The Gospel Made Visible through God’s Provision

Many people are being moved today with God’s heart for the orphan and are thinking about adoption. It can be overwhelming and for the majority, the financial cost of adoption feels like the greatest obstacle.

It is important to remember that God does not ask us if we can afford to do it. He simply asks us if we are willing, and asks us to trust that He will provide. That may sound great to read, but when it becomes personal it is often much harder to believe and much scarier to do.

I liken this to one of those high diving stuntmen that perform at State Fairs. They usually have those funny striped bathing suits and wow the crowd by diving 100 feet into a tiny pool of water. For many, the call and cost of adoption feels like you are standing 100’ up on the platform and all you see below is a tiny pool of water. The resources don’t look like much and it feels like it is an impossible feat.

Through my work with ABBA Fund and Together for Adoption I have the joy of regularly hearing stories of how God makes seemingly impossible situations possible. That is what God is best at. He truly does provide – that includes funding what He favors. On my grandmothers fridge she has a magnet – “Where God guides, He provides.” That is our God. It is not often in our way or our timing but He does it. Not only that, but God delights to provide. And, because He is so passionate about the fatherless (Ps 68:5-6), I think He especially delights in providing for families adopting.

One of the primary means that God provides for adoption is through other people. This happens through church adoption funds (like the one started at Austin New Church), family, friends, and a lot of times through those you never would have expected!

Recently, a young pastor and his family decided to step out in faith to adopt. Their church has about 50 members and 100 folks attending. This past Sunday, the church called the pastor and his wife up to the front to give him a card and express their appreciation for pastor appreciation month. They went up, and one of the elders handed them a ard and told them to open it then. Inside was a little certificate that said:

“Just as your adoption into the family of Christ has been fully paid, so also has the adoption of your daughter been fully paid.”

And there was a big “$11,500.00″ written on it. The amount that covered the remaining costs of their adoption. After they read it, the whole church stood and started clapping!

Our adoption and His provision is one of the greatest opportunities to make the gospel visible to the world. God get’s very passionate about that, and so should we.   If God is calling you to adopt, don’t worry about where you will get the money, God already has and He will provide in His timing and His way. Maybe the greatest encouragement is the fact that God knows the cost of adoption – it cost Him the death of His son to adopt you and I. Begin by praying and then talk to your church about an adoption fund, and talk to your friends and family. Invite them to join you in the story that God is writing for your family to make His gospel visible to a watching world!

Jason Kovacs

We will be showing the film, Call & Response at the Blanton Museum of Art.

Immediately following the film, Music for the City will be hosting an after party in which you can learn about next steps to take in order to personally engage in the fight against modern slavery locally and globally (after party venue TBA).

100% of all proceeds will go to fighting human trafficking! So, join us in raising awareness and engaging the fight!

Please make sure to hold on to your ticket, as it is your ticket into the After Party as well.

Okay, in a summary, CIEE is a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to quality exchange and global learning opportunities. The CIEE USA High School Program is designated by the U.S. Department of State to sponsor our students on a J-1 visa to attend high school in America. More simply stated it is our hope to help people gain understanding, acquire knowledge and develop skills for living in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world.  The truth is, there are many benefits for students of the CIEE USA High School Program. Cultural immersion allows students to gain a personal understanding of the “American way of life.” Attending American high schools, participating in school and community-run clubs, and living with a host family give students unique firsthand access to American culture. Many students also come to the U.S. to improve their English skills. After hearing and using the language every day, many students attain fluency by the end of the program.

Now, on a less technical and more personal note, what better city to get these young adults into than Austin?  Austin is one of the best areas in Texas for our students and there are not many challenges there with the schools as with other areas of Texas.  Austin truly offers these students the opportunity to experience a wide variety of American culture done right!  So, here is the deal, I could go on and on about what it means to partner with ciee, but I think it would be better to hear from the students themselves.  So, click HERE to read stories and watch videos from some past foreign exchange students. Also, if you would like to read more about the benefits in being a host family, click HERE, and to find us on facebook simply click HERE.

Sam, thank you very much for taking the time and informing us about the great exchange program of ciee.  If anyone reading this article knows of anyone who would be interested in this type of cultural exchange, please email Matthew Hansen at matthewdhansen@me.com.

Stacy Bruce

become a great partner to Restore Austin and Austin New Church.  In partnership, we have about 8 couples working through the foster-to-adopt process in order to give these children homes they deserve, along with that we have just recently began to inquire about working with them in areas of tutoring and mentoring through the summer.  But not only that, Stacy has become a pretty good friend to Restore Austin’s Matthew Hansen.  Stacy is an amazing leader and is doing some amazing things with Caring Family Network.  If you want to know more, read below:

In 1999, I was hired by Caring Family Network (CFN), a local foster care and adoption agency in Austin.  I was a young, green social worker ready to take on the world.

In 1999, Darrel and Melody Dussetschleger became a licensed foster family with CFN.  At that time, Darrel and Melody had 3 children of their own (high school and middle school aged).

In 1999, Jessy and Shela were removed from their young mother in Corpus Christi and put into the State’s Care.  After several placements, Jessy (age 4) and Shela (age 3) were placed in the Dussetschleger foster home and I became their case manager.

That year, all of our lives changed.

This story illustrates the biblical need to focus on God’s calling, outlined in James 1:27, right here in Central Texas.  If it weren’t for Darrel and Melody’s faith and trust in God’s calling, faith in one another, faith in their own family and faith in CFN, Jessy and Shela would have very different lives today.

And so the story begins…Jessy, born deaf, was placed in the State’s care at age 4.  He was removed from his young mother’s care due to the neglectful environment of his biological home.  While in his mother’s care, Jessy never learned to communicate.  After six foster care placements in three months and no attachment to a caring adult, Jessy had absolutely no communication skills, no exposure to rules or structure and no social skills.  I remember thinking “this child reminds me of the Tasmanian devil.” Jessy arrived at the Dussetschleger’s heavily medicated.

Shortly after placing Jessy with the Dussetschleger’s, we placed his little sister, Shela.  Shela was 3 years old, had been in 9 foster homes (including psychiatric hospitalizations) in six months and also appeared to be deaf.  It wasn’t until a thorough medical examine was completed that we were told her hearing was fine.  As I write, I recall a picture of Shela taken around the time of placement.  In this photo, she is holding a baby doll.  While most three-year-olds are full of life, Shela appeared lifeless, her 3-year-old spirit was deeply buried by the abuse and neglect, and there appeared to be no life in her little body. She was also heavily medicated.  But at last they had arrived in a safe, nurturing family, committed to accepting this challenge.

Within the first couple of years, the entire Dussetschleger family became fluent in sign language.  Jessy was beginning to communicate and Shela’s eyes were showing signs of life and love.  While Jessy continued to struggle with his disability, social skills and many developmental delays, he was beginning the process of healing. At that time, Melody began the daunting task of navigating the Medicaid system to pay for a cochlear implant for Jessy.  After advocating up the chain of command and ending with Carole Keaton Strayhorn, Melody was successful!

In 2005, Shela reached permanency through adoption by the Dussetschleger’s.  Due to the financial difficulty of meeting Jessy’s special needs, the Dussetschleger’s chose not to adopt Jessy at that time.  However, they remained 100% committed to him and in all of our minds; he had reached permanency as well.

During the July 2008 CFN Annual Summer Celebration, I was privileged to watch as in walked two lanky, well-adjusted, UNMEDICATED, much loved, and very beautiful, young teenagers.  Shela spent her time admiring and picking out the perfect prom dress, while Jessy spent time talking (yes, talking not just signing) with staff, foster parents and other children.

At the August 2009 CFN back-to-school celebration, I was able to erase the haunting picture of Shela at age three, broken by such a wounded spirit.  It has been replaced with a vision of life and energy that she emitted with every step she took.  And there sat Jessy, as if completing the cycle of healing, holding his 18 month old foster sister, a beautiful little girl, also a victim of child abuse and neglect.   The unconditional love, the commitment, and the faith in God’s Plan…the healing is so apparent.

Now to the present day!  Jessy continues to struggle with his disabilities and has been diagnosed with a macular degenerative disease.  He attends the Texas School for the Blind, where he is loved and quite successful.  In fact, Jessy has made such an impression that the school produced a video of him to use as a model for all deaf blind children in the U.S and Canada. The Dussetschleger’s will adopt Jessy within the next month. Shela has graduated from middle school and moved to High School.  She is a beautiful young woman, full of life.  I’ve watched Jessy and Shela grow and heal through our Powerful God and the powerful therapeutic care, love and nurturing that the Dussetschleger’s have provided to these two children.  It is almost impossible for me to have a conversation about Jessy and Shela without crying or at least tearing up.  Gone are the Tasmanian devil and the little girl so wounded she showed no spirit. What a powerful testimony to a family who chose to put God first and to allow Him to use their hands, their hearts and their family and community to bring healing to these children.  Today, the Dussetschleger family consists of two proud doting parents, 5 children, one grandchild and another grandchild on the way.  Along the way, the Dussetschleger’s have provided a loving, healing home to more than 20 foster children with special needs.  And that young case manager that was ready to take on the world is now the CEO of Caring Family Network.  I can see the Fingerprints of God all over this!!!

Our lives changed forever!!!!

WHY FOSTER, WHY ADOPT the children of Central Texas.  The numbers speak for themselves:

In 2009,

• There were 68,326 confirmed cases of child abuse/neglect in the State of Texas
• 12,107 children were removed from their home as a result of a CPS Abuse/Neglect Investigation
• On August 31, 2009, there were 15,932 children in foster care
• At the end of 2009, there were 6,386 children waiting for adoption
• In Region 7 (Travis and surrounding counties) alone, there are 1,761 children in foster care
• Sadly, in 2009, 1453 children emancipated from the State’s care without a family.

Why foster or adopt or get involved…because James 1:27 gives us our instructions.  If you are called to care for children from hard places, if you are ready to be a part of one of the most unique, exciting and meaningful experiences in life, if you are ready to be challenged, changed and charged with an awesome privilege and responsibility, if you are ready…Texas children, like Jessy and Shela are ready and waiting for you!

Stacy, thank you so much for your friendship, your leadership, and your commitment to these children.  We look forward to a much deeper partnership as time goes on.  We love you and all those at Caring Family Network!

This month’s guest post is by Alan Graham, the founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes and the new Campaign, I Am Here, which became one of the number one stories on CNN.  Alan has become a real friend to Austin New Church and Restore Austin.  We have learned a lot from Alan, as would any one.  Please take the time to not only read this post, but to wrestle with it, and your response to it.

Who Is Really Hungry?

This year Mobile Loaves & Fishes will serve over 500,000 thousand meals and will probably exceed having served over 2,000,000 (yes! Two million!) since our inception in 1998. This is incredible but what is astonishing is how many people it took to deliver those meals to the streets directly where people are. Today we have nearly 13,000 volunteers in six cities throughout the US dedicated to serving these meals with love. Every night these 17 catering trucks loaded with food, clothing and volunteers head out on to their respective streets to serve these meals. With such a large army it begs the question of who is really hungry.

Although Mobile Loaves & Fishes is known as a feeding ministry what we really do is to empower people into a life style of service to our brothers and sisters who live on the streets. This is really important on a number of levels. To have thousands of people working every month donating their time in service to others is really something. I read once where each volunteer hour has an economic value of about $17! WOW! When you empower so many people in service the way we do paradigms and stereotypes change. When paradigms and stereotypes change you suddenly find yourself with an army of advocates. This is one of the powerful resource engines for Mobile Loaves & Fishes.

Now we can advocate for homes. Go to www.mlfnow.org/HOW to take a look at what we are doing to make people “homeful”. To make people “homeful” we really need to understand what home is. In the recently published groundbreaking book Beyond Homelessness the authors identify eight characteristics of home:

1. Home is a place of permanence
2. Home is a dwelling place
3. Home is a storied place
4. Home is a safe resting place
5. Home is a place of hospitality
6. Home is a place of embodied inhabitation
7. Home is a place of orientation
8. Home is a place of affiliation and belonging

Who is really hungry? We all are! Food is merely the conduit to connect human to human, heart to heart. Some will be nourished physically and others will be nourished spiritually. If you want to become a part of our army go check out www.mlfnow.org or email us at info@mlfnow.org.

-Alan

The global orphan crisis seems to have captured the hearts and minds of people inside the church, and also outside the church.  It is deeply encouraging, as many have chosen not to ignore or look away from this crisis.

The more conversations I have, the more people want to understand how we got here.  And by “here,” I mean the orphan crisis.   How, in a world of such deep wealth, intelligence and connectedness, did we come to a place where millions of kids are suffering, alone!

Let’s take a look at some possible factors:

War

When you research the global orphan crisis, war becomes an obvious target.  When men and women die, kids are left behind to fend for themselves.  Even when good Samaritans, or extended family take in these orphans, they also suffer.  Therefore, you can track a chain-reaction destabilizing effect on war-torn countries, that last for decades.   It’s truly crippling!

Extreme Poverty

Poverty is quite hard to process.  We live in a world where 1 billion people don’t have access to clean water.  Now think about this for a second; How can a people-group function, if they don’t have a clean water-source?  Of course there are other issues, such as, political uprisings, famines, and natural disasters that causes economic collapse.  For instance, Zimbabwe is a country that for years could not afford to keep the power grid working, they could not pay for food to be imported into the country, and they had civil uprising, which caused a collapse in their farming structures.  All these issues lead to extreme poverty.

Disease

The fact remains, that diseases such as aids, and malaria wreck havoc on people-groups that don’t have access to proper medicine.  A child in Africa dies every 30 seconds because of malaria.  There are some 15 million aids-orphans around the globe, that have lost parents to this crisis.  Again, it’s easy to see how this would effect a society, foe generations.

Lack of concern

However, the biggest reason that there are some 144 million orphans in the world today, is a simple lack of compassion. There is simply to much wealth and intelligence to assume we can’t do anything about this crisis.  And above all that, in general the church (for decades) failed to respond on a mass-scale.  Christians, like myself, simply ignored the plight of the orphan.  More than war, or extreme poverty, or disease, (as bad as all of those things are) the biggest reason, in my opinion, is the lack of concern by the masses.

Hope

With that being said, we now live in a generation that refuses to ignore this issue.  We’re also not scared to tackle the problem.  There is hope that we can turn the tide, we can make a difference, and we will fight no matter what.  It’s hard for people to understand extreme poverty, it’s next to impossible to comprehend war, and we still struggle with diseases. However, this is where EVERYONE can help.  We can simply just care, and also, get our friends to care.  When that happens, we can become intentional, and focus on solutions that can change the scope of extreme poverty.  Scriptures like Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 58,  Luke 4:16-22, Acts 11:27-30 , Gal 2:9-10, and James 1:27 are being taken seriously, again!

My hope and passion is that the church will lead the way, and fight for the orphan.  That we will unite, sacrifice, and take action to make a change, to show the world the character and nature of God through His people, the church.

We can end this crisis, we can crash into eternity doing something to cause impact, and we will rescue orphans, restore their hope and renew their communities.

Chris, thank you, and the team at HELP!  We look forward to the partnership between HELP, Restore Austin, and Austin New Church!

I am honored to introduce you all to Roger Temme.  Not only is Roger part of an amazing organization providing emotional and relational care to those living with HIV/AIDS and Cancer, but Roger has become a good friend.  He has a heart of gold, and his life truly represents one who cares.  If you have any interest in serving and loving those who are ill, let me recommend working and volunteering with this organization.  I personally have served with them, and it has been amazing!  The story is too long to add to this post, so I’ll stop talking and let you read Roger’s guest blog:

Sometimes sharing a simple cup of coffee can be the beginning of a wonderful collaboration.  And so it happened that I had the real pleasure of meeting  a wonderful human being who simply wanted to make a difference in the lives of people in need.  That cup of coffee at the Starbucks on Oltorf and I-35 with Matthew Hansen began a wonderful partnership between Austin New Church and The Care Communities which I hope will continue in one way or the other for many years to come.

The vision of Austin New Church is to care passionately for all—especially the abandoned and the helpless. The vision of The Care Communities is to provide care unconditionally for folks living with AIDS or cancer and to make sure that no one goes through their illness alone.  What makes churches and organizations work well is a common vision that is lived out in a practical way.  One of my favorite quotes that I often used in sermons and presentations comes from Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite spiritual authors, is “Every human being has a great, yet often unknown gift: to care, to be compassionate, to become present to the other, to listen, to hear and receive—if that gift would be set free and made available—Miracles could take place.”  That quote has become my personal mission statement as I come on my 11 years at The Care Communities.  I have been blessed to meet folks like Matthew and congregations like Austin New Church.  I invite you to become part of our partnership.  Check out or website  www.thecarecommunities.org and become a part of a Care Team.  And as St. Francis said to his followers often, “Pace e Bene”   “Peace and all Good”

Roger Temme
Outreach Coordinator
The Care Communities

I just read some tips to writing good blogs. Two of the tips: make your opinion known and keep it less than 250 words. I’ll try to do both.

Austin New Church and Restore Austin are invaluable resources in this community! DONE!  Just kidding.  Specifically, they are incredible and amazing partners to Communities In Schools of Central Texas (CIS).  Their pure desire to serve the community to make it stronger is apparent every time we interact.  It is this pure desire, coupled with boundless energy, caring people and true passion that makes them effective. They provide support to CIS in so many ways. They donate school supplies to our students. They make our CIS counseling rooms bright and therapeutic. They sponsor our families around the Holidays. They raise funds and awareness by running on Team CIS. They respond during crisis. They volunteer at special events. They help us however we need help.

This is how they do it. And it works.  We tell them the needs in the communities we serve. They LISTEN to those needs. They either respond directly or connect us with another resource in the community (usually another church plant) to meet the needs.  Repeat again and again.

Seems simple and it works! Another key to the success of our partnership is a strong and trusting relationship. This mutual trusting relationship helps us achieve our mission of helping kids stay in school and prepare for life. Amen!

Do you want to get involved with us? Click HERE and become part of the change this city needs and deserves!

Alissa Magrum

Director of Volunteer Services and Community Partnerships

Communities In Schools of Central Texas

Twitter: ciscentraltx

Alissa, thank you very much for your partnership with Austin New Church and Restore Austin…we look forward to a long relationship of affecting the individual, collective and social good of this city!