Moving Forward

Over the past couple of months we have met monthly with a new All Things New team that we are calling the "Haiti Advance Team."

You may be wondering why we are starting a new team with all of the things going on in Haiti, and here is the reason:

We can no longer just stand by and wait for things to improve. We have to go into the mess that Haiti has become and help our kids operate and even thrive in that mess.

That is much easier to type than it is to accomplish, but it is also what we have to do our best to accomplish if we are going to move the ministry of All Things New forward.

I wanted to go ahead and introduce you to the beginning of an idea without knowing exactly how the idea is going to play out and be put into practice. I am going to do this for the following reasons:

1. We want you to know about and pray for the direction we are heading. I believe the only next step that we have for our kids is to help them move forward into adulthood and life outside of our orphanage and we cannot do this without your help!
2. Most of our efforts moving forward are going to be focused on the future of our kids, especially with another group graduating from high school this year. However, we also need continued support for the kids who are still working through school and will continue to live in the orphanage while they do so.
3. We would love any input and ideas that you guys have as we move forward into this very unknown world.

Here is the foundation of what we are thinking about and read this with the knowledge that there is still a lot of work to do to make this a real plan: We want to discuss what each of our kids want for their future (college, trade school, business, etc.) and then setup individual funds for each kid based on their goal.

Part of the plan will include having a couple of our most trusted employees be in charge of procuring the funds for the kids and only giving them what they need at the time, we do not plan on just giving them large sums of money.

Part of the plan includes realistic thinking and discussions about what each kid has the ability and capacity to do.

The bottom line is that this plan is not yet formulated all the way through, but we did want to go ahead and start presenting it to you so that you know we are working on this. So that you know that there is an end in sight as each of our kids become old enough to go out on their own. 

We always knew that ATN was going to be more than an orphanage that sends kids back out on the streets when they turn 18 and hope they make it. It was always going to be that we were there for them no matter what and no  matter when, and that commitment has not changed.

What we know right now is that we have to set them up for the future, and when all of the plans and ideas we have had over the years came crashing down with chaos that has taken over the country, we waited for things to calm. It is time to stop waiting and to move forward the best we can...

We hope that you will join us!