The Vickerman Family Happenings

ORPHAN MINISTRY - part 1

Let’s see… When did it all start??? Well, I think it all started when we got home from China with H. I just knew that I needed to go back. Just knowing that there are MANY more precious children needing love and homes made my heart ache. "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1.27 NIV - So, I’ve been praying on and off about orphan ministry and orphan mission trips back to China since then. That was about 2 ½ years ago – can you believe how fast time goes by! WOW! Anyway, in that time, I’ve gathered different orphan ministry “guides”, stayed up late searching various websites about orphans and have been dropping “hints” to Lance about my desire with orphans and mission trips etc. and of course praying…

So, I’m sure that you are wondering what has changed now to make us actually DO something about this. Well, this is the cool thing – it is definitely God’s timing –which is what I also have been praying about:) Late last summer we decided to start attending a new church – we have a few friends at Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities and have been hearing about the awesome things going on there. We felt that we were needing something more and decided to give it a try (we had been praying about this decision for several of months too – so many factors to consider…) We are so glad that we did! We love the teaching, the youth, the mom’s group, the fellowship etc… and we love the fact that they pretty much leave everything up to God and it seems like a true FAITH attitude prevails. Which I loveJ my favorite verse is Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” This past 5 months Taylor has not been able to do hockey which, allowed us to get involved and to get to know people at Calvary – what a blessing:)

This is how the events have been unfolding… the past 2 Fall seasons we have been selling the Disciple’s Cross necklaces that Lance and I make. We have learned to sign up early, so we did. Unfortunately, Calvary decided to do a Christmas bazaar kind of late in the season and we were already scheduled for being at the Badger Bazaar. So, we weren’t able to participate – we were bummed, but we remembered the sweet lady that was organizing it – her name was Bonnie Brown. Our bazaars went well and that was the end of that for nowJ In January, a friend and youth pastor, Steve Allen, at Valley 4th Memorial in Spokane posted on a yahoo group that he would be hosting the founder, Tim Baker, of the Philip Hayden Foundation in Spokane to talk about China’s one child policy, adoption and his organization/orphanage. It sounded like a great opportunity and I really wanted to go. So, I mentioned it to Lance one night and reminded him that I still really wanted to go back to China again to work with orphans or whatever. He said “ I should go.” I was so excited! He gave me the “green light”J I really wanted him to be behind me and possibly for us to do it togetherJ so, I emailed Steve to ask him a little more about the event that he was planning. He replied and encouraged me to come and mentioned that someone else from the Tri-cities had recently called him to get more information about it and her name was Bonnie Brown. I was amazed – could it be the same Bonnie brown from Calvary that organized the bazaar? If so, I kind of knew who she was! He confirmed that she was! So I quickly looked up her number to find out her interest with the Philip Hayden Foundation. After playing a bit of phone tag, we finally connected and shared with each other our heart for orphans. I was so excited and praised God for this encounter. We finally met face to face and again shared our passion and desire for orphans. I also shared with her all of the things that I had gathered over the past few years. Including a book that I love “saving Levi” by Lisa Bentley. We decided to pray about everything and for God to direct us. On super bowl Sunday, we had church at the new property building with 1 service. It was great – we got to write our favorite sriptures on the floor and dedicate the building. It was that day that God sent us a little “sign” – Jessica MacDuff came up to Bonnie and said “I’m not sure why I’m coming to you to talk to you about this, but it seems like our church is growing so much - I think that we need to start an adoption ministry.” Bonnie was amazed – she knew why she came to bonnie – it was what we were praying for and Bonnie was already planning on approaching the MacDuffs (they adopted 3 children from Ethiopia 2 yrs ago) to see if they wanted to meet with all of us and pray about a vision for orphan ministry too! Amazing!:) we finally met at the end of March and each family shared their story of adoption and orphans and it was clear that we all have the same vision and dream of removing financial barriers for families, educating people on what God wants us to do for orphans and to be there to support families adopting and giving families other options of supporting orphans – you don’t just have to adopt – there are other options…