Community Strengthening Archives

Houston Church Supports Families in Guatemala

Tags: Community Strengthening, Transitioning Guest post by Toni Steere, Director of Legacy 68:5 at Houston's First Baptist Church For Houston’s First Baptist Church, the journey to supporting family-based care for orphaned and vulnerable children began with a simple conversation. Legacy 68:5, the adoptive, foster, kinship and orphan care ministry of Houston’s First Baptist Church is committed to providing a supportive community and financial resources for local families pursuing adoption, foster care, or kinship care as well as entities serving the vulnerable globally. Over the last 15 years Legacy 68:5 has been on a wild learning [...]

Houston Church Supports Families in GuatemalaAllison Coble2024-01-10T12:58:14-05:00

Keeping Families Together During the Pandemic

Tags: Community Strengthening COVID-19 brought increased strain on poor families around the world as they struggled with the secondary impacts of closed schools, shut down businesses, and more. Families who were already vulnerable have plunged into desperation. Fortunately, there are organizations who are responding to the growing need and sharing hope in the process.Som is from a very poor tribe in Northern Thailand. When she was a young girl, only 13 years old, her parents sent her to the city to make money to support the family. But Som was tricked by her new employer, as [...]

Keeping Families Together During the PandemicAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:01:21-05:00

4 Keys to Building Up Family Care When it Seems Impossible

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Community Strengthening As the body of Christ, we are called to be advocates for orphans and vulnerable children. But what happens when we find ourselves living or working with those that don’t necessarily value the importance of family-based care? We asked HaTikva Families, a Messianic Jewish nonprofit that is pioneering the movement for family care in Israel, what advice they would give to others trying to engage communities in similarly complex environments. 1. Understand the context “We must have a solid foundation of understanding the current system we want [...]

4 Keys to Building Up Family Care When it Seems ImpossibleAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:03:55-05:00

Imagining a Different Story for Sofia and Marta

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment By Nicole Wilke Sofia* was just five years old when her mom left her home unsupervised for the first time. Her dad had left the family and had no contact. Her mom was forced to work long hours at a factory. Until recently, Sofia and her two-year-old sister, Marta*, had spent the hours away from their mom with an elderly neighbor. It wasn’t a perfect arrangement, but they were safe and she let them come for free. When their childcare provider passed away, there were no affordable childcare [...]

Imagining a Different Story for Sofia and MartaAllison Coble2024-01-10T12:39:10-05:00

Why Invest in a Strong Global Missions Partnership?

Tags: Community Strengthening Global mission partnerships can be challenging for both the U.S church and the local ministries. Recently Faith to Action was able to interview two partners who have journeyed together to strengthen families for three years to learn about their experience working together. Faith Lutheran Church is located in Appleton, Wisconsin and Puerto Abajo CarePoint supports families through medical care, counseling, after school programs, and much more in Guatemala. Tell us about your ministry before this partnership: Faith Lutheran Church: In the past, our congregation never had a single international mission focus. [...]

Why Invest in a Strong Global Missions Partnership?Allison Coble2024-01-10T13:09:57-05:00

YWAM Challenges Missions Goers to “Love Wisely”

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening Every year, around 1500 individuals from all over the world descend on Youth With a Mission’s biggest training base located in Kona, Hawaii. Youth With a Mission, or YWAM (pronounced “why wam”) as it is commonly called, is an international volunteer missions movement and one of the biggest short-term missions-sending organizations in the world. In 2017, a small group of YWAM volunteers came across ACCI’s KINNECTED resources regarding best practices in supporting vulnerable children during short-term missions. They learned research shows the majority of children in orphanages are not actually orphans, [...]

YWAM Challenges Missions Goers to “Love Wisely”Allison Coble2024-01-10T13:12:11-05:00

For One Church, Orphan Ministry Isn’t an Orphanage!

Tags: Community Strengthening A banner hangs on the wall in Christ Our Shepherd Church that reads, “My House will be called a House of Prayer for all Nations” (Mark 11:17). This is a commitment that this 300-person congregation in Southeast Washington, DC takes very seriously. So when members of the congregation came to the church in 2009 and informed us about the needs in Mongolia and work of Light of the World Church, we could not help but pay attention. We began a relationship of support and prayer that has seen the some of [...]

For One Church, Orphan Ministry Isn’t an Orphanage!Allison Coble2024-01-10T14:10:27-05:00

From Orphanage Volunteer to Family Care Advocate!

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment I’m privileged to have recently joined Faith to Action as the Director of Engagement, eager to step into a critical role of equipping churches, organizations, and individuals with information about the importance of family-based care. As I reflect on all that has prepared me for this role, I’m honored to tell the story of how I began my journey of caring about vulnerable children. In 2006, fresh out of college, feeling called to “do more” and utilize my time and (limited) talent to care for vulnerable children, [...]

From Orphanage Volunteer to Family Care Advocate!Allison Coble2024-01-10T14:09:19-05:00

6 Ways Churches Can Use Short-Term Missions to Promote Family-Based Care

Tags: Community Strengthening Many churches are choosing to move toward a missions program that supports family-based care for orphans and vulnerable children. Grace Church, based in Noblesville, Indiana, is demonstrating this shift through their partnership with the Ethiopian nonprofit Berhan Yehun. Their partnership is a wonderful example of how a short-term missions program based on best practices can take a family-strengthening approach.Grace Church believes that the best place for a child is in the family. Caring for the vulnerable is a central tenet of their missions work, so when they learned about the ways poverty can [...]

6 Ways Churches Can Use Short-Term Missions to Promote Family-Based CareAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:06:12-05:00

Asking Why: One Important Question for Family Preservation

Tags: Community Strengthening A central question that those who care for vulnerable children must ask is “Why are children separated from their families?” Answering this fundamental question clarifies what interventions could be implemented or accessed to preserve and strengthen families, potentially preventing unnecessary separation of children from their parents in the first place. Children of the Promise’s (COTP) exploration of this question led them to develop unique programs that address the specific challenges facing families in a Northern Haiti community. In 1999, two Americans, Jan and Bud Bonnema, went on a short-term mission trip to [...]

Asking Why: One Important Question for Family PreservationAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:04:27-05:00

Trips that Create Advocates for Family Care

Tags: Community Strengthening Why read about family-based care when there is an opportunity to see and hear about it firsthand? Children in Families, a local Cambodian NGO, has created a program they call Rok Kern. Rok Kern is a Khmer phrase meaning “to come and see,” and that is exactly what they invite participants to do. Aligning with many of the principles discussed in Faith to Action’s Short Term Missions: Guidance to Support Orphans and Vulnerable Children, Rok Kern trips inspire participants to become family-based care advocates. Children in Families spent much of 2017 piloting [...]

Trips that Create Advocates for Family CareAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:04:08-05:00

Advocacy Efforts Propel Family-Based Care in Kenya

Tags: Foster Care | Transitioning | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Child in Family Focus has been advocating for family-based care in Kenya since its inception in 2012. Cofounder and director Peter Muthui grew up in an orphanage in Nairobi and later worked as a social worker at the same home for ten years. His experiences both as a child living in an orphanage and as a social worker uniquely qualify him to champion the importance of family care for children. With a team of passionate and qualified Kenyans, Child in Family Focus is working [...]

Advocacy Efforts Propel Family-Based Care in KenyaAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:58:59-05:00

Students Connecting Theory to Practice in Costa Rica

Tags: Community Strengthening In April 2017, eight students accompanied Dr. Greg Burch, a professor at Multnomah University, to Costa Rica for a unique 12-day course. Students met with child welfare practitioners from a variety of local organizations, including Casa Viva and Roblealto Child Care Association, who represent best practice models along the continuum of care for children. Each day combined lectures, visits to organizations, and cultural activities. Dr. Burch describes the class as an “opportunity to connect theory to practice.” This year marked the third cohort of students from the undergraduate Global Studies program and [...]

Students Connecting Theory to Practice in Costa RicaAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:56:14-05:00

The Bond That Forms: Empowering Women with Lifesaving Maternal Care

Tags: Community Strengthening A weekly visit, a nutritious meal and the deepening of relationships. Over nine months, trust builds and a bond forms—a bond with the women who stand by her side, who hold her hand, who breathe with her, and help her bring her baby into this world safely. After the calamity and torrent of giving birth, then there is the peace—the peace of time, the peace of space, the peace of bonding and nurturing this new life. These are all luxuries afforded pregnant women and new mothers in many parts of the world, but [...]

The Bond That Forms: Empowering Women with Lifesaving Maternal CareAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:55:03-05:00

Where We Belong: The Importance of Family Tracing

Tags: Community Strengthening Every Saturday, 18 impoverished communities in and around the capital city of Uganda welcome staff and volunteers from Kids Club Kampala for games, music, Bible study, and other exciting activities. Olivia Barker White, Corrie Fraser, and Samuel Wambayo started these weekly Kids Club meetings in 2009. With an initial presence in only two communities, Kids Club Kampala spread as other neighborhoods invited the ministry to hold weekly gatherings with their children. The staff of Kids Club Kampala recruit volunteers from local churches to reach out to these communities, and both the staff [...]

Where We Belong: The Importance of Family TracingAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:51:33-05:00

A Father to Tie Her Shoes: A Ugandan Pastor’s Adoption Story

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Community Strengthening In 2014, then just a baby, Andaiye* was found abandoned in a drainage ditch in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. After she received medical treatment, it was determined she was HIV positive. She was referred to Child’s i Foundation’s Malaika Family Centre, a short-term transitional shelter for children, while social workers began searching for Andaiye’s family. Through local radio and newspaper ads, social workers with Child’s i Foundation are often successful in finding a child’s birth family, as reunification, when safe and appropriate, is the preferred option along the [...]

A Father to Tie Her Shoes: A Ugandan Pastor’s Adoption StoryAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:52:17-05:00

Better Together for Children and Families in Uganda

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening The crested crane is a symbol of pride in Uganda. It is both the national bird and the name of Uganda’s most popular sports team—the Uganda Cranes. There is, however, another organization with a national reach utilizing this symbol. CRANE, also known as the Children at Risk Action Network, is an organization based in Kampala, Uganda that utilizes the strength of networks to catalyze best practices in working with vulnerable children and families. CRANE consists of 134 churches, schools, and faith-based organizations (FBOs) that span the entire country. Members of CRANE [...]

Better Together for Children and Families in UgandaAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:35:18-05:00

The Pathway Home

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening Each child living on the street in Jinja, Uganda has a unique story, but many of their stories have similar themes. Broken homes, poverty, abuse, neglect, and addiction are common threads. And many of these children have something else in common—a family who loves them—and if provided with the appropriate supports, these families could welcome their children home. The passionate and well-trained staff at Jinja Connection run a day program open to children and youth who live on the street. Their goal is to walk with each child, at his [...]

The Pathway HomeAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:31:30-05:00

Five Lessons Learned Through Global Church Partnership

Tags: Community Strengthening Global church partnerships are an exciting idea, but pursuing a genuinely reciprocal relationship across the world can be challenging. Pulpit Rock Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has been partnering with World Orphans for three years to support a local church in Leku Keta, Ethiopia in caring for the vulnerable children there—single or double orphans living with one parent or without a birth parent in an informal foster family. Local volunteers in the Leku Keta Kale Heywet Church visit these families regularly to check on the children and their family’s overall wellbeing, provide support, [...]

Five Lessons Learned Through Global Church PartnershipAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:30:14-05:00

Breaking Isolation, Empowering Families

Tags: Community Strengthening Fifty-one percent of Cambodia’s population is under the age of 24. This is a trend found in numerous developing countries, and some see these disproportionate numbers as a potential problem. Craig Greenfield, however, saw it as a resource when he first began to look for ways to provide support for a large number of families with vulnerable children living in his Cambodian community. In typical Gospel-centered fashion where the unlikely is the likely, God is using those who are often seen as the recipients of development efforts to be the change makers. [...]

Breaking Isolation, Empowering FamiliesAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:28:22-05:00