Host Sandra Flach is a mom of 8 children, 5 through adoption—one kinship and 4 international. Her youngest 2 are teens diagnosed with a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). With over 30 years of parenting experience and 20 plus years as an adoptive and kinship parent, she’s made mountains of mistakes and learned loads of lessons. She understands the difficult road of parenting children with trauma histories—and she is still in the trenches! The Adoption & Foster Care Journey is a podcast to encourage, educate, and equip you to care for children in crisis through adoption, foster care, and kinship care. We aim to support adoptive and foster families by sharing encouraging real-life stories and equipping them with modern-day research and parenting techniques.
Episodes
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Orphan ministry leaders are often drawn to adoption and foster care work because of personal experience. For podcast guest, Ty Bryant, it is very personal. Ty was adopted as an infant.
Ty grew up in a Christian home. He became a pastor. He met his wife, Kristen, while they were both on staff at a church in Georgia. After three biological kids, they became certified foster parents. Now Ty and Kristen are parens to 4 siblings adopted through foster care.
Along the way, Ty’s heart for children in crisis grew. Today, he’s the Vice President of Promise 686—a GA based nonprofit on a mission to mobilize church communities nationwide to care for vulnerable children. Ty also serves as State Director for CarePortal in GA. To date over 80 churches in the state have served nearly 1,800 children through CarePortal.
Ty’s personal adoption story, his family’s foster and adoption journey, and his ministry’s work to impact kids in crisis together create a picture of what the Church can look like when we say yes. Yes to kids. And yes to God who desires to set the lonely in families (Psalm 68.6).
Monday Jan 13, 2020
Monday Jan 13, 2020
What makes a family with three biological children adopt six times? A heart to obey God.
Twenty-five years ago, Kari Stewart and her husband, Jeff, said yes to the Lord and adopted a little girl from China. Not long after, they adopted a little girl from Korea. Along the way God gave them a heart for hard to place African-American children. Their third yes led them to a Haitian-Jamaican little boy from Florida.
When their son expressed a desire for a sibling who looked like him, the Stewart’s took that as a sign to adopt again. This time God led them to an African-American little girl in TN. Shortly after her adoption, Kari and her husband learned Haiti, a country near and dear to their hearts, opened to larger family adoption. They put their yes on the table again and adopted a little boy from Haiti.
The Stewart’s had adopted five children—three internationally and two domestically. But God was not finished yet. Kari began to hear the Lord whisper to her heart about adopting a child with Down Syndrome. This time she resisted telling Him she simply could not do it. God in turn told her she was right. She couldn’t. Be He could. The Stewart’s adopted a little girl with Down Syndrome from Hong Kong six months later.
Kari Stewart shares her family’s adoption journey, and what she learned along the way, on this week’s episode of our Orphans No More podcast. Find the podcast HERE. You can also contact Kari with questions at karalot9@gmail.com. Click Adoption or Foster Care for more information on those topics right on our website.
Tuesday Jan 07, 2020
Tuesday Jan 07, 2020
Successful people set goals, make plans, have a vision, prioritize, and get things done. Here at Justice For Orphans we want to be successful. We want you to be successful too. We have a 2020 vision for JFO. What’s your 2020 vision?
Start off the new year with this week’s Orphans No More podcast. Our host and JFO Executive Director, Sandra Flach, and Assistant Director, Kathi Sewak, share about getting ready for the new year by prayerfully setting goals and planning for success..
Listen in as Kathi and Sandra discuss helpful tools such as calendar planners, wall planners, and vision boards. Be inspired as they share from personal experience about goal setting and time management. Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) says Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law is happy. You might not “perish” without creating a vision board, but you will be more productive and more successful when you set goals.
Find the Ready, Set, Goal episode of Orphans No More HERE.
Tuesday Dec 31, 2019
Tuesday Dec 31, 2019
Though I am surrounded by troubles, you will protect me from the anger of my enemies. You reach out your hand, and the power of your right hand saves me. The LORD will work out his plans for my life—for your faithful love, O LORD, endures forever…
Psalm 138:7-8 is the life verse for this week’s Orphans No More podcast guest—Stephanie Fast. Stephanie was a Korean War orphan. While her story is horrific, her survival is miraculous. As a bi-racial child in 1960’s Korea, Stephanie was abandoned, rejected, and abused. She spent several years of her childhood existing on the streets and in the hills of South Korea. Near death several times, a God she didn’t know willed her to live.
Today, Stephanie is a wife, mom, grandmother to 19 children, an international speaker, and author of the book, She is Mine: A War Orphan’s Incredible Journey of Survival. She speaks and mentors others who suffer childhood trauma so they can experience the healing power of God too.
Find our interview with Stephanie Fast here. Learn more about Stephanie’s ministry and order her book at StephanieFast.org.
Monday Dec 23, 2019
Monday Dec 23, 2019
John 3:16 tells us God so loved the world he gave…God loved and God gave. No greater gift has ever been given. Jesus is the greatest gift of all. Within this Gift is wrapped the hope, peace, joy, and love we’ve been talking about in our 4 part podcast series for Advent.
Because of God’s love for us, He gave Jesus. Now with the love of Jesus he wants us to love others. Love involves action.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
1 John 3:16-18
As God’s children we must be about the family business - the family business is LOVE. How will you lavish God’s love on someone this season? For some inspiration and encouragement check out this week’s Orphans No More podcast as we finish our Advent series with the topic of Love. Find the episode here.
We at Justice For Orphans pray as you step into 2020 you will take the time to sit in God’s presence where you will experience joy, peace, hope, and love. Then take that joy, peace, hope, and love and pour it out on a weary world in need of the greatest gift ever given—Jesus.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
Monday Dec 16, 2019
Monday Dec 16, 2019
Joy to the world, the Lord has come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing…
Have you received your King? Have you prepared a place in your heart for Him to dwell?
Sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances or situations that leave us wondering why God has us in that place. Things in life don’t go as we expect them. It can feel as if life is robbing us of joy. Just as with hope and peace, joy is not based on our circumstances. We must choose joy. We experience true joy when we experience Christ. Joy is found in His presence no matter our circumstances.
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:11
If you are in need of joy - check out our Orphans No More podcast for the 3rd show in our Advent series. This week’s topic is joy. Host Sandra Flach shares how some of her greatest joys were also accompanied by some of her greatest life challenges. If your heart needs some nourishment this holiday season, find the joy episode here. We pray in 2020 you will take time to sit in the presence of Jesus - there you will experience joy, peace, hope, and love.
Monday Dec 09, 2019
Monday Dec 09, 2019
This time of year we could all use some peace and quiet from all the holiday hustle and bustle. But that’s not the kind of peace our souls really crave. Jesus came to bring us a way to have peace with God. If you’re not experiencing peace than you may be in need the peace of God. The peace of God is the contentment we have when our faith is in God in an otherwise peace-less situation.
Check out our Orphans No More podcast series on Advent. On this week’s episode, Advent: Choose Peace, host Sandra Flach shares about choosing peace. No matter what is going on around us, we can have peace because we have Christ in us. The Prince of Peace lives in our hearts.
Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you. 2 Thessalonians 3:16
Monday Dec 02, 2019
Monday Dec 02, 2019
Advent is a time to remember hope, peace, joy, and love as we celebrate the first arrival of Christ. The hustle and bustle of the holiday season can crowd out the real reason for the season. To encourage and inspire you to press into Jesus this holiday season, we have produced a series of four Advent episodes for our Orphans No More podcast. The first in the line up focuses on hope.
God’s people experienced 400 years of silence before the New Testament dawned with the light of Christ - our true source of hope, peace, joy and love. God may have been silent to the people, but behind the scenes of eternity He was at work preparing the stage for the entrance of His Son.
Maybe you’re walking through a time of waiting and it seems God is silent. What you’ve hoped for has not yet happened. Your situation feels impossible.
In Luke 1:37 the angel says to Mary, “For with God nothing is impossible.” Podcast host, Sandra Flach experienced God doing the impossible. Thirteen years ago she spent an entire Christmas season in Ukraine facing some impossible adoption challenges. Tune in to hear how God filled her with hope and sustained her through difficulties. Listen to the podcast here.
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness—Isaiah 9:2.
As you go throughout the busy holiday season, press into the Light of Christ. He will fill you with hope.
Tuesday Nov 26, 2019
Tuesday Nov 26, 2019
We all experience suffering throughout life. Jesus even assured us we would experiencer trials and tribulations. Still, we question God’s goodness and His love for us when we walk through dark times.
According to 1 Peter 4:12-14, suffering is quite normal: “Dear Friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad, for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.”
This week, on our Orphans No More podcast we talk with pastor, counselor, adoptive dad, and author - Bruce Martin. Bruce joins us to share his story of suffering which includes two failed adoptions. He also shares insights from his book, Desperate For Hope - Hanging on and Finding God During Life’s Hardest Times.
Find this episode of Orphans No More here.
Bruce’s book can be found wherever good books are sold as well as on his website BruceWMartin.com.
Monday Nov 18, 2019
Monday Nov 18, 2019