One unique and potentially huge way to support orphans

I will be blogging about adoption here and there throughout this month, in honor of National Adoption Awareness Month (finally a National awareness I can get behind--I'm not so much into talking like a pirate or Special Recognition Days that seem invented by greeting card companies).  First I want to finish writing about the various ways that regular old families like yours and mine can help support orphans and adoptive families.   Probably most families who are not seeking to adopt never realize there are so many things they can do to help the plight of helpless and suffering orphans.  Keep in mind, I am going to blog about these things with the assumptions that you read my previous posts on the subject last week, and that if you are a family that claims to follow Jesus, you have been commanded by God to care for widows and orphans.  Alrighty then.

One way families in America are uniquely situated to help orphans is through something you have most likely never heard of--a short-term hosting program called New Horizons For Children, the heart of which is described by an adoptive and NHFC hosting Mom at her blog, My Garden Hat: 

Once again, over 200 Ukranian and Latvian orphans will be spending Christmas in America in the homes of Christian families who want to respond to God's call to answer the distressed plea of the orphan. For a few weeks, those families will love on kids who perhaps have never known love at all. They will help the child learn some English, a valuable tool that will give them an extremely valuable boost in their opportunities to succeed once they leave their orphanages at age 16. They will show the children who Christ is and what His love can do for them. For the first time, some of them will know that they have a real Father who will never leave them, never forget or disappoint them.

Some of them will find their forever families as a result of their time in this country, where Christian Americans' hearts break from the things that break God's heart -- like the plight of orphans. Not so in Eastern Europe, where orphans are considered tainted and where families don't even take in their own.

The NHFC program is for hosting orphans, not for adoption--but often a child who is brought to the US for either the Christmas or summer hosting program gets "seen" by families who either want to adopt or who fall in love with the child and just can't bear sending him or her back to a life of being unwanted and unloved.  The blogger mom over at Five is the New Four represents one such family; they hosted Sergiy this summer for four weeks, and believe he was meant to join their family then and forever.  You can get a glimpse of the story of how it began at this post, entitled "He had me at birthday," of you can jump back to her posts from late Spring/early summer to follow the journey from host family to adoptive family. (The adorable photo below shows Sergiy, in green, getting a group farewell hug from his soon-to-be siblings and cousins--but before any of them knew if they even could adopt him.  So they all loved him not knowing if he would be "theirs" or not--what an incredible gift to give an orphan.  As his adoptive mom writes, "I am pretty sure he left knowing he is loved!")

So, through the NHFC hosting program, these orphan kids--who have been personally screened and chosen to participate in the program based upon their potential for benefitting from it--get an amazing, possibly life-changing opportunity to experience what a family is like, which I can easily imagine might have a potentially big impact on how those kids interact within a family of their own someday.  And I can imagine those kids would be impacted by feeling worth having and loving, something most orphans struggle with.  Those things alone make the program worthwhile, but knowing that a child, whom the program directors believe has a good chance of thriving in a loving family, is getting the chance to be seen and heard and known and wanted and might therefore end up being claimed through adoption. . . that is what is making me advocate for the program and its orphans now.

Some of the blogs I read are advocating for specific children as I write this, children who they think are great kids who should be snatched up for hosting/adoption, but who currently have not been:

Five is the New Four is advocating for Vova, whom you can read about here and here. 

My Garden Hat is advocating for Vlad, whom you can read about here.
Do you have a heart for adopting older kids, esp. those who have been "vetted" by professionals and American families and sound like really great kids?  Do you know of anyone who might be interested in hosting these boys for Christmas? 
Here is the thing--this is not just about playing the wealthy benefactors at Christmas and doing the feel-good, pat-yourself-on-the-back, Daddy Warbucks thing of taking in an orphan for the holidays and showing a kid a good time and sending him home with a few presents.  This is about kids who belong in families getting a chance to find one--or at the very least learning a little about how God views families, love, worth that might drastically change their lives for the better.
My Garden Hat wrote another post that underlines the impact of this hosting program:

Tonight, in my looking, I saw this [photo] again. Every time I see it, I have to look a long time. I look at the blonde hair of a child, the size of him compared to the small car. I see the shadows of the trees, the lift of his foot as he walks, the brick wall ahead of him. The brick wall ahead of him.

The brick wall ahead of him.

In this photo, it was graduation day at an orphanage in Eastern Europe. The mission team had arrived just as a small group of 16-year olds had been dismissed from the orphanage and told to find their way. Good luck. Hugs. Maybe you can go to college. Never mind where the colleges are located or how one would go about getting into one. But good luck.

At 16. That's when the children age out. Graduate.

In America, a 16-year old is a high school sophomore. He's just getting his driver's license. He's taking algebra class and learning the elements of a short story. If he works, it is for family, because he's too young to legally work elsewhere. His daddy still takes him to the barber shop on Saturdays, and his mama makes him eat his vegetables at dinner.

But this boy does not live in America, and he has no mama and no daddy. And he is graduating.

Like this boy, some children leave the orphanages with a few treasured belongings, maybe a change or two of clothing. A few have a piece of luggage to carry away with them, like this boy who had been hosted and had received luggage from his American hosts.

This boy is much luckier than many, because he had been given an opportunity to travel by airplane to America, where a family had shown him love, taught him a bit of English (a valuable talent in his country), and had shared the redemption of Jesus Christ with him. Though he was not adopted (not all of the hosted children are adopted; NHFC is not an adoption agency), he leaves his orphanage leagues ahead of most orphanage graduates.

She sums up the need for programs like this so perfectly.  So, now you know about New Horizons For Children--would you consider telling others about it too?