The Journey

Well...AnNi is on the Map

It's been a year coming, and AnNi is now on the map.  Jordin's appearance coupled with a hard summer's worth of spreading the word, and We're about ready to send our first couple to Ethiopia to pick up their kid.  WOW!  Who would have thought!

When I came to my computer today and saw all the messages, I just started weeping.  We're doing it!  It's no longer just a dream to start funding adoptions.  The Game is Afoot!

Thanks so much to all of you who ordered shirts.  It's such a blessing to know that people care.  I know it's only a t-shirt, but what's going on behind the scenes will forever change the lives of children across the globe.  Thanks so much.  We're honored, and grateful. 

Check it out...

www.annifororphans.com

And together...Let's change the world!

The Teen Choice was a Success

She did it.  What an Unbelieveable night.  Our website went CRAZY last night after Jordin's Teen Choice appearance.  The African shirt is now "Off the hook!" 

Check it out www.annifororphans.com. 

Sorry for those of you who tried to get a hold of it last night.  Our server hasn't seen that much activity in a long time.  Thanks so much, and let's keep the momentum going.  Families who are trying to adopt are counting on us. 

If you want to see some other images, check out...

http://www.wireimage.com/SearchResults.aspx?navtyp=SRH&sfld=C&logsrch=1&s=Jordin%20Sparks

AnNi Goes Celebrity

It's such a divine thing.  AnNi Designs has been seen and worn by a true to life celebrity!!  Tonight, on the Teen Choice Awards (airing Mondy August 4th 8 pm EST/PT on FOX), Jordin Sparks is going to take a stand for Orphans around the world.  The former American Idol Winner (2007), has been a friend of our ministry for a long time now, and she's not afraid to let the world know she's standing up for something worthy. 

AnNi is a company my wife and I started a year ago to help people who want to adopt children.  We saw 152 million orphans all deserving of a mom and a dad, but no one was stepping up to the plate to help.  We wondered, if James 1:27 says, "Pure and undefiled religion is this...that we take care of orphans and widows in their distress"  Why doesn't the Christian world step up to do something about it?

We found the answer.

Adoption is expensive. 

To adopt from China is 30K, Russia is 45K, Guatemala is 25K, and domestically is equally as expensive.  So what we found was, people who are in the phase of life wanting to adopt, often times don't have the money.  But, people that have the money are willing to help, they're just out of the "child raising" phase.  I don't know about you, but when I see a problem like that, I'm excited to come up with ideas to solve.  Jamie and I  we started thinking of solutions ,and  we started AnNi so we could give money away to families interested in adoption so they have the resources available. It's like Capitalistic Philanthropy.

So here we are, trying to run this small t-shirt company, and the proceeds go to help families undergoing the rigorous process of raising thousands of dollars to help kids around the world have a chance to have a mom and dad, and people are coming out of the wood-work. 

With Jordin's help, and the thousands of college students we see every year; we are launching a new website, a new fall line, and a sales force on major college campuses around the country. We are excited to see how this fledgling little company will serve the world in the future.   

Check it out, and watch this little bitty company take off.  We're so excited as the Lord is moving to help people around the world. www.annifororphans.com.

May we be creative as we long to serve the people of the world.
May we allow for people to help us along the way.
May orphans find a home in the world today so we might live in a world where kids can have a home. 

The Disconnect pt. III

A cool story today!!  I met this girl named Leslie today.  She's been here at the Guatemalan orphanage for 6 years.  She was toting around four or five little toddlers, and I just said, "Buenos Dias."

She started talking, and I tried to keep up with my out of date Spanish skills.

She said she came here when her mom died, and her dad wasn't much of a dad.  Evidently he's out running around with risky women and smoking some fine Guatemalan hash.  In any event, she got a big smile on her face and said she was getting adopted from a family in Indiana!  They're coming down here next month.

I asked her how old she was, and she grinned, "16."

16!!!!

And her brother is going too.

What a blessing.  You know, there are people in this world doing great things to help orphans.  It's not all gloom and doom, and here we sit in an evangelical based kids home, and kids are being sponsored, fed, taken care of by the home parents.  It's a pretty cool deal.

But Leslie is the story of the day!!  She's 16 and getting adopted into a family that's going to love her and take care of her.  She's a little nervous with her English skills, but she's going to do just fine. 

God is at work when we let him be.  Let's keep it up!!

Maybe the Greatest Disconnect of all Time Pt. II

We've still got 60 kids down here in Guatemala.  I can't tell you what a thrill it is for me to see American kids willing to work while serving, and play with an intensity as if every orphan here was a part of their family.  It's awesome!! 

I spoke with the woodshop worker today, and found out some disturbing facts. 

For the last 3 months he said he'd seen a few families come down working on the process of adoption, but only 2 or 3 actually were adopted.  That's two or three kids out of 150!

I've been disturbed by the availability of children who are in need of moms and dads, but have become the forgotten ones.  They certainly didn't have anything to do with the latitude or longitude they were born into.  They didn't have any say in whatever the situation was they were conceived.  But one thing is for sure...they have bright eyes, compassionate hearts, and a willingness to love anyone who reaches out. 

Today I witnessed one Guatemalan girl walk up to one of our team members.  She's 9 years old, left on the front porch of her grandmother's house, and is going to school here at Casa Bernabe.

The team member wrote me about three months ago and told me she broke her back.  For some reason I totally forgot about it until she showed up at the airport in a back brace, and I thought, "WOW this might be tough." 

Anyway, the nine year old girl walked up to my friend in a back brace and asked her if she could pray for healing for her back.  Kelly, my team girl, looked at her and almost started crying.  And then...amazing.  The 9 year old girl began rallying Guatemalans and Americans to come and put hands on Kelly's back and pray.  And they did!!  Right there on the playground  they had a come to Jesus healing prayer,

And I ask myself...

Why? 

Why was this little girl with so much faith to offer, born in a place that seems hopeless.  She's probably not going to be adopted.  She'll live her life motherless and fatherless, but she's giving herself to strangers and asking for healing from people she'll never see again.

God, this is a paradox of this world I don't understand.

Anyway, just wanted to keep you guys up to speed.  I've got to go clean some houses......

Peace...

My own Journey

Most of you know the road the Braners have traveled over the last few months. 

It all started a few years ago when Jamie Jo and I decided our family quiver was full.  We had biological children, and we were totally finished introducing new members of our family.  For all practical purposes....We were finished having kids!

But then God began tugging at our hearts.  We attended a small meeting of people who had entered the arena of adoption.  They told the stories and quoted the statistics, and we felt the need to do something about the problem.

We started our journey in China.  We filled out all the paperwork, took all the fingerprints, and saw all the officials to make our trek to welcome a little Chinese orphan to our family, and then it all changed.

Last summer, a friend of ours was in Rwanda and he ran into this small little orphanage outside Kigali.  The orphanage mother was ready to begin placing the orphans coming to her home, not out of want but of need.  There are so many orphans in Rwanda following the genocide of 1994. 

We felt compelled that our mission was to do something about the growing orphan problem, so we threw our hat in the ring of Africa, and little Gabby came to our family November last year.  (you can check out the whole process at www.cicibraner.com)

It's been such a thrill to watch this little one adapt to our family.  Not only does she have the culture divide to conquer, but imagine being the only black person in a family full of white people.  In fact, we send pictures of her back to the old orphanage, and last week the house mother showed the pictures to the older kids who know Gabby.  One of them looked intently at the pictures, and then smiled at the helper, "Yep...she's still black!"  (as if she was going to loose all her color)  It was the funniest thing I've heard in a long time.

Anyway, our story is just one of thousands.  Everyday, families from the United States adopt children internationally and even right here from our own backyard. It doesn't matter where you help, just HELP!

I've abbreviated this story only to say, you can make a difference.  No matter where you are or where you come from, the orphan problem is happening; and you can make a difference.  Whether it's to donate funds to a family that needs help financially, or actually entering the arena yourself, we're just one little family.  And the old adage, "If we can do it, then you can be sure God can use you too." 

Exposing a Global Threat

If there was a threat to the very existence of humanity, would you do anything about it?  I've seen movies of comets on a straightforward b-line for the destruction of the planet, and every resource available is employed to come up with solutions to destroy the rock that threatens our physical life.  But what if the danger was more subtle?

What if the subtle danger to our planet wasn't about an asteroid or global warming crisis set to destroy us in the next ten years, but rather the children of the earth growing up on the streets of various cities forming a demographic deadly enough to destroy countries in the next 50? 

What if the next generation was highlighted with kids who had no role models, learned nothing of history, math, science, or morality?  Would you do anything about it?

Well it's happening in every country around the world! The United Nations estimates a global orphan population exceeding 153 million children and growing exponentially.  Whether due to the ever growing AIDS epidemic in Africa, the sex trade in South East Asia, or the mere numbers of economics in Latin America that promise families who sell their children a lifetime of salary, It's happening!!!

James 1:27 says, "Pure and undefiled religion that God the father finds faultless is this, to take care of the widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." 

It's as clear as day!

And in the clouded arena of theology, epistemology, soteriology and others; this one command is like the sun beam that breaks through the dark clouds and shines the light on the most important parts of our faith.

You can't go wrong if you'll spend time figuring out how to do this! 

And so, in our effort to help teenagers understand the depths of this faith, we take them on trips around the globe to expose them to these kinds of problems.  This year is no different.  March 1, I will go on a week adventure to take 60 teenagers to Guatemala for a small glimpse of this destructive global killer called orphans.

We are going to spend hours helping a generation of well to do teenagers understand that the world is filled with children who need moms and dads.  They need proper education, and the basic nutrition we take for granted every day. 

After all, it's our duty as Christians to find out the heart of God, and then chase it.  It's our cause to know the revolutionary Jesus, who went out and said, "let the little children come to me."  It's our undefiled purpose to emulate the spirit of God who adopted us as "sons and daughters" as we were all ill exposed to the disease of sin, and rescued by a heavenly Father full of love and compassion.

So, Guatemala it is!

We'll head just South of Mexico and work with a group called Casa Bernabe.  They have set up one of the greatest orphanages in the country, and continue to provide food and mentor service to the most forgotten of all socio-economic classes in the world.

Some will ask, "But didn't God sovereignly place those children in that area of the world.  After all, God is in control isn't he?"

And with that logic, I can only point to the story of the blind man in John 9:1.  Remember when Jesus walked up to the blind man, and the disciples asked, "Jesus, who sinned that caused this man to be blind?  Was it his parents or himself?"

Jesus looked in disbelief.  After all, he had been traveling with these people for a while now, and they still weren't understanding his whole message.  He turned and looked at them and said, "It was not this man who sinned, or his parents, but that the works of  God might be displayed in his life."

So it seems, God has allowed some to be born with resources, and others to be born in poverty.  Not so we can stand from afar and scoff at the evil in the world, or feel sorry for those that have less, but so that God's grace and mercy can be displayed. 

You had no say in what longitude or latitude you were born, and neither did the orphan suffering hunger today.  God gave you the ability to give or be given, so the glory of His love can be seen around the world. 

So let me ask....

If given the opportunity, would you be willing to stand up and be a part of solving the global killer called orphans?  Will you follow the commands of the Bible?  Or has your faith been reduced to a Sunday morning and brunch to follow?

Come on.....

Let's get the ball rolling.

If you can't invite one of the 153 million children to live with you, that's OK!!  There are families all around the world interested in adopting.  Help them fund the process.  Help them build community.  Help them feel the appreciation so the world can see the miracle of giving an orphan a chance to live in this world apart from hunger and disease. 

And...

If you will....

Please pray for our trip this coming week. 

As long as I have access to the Internet, you can rest assured I'll keep you up to date with pictures and stories.  Keep checking back as we attempt to make a small dent in a huge problem.