Orphan Sunday

November 4th (the first Sunday in November) is Orphan Sunday.  November is National Adoption month and November 17th is National Adoption Day.

I thought I would share 10 Ways Every Christian Can Care for the Orphan and Waiting Child by Hope for Orphans.

1.  Pray for them.  Tape an child's picture up to be praying for each time you see it.  Visit adoptuskids.org

2.  Speak up for them.  Become a court appointed special advocate for a child in foster care.

3.  Provide for their needs.  Organize a shoe drive or foster care children or orphans.

4.  Support those who support them.  Mow, babysit, bring a meal for foster parents.

5.  Protect them from harm.  Become a foster parent.  Raise money for an orphanage.

6.  Visit them where they are.  Go on a mission trip.

7.  Give sacrificially to them.  Give to an orphan organization or Show Hope Adoption Aid.

8.  Encourage them to press on.  Become a mentor or tutor. Sponsor a child through Compassion or Vision Trust.

9.  Adopt them into your family.  Give a child a home.

10.  Mobilize your church for them.  Start an orphan ministry in your church.


Our family is also sharing the Orphan's Table.  I am hoping to do this with our adoption support group, Hope 4 Kids.  We hope to share a meal eaten by orphans around the world and go through the discussion and prayer guide.

Linked with Top Ten Tuesday, Works for Me Wednesday, Women Living Well, Raising Homemakers, Winsome Wednesday, Miscellany Monday, Hip Homeschool Hop, Monday Madness, Friday Favorite Things, and Better Mom.

Pajama Party with a Purpose

We collected our change for Sweet Sleep in January (see previous post on what we are doing this year), and celebrated with a family Pajama Party!  We collected over $50 of change that we are sending to Sweet Sleep to help provide beds for orphans!

For our party we unrolled our sleeping bags, put on our pajamas, and ate dinner on the floor in the family room while we watched the Sweet Sleep videos online.  Then we watched the movie Bedtime Stories while enjoying freshly popped popcorn and Mara's Red Hot Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing decorated with marshmellows (tastes like cinnamon popcorn)!  Yummy!

We also discovered another organization we thought we would like to learn more about since it is something we can do locally, Project Night Night -and it fits our Pajama theme.  We put in a couple calls to our local homeless shelter and hope to hear back soon.

February Scattered Gifts - Shoes for Orphan Souls - see upcoming post.

Linked with:  Hip Homeschool Hop, Works for Me Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Family Time Tuesday, Miscellany Monday, and The Better Mom.

Sweet Sleep Scattered Gifts

My husband empties his change every day into our Bear jar. So, every day it grows! We usually end up using this change as part of our Easter offering, filling baby bottles for the pregnancy center or dropping into Salvation Army pots.

But this year I thought I would use the opportunity each month to learn about different organizations making a difference for Christ to help orphans and children. (I'm sure we'll still have change for the standbys.)

This month we are learning more about Sweet Sleep.  "Sweet Sleep is a faith-based nonprofit organization which provides beds to the world’s orphaned and abandoned children, demonstrating God’s love for them and improving their quality of life.  Sweet Sleep's vision is for every orphaned child in the world to lie down in their own bed reminding them they are loved, protected and cared for with hope for the future through Jesus Christ."  On their website they have videos to watch and family mission moments that you can do at home.  I am very excited. 

At the end of the month we are going to have a Pajama Party as a family.  My daughter loves to plan parties with themes (I do too!).  I'll post more about our plans for our party later.  We will collect our change to mail off to Sweet Sleep.  Maybe we'll have enough for a couple mosquito nets, Bibles, a bed and bedding, etc.  There is curriculum we will us as we learn as part of their Nickels for Nets project.

As we learn about different organizations, maybe God will lead us to give to some on a regular basis, go on a mission trip, or who knows what God will have us do!

Would you like to join us each month?  Do you have organizations/missions we can learn more about?  I will be posting at the beginning of each month what our organization/misson/theme will be.  Some months we will be learning about more than one.  This is part of our Scattered Gifts mission of our family.

Linked with Family Time Tuesday, Works for Me Wednesday, Women Living Well, Raising Homemakers, Winsome Wednesday, and Better Mom.

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