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A Mandate of Care
A Message From the BCHFS Executive Director

As Christians we have a Biblical mandate to care for the most vulnerable in our society: 
The widowed, orphaned, poor, abused, neglected and abandoned.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” 
- James 1:27

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute, speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” 
- Proverbs 31:8-9

“learn to do right, seek justice, encourage the oppressed.  Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.  Rescue from the hand of oppressor the one who has been robbed.  Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood.” 
- Isaiah 1:17

Our responsibility is clear.  We should be caring for people with the greatest of needs, at every opportunity, knowing that the most vulnerable and needy are the recipients of divine concern.  Psalm 68:5 declares that God is “a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows…”  If God cares about them so should we! 

Baptist Children's Home and Family Services has stood in the gap for children and families in crisis for 93 years.  The dream of an orphanage that began in 1918 is and now a multi-faceted child welfare agency that is meeting the needs of families across IL.  We provide care through Baptist Children’s Home in Carmi, Angels’ Cove in Mt Vernon, adoptive and foster homes throughout the state and through Pathways counseling centers in 8 cities. 

In partnership with Southern Baptist churches across IL, our mission is to provide Christ centered services for children and families that protect, heal and restore.  Recently our Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve a new strategic plan that will guide the agency for the next 5 years in accomplishing this mission.  The plan identified several strategic issues facing the agency:  

• The need to continually improve the quality of existing programs while expanding services to reach an even greater number of children and families 
• The need to develop better marketing strategies to raise the resources to sustain current work and support planned growth   
• The need to protect the agency’s assets in an age of litigation 
• The need to provide the infrastructure necessary to support the growth of the agency 
• The need to manage the transition of leadership staff in the next 5 years

In light of these strategic issues the following goals were established:

• To expand our outpatient counseling ministry by opening a Pathways counseling office in northern IL and an additional office in central IL
• To explore and develop ways to meet the educational needs of  children
  in residential care who are unable to attend public school
• To expand cottage living space in our residential care cottages,
  which are now over 60 years old
• To better meet the needs of families in crisis and keep children out of the child welfare system by instituting a Safe Families for Children program.  (Safe Families is a national movement of compassion that is working to prevent child abuse by encouraging the church to resume its historical and Biblical responsibility for vulnerable children by becoming part of the support network for families in crisis. It is a movement of hundreds of Christian families who have opened their homes to care for children whose parents are struggling. By demonstrating Biblical hospitality, Safe Families returns the church to the forefront of caring for "orphans and widows.”
• To begin an orphan ministry by developing a partnership with an orphanage in Uganda to help care for children in need.  It is reported that there are over 147 million orphaned children throughout the world who suffer from severe poverty, malnutrition, disease and physical and emotional abuse.  We can’t help all of them but we can begin by helping one child at a time.  With that in mind, a small team recently went to Bukaleba, Uganda to develop a partnership with Arise Africa International and the Bukaleba Babies’ Home. 

Our goals in this orphan ministry are three fold: 

• To provide financial support to improve the quality of life for the 50+ orphans, age birth-6, who live in the Babies’ Home in Bukaleba.  This orphanage is a relatively new facility that was begun by a non-profit organization called Arise Africa International. 

• To provide hands-on ministry opportunities for IL Baptists through bi-annual mission trips to the orphanage.  We will learn more about the nature of these trips after our visit in Oct but there should be opportunities for construction, teaching, mentoring and caring; 

• To develop a relationship with the orphanage and the government of Uganda that would allow us to be a placing agency for families wanting to adopt from Uganda.  We are licensed in IL as an adoption agency and we hope to expand to international placements.

I am excited about the future of Baptist Children's Home and Family Services.  God is blessing the work in amazing ways and opening doors for new ministry.  Please be in prayer about as we continue to improve our current work and begin these exciting new endeavors.  Maybe in 2012 you will become one of our new Safe Families or travel with me to Uganda to work in the Bukaleba Babies’ Home.  I look forward to seeing what God is going to do.

Standing for God's children,
Doug Devore
Executive Director

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