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Entries in Family Issues (8)
Foster Care Dialogue
Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 03:45PM Have you or someone you know been involved with foster care in any way? Take the survey and dialogue about it on the Foster Care Dialogue blog. Who knows, maybe you can be an agent of change! 
Foster Care survey 
www.fostercaredialogue.blogspot.com
"A place for foster children, former foster children and others to engage in a dialogic discussion of the foster care system. Our goal is to provide an environment in which users can voice their opinions, comments and concerns about foster care without judgment or recrimination. We encourage all users to be respectful and open-minded in their dialogues so that optimal communication can be achieved."
Want to have an amazing Christmas?
Monday, December 17, 2007 at 10:41PM My family of 13 loves Christmas time but not for the normal reasons. Now we don’t mind the decorations and trees but it’s all gotten so commercialized. Gifts, shopping and more shopping… not for us! Maybe we got that way trying to buy gifts for ten kids aged 13 to 23! Whatever it was we’ve decided not to just put “Christ back into Christmas” with attitude. This year, thanks to Blog Catalog and their “Bloggers Unite in Acts of Kindness” competition we’re blogging about it too.
Why is it that on Christmas, when we’re celebrating someone else’s birthday we buy ourselves presents? Imagine the scene; it’s your 2,000th birthday, everybody shows up and you get to watch them all open presents for themselves… and you don’t get even one! Then they all have a massive feast and you don’t even get any food! To top it off they gather 
around the piano and sing about some overweight weirdo in a red suit with flying deer that visits all of our kids in the middle of the night! Yikes! Spend weeks preparing for some predator on drugs then sing about it? Now, if I was Jesus, I would take the Christ out of Christmas myself!
So at our house we’ve turned Christmas back into what we feel it should be. Our “Act of Kindness” this time of year is to “adopt” a local building in nearby Gainesville, Florida that’s filled with welfare recipients. Many of these people live on the ragged edge of homelessness all the time. By the 25th of the month their money often has run out and they have little food to last until the first of the month when their next check arrives. Although our “Act of Kindness" isn’t until Christmas Day many close friends are already preparing to share an extra special day with our family.
As a mission family that is developing a non-profit organization for abused children, Ark of Hope For Children, we can get 
food from our local food bank. Then we hit the supermarkets. We gather friends that want to take part and cook turkeys, ham and all the trimmings in everyone’s home kitchen. Then, we all will deliver our hot Christmas meal to these often lonely people on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. This year’s celebration will be on Christmas Eve. They have a small meeting room with tables, enough to seat about 100 people. We decorate, turn on a little Christmas music and serve our new holiday friends... just like Jesus would.
There will be from 60 to 100 guests attending our feast. We will sing songs, tell stories and give many hugs. All of the host adults serve the plates of food and all of the children help deliver. During the meal adults and older teens will wander through and ask everyone for prayer requests, then pray with each person individually. Five of our children were adopted from foster care after facing much abuse. We watch these children, that had so little at one time, reaching out to those who have very 
little now, and it’s wonderful! It's such a blessing to see the loving reactions of total strangers.
At the end we take all of the left-over dry food and separate it amongst the residents. Teens along with the children help them take the extra food back to their rooms. In the end, I believe we, the host families, are blessed more than the people we are blessing. At our house we don’t share gifts any longer, partially due to finances but mostly because it’s not our birthday… it’s His! Our family feels we get enough during the rest of the year, this is one of our chances to give back. At Christmas time we entertain angels. It’s our most special time of year and dearly treasured by every one of our children.
Keep your heart open and ready to respond to that little, small voice that pushes you to get involved. There's a special blessing waiting for you… don’t let it pass you by. God Bless you and your beautiful family this Christmas season!
*We never take actual pictures out of respect for our resident guests. Pictures included are not of the actual event.
Blair Corbett - GiveitaKissTravel & Ark of Hope For Children
Technorati tags: Bloggers Unite, Acts of kindness, Christmas, family, serve
Links to a few blog posts from friends "Bloggers Unite in Acts of Kindness" blog posts; 
Bob Angus; Teaching my 5 year olf the gift of giving
Frenchkys; Starlite Acts of Kindness
crpitt; A little piece of me: Bloggers Unite
Pinoyhood; Grander than the bell and the red suit
lfwaterloo; Bloggers Unite in acts of kindness
Raven's Roads; Bloggers Unite: Save some cats
SiteProPlus; Acts of Kindness
Pulse; Acts of Kindness; Now Showing
My Den; Bloggers Unite in Actos of Kindness
Diana13; Living in a box
Rich; Sharing Acts of Kindness, Bloggers Unite
This is a Blessing in so Many Ways!
Sunday, November 18, 2007 at 12:13PM I remember when we met, we loved spending time together. Doing things like taking walks and talking till all hours of the night. We still do a little of that, not as much as we like. With ten children and a mission to help abused children,(Ark of Hope For Children) alone time and money are not something we have a lot of. Getting away was something we stopped thinking of, the cost was to much and try finding a sitter for ten! Well I have been......
Great Shopping Deals For Christmas!
Sunday, November 18, 2007 at 11:55AM I was just checking out to see if Kohl's had a way to order online because I moved to Florida from Chicago and have not been able to shop there in like forever. I was always able to get the best bargains there. Well Yesterday I went online and found out I can shop there over the Internet. PRAISE THE LORD! Boy, now I feel bad about hating this computer I didn't realize its like....
New Years Resolution; Keep better track of my stuff
Friday, December 29, 2006 at 07:47PM One of the things I've noticed as I look back on 2006 is that I have no idea where some of my stuff has gone. I love to lend things out to friends but I have come to realize I don't keep very good track of who has what. Even worse, I don't know if someone owes me money and I've forgotten all about it! Sounds like a New Years Resolution in the making, eh? Well God and a savvy website designer have come to my rescue! Not long ago I heard about a free website called BillMonk (I've no idea what that stands for but that's their issue.. I have enough of my own) Using the BillMonk site I can keep track of
Pick the NEW 7 Wonders Of The World with your family
Sunday, November 12, 2006 at 09:11PM Did you get a chance to add your entry to the Yahoo Time Capsule? If not it is still online for viewing. We just came across another fun online activity for your family... taking part in choosing the New 7 Wonders of The World! Many of the old Seven Wonders are gone so they started a search world wide for replacements. This Is the worlds largest vote
Family fun! Post to Yahoo's Time Capsule
Tuesday, October 31, 2006 at 11:52AM Hey what a great idea! Yahoo has developed a virtual time capsule that we can all take part in called... Yahoo Time Capsule. What a great name! OK, I am easily entertained! Every member of the family can make an entry from their own view point. Simply click here to go to the Yahoo Time Capsule site. You can look around for a while in all of the different categories then enter your own. The ten
Calculating life's challenges
Sunday, October 29, 2006 at 10:49PM School, work, diets, budgets... we have to do so many different calculations these days it's enough to drive us all crazy! There's a website to the rescue; Dr Calculator at drcalculator.com ! Dr Calculator seems to have a calculator
