in Alabama who are waiting to be adopted. Please come to the see the exhibition any time that month. You are invited to a reception on Oct. 20th at 5:30 pm with refreshments, special speaker Deontay Wilder, entertainment by the Alabama Blues Project and information tables with available social workers to help you learn more about adoption. Please visit their web site at www.HeartGalleryAlabama.com for more information about this organization.

Hope to see all of you there and pray for these children to find forever homes. DTO is taking a stand for the orphan as we are instructed in Is 1:17 to Defend the Orphans. HGA also is taking a strong stand for these children who need to be adopted and we really need to support their effort.

Love in Christ
Lauree Spurlin

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Blessings Galore!!!

I feel like I have had Blessings Galore!!! This summer has been filled with blessings as far as getting to help orphans and foster children. Defend the Orphans Ministry has been able to help supply school supplies to children at Big Oak Ranch, Alabama Baptist Children's Home in Gardendale and will help with DHR foster children soon. It is such a blessing to help meet those needs and to serve these children as unto the Lord.
Please pray for us to have direction for the fall and winter to know what God has for us to do next.
As always please email me if you would like to help in any of our projects.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Cook Out for Project 24

Defend the Orphans held a cook out last Saturday to raise money for Project 24. Bro. Mike Carter was an inspiration as he headed up this event. He worked tirelessly in the heat of the day setting up the event, cooking hot dogs and serving folks and all with a smile. His co-workers at his job donated the food for the cook out. We are extremely grateful to them and Mike for their hearts to serve the Lord and being an example of putting action to their faith. I am reminded that faith without works is dead! Is our faith a dead faith or an alive faith? We know this by the works it produces! We are praising the Lord for all His benefits and blessings! Even though we spent a whole day in the 95 plus degree sweltering heat at the cook out I was more refreshed after it than before because I was blessed to get to serve the Lord! And blessed to see Him provide over $340.00 to help with Project 24. Also a special thanks to Brandon Katz for his tireless work at the cook out. His help was invaluable and his heart to serve an example to all. Thank you to all who cooked baked items for us to sell and to all who came by to eat with us. May you all know that your support means so much to me and your heart to help those less fortunate than us is a beautiful expression of Jesus to the world!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Updates on the Foster Children Fund, Project 24 and upcoming events

The Foster Children Fund that was collected through Walk This Way is now being greatly utilized to help meet some of the needs of the areas DHR foster children. Requests are coming in regularly and we are happy to serve these children as unto the Lord. Pray that we will have the mind of Christ while making decisions about how to administer this fund.

Also Project 24 took off with a bang!! The donations of items needed to help local foster children's homes have been overwhelmingly generous. Thank you Coaling Baptist for your obedient hearts to help the least of these as if you were serving the Lord. The items we are focusing on currently will go to the Big Oak Ranch. Here is a list of the items needed and an easy way to remember them. T.I.P.S. Stands for Towels, Index Cards, Paper for school and Sandwich bags. There are approximately 100 children there and so our goal is to collect at least 100 of each of these items by the end of the summer.

Wednesday, June 17th, we will have a special speaker for the Wednesday evening service at 6:00pm at Coaling Baptist. Steve Sellers from the Alabama Baptist Children's Homes will share with the church about their ministry. We are eager to find out more about how God is using them in the lives of the needy children in our area who do not have a forever home. Please come and hear what he has to share with us and bring your friends too.

Saturday, June 27th, we are planning to have a Hot Dog Cookout Fund Raiser at the Dollar General parking lot in Coaling to raise money to buy pallets of merchandise at a discounted rate for Project 24. Project 24 is a year round project and is designed to continually serve local and foreign orphans. Remember Deut. 24 tells us to leave some of what we have to fill the needs of orphans. So please come and eat with us Sat. June 27th from about 10:00am-3:00pm and help us meet their needs. There will be hot dogs, chips, drinks and cookies and brownies. See you there!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Project 24

In honor of May being National Foster Care Awareness month Defend the Orphans Ministry is initiating a new project called Project 24. It is based on Deuteronomy 24:19-21. This is where the command was given about helping provide for the Orphans, widows and aliens. It says, When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf, you shall not go back and get it; it shall for the alien, orphan and widow in order that the Lord you God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive tree you shall not go over it again, it shall be for the alien, orphan and widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not go over it again; it shall be for the alien, orphan and widow.

This inspired me to think about how we can implement this in our lives today. This speaks to me that it is not the government's responsibility to care for these groups of people but ours as a church and a community and we have abdicated it. For most of us we no longer harvest. Our "harvest" is our shopping for our daily needs. To get involved in Project 24 then, when we go shopping we can pick up extra items to give to the orphans, in this instance, to help provide for their daily needs. There will be a large plastic bin labeled Project 24 in the church in which to deposit the extra items you purchase. They will be given to the foster families in need, AL Baptist Children's Home and Big Oak Ranch. There will be other foster care ranches to open soon that we will be able to help. We will not collect food items but the following list shows some but not all of the items we can collect: School Supplies, diapers/wipes, socks/shoes, baby sleepers, crib sheets, blankets, towels, wash cloths and coats/hats. Defend the Orphans Ministry will contact these agencies on a regular basis or on special occasions to see what they have need of then distribute them accordingly.

Other verses to read along these lines would be Lev. 19:9-10. Matt. 25:34-40, to the extent that you do this unto My brothers, even the least of them, you have done it unto Me. James 2:15-17, If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled" and yet you do not give to them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Faith without works is dead, being by itself.

We are so accustom to our lifestyles that we do not even realize what luxury and excess we live in everyday in comparison to most countries. Let's not follow the way of the world of greed and being "ME " oriented. But be as Christ and live "others" oriented. If we really look at our lives, even in these tough economic times, we really can find things we can do without or do a diferent way to be able to give to those in greater need than us.

Pray for Project 24 and if you would like to listen to an interview about Project 24 with Christy Pepper on Moody Radio follow this link.


PROJ24.mp3 - Moody Radio South

Monday, April 27, 2009

Video clips from Walk This Way

Please view these video clips from Walk This Way if you missed the dedication ceremony or the Walk.

If you would still like to contribute to the Foster Children fund it is open year round for contributions. Please mail to PO Box 32, Coaling AL 35449

May is Foster Care awareness month. Please pray for more foster families in Tuscaloosa Co. Ask God if He would have you be one!.