from hope to reality

Announcement about the annual Guatoberfest, to be held in Myrtle Beach, SC, this October. All adoptive families are welcome. Check out their website. (more…)

Carolina Hope Christian Adoption Agency is now accepting applications for its new Ethiopia Adoption Program. Although this international adoption program has taken longer than expected to be fully operational, we are very excited to now be helping Ethiopian orphans find homes with adoptive families in the United States.

Carolina Hope has achieved 1-year temporary Hague accreditation through the Council on Accreditation. This status permits Carolina Hope to conduct adoptions from all Hague countries and to do Hague-approved South Carolina adoption homestudies.

Over the weekend we received our first donations to specific needs at the Ethiopia Group Home. Check out the list of needed items to see what’s been given and what is still needed. And thanks to those who gave!
(You can watch video footage here of Ethiopian orphans who were visited by Carolina Hope’s Lisa Prather [...]

This is our Ethiopia video that premiered at our recent benefit concert with Caedmon’s Call. It was created by Brannon McAllister from footage captured on our recent trip to Ethiopia. The children shown in this video live at one of the orphanages with which we work, an orphanage located in a village with [...]

Here is the adoption video that Desiring God made for our Caedmon’s Call benefit concert for our Ethiopia orphan care and adoption programs. Enjoy!

I cannot express how thankful I am for all the volunteers who helped with our Caedmon’s Call benefit concert.  It was a great opportunity to raise awareness of and funds for the Ethiopian orphans we are sponsoring as an agency.  The concert began with a deeply moving three minute video created by Brannon McAllister from footage [...]

Just a reminder that tomorrow evening (Tuesday, March 4) from 7 to 9 pm, Carolina Hope is conducting an informational workshop about domestic and international adoptions at our office in Greenville, SC.
Here’s the announcement from our workshops page:
Introducing Domestic and International Adoption
Tuesday, March 4, 2008 (7-9pm)
At this adoption workshop, Carolina Hope Christian Adoption Agency and [...]

This evening at 7, Caedmon’s Call will be in concert at Southside Fellowship. This event is part of the Caedmon’s Call Overdressed Tour, which re-unites Derek Webb with the band. I’m writing from Texas, but as far as I know at this moment, the band is in Greenville, seeing the sites and getting ready for [...]

From Carolina Hope’s Adoption Workshops and Education page:
Workshop on Ethiopia Adoptions with Wesenyelew Sahilemariam
Saturday, March 1, 2008 (9am - Noon)
Come hear Carolina Hope’s Ethiopia adoption coordinator, Wesenyelew Sahilemariam, this Saturday at Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church. The workshop is free of charge. Advance registration is appreciated but not required. Simply contact us to indicate your interest. [...]

The concert is this week! We’re gearing up for it, and we’d like to ask your help in getting the word out. Because we’re an adoption agency and not a public relations firm, our advertising dollars are limited. In addition to our promotional efforts in churches, on the radio, and here on the web, we’re [...]

(Don’t forget about our benefit concert for Ethiopia orphan care and adoptions, with Caedmon’s Call, on February 29! Order tickets here.)
In January Lisa Prather (Carolina Hope’s Director of International Programs) and Dan Cruver (Director of Ministry Outreach) took a survey trip to Ethiopia. When they got back, Lisa made a slideshow with some compelling photos. [...]

Interest is gathering for the Ethiopia Adoption benefit concert being held in 9 days. Just yesterday I got an email from a friend encouraging me and others to attend! I’ve copied the email below as a reminder to all of you within driving distance of the South Carolina Upstate. Caedmon’s Call and Derek Webb are [...]

The staff at Carolina Hope wants to thank Desiring God for their very kind and thoughtful blog post about our recent trip to Ethiopia and our upcoming benefit concert.  Lukas Naugle’s post was encouraging to us.  It has been our great privilege to partner with them in these ways.
(Donations to help Ethiopian orphans can be [...]

(Donations to help Ethiopian orphans can be made here. Tickets to the Ethiopia Benefit Concert can be purchased here.)
:: picture taken by dan ::

(Donations to help Ethiopian orphans can be made here. Tickets to the Ethiopia Benefit Concert can be purchased here.)
:: picture taken by dan ::

The picture below was taken at the same orphanage where these three pictures were taken (one, two, three). As I mentioned in the post of the first picture linked to above, we had just handed out colored pencils and paper to the children. They were all very quick to sit down to start drawing. [...]

These children were enjoying watching themselves as I filmed them. And yes, I was listening.
Wesen, the gentleman speaking, is talking about churches sending mission teams to this orphanage to serve these orphans (builders, teachers, musicians, electricians, health professionals, people who just love spending time with children, etc).

[Update: Donations to benefit Ethiopian orphans can be [...]

Over at the conservative website Townhall.com, John Stossel (formerly of 20/20) writes an eyebrow-raising piece called USA Makes Adoption Harder. I want to be very clear that some of Stossel’s statements make me uncomfortable, and this is not an endorsement of Stossel’s article. But much of what he says is a simple reality, however unpopular [...]

Marty McAlpine, Media Engineer at Desiring God, accompanied us on our trip to Ethiopia to video capture much of what we did while there. The director of the orphanage where the picture below was taken told us that many professional cameramen come through their particular village (a village with 20,000+ known cases of AIDS) to [...]