Dan and I have always talked about adoption, and it’s always been something that has tugged at our hearts….it’s one of those things that just won’t let us alone.  Last week, as I was reading one of my newsletters that I get, I noticed this organization listed, and so I clicked over to it, as it sounded really interesting.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw exactly what this organization does, and I’m excited to write about them.  The organization is New Horizons for Children, Inc.

New Horizons for Children, Inc., is an international, Christian-based hosting agency that helps families to host children in their homes for about four weeks; they bring children over to the U.S. twice a year, one of those times being the summer.  They place these children with Christian families who can not only teach them about America and immerse them in a loving family, but a family that can teach that child what the love of a Heavenly Father means.  These children come from Eastern Europe, from the countries of Latvia, Russia, and Ukraine.

LeAnn Dakake is the director of New Horizons and actually has adopted four children from Russia.  Twice a year, she travels with a team to Eastern Europe, where she visits orphanages.  Her purpose in going is to find and interview children, so that she can figure out which children will be signed up for the hosting program for that year.  It takes much observation and a lot of difficult decision making to do this, as there are just so many children who are orphaned; the number is staggering.  Many of these children face obstacles and challenges that ordinary children don’t face, especially when it comes to self-esteem, and LeAnn has to carefully choose the children that have a quality of resilience about them.  Along with interviewing children, these teams also take gifts and aid with them, in the form of clothing, shoes, school supplies, etc.  They rely on the orphanage to tell them what is most needed.  Prayer is a constant ingredient in this decision making process.

Hosting families agree to host these children either during the summer or over the Christmas holidays for 4-5 weeks.  These families must be Christian families and must be active members of a local church.  It’s important that the family life be healthy, as these children need the life-giving support that a family can give.  For a family to host a child, the cost is $2500; if that child has siblings, the cost for hosting siblings is $2400.  These costs include the airfare and travel expenses, etc., that it takes to bring these children to the U.S.  Donations that are given to New Horizons are often put towards sibling expenses or even special needs children who might not otherwise get to participate in an opportunity like this.

How can you help?  You can help through fundraising or even making a donation.  New Horizons suggests setting up an Orphan Angel Tree, which will help collect gifts for these children.  LeAnn and her team can then take these gifts when they travel to Eastern Europe twice a year.  Of course, there are other fundraising ideas that you could implement, as well.  You can even make a donation to support this organization and the children/families it serves.  If your employer matches donations, it might be a good idea to get them involved.  If you would rather be on the front lines, your family might consider becoming a host family.  There is an application process to do so.

For me personally, I think this is definitely something we will consider doing in the future.  It would be so difficult to see that child go back to the orphanage when our time was up, but I can’t imagine missing an opportunity like this.  I had never actually heard of anything like this before, besides foreign exchange students.  I didn’t know it was even possible to host orphaned children in your home like this.  What a great avenue for many children to eventually become adopted….New Horizons says that normally only 20% of our hosting families go into hosting with an idea of adoption. However, generally 80% or more of our children do end up being adopted by their host family or someone they met while staying with their host family through neighbors, extended family, church members of the host family’s church, or others who found out about the program while in process. For this reason, each family who applies to host is considered a potential adopting family and the approval process for hosting is very similar to the approval process for adoption.  Keep in mind that New Horizons is only a hosting agency, not an adoption agency.  You can follow New Horizons on Facebook.

Remember to shine your light!