Some Questions Answered

If you are just now looking at this blog for the first time, please read the post below this one before reading this one . . .

Here the the answers to a couple of great questions a few of you have been asking:
Q: Do you know much about this Hopechest organization? Do you know these people? Can I trust them to be financially responsible in how they distribute donations?
A: Yes, yes, and yes! These are great people who are in this because they have a heart for and are passionate about helping orphans. Three of the leaders of this organization left high-paying jobs and took drastic pay cuts to serve in this way. Several of the people working full-time for Hopechest are doing so on a completely volunteer basis. Several of them are adoptive parents, including the Chief Operating Officer Bob Mudd and Tom Davis, the President of Hopechest, who has two adopted children and who is a well-known and respected advocate for orphans and vulnerable children - and the author of a few of my favorite books (if you haven't read them, you should check them out - Fields of the Fatherless, Red Letters, and his latest, a novel about an orphan actually set in Swaziland called Scared).

Hopechest is audited every year by the ECFA (Evangelical Coalition for Financial Accountability). 80% of every dollar that comes in goes directly to the field (this is a very high percentage!). In fact, one way they are able to do this is that they help communities by supporting local believers in these countries who are already trying - with extremely limited resources - to help kids in their communities. Thus, Hopechest is able to use funds to leverage work already in place and in progress rather than having to spend money to get staff to every location and start from scratch. If you have any questions at all about how the financials of this organization work or how funds are handled and distributed, please let me know and I will put you in contact with the Director of Outreach and Partner Relations, Vince Giordano, who will be happy to answer them.

Q: What does sponsorship entail? What, specifically, can I do? How much does it cost to sponsor a child?
A: What does a sponsorship entail - Basically, we're forming a "community of sponsorship" for this care point. This means that this particular care point is "our" community to take care of, and getting a sponsorship for each child is just a part of it. Being part of the community of sponsorship means that you will have access to an online community that will give you frequent updates on the care point. Your sponsorship community will focus on specific projects for our care point as they come up (for example, perhaps a well at some point so these kids can be drinking clean water), and there will be an annual trip planned so that anyone who wants to visit our care point will have the opportunity to go there and serve. My friend Brandi, who volunteers full-time with Hopechest, will actually get to visit our care point in February with a group to train some local leaders and to assess some of the major needs (another project we will do for our community before she goes will be to gather some donations of items to send to our children - I know some of their other sponsorship communities have sent things like pencils and underwear for their kids).

What specifically Can I do: At this point, we are just trying to find sponsors for 230 kids so we can get the ball rolling and get them some help as soon as possible. You can make a one-time gift to help us get food and assitance to these kids as soon as possible, you can sponsor a child (or children!), and/or you can be an advocate for these kids by contacting the people you know to get the word out about these children at this carepoint and find them sponsors.

What does a sponsorship cost: A sponsorship is $34/month . . . . equivalent to making your coffee at home every other day each month instead of stopping at Starbucks - or getting a smaller size coffee every day . . . or eating that lunch or dinner at home once a month instead of going out . . . or bringing lunch from home to work for a week instead of ordering out . . . or swapping babysitting with a friend instead of hiring a babysitter for that date night . . . renting a movie instead of going to the theatre . . . working an extra hour each week . . . painting your own nails instead of paying for that manicure or pedicure. . . leaving that pair of shoes or piece of clothing that you don't really need anyway on the rack instead of in your shopping cart . . . find a friend or friends and split the cost of a sponsorship . . . such tiny sacrifices on our parts can literally save lives by providing food and hope to an orphan on the other side of the world for an entire month!