As parents there are, God forbid, times when our children are sick and need more attention than what they can get at home.  Sometimes children have to be hospitalized, and when they do, Ronald McDonald House is a great resource and support for families going through an illness with a child, especially when it comes to finding a place to stay so far away from home.  My nephew Trey stays at a Ronald McDonald House in Manhattan every time he goes back for scans.  I know it’s been a wonderful way for their family to connect with other parents and families going through similar things and to participate in different projects and events with the kids, just to help get their minds off of the illness, even if just for a little bit.

Ronald McDonald House Charities are one way that you can shine your light to other families who just need all of the encouragement and support that they can get, particularly when going through a dark valley in their lives, such as a diagnosis of neuroblastoma or leukemia.  There are ways to volunteer at your local Ronald McDonald House or even donate.

McDonald’s sent me the following information on a way that you and your family can help, as well….

Right now McDonald’s U.S. restaurants are donating proceeds from Happy Meal and Mighty Kids Meal sales to Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC). This ongoing donation will help benefit more than 11,000 sick and critically ill children and their families each day. As part of the fundraiser, McDonald’s has brought the new RMHC fundraiser to life online through a sharable “Make Family Time Happy Time” online application, where families are encouraged to pledge minutes of “happy time” together and share their own creative activities with other families via McDonald’s Facebook page or their personal blogs. Here’s how to get involved:

• Visit McDonald’s Facebook page to download the application and participate in the campaign.
• You can select from an existing family time activity provided on the application, or you can submit your own tip and pledge to help RMHC.
• McDonald’s will donate one penny to RMHC for each minute pledged, with a goal of reaching 1 million minutes and $10,000 to use towards family time activities for RMHC guests.

This is a fun, interactive way to get involved, especially if you have young children….I know that it’s not as easy to actually volunteer somewhere when you have littles, but that’s ok.  There are plenty of other ways that you can help and encourage others.  One more way that you can help, is to vote for RMHC on their Members Project.  This could help them to win $200,000 towards helping even more families who are in need.  You can follow RMHC on Facebook and @RMHC on Twitter.

Don’t forget to shine your light!

(Note:  I am working towards making Shine Your Light focused more heavily on the fight against human trafficking.  If you know of organizations or links that might be helpful, I would love to know about them.  Thanks for reading!)

The other day I received a comment from Gabi, who also has a blog, Valued Far Above Rubies and Pearls.  When I started reading down through Gabi’s posts, her writing just gripped my heart.  She has such a poetic, amazing style of writing, and you can feel her heart in everything that she writes.  You can feel the love that she has for God and the love that she has for the children of Uganda.  Uganda is her “home away from home.”Mama Gabi, as she is called in Uganda, first went to Uganda in 2009.  She’s a 26 year old young woman who felt the call of God on her life when she was only 10, to go to Africa.  When she finally went to Uganda for the first time in 2009, she knew that this place was home for her; she surrendered to do full-time ministry, starting Racham Ministries. Gabi returned to England, where she is from, but in May 2010, she went back to Uganda, and while there, she found a house that is going to be the center of her ministry with the children of Uganda.

When you read her blog and see the pictures that she shares of some of the children, I hope that it touches your heart.  Right now, Gabi is trying to raise the funds for her return to Uganda in January; she is planning on staying for good.  God has turned Gabi’s life around completely, the details of which are written in her blog, but I don’t feel that I could give justice to sharing them…..her writing says it all.  If you have a teenage daughter, or even if you’re struggling in life yourself, I highly encourage you to read Gabi’s blog and to receive both encouragement and inspiration from her story.  You can also help Gabi return to Uganda and start her ministry there by giving to Racham Ministries through Paypal at dickinsonbarbara@hotmail.com.  Please write “For Racham” in the subject line.  You can Like Racham Ministries on Facebook.

Just to share a bit of Gabi’s heart with you…. (in Gabi’s own words)….I bleed colours of life. I bleed the cries of orphans. I bleed a dance upon injustice. I bleed the tears of girls staring at their reflection and having deception and distortion staring them back in the face. I bleed the empty silences of the ones whose identity has become loneliness. I bleed the hearts of those who have known the crushing pain of betrayal. I bleed the tears of lives bound by lies of unworth. I bleed the brokenness of every heart in pieces by the words of another. I bleed Him for every abandoned child, their only hope. I bleed forgiveness. I bleed outrageous grace, because of Him. I bleed the beauty of life made new. I bleed truth into barren life. I bleed knowing the wonder of each new day as the miracle it is. I bleed holiness, as He has named me holy. I bleed abundant life. I bleed songs of peace. I bleed reconciliation. I bleed a life of restoration. I bleed all my life surrendered to His service. I bleed a sacrifice of praise. I bleed my Everything. I bleed Him.

Dan and I have always talked about adoption, and it’s always been something that has tugged at our hearts….it’s one of those things that just won’t let us alone. Last week, as I was reading one of my newsletters that I get, I noticed this organization listed, and so I clicked over to it, as it sounded really interesting. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw exactly what this organization does, and I’m excited to write about them. The organization is New Horizons for Children, Inc.

New Horizons for Children, Inc., is an international, Christian-based hosting agency that helps families to host children in their homes for about four weeks; they bring children over to the U.S. twice a year, one of those times being the summer. They place these children with Christian families who can not only teach them about America and immerse them in a loving family, but a family that can teach that child what the love of a Heavenly Father means. These children come from Eastern Europe, from the countries of Latvia, Russia, and Ukraine.

LeAnn Dakake is the director of New Horizons and actually has adopted four children from Russia. Twice a year, she travels with a team to Eastern Europe, where she visits orphanages. Her purpose in going is to find and interview children, so that she can figure out which children will be signed up for the hosting program for that year. It takes much observation and a lot of difficult decision making to do this, as there are just so many children who are orphaned; the number is staggering. Many of these children face obstacles and challenges that ordinary children don’t face, especially when it comes to self-esteem, and LeAnn has to carefully choose the children that have a quality of resilience about them. Along with interviewing children, these teams also take gifts and aid with them, in the form of clothing, shoes, school supplies, etc. They rely on the orphanage to tell them what is most needed. Prayer is a constant ingredient in this decision making process.

Hosting families agree to host these children either during the summer or over the Christmas holidays for 4-5 weeks. These families must be Christian families and must be active members of a local church. It’s important that the family life be healthy, as these children need the life-giving support that a family can give. For a family to host a child, the cost is $2500; if that child has siblings, the cost for hosting siblings is $2400. These costs include the airfare and travel expenses, etc., that it takes to bring these children to the U.S. Donations that are given to New Horizons are often put towards sibling expenses or even special needs children who might not otherwise get to participate in an opportunity like this.

How can you help? You can help through fundraising or even making a donation. New Horizons suggests setting up an Orphan Angel Tree, which will help collect gifts for these children. LeAnn and her team can then take these gifts when they travel to Eastern Europe twice a year. Of course, there are other fundraising ideas that you could implement, as well. You can even make a donation to support this organization and the children/families it serves. If your employer matches donations, it might be a good idea to get them involved. If you would rather be on the front lines, your family might consider becoming a host family. There is an application process to do so.

For me personally, I think this is definitely something we will consider doing in the future. It would be so difficult to see that child go back to the orphanage when our time was up, but I can’t imagine missing an opportunity like this. I had never actually heard of anything like this before, besides foreign exchange students. I didn’t know it was even possible to host orphaned children in your home like this. What a great avenue for many children to eventually become adopted….New Horizons says that normally only 20% of our hosting families go into hosting with an idea of adoption. However, generally 80% or more of our children do end up being adopted by their host family or someone they met while staying with their host family through neighbors, extended family, church members of the host family’s church, or others who found out about the program while in process. For this reason, each family who applies to host is considered a potential adopting family and the approval process for hosting is very similar to the approval process for adoption. Keep in mind that New Horizons is only a hosting agency, not an adoption agency. You can follow New Horizons on Facebook.

Remember to shine your light!

Diapers are something that a lot of people might take for granted.  I speak from experience when I say that there have been times when we struggled to buy that box of diapers, just because the price was so hefty.  You might ask, “Why not use cloth diapers?”  Well, because for our family, cloth just isn’t feasible.  For one thing, we’d have to purchase them, as well, and they’re not cheap.  Plus, you have the cost and time that goes into cleaning and washing them.  For a lot of families, cloth diapers just aren’t feasible, whether it’s because their kids are in daycare (a lot of daycares won’t accept cloth diapers), or because they don’t even have a washer (and most laundromats don’t allow you to wash cloth diapers).  According to statistics, 19% of families in the U.S. struggle to get the basic necessities, let alone buy diapers. If that struggling family lives in the inner city, without access to stores like Walmart and Sam’s Club, the cost of diapers can be even more expensive.That’s where Diaper Love comes in.  Diaper Love was founded by Myron & Megan Mullins and George and Angie Norton after Megan encountered a mother on Craigslist who was looking for a supply of unused diapers, pleading for someone to help.  This young mother was only able to change her daughter after she’d had a bowel movement, because she simply couldn’t afford to buy diapers.  Imagine having to let your child sit in their own soiled diaper for hours at a time….it breaks any mother’s heart.  Megan connected with this mom, and she showed up on her doorstep with boxes of diapers, touching lives and planting a seed in that mom’s heart.  The founders of Diaper Love really believe that theirs is a true calling, based on the Great Commission in Matthew 28.  Not only that, but they believe in reaching out to these young children, the seeds they’re planting can make a significant difference in that child’s life.

Diaper Love reaches out to people of all faiths, all different backgrounds.  They provide diapers to individual families, as well as church ministries and community outreaches.  You can help Diaper Love to fulfill their mission of Sharing God’s love one dry behind at a time by donating to their cause.  Not only that, but when you shop at Purely Products, a good percentage of your purchase goes to support Diaper Love.  You can follow Diaper Love on both Facebook and Twitter.  Shine a light in the lives of babies, toddlers, and parents by just reaching out, in support of Diaper Love.  Why not find a family in need, where you live, and show up on their doorstep with a fresh box of diapers?  You never know where it may lead….