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What Do George Muller and One Child Matters Have in Common?

February 13, 2014 by Laura 3 Comments

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Ever struggle with worry over God supplying all your needs? You need to read about George Muller. Ever wonder how God can be using you to serve, give, and care for others? You need to read about George Muller.

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This is for sure one of my favorite books I’ve read to our kids. Geoff and Janet Benge do a fantastic job writing about the lives of missionaries, and their book about George Muller is no exception. What an inspiration!

George Muller was a man who dedicated his life to caring for orphans in England during the 1800’s. He relied completely on God to supply everything needed to care for his own family and for thousands of orphans. The two biggest lessons I came away with (and tried to impress on our kids) while reading this book are:

1. Ask God

Anytime a there was a need – and there were definitely plenty of needs with houses full of hungry orphan children – George prayed. He had complete faith that God would provide, and God always came through. George’s faith inspires me to pray with confidence and with trusting belief.

2. Listen to God

Each time George asked God for help, God used a person to meet the need. Time and again, people would arrive at the orphanage doorstep to say, “I couldn’t sleep last night. I can’t rest until I give you this _____________.” Oh how God worked through people who were listening and open to serve! Money, food, cloth, tools – whatever it was that George and the orphans needed, God used His people. Not only do we need to trust God to meet our needs, we also need to listen to His call for giving and service.

As the boys and I read this book, I was so inspired to get on a plane (um, boat? hello, 1800’s) and head to England to help George. What could I give? How could I help? What can I share out of our abundance? Obviously, helping George with his orphanages is no longer an option, but I have definitely felt challenged to seek more ways to be a part of a godly change for children.

Remember this little sweetheart?

gladis head shot

This is Gladis, the little girl from Honduras we sponsor through One Child Matters. It barely costs us anything each month. It’s really not much of a sacrifice. I believe our family needs to continue to be open and listen for God’s call to serve and give in more ways than just this simple act.

But after reading George Muller, I’m so grateful for this simple opportunity offered through One Child Matters to bless a child in need. I’m grateful that Gladis is not an orphan, but rather a child with a hard working family who simply needs a little additional financial support. Our family can be a part of that. Us! The Coppingers! What a blessing! And what else, Lord? Help us to be open and to listen to your call.

I really want to encourage you to join our family in sponsoring a child (or two or three) from One Child Matters. I want to snatch up them all. There are so many children with needs we can help meet. Together – your family and mine – we can help and make a huge difference! Please pray about joining our family in this ministry.

And never forget to ask God to meet all your needs, and to listen to the ways He is directing you to give and serve. God always answers His people. What a mighty God we serve!

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We Chose a Girl

November 13, 2013 by Laura 11 Comments

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When we were invited to be a part of the ministry with One Child Matters, one of the first items on our agenda was, of course, to pick a child to sponsor.

Now, you click over and take a look at all of the hundreds of precious faces of children in need, and you tell me – how is it possible to choose??! It’s only possible with prayer, that is for sure. And that is exactly what our family did. We prayed for God to help us make a decision.

First, we agreed that we would choose a little girl. Why? Well, we couldn’t help ourselves. Matt and I have no daughters. Our four sons have no sisters. Nobody complains even a little bit, because we understand that God knew exactly what he was doing when he filled our home with boys. But in the instance that we could choose, we felt drawn toward a girl – one younger than everyone in our household.

With tears in my eyes, it is my pleasure to introduce to you our little Honduran sweetheart, Gladis…

gladis with package

Her eyes get me every time. And that smile. What a beautiful little darling.

Her pictures have a permanent place on our refrigerator door. Seeing as we eat a lot of food at our house, we see her face dozens of times each day – reminding us often to pray for her and for her family.

I am humbled by the knowledge that our God blesses this child because of a small donation our family makes each month on her behalf. I am in awe of the power of prayer, knowing that God protects and meets the needs of this little girl who lives miles and miles away from us. The Spirit moves, Gladis comes to mind, we pray for her, and God works. Oh, the power. The beauty. The complex simplicity of it all.
Gladis with poster 1

Above you see Gladis holding the “art work” we created as we first introduced ourselves to her. Leave it to us to send a poster bigger than the girl who received it. Hey, we just wanted her to feel the love. ;)

Because of our partnership with One Child Matters and the $34 donation we send each month, Gladis is guaranteed to receive schooling, guidance, nourishment, medical care, and Bible teaching. Because we are connected through prayer, we know Gladis and her family members are being loved on and protected by our Father.

It is so cool to be a part of this!! I hope you will join our family in this ministry! Pray together about it. Get your kids involved. Through One Child Matters, we have the ability to help a child out of poverty.

I believe God connects our hearts with these children through the power of prayer. I can’t describe with words what this feels like. You have to experience it to know.

Remember The Pot of Stew article I shared? One Child Matters is a way I feel called to serve with my family – not instead of my family. We provide our small piece of the puzzle, God does the rest. These children have needs we can be a part of fulfilling by the grace of God.

Our hope is that many Heavenly Homemakers readers will join this ministry. If you do choose to sponsor a child, please take some time to introduce us to him or her! We want to know which one God helped you fall in love with.

As for us, our hearts are all in. Gladis is our girl. Those eyes get me every time. I dare you to look into them without smiling. (Or getting teary eyed, because I still haven’t mastered that one.)

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Visiting One Child Matters in Colorado Springs

October 24, 2013 by Laura 2 Comments

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Remember way back in May when I shared about the trip our family took to Colorado? We were able to spend an entire week in the Denver and Colorado Springs area doing a variety of service projects and ministries together. It was such an awesome way to spend our family vacation! We saw God work in so many ways to make this trip come together, from opening up opportunities for us to hand out food to families in need to joining with some college friends to serve the homeless.

Now that I’ve been able to share the One Child Matters ministry opportunity with those of us here at Heavenly Homemakers, here’s another piece of that glorious week in Colorado I want to tell you about. What you have to know is that our family was already planning to be in the Denver/Colorado Springs area before we made the connection with One Child Matters. We got so excited about the ministry opportunity with OCM, then learned that their headquarters are in Colorado Springs. We asked if we could spend time with them while we were in the area and asked them to please put us to work! They did just that, and they treated us like royalty from the moment we walked through their doors.

It’s one thing to look at the Once Child Matters website and talk to the people on the phone to hear their heart regarding the ministry. That alone had made me fall in love with the children and mission behind One Child Matters. But having the honor of meeting the One Child Matters Team face to face, and then spending the day working with them? It was awesome. These people care about the children they are serving – there is no doubt.

They had our kids feeling right at home in no time.

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I loved meeting everyone, but it was a special treat to meet Kate – the one I’ve been in contact with the most. She took our family on a tour of the office so we could meet and get to know what each person did to fulfill the needs in this ministry.

with_kate_ocm

A great bonus is that my cousin works at One Child Matters, so we were able to catch up with her a little bit and steal some hugs.

with_laura_e

After a tour, we got to sit down and work together on the letters people send to their sponsored kids. This experience was so rich and so much fun. I’ll share more details about sending letters to your sponsored children in a future post, but wow if working through these letters didn’t inspire me and make me feel the love between sponsoring families and the children they are serving.

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During the late morning, our younger boys headed to the kitchen with some of the OCM team to cook up a Jordanian feast. You’ll notice on the One Child Matters Blog (written by Kate, pictured with me in the second picture above) that they occasionally share recipes from the variety of countries where the sponsored children reside. I love this feature as it can help connect us to the children there. Our boys loved helping prepare this meal and being featured on the One Child Matters Blog. Remember how I mentioned that our boys felt right at home? The pictures in this blog post featuring the Jordanian meal will prove that to you. ;)

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After we ate together, some of us continued to work our way through sponsor letters, while the younger boys headed over to create some masterpieces to send over to our own sponsored child.
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I am excited to introduce you to our sponsored child soon. It’s amazing how you can feel connected to someone you’ve never met, and how praying for someone holds so much power. If you haven’t had a chance, head over to the Once Child Matters site and consider sponsoring a child. We are so thankful for the opportunity to participate in this ministry!

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One Child Matters – A Ministry Partnership Opportunity with us at Heavenly Homemakers!

October 17, 2013 by Laura 6 Comments

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Remember several months ago when I told you I had a special service opportunity that we could all participate in together? I’ve been so excited to share this with you – but there has been one delay after another…technical difficulties. Finally, after months of hard work on the part of the One Child Matters Team, I am able to announce a ministry I’d love for you to join me in!

The more I get to know you, whether it is “in real life” or through your emails and comments, the more I feel like we are all on a journey together. A journey toward healthy living, a journey toward raising godly families, a journey toward making our homes heavenly, and ultimately, a journey as we all strive toward our heavenly home. The whole concept gives me chills, that through this blog, we can all be working toward so many positive goals together.

That’s why I’m so excited to share this opportunity with you. Together, we can work to make a difference. The best part of this opportunity is that it isn’t just something you and I can do. It is something our families can be involved in too! (Selfless, servant-hearted focus, here we come!)

There’s been a lot going on behind the scenes here at Heavenly Homemakers, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally announce this new ministry opportunity to you!

Actually, the opportunity itself isn’t new. One Child Matters has been around for quite some time. (You may have known them as Mission of Mercy.) What is new is a partnership I’m eager to share with you – a partnership between my family, your family, and One Child Matters.

First, let me tell you a little bit about this ministry.

One Child Matters is an organization based out of Colorado Springs that truly cares about kids on a holistic level. They work to help children in 16 countries in the world, meeting their spiritual, physical, socio-emotional, and mental needs. At this point, they are serving over 40,000 children. What a blessing!

All of these children live in poverty. Many of them are on their own much of the day – even the little ones – as their parents work away from home for hours to put food on the table each night. One Child Matters provides schooling, guidance, nourishment, medical care, and most importantly – they teach these children about Jesus!

If you spend some time at the One Child Matters website, I guarantee you’ll be drawn in and begin to fall in love with these children, just like my family has. Together, we’ve spent time learning about the One Child Matters mission, how they work, what they do, and how much they care. Above all, we’re seeing the faces of the children they care for as more than just pictures. These are kids – just like yours and mine. They have needs – and together, we can help One Child Matters meet these needs!

How can you help?

Well, this isn’t a ministry that you’ll decide to jump into on a whim (unless after these few minutes you already feel called to participate!). This is something that I encourage you to pray about with your family. Study this ministry to see if its something you might feel called to be a part of. How cool to think that we can all be a part of this ministry together – your family and mine!

After prayer and discussion, Matt, the boys, and I have signed up to sponsor a child in Honduras. (I’ll share more details soon. I can’t wait to introduce you to our adorable new “family member!”) Our sponsorship involves a $34 per month donation, as well as a committment to connect with our sponsored child, and most importantly, a pledge to pray for our child.

This is something all six of our family members have chosen to be a part of. The $34 monthly donation? Well, we’ve talked to our kids about the fact that while it may mean we need to give up something we want – doing so will help our sponsored child receive the basic care needed each day. Our kids are on board, and we couldn’t be more excited.

Please consider joining my family in a ministry that will surely be a blessing to all involved! We can make a difference in the lives of children around the world – and in doing so, we will be teaching our families more about being like Jesus. If that’s not a win-win situation, I’m not sure what is.

Please head over to the One Child Matters site and spend time in prayer about joining with us in this ministry. I’ll be sharing more in the upcoming weeks about how we can all work together in this!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

How Do You Serve Together as a Family?

April 18, 2013 by Laura 17 Comments

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In a world that tells our kids that they only need to think about themselves – we long to teach our children what it means to give, what it means to be servant-hearted, and what it means to be selfless.

I believe these are lessons we are all, as adults, still striving to learn ourselves. In fact, you should be delighted to know that just the other day, I was as selfless and servant-hearted as can be. I then proceeded to throw a tantrum because no one recognized how kind and wonderful I had been. How dare my children not pat me on the back or give me a loving round of applause for my constant selfless acts of bending-over-backwards kindness toward them?!

Selfless? Sounds more like I was being self-absorbed, self-motivated, and self…self…selfish! I obviously still have so much to learn.

So how do we teach our kids to be humble and servant-hearted? And how do we (the wise and wonderful grown-ups) learn to die to ourselves?

serving_7 I believe we do this by looking outward. By looking to the needs of others. By stopping the focus on ourselves and instead, focusing on truly loving those around us.

(By the way, Jesus never threw a tantrum because he wasn’t being properly appreciated for his selfless acts. Not one time. I would do well to remember this.)

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I find that each time I serve someone in my family or in my church or community out of true, selfless love, I am so enriched by the experience that I can’t help but be drawn closer to God. This is what I want my children to learn and understand: That service to others is a glory to God. That this world is not our home, and we are not called to be content and comfortable, but to selflessly love and to serve. That loving on others brings pure joy that can only be achieved when we follow Jesus’ servant-hearted footsteps.

serving_5 I believe the best way we can learn to serve selflessly and teach our children to serve selflessly is to work at it side by side. How ridiculous is it for me to put my kids in front of a DVD so that I can have the time to work on a ministry I’m involved in? How silly is it that I would busy my kids in another room on an act of kind service while I head to the computer to get some writing done?

serving_4 Admittedly, this has to happen sometimes. But what if, the majority of the time, we all work together on ministries as a family? What if we talk together, pray together, plan together, and execute together various ministries that God has given us? In doing so, we learn together, grow together, make beautiful memories together, and slowly but surely, become selfless servants…together.

I have more to share on this topic – and I have a very exciting ministry project announcement that I’ll be writing about next week! In the meantime, let’s reflect together on how we each serve within our families. This looks different for each family, depending on your season in life, how old your kids are, and the circumstances going on around you. But I believe each family can bless others in so many different ways! So share!! What do you and your family do to bless and love on others?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

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