November was National Adoption Awareness month and Sunday the 8th was National Orphan Sunday. In honor of these two event DTO begin a Dollar Drive for Adoption at Coaling Baptist. Every Sunday we collected donation for orphans. The money will go toward filling the Christmas wish lists of 6 foster children at the Alabama Baptist Children's Homes

I just wanted to give thanks for such a wonderful church at Coaling Baptist who has such a big heart for orphans. Thanks to you we have been able to collect enough donations to fill the Christmas wish lists of six children in the Alabama Baptist Children's homes. We will bless the gifts and the children the first week in Dec. We will say a prayer for the children to be blessed with their gifts and for them to be blessed in their family situations. Thank you again CBC for your example of loving Christ

New Ministry opportunities in November and December

Defend the Orphans has new ministry opportunities in November and December. November is National Adoption Awareness month and November 8th is National Orphan Sunday. To kick off our Adoption Awareness month Defend the Orphans ministry is initiating a Dollar Drive For Adoption Awareness in the month of November on Sunday November 8th. What this means is we are asking all families and individuals to collect their loose change and dollar bills to donate each Sunday at the morning service and at the Wednesday night service for the Adoption Awareness fund. We will have a container in the church sanctuary to collect your dollars and loose change each Sunday and Wednesday in the month on November. Our Team Kids ministry will join in by sharing a verse of scripture pertaining to adoption in each Sunday service and visiting the Sunday school classes to encourage donations. This money will be designated for the Christmas project for orphans. We will be adopting the wish lists for Christmas presents for local foster children at the Alabama Baptist Children's home. This wish list will consist of approximately $125.00 worth of toys and gifts per child. Additionally, if you feel led, clothes may be purchased for each child. Our goal is to fill the wish lists of at least 6 children for Christ this Christmas. The gifts will need to be purchased and turned into the ABCH by the second week in December. We will have the Blessing of the Gifts and Children at the Wednesday night service before the gifts are received by the Alabama Baptist Children's home. If you wish to shop you may request the wish list of one or more children, purchase the gifts and be reimbursed for the money spent or you may want to simply donate the gifts of one or more children. Or you may want to just donate your dollars and loose change to the fund each week. As you can see there are plenty of opportunities and ways to get involved to bless these little ones for Christ and to make your Christmas one that is Christ centered be serving the least of these. Thank you Coaling Baptist for your heart of service and for all the times you have shown your love for Christ by serving these little ones as unto the Lord Himself.

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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

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

http://www.youtube.com/moodyradiosouth

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

Enterprise Baptist Church partnered with Defend the Orphans at Walk This Way

We want to give a special thank you to Enterprise Baptist Church for their participation in Walk This Way. Because of you and your dedication to helping orphans, $1,000 more dollars were collected for the Foster Children Fund. Thank you for being an example to our community of showing the love of Christ to those less fortunate than you. We hope you will come back next year to the walk. Defend the Orphans ministry would like to challenge at least 10 more churches to do what Enterprise did for the walk next year.

May is National Foster Care Awareness month

May is a special month as we focus on Foster care. Please view http://www.fostercareprayervigil.org/. We will focus on prayer for foster care the week of May 17th. Also this month Coaling Baptist Church will initiate Project 24. For more information stay tuned. This will be a project to help provide needs for the foster children in the Alabama Baptist Childrens Homes, Big Oak Ranch and other foster care ranches that are starting up in this area. All churches can participate in Project 24 in your own church.
Contact Lauree at 205-792-3515 for more information and see blogspot as more information is available. This is a very simple way to follow God's command in Deut. 24 to provide for the orphan. You won't want to miss out! More info soon!!!!!

Foster children Walk Event was a tremendous success

Praise the Lord! I can't express how grateful I am for the support and participation in the Walk this Way event for foster children. We had the most gorgeous weather and the most wonderful people to come out and walk for the benefit of Tuscaloosa Co. foster children. You are Wonderful Coaling!!!! And Tuscaloosa! Thank you for showing that you truly do care and you have proven your faith by your works! The proceeds from the Walk and bake sale are now over $6250! More money is still pouring in! The foster children in this area will be greatly blessed by this fund. Thank you to all you helped to plan and set up for the event. Many worked behind the scenes but not un-noticed by the Lord! A special thanks to Enterprise Baptist church who brought over a dozen people to walk and over $800 in donations. You are an example for the churches in the area who we hope to get involved next year. I will be putting together a slide show of pics taken that day by our photographer, Brandon Katz, along with some audio taken by Christy Pepper from Moody radio the day of the walk and will post them soon. For now I want to thank you all again and a special thanks to Artur Davis, Gerald Allen, and Coaling's Mayor Charlie Foster for their attendance and remarks. Thanks to WVUA also for the news coverage. Thank you to Bro. Todd Burkhalter, pastor of Coaling Baptist church, for your dedication prayer and whole hearted support. May is National Foster Care Month and we will be working on another way to raise awareness and funds for this special month. Stay tuned. I have added some pics of the walk for you to enjoy. I pray God was Glorified and many orphans will be blessed. Ps.27:10 says, Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close!

Defend The Orphans Interview with Christy Pepper on Moody Radio

Walk This Way event will be held on Sat. March 21st at the Coaling Town Park. Hosted by Coaling Baptist Church and Defend the Orphans Ministry. This event is a walk a thon to benefit Tuscaloosa Co. foster children. Dedication ceremony at 10:00am with remarks and prayer. Bring your pledges and donations to help our area foster kids. Please listen to the following audio of an intreview with Moody Radio for more information,

*ATTENTION: This audio is property of Christy Pepper and Moody Radio South. Any copying or redistribution is strictly prohibited without the express permission of these entities.
See you at the Walk!
God Bless you!

Walk This Way Event Sat March 21st

“Walk This Way” will be held March 21st at the Coaling Town Park from 9am to 12pm. We named it this to remind us to walk in the ways of the Lord by being obedient to His call to learn to do good, love justice, defend the orphans and widows and help the needy as described in Is 1:17. This is an event that will raise awareness of the need for foster care and adoptive families in Tuscaloosa County. Participants will solicit pledges/donations to walk laps around the walking track at the park. Our goal is 300 for 300- to walk a total of 300 laps for the approximately 300 children in Alabama awaiting adoption. There is a small entry fee of $20 for adults and $15 for children, with discounts for multiple family members, for which you will receive a “Walk This Way” T shirt and a “Defend the Orphans” promotional bracelet. Of course anyone can come and walk and just bring in their donations/pledge money without paying the entry fee if they do not want a T shirt and bracelet. There is also a bake sale being held under the park pavilion. All the proceeds go to help meet needs of the Tuscaloosa County children in foster care. We will have an official dedication ceremony at 10:00am at the park pavilion. We will have informational booths on site from DHR and Alabama Mentors to give information to interested parties about foster care and adoption. The event will be held rain or shine. In the event of rain we will move to the gym at Coaling Baptist Church. We have pledge cards and sign up sheets ready. You can go ahead and order your T Shirts and bracelets early. If you need any of the forms, want to place an order, want to be a sponsor, give a donation or have questions please call Lauree at 205-792-3515. If for whatever reason someone cannot make it to the walk they can still give donations to that fund as it will be on going. I want to challenge each of you to take a stand for the orphan by taking a walk for foster kids March 21st. Challenge your Sunday school classes, youth groups, women’s ministries and children’s ministries to either come and walk or sponsor walkers.