Today Made A Difference

Coming from many, many places...some driving over four hours, the first faith-based adoption conference held in the Miami Valley was a tremendous success. Hearing numerous thank-yous and comments, we want to thank Phillip and Heather Bench,the Salem Church of God for organizing and financially supporting this event and the workshop speakers who gave of their time and energy. Over  200+ foster and adoptive parents walked through the doors early this morning.

This was a great start to, what we hope will be an on-going event.  A year ago August, Heather and I sat at the Panera Bread by the Dayton Mall and started dreaming about what could be.  We thank God for His direction and for what happened today.

Here are the conference highlights in pictures:

Heather Forbes, author of Beyond Consequences,
Logic and Control was the keynote.

It was so exciting to see the gymnasium fill up!

Pastor Ken and Jackie Day and the praise band from
Dayspring Ministries provided the music.

David and Phillip Bench conducted a workshop just for dads.
We heard so many good things about it! 

Pastors and laymen gather to talk about orphan care ministry.

Heather speaks to the moms.

Dr. Wendy Flowers discusses a child's developmental issues.

Ruby Johnston, from LAMb, talks about parental expectations.

Betsy Smalley shares on parental self-care.

Our creative trio from the Shelter Community Church
 manned the support group table and helped wherever they could.

Randy and Kim Gebele, representing LAMb International
had many opportunities to share about the ministry.

After the conference, many came up to us saying "today made a difference in my life."   One mom told me that  in one workshop, she had more insight into her son's issues than years of therapy.

What now?  We will step into the next planning stage for the development of faith-based adoption support groups in this area and hope to support churches in this area who want to start adoption or foster care ministries.

Watch for news on the date for 2012!