God’s Heart For Orphans Conference
Green Acres Baptist Church and the East Texas Family Conference will be hosting a one day adoption and orphan care conference – God’s Heart For Orphans - at the Crosswalk Conference Center in Tyler, Texas on Saturday, December 10, 2011. Special speakers include Jim Daly from Focus on the Family, Karyn Purvis from TCU and Empowered to Connect, and Carolyn Twietmeyer from Project Hopeful.
This conference will provide valuable information and encouragement as you and your church care for orphans. There will be two breakout sessions and lunch is included with your registration.
ABBA Fund will be represented by Dwain Gullion and representatives from other organizations will be there to encourage and serve. Click here for more information and to register and we hope to see you there!
Help ABBA Fund win a $50,000 grant!
ABBA Fund is currently holding steady in the Top 20 to be considered for a $50,000 Giving of Life Grant, but we need your help to stay there! The voting officially ends Friday, November 4th!
Is ABBA Fund a ministry that has captured your heart? Here are some quick and easy steps you can take help us:
VOTE…and then VOTE AGAIN!
If you have not voted yet, please visit the ABBA Fund’s Giving of Life webpage. There you will find the VOTE button and that’s all it takes – just one click of a mouse!
Why stop there? Did you know you could get TWO extra votes? All you have to do is register an account here.
SPREAD THE WORD!
The best form of communication is through word of mouth, so share with your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers where to go and what to do. You can also share the link http://givingoflife.com/browse/abba_fund/on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and your Blog! Let’s make this viral!
A big thank you to all those supporters who have voted for ABBA Fund and encouraged friends and family to vote also! We are so grateful to you for helping us partner with Christian couples on their adoption journey!
Chicago 2011 Regional Adoption Conference – Nov 12
On Saturday, November 12th, at Park Community Church, Together for Adoption Chicago is offering a one-day event on regional adoption, fostercare, and global orphan care. Our hope is that you’ll leave with a unique sense of God’s adopting love for you and a heart and desire to love and care for the orphan.
Speakers include Dr. Russell Moore, Jason Kovacs, and numerous breakout presenters on orphancare, adoption, and fostercare.
Reclaiming Adoption Study Guide
The primary focus of Reclaiming Adoption is on our adoption by God but we don’t want to leave it at that. We want to also help people think about and discuss its implications for and applications to horizontal adoption (our adoption of children) and orphan care.
That is why we created a free study guide. Each section walks through the chapters of the book with questions for discussion and concludes with quotations for meditation. The aim is to grow deeper in understanding and awe of our adoption in Christ while moving towards the outward implications on our lives.
We also encourage you to check out our orphan care and adoption resource page for suggestions on practical ways your church or small group can care for the orphan.
Hope for Orphans Institute
Do you know a family considering adoption or a family struggling since adopting?
Are you interested in learning the latest on how to best serve the increasing number of families adopting special needs or at-risk kids?
Would you like help on how to best prepare for and help manage a possible disruption?
There are many resources available to help families navigate through the adoption process, but there have been fewer resources available to families once they bring a child home, and the real journey begins! You will not want to miss this conference on special needs & at-risk adoptions, adoption disruption, and pre/post adoption support for families and children.
Join Hope for Orphans on September 16th & 17th, as they host some of the leading experts in post-adoption issues at The Hope Center in Plano, TX. For more information & to register go to: www.hfoinstitute.org
IRS Provides Additional Guidance on the Adoption Tax Credit
There is a lot of buzz around the blogs and twitter about the adoption tax credit. Some are receiving their credit while others are receiving letters asking for more information. This past week the IRS released some guidelines to help families.
Here are six things to know about this valuable tax credit:
- The adoption tax credit, which is as much as $13,170, offsets qualified adoption expenses making adoption possible for some families who could not otherwise afford it. Taxpayers who adopt a child in 2010 or 2011 may qualify if you adopted or attempted to adopt a child and paid qualified expenses relating to the adoption.
- Taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income of more than $182,520 in 2010 may not qualify for the full amount and it phases out completely at $222,520. The IRS may make inflation adjustments for 2011 to this phase-out amount as well as to the maximum credit amount.
- You may be able to claim the credit even if the adoption does not become final. If you adopt a special needs child, you may qualify for the full amount of the adoption credit even if you paid few or no adoption-related expenses.
- Qualified adoption expenses are reasonable and necessary expenses directly related to the legal adoption of the child who is under 18 years old, or physically or mentally incapable of caring for himself or herself. These expenses may include adoption fees, court costs, attorney fees and travel expenses.
- To claim the credit, you must file a paper tax return and Form 8839, Qualified Adoption Expenses, and you must attach documents supporting the adoption. Documents may include a final adoption decree, placement agreement from an authorized agency, court documents and the state’s determination for special needs children. You can still use IRS Free File to prepare your return, but it must be printed and mailed to the IRS, along with all required documentation. Failure to include required documents will delay your refund.
- The IRS is committed to processing adoption credit claims quickly, but it also must safeguard against improper claims by ensuring the standards for this important credit are met. If your return is selected for review, please keep in mind that it is necessary for the IRS to ensure the legal criteria are met before the credit can be paid. If you are owed a refund beyond the adoption credit, you will still receive that part of your refund while the review is being conducted.
[Source: IRS.gov]
Here is a video the IRS posted a couple months ago:
An Opportunity to Partner with Chosen Marathon for Adoption
ABBA Fund is excited to partner again with the Chosen Marathon to give 100% of marathon fees back to adoptive families and orphans. This is made possible through generous donations to cover the race costs.
We have 1 day left in this opportunity to double a $10,000 donation! Please give TODAY and share w/ others!
Click on the image below for more info on how you can join us for this years marathon.
Register for Together for Adoption National Conference 2011
Register for Together for Adoption 2011 today! October 21-22 in Phoenix, Arizona. Don’t miss out!
Plenty of Love to Give
It was so exciting to open up the Sunday paper and see a colorful, vibrant spread of pictures of one of our ABBA Fund families! The title of the article was “Plenty of Love to Give” and how true that statement is when it comes to this family!
In 2009, Jimmy and Gayla Renslow adopted their daughter Zuri from an orphanage in Uganda when she was 10 months old. The Renslows’ attend The Church at 5:14 in Greensboro, NC which is an ABBA Fund church partner. What a joy to have helped this body of Christ establish an adoption assistance fund and to see these beautiful children come home to their forever families! Today, we are happy to share that the entire family (Mac, Boe, Leia, Gayla, Zuri and Jimmy) is currently in Uganda finalizing the adoption of their son, Zeke! Please pray for this family as we await their safe arrival back in America in mid-August.
One thing we love is that not only did this article provide an opportunity for the community to hear of a local family’s adoption testimony, but it was also a chance to inform others about the country of Uganda and transracial adoption. The article higlighted that out of the 28.5 million people living in Uganda, 2.3 million are orphans and nearly half have lost thier parents because of AIDS (Source: goodsheapheardsfold.org).
A correlating article highlighted transracial adoption in which another family, Jenna and Keith Penner of our church partner Salem Chapel Church in Winston-Salem, shed some light on this issue from their own experience with adopting two children from Uganda. Although there was some hesitation in the beginning of the process, Jenna is thankful that her heart was pulled to Africa:
“I truly believe that most people are just curious. They don’t mean to be rude. It’s our job to be graceful and polite and take those times to educate people.”
“The bigger the family, the more ‘full’ and fulfilled we have felt,” Jimmy Renslow says. ”We only have one opportunity to live this life, and we want to make the most of it, and the more we give away, the more we experience life to the fullest.”
The Renslows are active in helping families interested in adopting from Uganda by being a resource to them. They started the “Out of Uganda” fellowship group which aims to “intentially build a community of African Americans - Ugandan Americans – who support each other. ” This group continues to be a blessing to many families.
You can follow the Renslowfamily at http://renslow.blogspot.com. Here’s a blurb from one of Jimmy’s posts:
“This in itself is an answer to prayer because the connection has taken more time than it did with Zuri. It is like experiencing a miracle to feel love well up for someone who is going to become you child. It boggles my mind to watch it happen to our family with each encounter.”
Courtesy: Greensboro News & Record, Life Section: “Plenty of Love to Give” and “Families Struggle with Transracial Adoption.” July 17, 2011
