Orphan Care [June 15-21]

Caring for orphans is a sacred calling. The Africa Gospel Church Baby Center in Kenya rescues orphaned and abandoned babies and helps them be adopted into Christian families. Dozens of children have been rescued and have found forever families. However, many others have been at the center for a long time. Because of their individual situations, they are not able to be adopted.

Praise God that in June 2013, Kenyan missionaries Pius and Evelyn Korir became the houseparents of the new Nyumbani ya Tumaini (Home of Hope) for older orphans. These children now have a family of their own and a happy home environment!

• Pray for wisdom, strength, and health for those who care for orphans around the world. Ministry to orphans is rewarding but also exhausting.
• Pray for the orphans’ physical needs, as many come to centers in fragile conditions and in desperate need of care.
• Pray for the spiritual needs of the orphans, that they will see Christ in their caregivers and that they will come to know their heavenly Father.

GIVE: The AGC Baby Center uses 450 cans of baby formula each month. For only $7, you can provide the center with one large can.

PODCAST: Enjoy interviews with missionaries who serve in key missions causes. Listen to this week’s podcast!

CALL: Call WGM’s Prayer Lifeline at 671.7232 (Marion, Indiana, area) or 1.800.426.0846 (toll free) to join other concert-goers in hearing this week’s recorded prayer.

SHARE: Invite others to pray with you during the concert. We depend on your prayers! Email us at thecall@wgm.org and tell us who you are praying with so we can encourage our staff.

Working Together

An excerpt from...

Working Together

By Robyn Moore, Kenya
July-September 2013

Over several months, the Least of These team was privileged to care for a precious 10-year-old boy named Ryan. We first met him in April 2012 when our team started assisting the children’s home where he lived. He had HIV/AIDS and was on treatment, and he was malnourished as well. Our team, along with CSI International missionaries Dave and Jen Bell, helped provide higher protein foods, such as milk and peanut butter and also fruits, to help Ryan.

The second or third time we saw sweet Ryan, he was in pain with a large abdominal mass. Dr. Russ White found cancer in his lymph nodes and abdomen.

Once we knew Ryan’s diagnosis, Anthony, part of our Least of These team, went to spend time with Ryan and led him to trust Jesus as his Savior. Ryan was started on chemotherapy.

It became apparent to us that, despite treatment, God had another plan for completely healing Ryan. Just before Christmas, Ryan gave me a letter, telling me of his love for me and that he knew I loved him! What a testimony for our team that he could tell we loved him and did all we could to care for him.

On January 14, 2013, we visited and prayed with him for the last time here on earth. Later that evening, God healed Ryan completely by taking him to heaven.

On February 23, a memorial service to honor Ryan’s life was held at the children’s home where we had met him. Along with the Bells and the children, including Ryan’s sister, we planted 11 fruit trees. It is a joy to know that these trees will provide food for the children and the staff in the years to come.

As a part of the service, we shared the gospel with all the children, reminding them that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Because Ryan trusted Jesus, he is healed and enjoying heaven! Pray with us that this seed of truth will be planted in their little lives and bear beautiful fruit.

Partner with the Least of These ministry at www.wgm.org/supportlot to ensure continued care for orphans and vulnerable children whom God puts in its care.

A Visit for Silas

An excerpt from...

A Visit for Silas
Using a long weekend to share God’s loveBy Linda Spriegel, Kenya
April-June 2013

“Mom, this weekend when I come home, I would like us to get Silas from the Africa Gospel Church Baby Center and bring him to see his mom.” My daughter Julia was calling from boarding school, planning for the long mid-term weekend coming up. With all three of our teenagers at Rift Valley Academy, my husband, John, and I look forward to these precious times when they visit and the anticipated family games, hikes, talks, and relaxing. But add a 21-month-old to the mix? And there were several hurdles to jump to get the needed permissions and make the arrangements. Yet we knew this was not the first or last time we as a family would be stretched by Julia’s compassionate heart, so we agreed to pray with her and began working on the details.

We had met Jennifer and her son Silas 10 months earlier when Jennifer brought him to Tenwek Hospital. Silas, at 11 months, was a classic picture of malnutrition. At this hospital visit, Jennifer told Dr. Chuck Bemm that she needed to give up her baby and that someone else needed to take care of him or he would die. Knowing Julia’s love for children and her hours of experience volunteering at the nursery, the Bemms asked her to care for Silas while they handled the necessary paperwork. Then Julia and our other daughter, Rebecca, escorted him the three hours to the Baby Center and handed him over to the staff’s loving care.

In the months that followed, Julia visited Silas a couple times, and we were able to show his pictures to his mom, who expressed a desire to see him. When Julia heard that Jennifer was in her last stages of HIV, she wanted to give Jennifer a tangible evidence of God’s care by bringing healthy Silas to see her.

It was a beautiful morning when we drove to Jennifer’s village with Silas to reunite him with his family. His mother and his four siblings who were there were overjoyed to see chubby Silas. As Jennifer shared her gratefulness, she referred to the story of Moses, identifying with his mother who had given up her son and one day he had been mightily used by God. She has the same vision for Silas. When her other children asked if they would get to see Silas again, she said, “He is in God’s hands. We don’t know if he will help our family or someone else’s, but he will be used by God in his future.”

Silas is back at the Baby Center, waiting to be adopted. Sadly, Jennifer passed away in December 2012. Even though she was very sick before she died, her favorite thing to talk about was Jesus, and she knew He had good plans for all her children.

You can offer continued care to Silas and other little ones at the AGC Baby Center through the Great Co-Mission Catalog. By recruiting your friends and family to personally connect with this need, you have the opportunity to change these little lives forever. Learn more about the AGC Baby Center project needs at www.wgm.org/catalog.

Orphans No More

An excerpt from Orphans No More
Adopted as Sons and Daughters

By Rachel Elwood, Support Staff
July-September 2012

The relationship between parents and children is one of the strongest bonds of human love we can fathom. For these missionary families, that bond has been forged with children they have joyfully adopted into their families.




Bill, Oksana, and Dennis Brower,UkraineOksana had already fallen in love with the then–5-year-old child and went home that night to talk to Bill. His response: “Oh, don’t worry, he’ll be ours. God’s already told me it’ll happen.”


In Ukraine, it usually takes 12 to 15 months to complete the adoption process, but Bill and Oksana were able to get all the paperwork done and finalized in just three months. Dennis immediately fit into his new family, calling his cousins “brothers.” Even Bill’s wary German Shepherd dog loved him from the start.

Wycliff, Staci, Gifton, Solomon, and Ellie Keter, Kenya

Eight months after Staci and Wycliff were married, they decided together to adopt Gifton and Solomon, two brothers who had been brought to the AGC Baby Center. Their family enlarged two years later with the birth of their daughter, Ellie.

One day, Gifton and Solomon asked Staci, “Mom, are we really a part of this family?” (A neighbor had tried to tell them that they weren’t.) She asked them, “Am I your mom? Is Wycliff your dad? Are you brothers? Is Ellie your sister?” They easily understood that the answer was “Yes!”

Nathan, Cydil, Ellie, and Reni Waggoner, Albania (Special Assignment)

Nathan and Cydil adopted their first child, Ellie, from Albania in 2005. “Our hearts became even more passionate and broken for the plight of the orphan as we had a former orphan living in our home,” Cydil shared. Now 7 years old, Ellie loves her role as big sister to 3-year-old Reni, who was also adopted from Albania.


Due to early-touch deprivation and severe crib confinement during her time at the orphanage, Ellie has some learning needs. Reni is a congenital, bilateral above-the-knee amputee. Still, he hasn’t let that slow him down as he walks and navigates stairs. Eventually, he will learn to use prosthetics.


“Sure, we encountered significant fear and we could have walked away and said, ‘No, this is too hard,’” Cydil said. “But we would have missed out on some of God’s greatest treasures and opportunities to see Him work in some pretty miraculous ways.

Chuck, Amy, Abigail, David, Lydia, Hannah, Shadrach, Elizabeth, and Esther Bemm, Kenya

In Chuck’s role as pediatrician at Tenwek Hospital and Amy’s ministry at local orphanages, the Bemm family was exposed early on to the plight of “unwanted” children. They adopted Hannah in 2006 and have since added Shadrach, Elizabeth, and Esther. They were all adopted from the Africa Gospel Church Baby Center, a home for orphaned and abandoned babies.
“We know that the Lord has placed them in our family at just the right time,” Amy said of their three most recent additions to the family. “While our house is a little crazy and loud, we are enjoying every minute of it!”

MORE: Use a concordance or resource like www.biblegateway.com, and search for the word “orphan.” Prepare to be amazed at how clearly the Bible shows God’s heart toward these precious children.

Kenya: A Million Orphans

The AIDS epidemic in Kenya has left more than 1 million children orphaned. Poverty and disease leave innocent, helpless children in their wake.

In response to this serious need, Africa Gospel Church partnered with World Gospel Mission and opened the Africa Gospel Church Baby Center located in Nakuru, Kenya. The AGC Baby Center provides hope to orphaned and abandoned babies through loving care.

The baby center opened its doors to the first two babies in April 2006. The need for abandoned children to find a safe haven continues to grow, so the AGC Baby Center Board decided to allow babies up to 24 months old to enroll, up from the previous maximum entrance age of 12 months old. Today, enrollment is over 30.

ACT: You can partner with the AGC Baby Center and share love with a precious little one. Your commitment to give $10 a month for six months will provide support and care to one baby living at the center (account # 21193-CALL). You can learn more and choose the baby you would like to “adopt” by e-mailing Staci Keter at director@agcbabycenter.org.

Say this prayer for Kenya:

Dear Lord, thank You for meeting with us as we pray for the needs of our world. Thank You for helping us understand how we can bring the life-changing message of Your love to the nations. Today, we bring before You the country of Kenya. Many things break Your heart about this area of the world, and today we want to lift up the 1 million children who have been orphaned due to the AIDS epidemic and other diseases.

We know how important a child’s growing-up years are and how those years form who the child becomes and the direction of the child’s life. What happens if they have no parents and are shunted to relatives or orphanages or are simply abandoned to fend for themselves? Lord, thank You for leading the Africa Gospel Church to establish the Baby Center. It’s so wonderful to know that there is a place where these orphaned or abandoned little ones can be taken. Thank You for rescuing these children. Thank You for the Kenyan and American caregivers who minister to them until they can be adopted into good Christian homes.

Lord, I ask that You will continue to lead Kenyan men and women to adopt these children. Help the staff of the AGC Baby Center as it is almost at capacity with the number of babies right now. Thank You for leading churches in the U.S. to partner with this ministry, helping it to grow and be sustainable.

This center is just one of many homes for orphaned or abandoned children in Kenya. Lord, it seems so overwhelming. Help us to know how we can be a part of restoring the future of these children. Help us to trust You and believe that our efforts to help even a few have kingdom benefit.

We read in Your Word that we are to help the powerless and the oppressed and that You are the Defender of the weak. Thank You for that promise. Help us to remember that as we go from here. In Your name I pray, Amen.