It's National Adoption Month!
November is National Adoption Month — a month-long observance devoted to raising awareness about the urgent need for adoptive families of children and teenagers in foster care. This year, it comes with an added significance, an occasion for followers of Christ to reflect on our spiritual adoption into God's family.
When we accept Christ as our Savior, we enter into an adoption of the most profound kind — God adopts us as His children. He cares for us, protects us, and bestows His grace upon us, demonstrating an ultimate act of divine love.
In the same spirit of love, many Christian families find a deep calling to adopt, seeing this act as an earthly reflection of God’s heavenly adoption. They know the journey isn't easy. Adoption weaves a tapestry of joy, love, heartache, uncertainty, courage, and faith, intertwining the lives of the adoptee, adoptive parents, and birth parents. However, those who have made this sacred journey often affirm that the reward is a family bond grounded in love and mutual growth.
As believers, we are encouraged in James 1:27 to look after orphans and widows in their distress, understanding this as a fundamental part of pure and faultless religion. As we remember this in November, let us do so in the knowledge that while there are orphans on earth, in God's Kingdom, there is a place for everyone.
Adoption echoes the message that we, once spiritual orphans, have been chosen and welcomed into God’s family through our faith in Jesus Christ. The words of renowned Christian evangelist Billy Graham illustrate this: If we have given our lives to Christ, God has adopted us into His family. He is now your loving heavenly Father, and you are now His child, spiritually born into His family.
In the spirit of National Adoption Month, we hope these reminders of God’s love and mercy inspire and encourage you, whether you’re a family contemplating adoption, an adoptee, a birth parent, or anyone else touched by this exceptional journey of love. The celebration of adoption in all its forms paints a vibrant picture of God’s redemptive love, renewing our understanding of what it truly means to be a part of His family.
For more information about adoptable children in the United States, visit www.adoptuskids.org.
For abused, neglected, and at-risk children,
The OneFamily Team
Pure Religion Sunday!
The Pure Religion Project is a focused initiative inspired by the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) members and the broader CAFO community designed to help churches live out their calling to care for vulnerable children and families while growing closer to Jesus as His disciples. Simply put, the Project aims to inspire and equip God’s people to live the “pure religion” described in the book of James and invited throughout Scripture. This “pure religion” is growing deeper in faith and living out of that faith wider.
Pure Religion Sunday is on November 12. CAFO has a new resource as we approach this important day. Check it out below.
Faith & Community Initiative
The Governor’s Faith and Community Initiative was boldly launched in August 2019 to support those on the front lines of serving vulnerable Floridians—the faith and community organizations of our state. The Initiative also stands as the voice of the Governor to faith and community organizations and as a voice for those to the Governor. Faith and community organizations are our state’s greatest force for good, and it is our desire that the vulnerable people of Florida are better served because of those organizations.
In 2021, OneFamily accepted the role as the implementing partner for CarePortal, a platform that connects the needs of children and families in crisis, including foster families, with churches that can respond with tangible items.
Sandra Hogue is the regional manager for Volusia and Flagler Counties. To enroll as a CarePortal church, please click the button below.
Regardless of your political persuasion, the current administration has put a great value on the need for the local church to be involved in child welfare in their own communities. This gives value to the Church. The Church is essential!
Christmas Gift Cards
Want a tangible way of helping foster children this Christmas? Purchase a gift card directly for a foster child through OneFamily! Or, purchase several with your small group, sponsor a foster family through your business, or make it a school or classroom project! Go to OneFamilyFL.Kindful.com and select the "Christmas" campaign to make your gift card purchases. Please like and share so we can get the word around, our goal this year is to give 100 Christmas gift cards (at $75 each) to foster children. With your help, we can do it!
The Christmas Cross
Believe it or not, Christmas is right around the corner! The Christmas Cross by Stephen Hogue and Kai Kanhai is a wonderful read for your children. Click the button below to find out more about this perfect Christmas book to read with your young family.
It’s Christmastime again and Sam is wrestling with what Christmas is supposed to be about. If it’s really about Jesus’ birthday, why are we getting gifts? He watches all of his friends make Christmas lists, sees commercials on TV, and he doesn’t get it? Join Sam on his personal journey to find the true meaning of Christmas.
