Christmas Hosting Program

Are you interested in hosting an orphan and changing a life forever? Have you been thinking about adoption or just can’t get that longing in your heart to go away. Please consider hosting a child this Christmas and sharing your life with them. There are so many incredible kids wanting to come to America in hopes of finding their “Forever Family”. You many not be moved to adopt one but you can be their advocate and help find them a family where they will be loved and fit forever. Through the lives of some amazing people who hosted Aleks and New Horizons for Children who provided the opportunity, we are able to have Aleks as part of our family forever….and forever our lives will be changed for the better.

Christmas Hosting Signup is Officially Open!

If you are new to hosting, please review our website at www.newhorizonsforchildren.org. Under the heading of HOSTING, you’ll find both our pre-application and our required full application. Hosting is approximately 4 weeks, mid-December to mid-January. Signup remains open until approximately November 2^nd. To review the available orphans, visit http://www.newhorizonsforchildren.org/horizons/prephoto.html. Submit your information to be directed to the photo listing. Submitting your information will ensure you stay informed of the latest news regarding Christmas hosting. Call our office to place a child on hold, 678-574-4677.

Program Sponsors:

Every single orphan on our list needs a $250 program sponsor. If you cannot host, consider selecting a child, or multiple children, from the list to be their $250 program sponsor! This is great for families - place your selected child on your refrigerator and begin praying for them by name. It’s also wonderful for businesses that wish to direct philanthropic efforts to assist orphans.

Scholarships Needed:

Scholarships are particularly helpful in placing sibling groups and other special needs children. Please consider offering a larger financial gift to help offset hosting costs for some of our most special kids!

Bible Sponsor:

We are seeking an individual or company willing to be our Christmas bible sponsor. This donor will provide a bible in each hosted child’s native language. There is no greater gift than God’s word.

Hosting Locations:

Children are allowed to be hosted nation-wide! If you are outside of one of our main program areas, you will need to travel to one of our mandatory training dates.  You also may be required to travel to one of the main airports to pickup your hosted child. Those are the two main issues affecting families outside our main program areas, otherwise, children can be placed nationwide, so give us a call!

Order Christmas Shirts Now:

Help advertise the program in your area. Order one of our red, long-sleeved Christmas hosting t-shirts that all the host kids arrive wearing! Both child and adult sizes are available. Shirts are $15 each. Email us for an order form. (Or, if hosting, you will find one in the application posted online)

Fall Host Parent Training:

We are finalizing training dates now. Training is required for ALL first-time host parents. These are tentative dates, yet to be finalized:

Wayne, Pennsylvania – November 14

Atlanta, Georgia – November 21

Charlotte, North Carolina – December 5

Dallas, Texas – Date TBA

For questions or inquiries, please email newhorizonsforchildren@gmail.com or call our offices at 678-574-4677.

The Dichotomy of a Day

Air 1's Verse of the Day

9/11/2009

"You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done."

Psalm 92:4, NLT | View in context

As I awoke to face Friday 9/11 I couldn’t help but remember the day eight year prior and wonder…”what will today hold?”  I picked up my Blackberry as a normally do as I wait for the shower to warm. As I scanned my e-mails that I received during the night. Normally this means deleting a bunch of junk mail and then reading the verse of the day. I read the verse of the day "You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done." Psalm 92:4 NLT. Cool, I thought…and then I moved on…then I noticed three e-mails from Latvia…”Adoption Approval from the Ministry”. WOW! "You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done." Thank you!!

Through the day as I remembered all of the emotions and heaviness of that historic day just eight years prior…I couldn’t help but balance those feelings with the joy of the approval. I spent the evening going over all of our paperwork for the next phase of information that we need to send to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. We are one step closer! Today all of that paperwork was placed in a Priority Envelope and sent.

What now? Well we are now waiting for Latvia to give us our next court date. Once we receive it I will be traveling back to Latvia to stand before the court to complete the adoption. It is at this time that we will receive a new birth certificate for Aleks…and his name will be changed to Aleksejs Zachary Tuttle.

Our prayer requests at this time are:

• Continued favor in the eyes of the Latvian court and authorities.
• Smooth and quick approval process for our I-800 in the hands of the USCIS.
• Finances for this next trip to Latvia and the fees involved. Approximately $6,000.
• That God would open hearts and doors for more of the children from the orphanage in Liepaja to find forever families. (This is what Aleks asks about regularly)

FEARLESS by Max Lucado

FEARLESS by John Maxwell

Fear…it’s a word that paralyzes.

It is the very thing that most of us fear…fear itself.

That feeling of being totally locked up and not able to logically, or rationally, react to the circumstances around us. The world events hurl at us at a dizzying speed. Our media hammers us to the point many are afraid of what tomorrow holds.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

In this latest book from Max Lucado, he unpacks the things that keep us from being all that God created us to be. He exposes the core of the fears which enslave us. He helps us to take a different perspective and disarm the fears of life that we have allowed to shackle us. The storms of life are a reality but it’s the reaction in the storm that determines the survival rate. As Max shares, “It’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It’s whom we discover in the storm: and unstirred Christ.”

“Fear, mismanaged, leads to sin. Sin leads to hiding. Since we’ve all sinned, we all hide, not in bushes, but in eighty-hour workweeks, temper tantrums, and religious busyness. We avoid contact with God.”

In reading this book, I have found myself exactly in the place where Max Lucado was talking. He helps put the reality of God back in perspective…and expose one of the most powerful tactics of darkness. Fear does not have to rule our lives. We can experience true freedom…it is possible! FEARLESS can help show you where the key is that can set you free from the past, free from the realities of today and the unknown of tomorrow. Faith can and will disarm fear!

Two thumbs up! If you’re ready to break free from the negative doom and gloom around us, FEARLESS is a must read.

Once Again I Ask You to Pray for Erick

Some of you will remember my post last year about Erick, a young boy in Guatemala who is very sick. A boy in need of medical treatment which he can not get in Guatemala…or should I say they won’t give him. You can read my post from last year: http://lifeisbigger.blogspot.com/2008/12/please-pray-for-miracle.html

Erick has been taken to the hospital in serious condition. He needs serious prayer for divine intervention and/or medical intervention….or both.