Allison Coble, Author at Faith to Action

HelpKids Centre: Supporting the Love of Families in Sri Lanka

Tags: Transitioning | Economic Empowerment Family-based, alternative care for orphans and vulnerable children is on the rise in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Alison Atkinson and her husband Narel joined Australian Christian Churches International Relief (ACCI) 10 years ago, as field workers in Colombo. They established the HelpKids Centre, a local, community-based organization that strengthens local families living in slums and severe poverty. It functions as a community center, providing early childhood education, daycare support, counseling for parents, and medical assistance, supports women in accessing vocational training, and coordinates women’s and children’s clubs. The Atkinson’s approach to [...]

HelpKids Centre: Supporting the Love of Families in Sri LankaAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:15:06-05:00

My Most Important Lesson as an Adoptive Mother

Mother’s Day is a fun celebration in my home. We go to church in the morning and then spend the afternoon taking a local hike as a family. If we have any energy left, we end the day with a trip to our local garden center, where I pick one last tomato plant to put in the garden before summer arrives. It’s a fun day, but for my family it’s also underscored by pain. As an adoptive family, we never forget that the creation of our family is predicated on loss. Before I met my daughters, I learned about [...]

My Most Important Lesson as an Adoptive MotherAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:14:17-05:00

Faith to Action at CAFO 2015

This week Faith to Action is attending the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Applied Research & Best Practice Symposium and Christian Alliance for Orphans’ CAFO 2015 Summit. The Symposium looks at evidence-based practices for OVC researchers and practitioners and the Summit brings together nearly 3,000 orphan care advocates, pastors, leaders, and foster and adoptive parents from over 35 countries. The event seeks to inspire and equip Christians to care for orphans with wisdom-guided love through exploration family preservation and global orphan ministry, foster care and adoption. The CAFO Summit has become the national hub for what Christianity Today called, “the [...]

Faith to Action at CAFO 2015Allison Coble2024-01-17T19:13:28-05:00

International Wholistic Missions Conference in Peoria, AZ this week!

The International Wholistic Missions Conference will commence for a third time April 29th through May 1st in Peoria, AZ with the goal of equipping Christians, churches and organization for word and deed ministries that transform lives and communities. This year's theme is "The Whole Church on Mission" with tracks for On Mission to the Poor, the City, the Workplace and more. As part of the track for On Mission to a Broken World, Leadership Council member Elli Oswald will represent Faith to Action. Elli will facilitate a workshop on Orphans and Vulnerable Children: How Churches Can Support Family and [...]

International Wholistic Missions Conference in Peoria, AZ this week!Allison Coble2024-01-17T19:13:10-05:00

The GO Exchange: Creating Jobs, Giving Hope, Strengthening Families

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Makilene was an unemployed mother of six and living in extreme poverty in Haiti. She realized over time that she could no longer care for all her children, so she faced the heartbreaking decision to give up her youngest child and took her child and traveled to Port-Au-Prince. She had heard about a woman named Shelley Clay who helps children. Makilene thought she was knocking on the door of an orphanage for her infant daughter when she arrived in Port-Au-Prince, but a very different opportunity awaited her — one with hope [...]

The GO Exchange: Creating Jobs, Giving Hope, Strengthening FamiliesAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:12:59-05:00

OVC Resources for you!

Faith to Action is excited to share a great resource with our networks. Since the relaunch of OVCsupport.org in July of last year, there has been a rejuvenated sense of collaboration and sharing of additional resources produced by the OVC community. OVCsupport has been hard at work in their mission to make as much of it as possible easily accessible through their What’s new? blog, featuring articles, announcements, and their expanded news of the week feature, as well as through our ever-growing resource database. Sign up for the OVCsupport bulletin in order to bring some of the highlights directly [...]

OVC Resources for you!Allison Coble2024-01-17T19:11:53-05:00

The Jubilee Centre: Transforming Zambian Communities through the Local and Global Church

Tags: Community Strengthening In 1999 Lawrence and Martha Temfwe founded the Jubilee Centre in Zambia. The center empowers and trains churches in under-resourced communities to give integral care to all people — especially orphans and vulnerable children — and bring change to their communities. Currently, they are serving over 94 churches and have a staff of 13 people. Zambia has a great need for community-based orphan care. “Zambia has a long road ahead,” says Lawrence Temfwe. In this country, over 1,700,000 are orphans and vulnerable children, which is 12 percent of the population, and nearly [...]

The Jubilee Centre: Transforming Zambian Communities through the Local and Global ChurchAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:11:29-05:00

Out of Isolation and Into Families

Tags: Transitioning | Economic Empowerment In Armenia there are around 4,500 children living in residential institutions, a situation caused by the weak social protection system, an insufficient number of community-based services and lack of gate-keeping mechanisms due to overall weakness and inefficiency of the system, leftover from the Soviet Union. In the last decade, the Government of Armenia (GoA) initiated the process of reorganization of residential institutions for children and began making significant investments in the development of social services and program alternatives to residential care. However, Armenia faces multiple difficulties in sustaining various initiatives [...]

Out of Isolation and Into FamiliesAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:10:03-05:00

Global Leadership Network (GLN) 2015

This week Faith to Action will be participating in The Chalmer Center's GLN 2015. Chalmers' work focuses on helping churches understand poverty, poverty alleviation, and equips churches to better understand how to shift toward a healthier framework of engaging low-income communities in order to empower the poorest of the poor. The GLN 2015 conference will explore helping without hurting in short-term missions as well as church-centered poverty alleviation approaches that empower the poor. Faith to Action is excited to join the conversation and establish relationships with churches and other leaders focused on poverty alleviation best practices. We are also looking forward [...]

Global Leadership Network (GLN) 2015Allison Coble2024-01-17T19:09:14-05:00

World Relief: Savings for Life

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Margret unexpectedly found herself as the sole breadwinner for her five children — three girls and two boys. She was overwhelmed and left with little hope. “It was as if all the gates and doors of hope in life for us were closed leaving us in a dark room,” she said. Her oldest daughter Mwende had just become a candidate to advance in Kenya’s primary school with the hope of continuing secondary education the following year. However, Margret struggled to make ends meet by going from house to house [...]

World Relief: Savings for LifeAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:08:42-05:00

God’s Word: The Heartbeat of Love for the Orphan

Tags: Community Strengthening “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12 Where in the world today is the church responding to the orphan crisis? Ethiopia, home to one of the largest orphan populations in the world, has over five million orphaned and vulnerable children. Bethany Christian Services (BCS) is answering that call by using the power of God’s Word to support local Ethiopian Christians to provide [...]

God’s Word: The Heartbeat of Love for the OrphanAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:07:44-05:00

Upcoming Webinar from CAFO on February 25th!

Every month, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO), hosts a webinar series in order to give local advocates access to the knowledge and experience of top Alliance member churches and organizations nationwide. Webinars cover key topics on adoption, foster care and/or global orphan care. Each webinar is hosted by a local church orphan ministry and co-presented by one or more national experts on the subject matter. This month's webinar is entitled, "Telling Your Story," and it will focus on the importance of how you tell the story of your ministry to engage others in the work of caring for children. This [...]

Upcoming Webinar from CAFO on February 25th!Allison Coble2024-01-17T19:06:59-05:00

Pioneering Foster Care in Peru

Tags: Foster Care | Economic Empowerment In May 2007, Buckner Peru and Peru's National Comprehensive Family Welfare Program (INABIF) signed an agreement to develop a foster care program. On March 10, 2008, Buckner Peru made history when officials from the Ministry of Women and Social Development and Buckner placed eight Peruvian children into the country’s first foster families. Prior to this significant event, there was no foster care in Peru. Nearly seven years later, children are thriving in families in ways that would have been unknown to them without the foster care option. Their foster [...]

Pioneering Foster Care in PeruAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:06:30-05:00

Faith to Action Annual Meeting & Task Force Meeting

Faith to Action will hold its annual meeting with the Leadership Council and Advisory Group this Thursday, February 5, 2015 in Washington, DC. Leadership Council and Advisory Group members will share their expertise, skills and resources through active engagement, feedback and action planning. This is an opportunity for Faith to Action to give full reports on projects and deliverables happening over the last year as well as discuss strategic engagement opportunities and plan for the year ahead. Following Faith to Action's annual meeting, Faith to Action will host the Better Practice Network and Referral Task Force Meeting on Friday, [...]

Faith to Action Annual Meeting & Task Force MeetingAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:05:37-05:00

Bopoma Villages: Strengthening Rural Zimbabwean Communities

Tags: Community Strengthening Bopoma Villages is a faith-based organization providing clean water, food security, and orphan care in Zimbabwe. Strengthening a community strengthens families within it, and this organization is able to provide direct and indirect care for orphans and vulnerable children within their communities and families. Bopoma Villages works in 10 villages in or just outside of Zaka, a rural area of Zimbabwe. Unemployment in this area is estimated to be over 80%. Many children and families lack the most basic necessities and live in severe deprivation. Child-headed households and those headed by elderly [...]

Bopoma Villages: Strengthening Rural Zimbabwean CommunitiesAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:05:08-05:00

Promoting Family Life, Not Orphanages

Today marks 5 years since the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The earthquake left much of the capital and surrounding area in ruins in one of the worst natural disasters of modern times. Although the government said more than 300,000 people were killed, the exact toll is unknown because there was no systematic effort to count bodies amid the chaos and destruction. In the midst of the chaos, families were separated and children orphaned. Following the earthquake, teams poured in from around the world to try to help respond, making it one of the most complicated emergency responses to date, [...]

Promoting Family Life, Not OrphanagesAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:04:26-05:00

Bethany’s Foster-to-Adopt Program

Tags: Foster Care The family unit is at the core of African culture and society; decisions are family decisions and the emphasis is placed on the collective will rather than the individual. When a child becomes an orphan because of poverty, war, death, illness, or some other cause, relatives will often take in a child. However, the idea of taking in a child who is not from one’s own family or tribe is a newer concept. Ethiopia, home to 80 million people, has over 5 million orphans or vulnerable children. The government child welfare system in Ethiopia [...]

Bethany’s Foster-to-Adopt ProgramAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:03:35-05:00

Care for Children: Seeking to place 1M Chinese orphans into local family care

Tags: Foster Care Lu Lu* is from Daxing, China (a suburb of Beijing) and was in institutional care from birth until he was four-years-old. When he was young, he was diagnosed with congenital heart disease and at the age of four, he was removed from institutional care and placed with a foster family. At first, the transition was difficult. He was withdrawn, had no interest in playing with toys, and would rarely speak. However, after living with his family for over three years, Lu Lu’s behavior transformed. Care for Children’s vision is for one million children [...]

Care for Children: Seeking to place 1M Chinese orphans into local family careAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:33:06-05:00

The Invitation and Hope of Advent

The season of Advent is upon us. Advent, which means coming in Latin, invites us to slow down and actively wait with great anticipation for the birth of Christ. The rhythm of Advent draws us closer to God in hope, preparation, joy, love, and through the presence of Christ Himself. In the midst of the holiday season, we are also reminded – through daily headlines and through our care for and connection to others – that we live in a world of profound brokenness. With more than 153 million children that have lost one parent and 18 million that have [...]

The Invitation and Hope of AdventAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:32:16-05:00

A Family of His Own

Tags: Foster Care | Transitioning | Economic Empowerment He has one of those personalities that you can’t forget. His nickname “Pastor” came from his love of standing up surrounded by a crowd of his peers preaching from the Bible. Captain America or Iron Man might even at times make an appearance on the Sea of Galilee. Nine-year-old Jason, brings a continual joy and laughter to those who know him. Although Jason’s joy is palpable, the road in his short life has had its share of challenges. Born to a mother with schizophrenia, Jason [...]

A Family of His OwnAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:31:35-05:00

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About Allison Coble