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 [...]

Why would I, living in landlocked and frozen MN, buy 6 tickets to the Carolina Hope – Caedmon’s Call/Derek Webb concert this Friday? Maybe I hatched a wild plan to fly out to the coast for the weekend with 5 of my closest girl friends. Sounds fun, but it doesn’t fall within the reality of [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

[[ This photo has been removed to honor Ethiopia's desire that photos of orphans not be displayed on websites. ]] (Donations to help Ethiopian orphans can be made here. Tickets to the Ethiopia Benefit Concert can be purchased here.) :: picture taken by dan ::

Sometimes I forget when I am talking with people about transracial adoption (or parenting in general) to share the happy quiet moments as well as the hard ones. When I stop and watch, I see that my family has them every day. Sandwiched in between the training and the conflicts, the school work and the [...]

[[ This photo has been removed to honor Ethiopia's desire that photos of orphans not be displayed on websites. ]] (Donations to help Ethiopian orphans can be made here. Tickets to the Ethiopia Benefit Concert can be purchased here.) :: picture taken by dan ::

Two days ago I blogged about A4everFamily.org, a website put together by adoptive families to provide information about bonding and attachment in adoption. The post elicited this comment: after reading A4everFamily.org site I am scared. we are looking forward to adopting from an orphanage in Uganda (hopefully being able to pick up our child by [...]

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. The [...]

As the mom to 6 adopted kids I try hard not to be afraid when I need to research Attachment Disorders and all of the psychologically disruptive things that this diagnosis can indicate. Rather than reacting out of fear, I have learned to process what I learn with a sober mind and a prayerful heart. [...]

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). [[ This video has been removed to [...]

I was just alerted to this great website for adoptive families and prospective adoptive families that deals with a full range of adoption attachment issues, from “normal” bonding to severe attachment disorders: A4everFamily.org. Pass this on to any families you know that are pursuing an adoption. Being educated about what’s typical and what’s possible is [...]

Carolina Hope is scheduling our basic informational workshop about international and domestic adoptions for the first Tuesday of every month. Here’s the announcement from our Workshops page: Introducing Domestic and International Adoption first Tuesday of every month next one: Tuesday, March 4, 2008 (7-9 P.M.) At this adoption workshop, Carolina Hope Christian Adoption Agency and [...]

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 [...]

[[ This photo has been removed to honor Ethiopia's desire that photos of orphans not be displayed on websites. ]]

This picture, as well as the last, was taken in the neediest orphanage of the three with which we are working. These children have great food support needs, space needs, and clothing needs. Yet look at this little girl’s smile. This is a smile that is blossoming in the midst of profoundly difficult life circumstances. [...]