About six months ago, Jen and I had a wild idea to bring churches together for a discussion on what we, as an area wide body of believer, could do to impact the local orphan crisis. In April we hosted out first Orphan Care Church Forum to present the problem we have in our region and counties. Did you know that 75% of the children that enter into care in
Midland will be placed outside of the county and 85% of the kids from Odessa aren't in their home county? Sadly 50% of the children removed will not be placed in our region and could go as far away as Houston to find a home. The next month we discussed the affects of trauma on the individual child. Would you believe it, that trauma the year before birth and the year after birth can have lasting affects on brain formation, trust formation, brain chemistry, and sensory processing.
These meetings lit a fire under areas churches to engage in the needs of the local foster parents. Churches that met together formed The Attic Church Alliance so we can begin coordinating efforts in Midland and Odessa. One effort that has launched from this alliance is Foster Parent Night Out. Our goal was to provide foster parents a much needed evening out each month. Stonegate Fellowship was first and it was an absolute success, they hosted 87 children of foster homes while the foster parents could live-it-up, wind-down, or just run errands. First Presbyterian Midland and Midland Bible are next to host Foster Parent Night Out and could not be more excited.
Moving forward, today's Church Forum meeting will be our last for 2017 but we will start up back up January 30th. Until then, we are looking for more churches to get involved in The Attic Church Alliance in ways that best fit that church. If you are interested in joining please let us know. We would love to sit down and discuss the ways to get your people involved.