Weekend Wrap up!

Hi all,

I thought I'd take a few minutes to provide you with a little more of an update on how the weekend in Colorado Springs went and some of the ways that God was visible throughout it all.....

Focus on the Family - the meeting went very well. As I'm sure you probably know already, Focus, along with Family Life and Steven Curtis Chapman are in the middle of a major initiative to promote the cause of orphans all over the world. Check out www.voiceoftheorphan.org. John and Dixie Bickel and I had an almost 2 hour meeting with people from the orphan care department. There are two ways that Focus on the Family invited God's Littlest Angels to take part in their initiative:
1. Dixie and I were both asked to write "articles" for their new website. They are working on a website that will provide information and "human interest" stories about people and organizations who are meeting the different areas of orphan care, from people who are running church orphan care programs, to foster parents, to people who go on mission trips, to orphanage directors to parents who have adopted. They are planning that this will be a resource to encourage people to read more about it, consider different avenues to be of service, and be able to get in touch with people who have been there and done that. So I'm going to have the opportunity to tell our adoption story on a Focus on the Family website! Talk about a God thing!
2. The other thing that Focus is working on is an "alliance" (they don't know what they are going to call it yet) where they are essentially putting together a list of organizations who work in the orphan care business and asking them to subscribe to certain standards (ethical, religious, financial, practical) so that they can recommend them (on their website, in print, etc.) to people as organizations that people should talk to if they want to pursue sponsoring a child, doing a mission trip, adopting kids, etc. In our board meeting on Saturday, we started working through the details of the standards that Focus is setting and should hopefully be able to work through the logistical and procedural steps that would be required quite soon.

After the meeting on Thursday, I called Cheryl and told her about it and said that even if nothing else happened this weekend, the trip was a resounding success. Just being able to form the start of a relationship between Focus on the Family and God's Littlest Angels is a wonderful thing, and a thing that will open more doors than any of us can imagine going forward. God is good! All the Time!

Friday night, we had a fundraiser dinner and it was a wonderful evening. I worked the registration desk with one of John and Dixie's older sons (who lives in Colorado Springs) so I actually had a chance to talk to almost everyone who was at the dinner. I don't know yet how much was raised in funds (the totalling of that will come tomorrow) but I can tell you that, no matter what the funds raised, it was a success. Let me tell you a few reasons why....
1. There were many people who commented to us on the way out, "Thanks for all you are doing to take care of those kids." "God bless Dixie," "This is really neat!"
2. Bethany Christian Services had a "booth" at the dinner and I had a chance to talk to the three people from Bethany during the dinner. To say that the three of them were excited, when I introduced myself and explained that my connection with Bethany was that I connected Bethany with God's Littlest Angels,would be an understatement!
3. There was a couple who came to the dinner because they were invited by someone. When they filled out the registration form, they didn't check the box that said, "please send me your newsletters." After the dinner, when he came to settle up on what he bought (oh, and he was the second highest buyer at the auction) he made sure that I changed his registration form so that he got on the newsletter. He then asked if he could make his check out for more than what he spent. I told him that we'd love it if he did! Well, he made it out for 2 1/2 times what he spent! There was a man who had his heart touched by God on Friday night.
God is good! All the Time!

On Saturday, we had a rare occurence. We had a board meeting where 80% of the board was all in one place. We had people from Canada, Oregon, Colorado, Haiti, and Michigan there (two board members - one from Canada and one from Arizona couldn't make it, so they teleconferenced in). We spent about three hours in the board meeting and it was very obvious that God was with everything that happened this weekend.

So, where do we stand? Well, within the next couple of weeks, the final plans for the orphanage will be finished. It's going to be a 39,000 sq. ft orphanage at an estimated cost of about $51 per square foot (pretty inexpensive when you figure it's made of stone and concrete!). That comes out to about $2 million that we need to raise. The land has been paid for, the wall around the land is being built and will be done by December, along with the maintenance/storage building and both of them are paid for. We would love to be able to start building the orphanage buildings as soon as the wall is completed. The baby house, offices, guest house and director's quarters will take about 2 years to build and then another year to build the toddler house.

What do we need? To put it very simply, we need 840 people to pledge $100 a month for the next 24 months. Or we need 1600 people to pledge $50 a month for the next 24 months. Can you help? Any amount, however big or small would be appreciated.

We have all said that we really felt that God was with everything that we did this weekend. It wasn't our doings, it was his plans. Thank you for your prayers, they have been very much needed and it has really been felt.

We'll keep you informed, please continue to lift up the cause of God's Littlest Angels and the children in Haiti in your prayers.

Tom Vanderwell
tvanderwell@sbcglobal.net
(616) 292-7559