The Lord Provides!
We have seen it over and over again since we first formed in 2010 – the Lord has always provided for our needs, often before we are even aware of them! From what began as an all-volunteer ministry, we grew to have one staff person in 2014 and now three staff members in 2016. We are constantly in awe of how the Lord has chosen to use what started as a handful of ordinary people to do extraordinary things! What a joy it has been to witness great growth and great provision as we strive to meet such a great need.
The mission of Chosen for Life Ministries is to educate and equip churches and communities to demonstrate how our adoption in Christ compels us to obey God’s command to love and care for orphans. In the past two years alone, we have connected with over 20 churches to train over 475 church members to serve local foster families. In that time, the support of these foster care teams has helped increase the number of local foster families, too – from less than 20 in 2014 to around 50 today! With over 300 children in foster care in Clarke and Oconee counties alone, we have a big job ahead of us – but we find comfort knowing that we serve an even bigger God.
As we help churches and individuals understand what role they can play in this orphan crisis, we have realized that we can no longer do it from the living room of our Board Chairman. As soon as we came to this realization, we began to see the Lord’s swift provision at work, yet again! We were able to acquire beautiful office space that suits our needs today and allows for growth in the future, and we were able to share this perfect space with CFLM Board Member, Eddie Patat, who needed to expand his accounting firm, Turner & Patat. Not only did the Lord provide the perfect space, but He also provided an incredibly generous anonymous donation to specifically cover the cost of furnishing our offices, our training/conference room, our office supply needs – everything! None of the items we have had to purchase during this move had to be supplied by funds we already obtained.
All of these circumstances have reminded us that we are not here because of anything we have done on our own. We are here because of the gracious provision of our Father in heaven – the One, True Father to the fatherless who has adopted us into His family as His sons and daughters, and who has equipped us to share that love with those on earth who are without the safety and love of an earthly family.
We invite you to rejoice with us as we experience His kindness through this season, and join us as we continue sharing that loving kindness with the rest of our community! Be sure to like our Facebook page and stay up to date with what’s going on. We plan to have an open house in the near future, and we would love to have every one of you come by!
Until then, continue choosing to care!
Our storage/work room. Soon we will have cubicles to add to the left side of this room where interns and volunteers can help us serve our community!
A view of our offices. We are grateful to have three full offices along with the work space we have in our storage/work room.
Our conference/training room. We are excited to have mobile training tables that can be pushed together and used like a conference table and then reconfigured to suit our training needs!
And there is even room to grow! Our basement will provide space to expand in the future, as well as house our future Clothes Closet.