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!

Neighborhood Engagement – A balanced approach

I love it when people give back to their community, especially in neighborhoods. It’ a great way to connect with families, get to know neighbors and neighborhood leaders and you get to find out what the “real” needs are as well as understand what people truly want for their neighborhoods. Working in communities, I’ve seen resurgence in helping out neighborhoods from clean-ups and graffiti removal to starting community gardens and hosting potlucks or block parties. In Austin and across America, more people are involved in “neighboring.” The Volunteering In America report (link: www.volunteeringinamerica.gov/TX/Austin) shows that more people are working with neighbors to fix a problem and attending community meetings, but you don’t need a report to show you how people are engaged in Austin; just go outside and see for yourself!

Helping out neighborhoods is a great way to strengthen communities and this type of engagement can be successful if you use a balanced approach; balancing passion, needs and aspirations.

• Take one part passion: what you care about – what drives you to create positive change
• Add needs to the mix: what is the real need – the critical issues
• Finish it with aspiration (or start with it!): what are the aspirations for the people living in neighborhoods – what do they care about?

We often times, just think of our passions and the need and we forget to ask what neighbors care about (I confess, I’m guilty of doing this in the past). Taking the time to ask people why they’re involved or what issues are important to them builds bridges and trust, especially in low-income neighborhoods. Ever wonder why some projects work in some neighborhoods and not in others? Part of the reasons projects don’t get traction or even work is because neighbors weren’t involved in the process; they weren’t asked for their input and so people don’t come out to support the effort. This is why it’s important to take the time to ask people what they care about; what their aspirations are for their neighborhoods and getting them involved. Taking the time to balancing these three approaches will help not only you with your project but neighborhoods in the long-run.

How will you incorporate this approach in your next project or maybe you have already? What did you learn? Pass it forward!

Adelante,

Mando

Director, Community Engagement – United Way Capital Area/Hands On Central Texas

VP, Engagement – Cultural Strategies

armando.rayo@unitedwaycapitalarea.org

www.unitedwaycapitalarea.org

www.handsoncentraltexas.org

www.cultural-strategies.com

www.elmundodemando.com

Thank you Mando, we look forward to this partnership!

In Brandon Hatmaker’s blog a couple days ago he used a phrase that speaks to this issue with complete clarity, “It’s about giving until it hurts!”  Can you imagine what that may look like for you on a personal level?  Can you imagine what that may look like for your Restore Community?  What if that meant that your Restore Community stopped serving once a month…ONLY!  What if for 2010, God really called you to begin to give more of yourself, your time, your ability, our presence, your _____________ (you fill in the blank) until it began to cost you?  What if.  What if, our lives began to be literal windows into the Kingdom of God?  What if the Kingdom of God stopped being this story we told, but began to be actualized in our lives to those around us?  What if people could say, “Do you want to know what the kingdom looks like in action?  Just look at his/her/their life?”

In the gospels, John was the one preparing the way for Jesus, he was like a herald announcing the inbreaking of this kingdom.  No, a lot of the Jews of that day were hoping for a ethnically sovereign political or military power to break in and politically defeat the Roman empire.  I don’t think John thought that, but we don’t have enough time to get into that.  However, we do know that John expected there to be some sort of immediate benefit to him.  At one point, John was arrested for the purpose of execution.  At this point John began to doubt, and began to wonder if this Jesus truly was the one.  He began to wonder if the kingdom was truly breaking in.  Would this not at least free him from the impending death?  In fact, while in prison, John began to doubt so much, that he sent a messenger to the very one he had previously said of, “behold this is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (which was much more than a moral statement).  John was now needing a bit more proof, and thus sent a messenger to find out if he was truly the Christ, the coming King, the lamb of God.  When the messenger reached Jesus he relayed John’s message to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  John was once certain, now, he was not so much.  Then Jesus responds with proof that he, was in fact the Christ, the coming King.  But Jesus’ statement of proof is not what many would have or still do expect.  Jesus said, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.  And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Did you get that?  The proof that the kingdom was breaking through was not material safety, security, or success…in fact John died at the hands of the executioner.  The sign was not a big church.  The sign was not a charismatic leader.  The sign of the in breaking of the kingdom was the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, the lepers being cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead being raised, the poor having the GOOD news preached to them!

What if? What if in one area of the City our Restore Communities began to ‘give till it hurts’?  What if our Restore Communities began to saturate one area of our city with the proof of the Kingdom?  Not that we can build the kingdom, it is already being built and advanced.  But what if we saturated this one area of the city with lives that were windows into the Kingdom?  What if, because we were willing to give in ways that cost us our time, money, abilities, emotions, and presence to saturate this one area of town, people literally began to see the kingdom break through among them.   So, what would this look like on a practical level?  I think it would look like not just one, but several people being committed weekly, several Restore Communities being committed once, twice, or even three times a month literally pouring themselves out in the following ways:

• 10-15 men and women committing to one hour a week for one year to mentor a young boy or girl at Zavala Elementary or Martin Middle School
• 2-3 Restore Communities partnered with CIS and the Austin Housing Authority to be committed to the Smart Kids Program in the Santa Rita Projects every other week.
• Some dedicated business men who can train life skills; dedicated caring women who can help train, love, and support single mothers
• Working together with Communities in Schools and the local public schools to plan special events for the parents and children in that area.
• 1-2 Restore Communities on a monthly rotation to spend time renovating the Soli Deo Gloria Building while other members of the Restore Communities spent time building relationships in the Santa Rita Projects.

What is this?  This is giving till it hurts?  This type of giving will cost us.  This is leaving the idea of just getting a single event calendared, checked off, and then move on…This is Kingdom Saturation!  I realize we have been spending a week praying about how we can begin to give in such a way that it hurts, on an individual level.  BUT what about our Restore Communities, how can we begin to give till it hurts.  I think this is it!  Let’s do it!  Let’s pour our lives out in this area in such a way, that if a messenger were to come to the residents of this area of town and ask, “Are you sure the kingdom is breaking through?  And if so how do you know?“  They could say, “The proof is that hope is coming to the hopeless, the homeless are becoming self-sustaining, the children are learning how to end the cycle of poverty, the hungry are being fed, and the gospel is being shared and lived out among them!” This my friends is KINGDOM SATURATION!