The Journey Begins

Dear Friends and Family,

I have invited you to be a part of this blog because I know, already, that you will pray for our family and the vision we've been given.  I am so excited, and perhaps a little scared, to share this with you because I know that having people moved to pray will be the first step in making this a reality.

In the ten years that Frank and I have been married, we have had many people in and out of our home.  We have enjoyed the challenges and the blessings that have come from being a part of their lives, helping them through a variety of situations, and watching them grow.  In fact, I LOVE having a table FULL of people!

We have always wanted to adopt or foster children without parents.  We just didn't know when or how that would ever happen.  For the last two or three years, we have taken a sabatical of sorts from "fulltime" ministry and have concentrated on refueling ourselves for whatever might be ahead.  Recently, Frank and I have sensed a significant stirring in our hearts to begin fostering on a large scale.  We have been both challenged and inspired by The Big Oak Ranch in Alabama, http://www.bigoak.org/, and are praying to see whether or not the Lord would have us bring something like this to the Charlotte area.

We are in the VERY early stages of this, but it seems God has been working ahead of us.  Today, after church, we heard a story about a man we have yet to meet, but already shares in our vision.  While leaving a local coffee shop to go on a prayer walk, he found a penny on the ground.  He picked it up and remarked to the friend accompanying him that "Orphans are like pennies.  They are overlooked and seen as unimportant."  They continued to the neighborhood they had planned to walk and, on entering, found a circle of 8 pennies.  "Look!  Our first group home."  They picked up the pennies and noticed that the sidewalk in front of them had pennies all along.  By the end of their walk, they had picked up over 1400 pennies.

If those pennies represented the number of orphans in the Charlotte area who could be impacted by this ministry and come to know and fall in love with the Jesus that loves them more than his own life, would you want to be a part of it? 

Thus, we have Orphans Are Like Pennies, a blog who's sole pupose is to be a place where prayer warriors can come to gather information on what God has done, is doing and how they can pray.  We invite you to be a part, to share this with others and to be encouraged.  We know that God is moving and we are thrilled to be moving with Him.

Our first prayer request would be for the assembly of a board.  We need to have people in place who know business on this scale and how to put systems into place.  Second, would be a team of people who would want to love on these kids, either as house parents, mentors, tutors, grand parents or servants to just help make things run.  Of course, location and finances will be key, but we're not there ....yet.

Thank you for your time, for your prayers and for being such vital parts of our lives.