Although Dewey and others were allowed to untie, hold, sing to, and feed the children, that wasn't enough for Dewey or the children.  "I had such a helpless feeling ...," he said. "All that I could do was pray .... [After all] helping those in need is not a social work, it is a spiritual work."

The Lord began to work through Dewey, and in 1999, he formed the Loving Arms Team, now made up of representatives from various churches in the community. Each year, the team travels to Romania and hosts two seven-day camps for orphan boys who are abused and exploited. And every year, the Lord supernaturally provides the approximate $60,000 needed to cover the cost of the trip.

"We are allowed to take them for seven days ... and love them," Dewey said.

Various team members also helped start a local orphan-care foundation in Romania.

"We provide both finances and volunteers, and [we] work in partnership with local Romanians," Dewey added. "People who have been involved in the orphan-care ministries in our church, [it's] totally changed their lives" -- as it has the lives of Jay and Suzanne Faske and their fellow church members in Brenham, Texas -- home to the famous Blue Bell ice cream.

To Texas ... and Beyond
The Faskes are parents to 14 children, 12 of whom are adopted.

"God placed a desire in our hearts to adopt before we were even married," Suzanne Faske explained. "The Holy Spirit has convicted us each time we have traveled to adopt our children that we are to continue to seek families for orphans, pray for them daily and do whatever we can to meet their spiritual, physical and emotional needs."

Their convictions led to action, and they began taking small steps within First Baptist Church of Brenham to raise awareness about adoption, and in the summer of 2003, a miracle took place.

"Our goal was to find families for six children," Faske explained. "Within 48 hours, God had provided families for 30 and the funds to bring them to the U.S. [from Kazakhstan] for a summer camp program."  Several families hosted the children with no intentions of adopting them, but before it was over, 35 young Kazakhstanis became Texans.

The couple has also founded Here I Am Orphan Ministries, designed to provide resources "for families to pray, be involved in mission work, and be advocates for orphans," as well as Forever Families, an adoption support group within the ministry that hosts regularly scheduled events and fellowships for adoptive families.

"We first worried that we could not have enough families participating, but now the challenge has changed to finding facilities that will accommodate so many children and their families," Faske explained -- a prime reason churches should not see small size, limited resources or other obstacles as a discouragement to orphan ministry.

"Every church should become involved in orphan ministry, whether it is an entire church or a few individuals," Faske advocated. "We have found that it only takes one or two passionate people, who have a heart for orphans, to motivate a church body."

Couple this passion and motivation with the educational resources provided by Family Life's Hope for Orphans, and Kazakhstanis in cowboys boots are only the beginning to a future of forever families.

FamilyLife's Hope for Orphans (http://www.familylife.com/hopefororphans)
Mile High Ministries (http://www.milehighmin.org) Here I Am Orphan Ministries (http://www.orphanministries.com) Forever Families (http://www.foreverfamilies.org)