I would like to offer a few suggestions from our experience. I have personally seen these organizations budget minimal resources very wisely. They make every penny stretch. Ten dollars given to them goes further than giving twenty to others. In my opinion, by giving to these particular organizations, you will be getting the most “bang for your buck”. More money DIRECTLY to those who truly need. People who are truly trying, but are unable (for a variety of reasons) to help themselves. The key is to find trusted, grassroots organizations. Government resources are continually mismanaged. Even larger religious organizations tend to get too big and more and more of the money is used for advertising and operating expenses. Larger government organizations collect and deport donated goods and even cash resources get tied up in customs at the foreign government offices. So many good hearted Americans give and don’t realize that their donations go to waste because of bureaucracy. And, let’s face it, many governments (especially foreign) are corrupt. It can be very hard to get aid to the people who actually have need. Even handing cash to a “needy” adult doesn’t mean that the funds will be used responsibly or that their child will actually be provided for. It’s important to find trusted, grassroots organizations that oversee the donations and ensure that the money is being spent wisely. Because many people are aware of our partnerships with grassroots organizations, we are often asked for advice on how to give wisely. Here are a few suggestions for local and international efforts. I believe that God leads every one of us to GIVE. The poorest of our society are truly richer than most of the world! I also believe that different people are called to give to different types of organizations. So, here are some dollars well spent.

LOCAL COMMUNITY – My church, New Life Church of Gahanna, has a benevolence fund. If you give to New Life Church of Gahanna (www.enewlife.com) and specify “BENEVOLENCE” in the memo, 100% of your money will go directly to a needy family in our community. The good news is that New Life doesn’t just give hand outs. They also walk the family through relationship counseling, employment assistance, and even financial counseling to help the families become self sustaining. I know that not all of you are Christians, but this particular church is very responsible, very resourceful, and you can be sure that your donation WILL reach a family who truly needs it. Even if your religion is different, you can trust this organization to handle your funds wisely. Consider also giving to the “GENERAL” fund that helps keep the “lights on” and funds the support services (like counseling).

LOCAL – Inner city outreach
Visit our partner church that understands the needs of the impoverished in our community and helps them to help themselves. Visit www.ekklesiacolumbus.org and click on the “Franklinton” link.

Haiti (food, shelter, education for orphans) – We adopted from the Haitian Interdenominal Shelter for Children. (www.hishomeforchildren.com). The couple that runs this orphanage is the REAL deal! They also employ a handful of Haitian adults to assist in the day-to-day operations. They are good, honest, hard working people. The husband has a master’s in education and is a principal of a Haitian school. He uses his earnings to provide for him, his wife, and their three adopted Haitian children who live with them. The money that you give goes DIRECTLY to the needs of the orphan children in their care. The wife is a licensed social worker and trained paramedic. They provide daily medical care, food, and education for the children in their care. They also facilitate adoptions. They are the least expensive adoption facilitator that I’ve seen in Haiti. They don’t scrape off of the top for themselves. In all of the corruption, they are a light in the darkness! The children are WELL cared for. They have a paypal account on their webpage. Your donation is tax deductible. Their food bill alone is $3000 a WEEK. Can you imagine? These children get three balanced meals per day. That’s very unusual in Haiti. Even among orphanages. You can hear more about current, specific needs at www.facebook.com/hishomeforchildren. John spent three weeks at the orphanage directly following the earthquake. We’ve seen them operate first hand. It’s the real deal!

Haiti – Milk money (formula for orphans)
This is also a resource that provides for the Haitian Interdenominational Shelter for Children. A fellow adoptive mom hand delivers formula to the orphanage every three months. She pays all of her own travel expenses and uses 100% of the donations to buy formula to hand deliver to the orphanage. The cost of formula in Haiti is outrageous. This is the most cost effective way to get the formula directly from our store shelves (where it’s less expensive) to the babies mouths. She budgets the money well, looks for discounts, and buys store brand formulas to make the money stretch as far as possible. Did you know that infant formula is FDA regulated? Compare the nutrition labels sometime. The store brand is just as good as the premium and this gets more formula for the money. Julie also has an arrangement with the airline carrier. They don’t charge her fees to carry the mass deliveries and her donations are carried directly to the orphanage. No getting stuck in customs. http://www.hishomeforchildren.com/Julie/MilkMoney.html When John travelled to Haiti, he travelled with Julie and a team of fellow adoptive parents. Again, we’ve seen it first hand. It’s real. It’s wise. It works!

 Uganda, Africa (food, shelter, education)
Our church has a direct partnership with a small population of families. Another grassroots organization where money goes directly to those most in need for food, shelter, and education. Helping this small village of people to become self-sustaining. They desperately want to be self-sustaining but their opportunities are few and the education is lacking. We can teach them to “fish” versus just “frying it up for them”. Our missions director is phenomenal at understanding the need and facilitating the helpers. Missionaries raise their own funds to travel. John has been to Uganda twice. You can visit your sponsor child and the village whom we serve. These are real people who actually receive the gifts that you give. Consider giving at www.enewlife.com and designate “Mukono” for 100% of your donation to reach the needs of this village. For information on short term mission trips, go to www.enewlife.com/missions. For child sponsorship and more information about our partnership, go to http://newlifeuganda.wordpress.com/

HAITI (medical, food, shelter, education)
Many of you will recall that Jolanda was abandoned to a children’s hospital in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti and lived there for 18 months before she came home. Grace Children’s Hospital is the premier children’s hospital in Port-Au-Prince. They rehabilitated my child from the 10-month-old, frail and very ill child to the healthy and thriving child that you saw at homecoming. They provide premier health care and balanced, nutrient rich food, and even have a classroom for the children who live on the inpatient ward. This education is often the only education that these children ever receive. For more information and a tax deductible donation, please visit www.internationalchildcare.org. John, Markaila, and I have all visited this hospital. It is clean and well run by Haitian staff. It is supported by US and Canadian donors, but their local staff is 100% in order to help Haitians help themselves by providing jobs!

HAITI (boys home and special needs ministry)
Do you see the picture of the beautiful mural on the lefthand side of my screen? During my time in Haiti, I had the privilege of staying at a guest house that was run by a local boys home. These were some of the most polite, courteous, and responsible young men I’ve ever met. At St. Joseph’s Home for Boys, they not only have all of their needs met, but they are being raised to be leaders in their society. Many of the boys who have aged out continue to serve the younger ones by keeping the mission going. They also run another home that cares for special needs children and adults who are typically cast off by society. This is an outstanding ministry who operates ona very small budget. Your money gets directly into the hands of our ministry partners. You can read more about the mission and can give your tax deductible donation at www.heartswithhaiti.org

I’m in a vulnerable spot right now. I had a medical emergency on Oct 24th and have been basically on my butt ever since.  Being the creation that God made me though, I can’t help but want to help other people while I’m in this position. My loving family has told me to chill out, relax, and heal. STOP TRYING TO HELP PEOPLE. I can’t help myself. I’m hard wired this way and the truth is, in moderation, it’s part of my healing and recovery. I need to be used of God to help other people. I need it. When I help other people it makes me feel good and God speaks to me through the revelation that He gives me to share with others. So, my helping right now is just going to basically be sharing my story. Because, I believe that in my hurt, there is healing for me and for anyone else who will take my testimony to heart.

My spiritual gifts are Exhortation, Teaching, and Counseling. That is who I am! I encourage people. I teach them about who God is and I counsel them through their problems. It’s who God made me to be. Even when I’m sick, this is my nature. I exude love because Jesus Christ lives in me. That love manifests first in protecting and nurturing my family. First is John and my amazingly beautiful and talented children. But, it extends to my mom, my dad, my brother, my step parents, my nieces and nephews, my in-laws, my dearest friends who are like family, my community, and even to every single precious person that God ever created. Yes, I definitely try to take on too much. I need to work on that. I can’t fix everyone. Man I’d like to though. What I can do is pray. I can pray and ask God what He is asking me to do to help. I can accept every Divine appointment that He lays before me. Imagine if every single person on this Earth surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ and committed themselves to live fully in service to His will. Every single humanitarian crisis on this Earth would be solved immediately. Truly! If we all lived with love as our first and sole motivator. Think about it. Most crimes are driven by greed and pride. And every single one of those people has been hurt in some way. They are living out of their brokenness. Their cure and the salve for their soul is the God-shaped hole that lives inside of them. They just don’t know it. Furthermore, every hungry or needy person could be fed, clothed, and cared for if those of us that have excess would share. I’m not talking about government programs. They don’t work right and they never will. I’m talking about common sense and human kindness….driven by the love of our Creator. It’s no wonder that some people who are sold out (like me) drive themselves into the ground physically and emotionally trying to solve the world’s problems. I don’t need to be more selfish. Sure…I need to learn better boundaries and I need to accept my limits. BUT….more people need to have a portion of the compassion that God placed inside of me.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. Many people don’t understand how deeply that runs through the absolute core of my being. And that’s ok. I pray that every single person that I love will one day understand that though. Not for me. So that they’ll think that I’m ok or that I’m not religiously preoccupied or crazy. But so that they can know how glorious it is to be consumed by the love of a creator who is so much bigger than any of us or our problems. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks trying to prove to people that I’m ok. I think I was mostly trying to prove it to myself. The truth is that I am ok. I am who God made me to be. He has big plans for me.

In the late Summer of 2009 we found ourselves in a unique situation. We had three couples who were very dear to us struggling to even want their marriages to work. We knew that God had a plan and that He was calling us to be a part of it. We had to do something! But what? Through prayer, we felt that God was asking us to lead them through the “Fireproof” Bible study. I was extremely nervous about asking them. We were asking them to trust us and two other couples with their wounded hearts and painful circumstances. Praying that God would soften their hearts to be receptive, we invited them to create this new community with us. We were overjoyed when each couple accepted. Some were hopeful and others were anxious and full of despair. One of the couples even invited another couple to join! With that, 10 people met in our living room to white knuckle through 8 weekly meetings.

As the study was wrapping up, I began to think about Marriage Encounter. I hadn’t heard anyone talk about it for a couple of years and wasn’t even sure if they were still being held. I contacted long-time family friends and Marriage Encounter leaders, Shane and Kim Jenkins. I was excited to hear that there was a weekend being held right after our study was ending. What a great way to wrap it up! Full of hope, John and I signed up and encouraged the other couples to go as well.

As God would have it, John and I were the only couple from our group that went. I was disappointed because we really only “signed up for them”. After all, we have what most would consider a good marriage. We get along well, have commons goals, and by God’s grace, we’re committed to staying together. We didn’t know that His plan was ultimately to reward us for loving others by revealing some of our own blind spots. He knew that we wouldn’t go (and burden others with babysitting) for us to work on our relationship. We reasoned that we were doing good enough and that we’d go later. It’s always later, right? I’m so thankful that God is always walking ahead of me. We worked through some heavy stuff that weekend. You know the stuff I’m talking about…the conflicts that are either too time consuming to hash out or that you’ve been over a million times and can never seem to resolve. I wish I could tell you that we’ve not had a single argument since our encounter, but that’s pretty unrealistic. What I can tell you is that we learned some valuable tools to help us when tensions run high. And by Sunday, we were refreshed and more hopeful than we’d ever been. I’m glad that God pressed “pause” on our life so that we could address some minor battles that could’ve become major wars. Marriages are either getting stronger or weaker by each decision and by every day. We must focus on investing in our relationships if we hope to make them last!

So … here we are. Almost two years later and we have the honor of giving back! We believe that ALL marriages can benefit from an encounter weekend and hope that many of our loved ones will accept the invitation to COME, rest, and learn to love deeper. You’ll be glad you did! 

Our next Marriage Encounter weekend is May 13-15, 2011. There are only a few couple spots remaining. For only $45 you get TWO nights stay at the very nice Courtyard by Marriott and meals are included Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon. This ministry is supported through donors and our goal is that no couple would ever be turned away for lack of funds. By God’s grace, this “model” has held up for over 35 years and will continue by prayer.

For more information and to register, please visit our website at www.marriageencounter.yolasite.com.

So the May weekend doesn’t work for you?

Check out wwme.org to find a weekend that will better fit your schedule! I don’t know what denomination you are, but we consider ourselves non-denominational and went on a Lutheran weekend. We’re now serving in the Baptist Expression of Marriage Encounter. Most of us see it as an interdenominational ministry and we support each other as the body of Christ should. :) Denomination has little to do with the weekend’s events. It’s about strong marriages and families! The clergy staff at the weekend will be of that denomination, but the denomination is more about serving the behind-the-scenes elements of the weekend (like funding support). The weekend itinerary and content is strealined across all denominations and around the world! You’ll get a little variation because the presenters are sharing themselves and their stories, but the premise and primary materials are all the same.

May God bless you with His presence and may you bless your family with yours!

In Him,

♥ Shanna ♥

Everyone has someone on their list that is really hard to buy for. You know the one that has EVERYTHING? Wouldn’t it be cool to give something that would be really meaningful?

Julie is the fellow adoptive mom who led the post-quake trip when John went to Haiti. She hand delivers the formula on her own dime several times a year. Your money goes directly and 100% to formula. Haiti is the poorest country in our hemisphere yet formula is more expensive and harder to get. Would you consider giving one less gift this Christmas so that you can help?

$20 will buy 3lbs of formula which equates to about 2 weeks of nourishment for one baby! 

“Jolanda” will be giving a can this Christmas, will you?

God Bless and thank you! ♥

http://www.handsforgod.org/milkmoney.aspx

by Amy Matzenbach on Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 2:06pm

Pure Haitian Vanilla for Sale!

Just in time for your Thanksgiving and Christmas Baking Needs.

Many of you know that I am adopting from Haiti, and as you can imagine there are many expenses that come along with adoption.  To help raise funds for adoption expenses I am selling pure Haitian vanilla for $10 (10 ounce bottle).  This vanilla is unrivaled in flavor and you only need to use a ¼ to ½ of what your recipe calls for!  It will make a great host gift for holiday parties or Christmas gift for those who bake!

My dear friend, Rachel, hand-carried this vanilla back from Haiti and God placed it on her heart to give it to me to sell to raise money for Cowen’s adoption.  Her friend and colleague, Claudy, helped her purchase and pack up this vanilla.  Claudy, a man of deep faith, a proud, loving father, and dedicated employee of International Child Care, was killed on January 12th, along with his wife, Emmanuella, and their two-year-old son, Oliver.  It is in his honor that Rachel has donated this vanilla.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think may be interested.

I can be reached at amatzenbach@wocumc.org or 614.266.4029.

Blessings-
Amy

The officials seemed most interested in our proof that our daughters were available for adoption and that the Haitian government knew that they were leaving and approved of their evacuation. Our certified letters from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, and Office of Refugee Resettlement served to meet this burden of proof.

At the end of the meeting we were asked to proceed with filing our petition to adopt so that our hearings for finalization can be scheduled! The court is currently scheduling hearings for the end of September so by October Jolanda should officially be a Gordon! Praise God!

Why do I ever worry or doubt His sovereign hand that is upon me? This entire journey has been undoubted Divinely inspired. Jolanda will forever be a testimony for God’s goodness and mercy. I can’t wait to see the plans that He has for her life. She has been chosen to be raised for His glory in our home. If she learns nothing else from me, she will know how much I love our Lord. She’ll know that He gave His only son for redemption of our sins. She will know that He has a plan for her existence. It’s one that only she can carry out.

1 Samuel 1:10 In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD. 11 And she made a vow, saying, “O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her this daughter, then I will give her to the LORD for all the days of his life…

Ashamedly I admit that I’ve been impatient and even angry and challenging of God through this process. Fortunately He could see when my heart was grieving, grant me His undying mercy, and never forsake me. I WILL raise Jolanda for His glory just as I have the three that precede her!

In raising Jolanda, we’ve needed to make some adjustments to our parenting style to go back and fill those developmental gaps. For instance, a child nearly 3 years old (as Jolanda is) would generally be pushing independence like we see with Bella. With Jolanda, we are willingly regressing with her. We intentionally spend more time comforting, reassuring, and what many would call “coddling” her. She is whiny. She is clingy. She is needy. She is terrified that what she is coming to love so deeply will disappear if she stops clinging. It breaks my heart that she cannot yet understand, trust, and KNOW that we are her FOREVER family. I know in the deepest part of my heart that she was always meant to be our daughter.

She’s not the only one fighting fear. When I sit and think about all of the “what ifs” that stand between us and finalization, I get very anxious. Our family is in the hands of a judge, magistrate, and attorney whom we’ve never met. They don’t see her pride as she introduces us as “Momma and Dadda”. They don’t see the tickle wars between our four girls. They don’t see how she melts into my arms seeking comfort from fear and pain.

I have to believe that God brought her to us for a reason. That He meant for us to be together. But seeing my friend suffer the loss of her son while she was still pursuing his homecoming has invoked fear in me. It’s shaken the “look at what God has already done” evidence.

I’m still pleading with our Father that her place is with us forever. I can’t imagine life without her.

Our friend, Rachel (Emma’s mother) is meeting with the attorney, the magistrate, and the judge on Friday at 11am. Apparently there is another attorney who is also processing one of these humanitarian parole cases in another county who will be coming to assist. This meeting is not for finalization but for exploration to (hopefully) create a plan for finalization. We have even been questioned by an argumentative magistrate who said to the attorney, “How do we know for sure that these children weren’t trafficked?”

Please pray that through the evidence provided it will be clear that our intensions are pure, loving, and genuine. Please pray that the judge will be empathetic regarding unavailable documentation. For instance, Jolanda never had a birth certificate. This is not uncommon in an underdeveloped country like Haiti. Please pray that this judge will be able to see us as parents not predators. Pray that he’ll use his position of power to cut through the red tape in this unique situation.

Romans 8:28-31 (English Standard Version)
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?