November 28, 2005

(AgapePress) - In the small town of Brenham, Texas, it's not uncommon to see Kazakhstani children in cowboy boots, eating Blue Bell ice cream. Why? A local church began living out God's Word. How? By establishing an orphan-care ministry, as advocated by FamilyLife's Hope for Orphans.

"Hope for Orphans is an educating and exhorting ministry dedicated to supporting and helping the fatherless and connecting those children with loving, Bible-believing families," as stated in His Heart, Our Hands, one of the ministry's adoption resource publications.  It is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a three-year-old facet of FamilyLife, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ, that functions as a national marriage and family ministry under the leadership of Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

The Raineys have a passion for adoption as do Paul and Robin Pennington, whose experiences are the foundation of Hope for Orphans. While adopting three children from Korea, the Penningtons recognized the need for biblical resources on adoption and sought to involve their church by sharing pictures of Korean orphans.

"That led to our belief that there needed to be resources and workshops ... to help Christian families understand a biblical view of adoption ...," Pennington explained. "Adoption agencies, Christian ones included, host informational meetings but some people always feel a little apprehensive ... [as if the agencies] have a vested interest."

Therefore, Hope for Orphans (not an adoption agency) joined FamilyLife as an objective third party with no vested interest, but with the vision to educate and inform Christians of their responsibility to care for orphans as set forth in Scripture.  Today, Pennington, who is the director of FamilyLife's Hope for Orphans, and his wife have five adopted children and one biological child and are very passionate about ministering to orphans.

Ministry Foundation
"I believe it's very important to approach ministry from a biblical perspective," Pennington said. "So the basis of this ministry is ... not about infertility ... [and] it's a lot more than being about adoption. It's about God's heart and [how] His Word reveals His character ..., and if we want to be conformed into His image, we can't ignore this area."

According to James 1:27a (NIV), "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress ...."

"FamilyLife's Hope for Orphans is really about being a connecting resource and an encourager to the church for God's heart for the orphan," Pennington explained, "and there are three main ways that we seek to be involved in that."

These ways, as described by Pennington, are through:

• Your Heart -- "We seek to proclaim and illuminate what the Bible says about God's heart for the fatherless and how He asks us, the Church, to join Him where He is working."
• Your Head -- "We provide ... biblical and practical information about adoption and how the local church can be involved in sustained adoption or orphan ministries."
• Your Hands -- "We introduce ... how God is working to use believers in North America to meet the [physical, emotional, social, developmental and spiritual] needs of the orphans around the world."