As we look back over Show Hope’s first ten years, we have been given the unique opportunity to reflect on God’s amazing grace toward the orphan as we have watched Him repeatedly empower and mobilize courageous heroes on behalf of the least of these. Today marks the five year anniversary of the passing of Maria Sue Chapman, a courageous hero in her own right. Maria’s life, influence, and impact have stretched far beyond what any earthly eye could have imagined and we know this could only have come as a result of God’s rich grace poured out on her life. So, in honor of her memory on this day, we ask you to bless the name of Jesus, the One who redeems, the One who makes whole, the Name above all names.

The searing loss that began to unfold five years ago has born from it immeasurable beauty in the lives of countless waiting children, and reaches far beyond anything that we could have imagined on that darkest of days.

For those who have prayed, given, mobilized, and labored on behalf of the world’s waiting children, we at Show Hope, on behalf of the Chapman family, extend our deepest thanks to you. We are humbled by the journey God has set us on together and are endlessly thankful for your presence in this journey.

This is the fourth entry in our “TOP TEN Highlights From 10 Years of Ministry” series. Click here to read previous entries>>>

4. Experiencing the Miracle of Prayer

In 2006, after visiting China, Mary Beth Chapman came back with a heavy heart for a specific child named Chen Chen. This precious little girl desperately needed a family, but the chances were very low that she would be adopted. However, after putting out a call to the Show Hope family to pray, a courageous couple stepped forward to adopt her. Today  Chen Chen has a forever family! This began our monthly prayer efforts, and thousands are now seeing miracles like this happen as they advocate on their knees.

Download this month’s Prayer Focus, featuring Torie (left)>>>

Help us celebrate our 10 Year Anniversary! Join us for a FREE picnic at the Allen Arena Plaza from 12-3 on Sunday, May 26. Inflatable games, a photo booth, Nashville food trucks, Miss Patty Cake, and Randall Goodgame will ensure a wonderful time is had by all! Learn more>>>

Show Hope is thrilled to be a Champion Sponsor at the Christian Alliance for Orphans 9th annual Orphan Summit this week!  From seeing ministry partners, to seeing friends, to gaining knowledge and insight into the global orphan care movement, Summit is truly one of the highlights of our year. We are particularly glad #Summit9 is in our own backyard this year (in Nashville, TN) because it gives us a unique opportunity to have our entire staff here. We’ve been busy planning which of the incredible sessions we’re attending, and getting ready to meet the thousands of you who are registered.

Whether you’re joining us from a few miles down the road or from across the world, we hope that you’ll take this opportunity to engage with us! Here’s a quick breakdown of where you can find Show Hope this week:

THURSDAY

Breakout Session I (11am-noon): 
So You Want to Change the World? - Scott and Kerry Hasenbalg – Room 2132
We all want to be effecting in Kingdom work while thriving in our personal relationship and responsibilities. However, many of us are weary, heavy-laden and lack joy and peace in our lives. By digging into spiritual truths as well as practical applications, we can overflow with hope in our ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Multi-Racial Family – panel feat. Melissa Wheatley – Room 2103
Real families, parents and children share their stories and respond to your questions about being a transracial family from a biblical worldview. Share in the wisdom and collective experiences of both adoptees and adoptive parents in transracial families.

Breakout Session II (2-3pm): 
Ministry is a Family Thing – Mary Beth Chapman and Emily Richards – Room 2132
Mary Beth Chapman and her daughter, Emily, will share what it is like to be involved in orphan care and adoption ministry together. For Mary Beth and Steven, their involvement with adoption advocacy and orphan care efforts has become more than a ministry they are passionate about–it is part of the legacy they are passing on to their children.

Breakout Session III (4-5pm):
Innovative Adoption Funding Solutions & How the Church Can Respond - panel feat. Kathy McKinney – Room 2132
This workshop will equip churches and families to overcome one fo the biggest barriers to adoption: money. Learn creative solutions to the funding hurdles, both big and small. Explore specific examples and “case studies” of how God has provided through churches and individuals to meet the financial needs of adoption.

General Session (7-8:45p):
Steven Curtis Chapman will close the first night of Summit with music and worship.

FRIDAY

Prayer Meetings (8-8:30am):
Orphans in China Prayer Focus – several staff – Room 2004
This prayer time is an opportunity to gather with others who share your particular passion and focus in the world, joining together to ask God to act decisively for the fatherless.  

Breakout Session V (2-3pm):
God is Love: THe Nature of the Father and Our Identity as His Children – Emily Richards – Room 2140
Whatever your involvement with adoption advocacy, orphan care, or foster care may be, it is often helpful to pull the scope back from what we are doing to remember why we are doing it. The aim of this breakout session is not necessarily neat answers or practical steps; rather, the intention is to create space so as to be reminded and reflect upon the great love that God the Father has for his children and how a love so entirely transformative in natures dialogues with our lived adoption experience.

Additionally, the Red Bus will be parked out in the parking lot and open to the public! You’ll also want to stop by our booth in the Brentwood Baptist Church Atrium (by the main doors). We’ll be giving away prizes, flyers, and magnets each day!

We look forward to seeing you. Can’t join us in Nashville? Watch the live webstream here.

I recently had the privilege of traveling to Texas A&M University to visit some new friends of Show Hope at Breakaway Ministries. Breakaway is a weekly bible study that thousands of students attend each week . . . the group meets in the home arena of the Texas A&M basketball teams. Needless to say, it is a big community of college students who together desire to follow the Lord, dig deeper into his word, and live life accordingly. Every year, Breakaway challenges their students to commit to one month of giving sacrificially of their time, energy, and resources specifically for the purposes of their annual “Shalom Project.” Each year, they choose a non-profit ministry to partner with offering care for vulnerable and impoverished people. After researching  various non-profits, Breakaway felt strongly that they were meant to partner with Show Hope this year. The students were challenged to raise $100,000 to provide adoption aid grants to help bring seven children home and cover the cost for a year of care for 20 children at Show Hope’s Special Care Centers.

I am so thankful for the opportunity to celebrate all that God did in their month of generous giving. I heard stories of students gathering  items they no longer needed and having massive garage sales so as to donate all the proceeds to the Shalom Project. One student spent his weekends driving to small Texan towns surrounding College Station and speaking to local churches about Show Hope. He raised more than $4,000 just by inviting them to forever change the lives of orphaned and vulnerable children in America and around the world. The students were challenged to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and I must say they not only rose to the occasion, but far exceeded our expectations. In that one month period of time, the students at Texas A&M did not raise $100,000 . . . they raised $124,000! Yes, you read that correctly . . . $124,000. Wow! The money will be used to help provide life-altering care to more 30 waiting children.

As I met the staff at Breakaway Ministries, I was genuinely inspired by their humble dedication to loving God and loving people. They aren’t content to simply read the scripture and remain unchanged. In fact, the staff and the students are very intentional to challenge themselves to put into action what they read in scripture, which is particularly evident through the Shalom Project. Therefore, when they study James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress,” they respond by supporting a ministry on the frontlines of orphan care. I was deeply impacted by my time with the Breakaway family and these college students who are caring for those that are most vulnerable in our society.

To our new friends at Breakaway Ministries, thank you, thank you, thank you! We are entirely grateful for your generous hearts and partnership with Show Hope through this year’s Shalom Project. Additionally, we are thankful for the way you are encouraging and inspiring our country’s next generation of leaders to remain concerned and attentive to the needs of those in the margins of our society. We pray God’s blessings continue to abound on Breakaway Ministries.

Show Hope is thrilled to present Andrew Peterson and CALEB’s Spring 2013 “Light for the Lost Boy” tour (#LFLBtour)!

As Peterson embarks on his second tour as a Show Hope artist, he is honored to share evening after evening about the ministry’s sponsorship program. “One of Show Hope’s biggest needs is sponsors and they need people willing to step up and give so that these children can find homes,” he shares.

“For me to get to work with Show Hope and to be a small part in building the kingdom in this way, to show these children the love of Jesus, is profoundly moving,” Peterson continues. “It’s a small price to pay for a blessing that big.”

CALEB (made up of Caleb Chapman, Scott Mills, and Will Franklin Chapman) will once again be joining Andrew Peterson on the road. CALEB just finished recording their first full-length album, and you won’t want to miss the live debut of their new songs!

The tour is a fantastic opportunity to hear critically-acclaimed music, learn more about Show Hope, and become a Show Hope sponsor to impact the lives of orphans around the world! The Light for the Lost Boy tour begins this Friday and runs through May 4 in Osage Beach, MO.

We look forward to seeing grant families and meeting new and long-time Show Hope sponsors on the road this spring! For tickets, visit http://www.andrew-peterson.com

4/12 Knoxville, TN
4/13 Guntersville, AL
4/14 Mt. Pleasant, SC
4/19 Ellicott City, MD
4/20 Deerfield, MA
4/21 Ipswich, MA
4/26 Nashville, TN
4/27 Kingsford, MI
4/28 Corydon, IA
5/2 Houston, TX
5/3 Plano, TX
5/4 Osage Beach, MO

Are you ready for our second 10 Year Celebration giveaway? Follow the easy steps below to win a Show Hope 10 Year Celebration prize package including: a pair of premium level ticket upgrades, a signed event poster, and two Show Hope t-shirts.

1) Click here to download our 10 year logo sheet.
2) Take a photo of you holding up the logo sheet.
3) Share your photo to our Facebook page with your anniversary wishes by April 7!
  3a) OR share your photo to Twitter/Instagram with the hashtag #SH10yr and tag @ShowHope.

Questions about the giveaway or the event? Leave us a comment!

To celebrate our 10 year Anniversary, Steven Curtis Chapman is taking you “Inside Show Hope!” Meet our staff, learn fun facts about the Chapmans and our ministry, and celebrate with us! We’ll be releasing a new episode of “Inside Show Hope” every two weeks, so check back often for new videos. Enjoy!

Episode 1 of this brand new series introduces you to Jaimee Marks, our Sponsorship Liaison.

As we were beginning the process of our third adoption in 2011, we pondered what special needs were “off the table,” so to speak. These would be “needs” we were convinced we couldn’t handle in a child.

Tops on the list: congenital heart disease.

Years earlier, we traveled in China to bring home our son, James, who was born with a cleft lip and palate. At that time in 2008 that was more than we thought we could (or really wanted) to handle. But truth be told, it was imminently doable (in God’s strength). Yet given that, we believed we had stretched as far as we were willing or able to stretch. And we were firmly convinced of that until we saw Hudson’s picture and heard his story in 2011.

Then in a way that we cannot explain everything changed. It had to be God.

Hudson came home in May 2012.

Unless you saw Hudson at our neighborhood pool and saw the uneven scar running the length of his chest or you were around when he gets winded and noticed a blueness under his finger nails, you wouldn’t have a clue that he was born with only one ventricle and already had two heart surgeries while waiting for us in China.

Since he came home, Hudson has had a battery of medical tests, including a heart catheterization, at our local children’s hospital. Doctors have given him the green light for his third heart surgery, the Fontan procedure, in April.

We’re not looking forward to it, in the way one would anticipate a beach vacation, but we are eager for Hudson’s health to get this next surgery complete. Our pediatrician told us Hudson will be a “new boy” after this surgery. We can hardly imagine that; he is already a little dynamo unto himself!

It’s all much bigger than us. If we focus too much on Hudson’s medical condition, we are easily overwhelmed. But then, all of our children–bio and adopted–have issues that they must contend with that can be overwhelming if you spend all your time focusing on them.

God has used each of our children to teach us it is wise to take one day at a time, although our nature is to lie awake at night and fret over things that are not in our control (Matthew 6:34). It really all comes down to trust.

For us now it is simply doing what comes next. For each test or surgery that Hudson has, there is a different (specialized) cardiologist. They are working together to give him the best care available. We know this and are confident he would not be on track for this level of care if he were still in an orphanage.

In the same way that not every one is called to adopt (but God expects us all to be involved), it’s unreasonable to expect every family to choose to grow by adopting a CHD child. Yet on this side of Hudson’s adoption, we couldn’t imagine it any other way. It is an option well worth considering.

Hudson is an intelligent, brave little boy. I can’t imagine any other child as my youngest son. His physical heart might not be whole but his heart for life is as full as it can be. Through Hudson, we know the fullness of God’s love for us just a little bit more. We are blessed.

-Dwayne and Marla Hastings

You can help a child like Hudson receive life-saving surgeries and medical care. Click here to help fund a heart surgery!

Have you adopted a child with CHD? Leave us a comment with your best advice for other families considering bringing home a child with CHD.

One of my favorite aspects of my job is getting to know and learn from the families who have been blessed by the generous giving of donors and received grants to bring their children home. In many cases, these conversations happen on a computer screen, but it is even more special when God allows us to do life together. That is the case with my pastor, Jason Egly, and his family, who brought home two daughters from Ethiopia with the help of a Show Hope grant. I am incredibly thankful for their friendship and example and thrilled that Jason is sharing with us in the post below. - Jaimee Marks

“Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people. He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago.” Luke 1:68-70 NLT.

I have been studying Scripture and preparing sermons for several years now and one of the reasons why I am so passionate about it is because God continues to show me things I have never realized before … even in familiar passages. One such example was a few weeks ago, on the second Sunday of Advent.

I was preparing to teach Luke 1:67-79. In this passage, Zechariah gives a beautiful song of praise to God after the birth of his son John. After 400 years of prophetic silence, God had broken through with the birth of John the Baptist who would prepare the way for the coming Messiah. In his song, Zechariah uses five synonymous words or phrases to describe how God has acted on behalf of His people: He has visited us (v. 68); He has redeemed us (v. 68); He has sent us a mighty Savior (v. 69); He has saved us from our enemies (v. 70); He has remembered His covenant (v. 72); and He has rescued us (v.74).

As I identified these, the one that really seemed odd to me was, “He has visited us.” How is visiting on the same level with redeeming or saving or rescuing us? If I had been writing this, I thought, I am sure I could have come up with a better phrase than “He has visited us.” But seeing how my words are not inerrant and Luke’s are, I decided to dig a little deeper.

The word visit is translated from the Greek word episkeptomai, which means to inspect, examine, or look around; most often in order to help or benefit the poor, afflicted or sick. Ahhhh … now this is beginning to get intriguing. The light bulb in my head is showing signs of a flicker.

Because it had just happened recently, my mind flashed to the image of President Obama paying a visit to the victims of Hurricane Sandy. When a President visits an area that is afflicted by some sort of natural disaster, it is not for the purpose tourism or sightseeing, (and hopefully also not for political maneuvering.) It is to comfort those who are hurting and to promise them that help has arrived, backed by the full resources of the government.

And now the light bulb is burning full blast.

I remembered that James 1:27 says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (ESV, emphasis added.)

To visit.

I have always struggled with this verse because to simply just visit an orphan or a widow in their affliction doesn’t seem like nearly enough. As an adoptive parent, to have simply just visited my little girls while they were in their orphanage in Ethiopia would have seemed pointless. An insult, even. I wanted to bring them home! Immediately!

But what if the James 1:27 visit was the Luke 1:68 kind of visit? Could it be? Surely not. That would be too easy. I looked up the verse in my lexicon and … unbelievable (oh, me of little faith) … there it was, as clear as day: Episkeptomai.

How could I, a pastor, a (wannabe) Greek scholar, adoptive parent, and orphan advocate have missed this?!

Now it makes so much sense! This is why orphan care (and widow care, don’t forget) is so important for the church! Because it is exactly what God did for us. He visited us. And so much more…

When God sent his Mighty Savior Jesus into the world as the Envoy of the Kingdom of Heaven, it was to visit us while we were afflicted by the disastrous consequences of sin, and it was for the purpose of comforting us and promising us that help has arrived, backed by the full resources of the Kingdom. He didn’t just come and look around and give us a few nice suggestions about how to pull ourselves up out of our disaster. He came to redeem, save, and rescue us. And he didn’t just visit … He stayed. And he gave His life — the most valuable resource of the Kingdom of Heaven — for us, orphans of the hurricane of sin. And He adopted us into the family of God. Forever.

This Christmas, I was (and continue to be) thankful more than ever to God for sending His Son to visit us. I am also thankful to Show Hope sponsors and donors, who not only helped my family visit two little orphan girls in Ethiopia, but to bring them home, give them a forever family, and introduce them to the One who gave His life for them.

-Jason Egly, pastor at Ekklesia Nashville

UPDATE – JANUARY 4  - Read the official Save the Adoption Tax Credit working group press release here. 

Good news to start off the year 2013! In light of the uncertainty of our nation’s fiscal situation, I am excited to announce that the Adoption Tax Credit that was due to expire at the end of 2012 was voted to be a permanent part of the tax code at $10,000 or more, as it was in 2001.

More than ten years ago my wife Kerry, the first staffer for the Adoption Caucus and the founding Executive Director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, worked with our lawmakers to grow the Adoption Tax Credit. Now, years later, we invested time and energy in advocating through Show Hope and alongside many other key organizations (including my wife’s former company now 8 years removed) to make sure it did not fall through the cracks.

There were many aspects of the Adoption Tax Credit that we advocated for, and one of those was 100% “ refund-ability” (regardless of whether or not you owed taxes). Unfortunately, that component did not make the package. We are disappointed that this benefit didn’t make the package. However, considering the state of reform our government is currently in, we rejoice in the good news that this important issue was not forgotten!

Keep up-to-date on the status of the adoption tax credit and frequently asked questions by clicking here.