• AN ORPHAN ASKS...

Wrap Around Support

Slide1(480)An entire chapter in Journey to the Fatherless is devoted to a wrap around support model that any church can use!

This model is described in depth with descriptions of the various resources used to wrap around the family involved with adoption, foster care and orphan care!

All of us would most likely celebrate when an orphan or vulnerable child is placed in a loving, kind and supportive home. We would applaud, as well, the family whose chosen goal is to restore the hope of that child. However, it takes more than applause to restore the years lost in loneliness or to wipe away the tears (and years) of neglect, emotional deprivation and oftentimes, cruel abuse. It takes a church community whose heart “weeps with those who weep”.

Over the past few decades, there has been an increase in adoption and foster care therapeutic tools that can assist the family with pre-adoption assessments. The long term work of restoration and integration of a child in a healthy family unit takes work, sacrifice and often times, specialized help.

Even with better therapeutic tools, it is not enough. To succeed long after the applause has ended, wrap around resources are needed. These resources will assist the family unit in a holistic fashion; working together on matters of emotional, physical and spiritual influence.

The best place for that wrap around support is from the local church.

This special chapter in Journey to the Fatherless presents a model for wrap around support that a church can use easily and inexpensively to help those families involved directly with adoption and foster care.

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.    (Acts 4:32)

What does this unique model of support accomplish?

  • It demonstrates selfless love to those unlikely to respond with anything but a heartfelt thank you.
  • It strengthens the armor of God around the most vulnerable targets of Satan’s wily schemes and at times when they need it most.
  • It brings life to the body of Christ by giving people more opportunities to be engaged in the life of an orphan as a pilgrim with purpose.
  • It shines the light of Christ brightly in local communities and on the least of these.

This chapter of Journey goes into detail on each of the five support resources that are given by the people of all ages in the local church! It is clearly a New Testament model of what the Apostle Paul had in mind:

Just as a body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. (1 Corinthian 12:12-14)