Team Leader Tuesday spotlight: Our leaders in action part 2!

At Visiting Orphans, we send out about 40 trips per year to 14 countries. We have an amazing staff but the only way we can send that many teams each year is because of our trained leaders who are really like extensions of our staff team and are truly amazing! That's why every Tuesday we focus on them. Sometimes we share their stories. Sometimes we share stories from their trips. And sometimes we like to show them doing what they do best - loving on people all around the world! This Thanksgiving week, we are thankful for our team leaders who pour themselves out on behalf of others. We couldn't do what we do without them. 

Why Go? Wednesday spotlight: Kate Nichols - China team member

"Why go? The bible clearly states to GO, (Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:16-20) so the question more often asked, why go overseas? For me, missions start at home, VBS at my home church is always my favorite time of the year. However, having sisters adopted from China really opened the doors for me to see that kids anywhere are just like kids here, in need of love.

I don't do it because of pity for them. I don't even like to say I do it out of compassion. I do it because I love my God, and therefore love ALL of his children. I promise, if you open up your heart to the least of these, they will fill it in abundance.

Kingdom work= rewarding work! I have been fortunate to go on two VO trips to China. This past summer, I had the blessing of meeting some amazing little boys. Why go? For them."

~Kate Nichols - Fushun, China Team 2014 and Heng Feng, China Team 2012

Team Leader Tuesday spotlight: Our Leaders In Action

One of the reasons we are able to send over 40 teams each year to GO BE LOVE is because of our amazing team leaders. They serve their teams by pouring into their team members and they serve the ministries by loving big and leading well. We love our leaders!

Here are some photos of our a few of our leaders in action. You can read all their bios on our website here. Sign up to join us on a life-changing 2015 trip here.

Ministry Monday - our new video

INTRODUCING OUR NEW VIDEO

About the video and our ministry:

Visiting Orphans partners with ministries in 14 countries. These ministries do the hard work that God has called them to do every day. They battle poverty, disease, corruption, and more to bring hope to the hopeless and light to dark places. I think all of them would tell you that they cannot do it alone. We hear story after story of teams arriving at just the right time, with needed supplies and even more needed encouragement.

In Exodus 17 Israel is fighting the Amalekites. As the battle rages on Moses is standing at the top of the hill with the staff of God in his hands overlooking the fighting. We are told that as long as Moses held up his hands the Israelites were winning. But whenever he grew tired and lowered his hands the advantage shifted to the enemy. In verse 12 we read that whenever Moses grew tired Aaron and Hur would come alongside him and hold his hands up “one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset” and Israel won the battle because others helped Moses do what he could not do on his own.

At Visiting Orphans we view our role in a similar fashion. We send people on short-term trips who get to go and be with children, love them and then come home, but our role is so much more than that. Our desire is to come alongside local churches and long-term missionaries who are doing the hard work every day. We want to be Aaron and Hur to them as we hold up their arms so they can do what God has called them to do.

Music by: Shelly Wilson Song title: Hush Little Baby
This song can be purchased on itunes.

Video by: BYBA (www.hellobyba.com)
If you can't see the video below, you watch it on youtube here: http://youtu.be/u_kDtmt8MVw

Team Leader Tuesday spotlight: Brian Creveling

Brian Creveling is leading our first ever Father/Daughter mission trip - click here to check out his July trip to Haiti.





Brian Creveling felt God leading him to adopt back in high school, but it wasn’t until he and his wife got married before this became a reality in his life. They started investigating international adoption around their first anniversary, but with limited options for countries open to allowing couples married less than 2 years to adopt, Brian and Kat took a trip with Visiting Orphans in 2008 to Ethiopia, where God opened his eyes to the plight of the orphaned and fatherless and confirmed that his two daughters were going to come from there. Since then, it has been on Brian and Kat’s heart to raise all of their children with an understanding of the need to be missional in their lives and to take care of those who are unable to take care of themselves. Within 1 year of having his Ethiopian daughters home, Brian felt God calling him to have lead a father/daughter trip to Haiti, a country that had been in his heart since the devastating earthquake of 2010. He also learned to appreciate those who loved on his daughters as they waited in the orphanage for their forever family.


Brian is hopeful that his generation of men can and will choose to step up and change America and the world by providing stable homes and displaying Godly character in all areas of their lives. He desires to see a rededication of fathers to their families and homes, where the next generation of daughters will learn to become more confident in themselves and become world changers. Brian loves “dating” his daughters – going out and spending dedicated one on one face time with each one of them at least once a month…especially because none of them will spend that time watching football with him.

Why Go? Wednesday spotlight: Grace Academy of Boyer, Haiti

Why Go Be Love? Because you get to be a part of helping ministries like Grace So Amazing in Haiti who just opened a brand new school. As you can see from this little video - the kids are thrilled to be at school. Here's a little glimpse into a day at Grace Academy of Boyer in Haiti!

Join us on an upcoming trip to Haiti to work with this amazing ministry. Click here to find out about upcoming Haiti trips.

If the video below doesn't play, you can view it here: http://youtu.be/VlGMvbkuR70

Team Leader Tuesday spotlight: Jeanne Page

Jeanne is a wife, a “Mom” to two and a “Grammy” to five, living a sunny southwestern life in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jeanne has a Bachelor’s degree in Signed Language Interpreting and a Master’s degree in Intercultural Communication, but in recent years has been focused on ministering through music in hospital and hospice situations (playing at the bedside of patients), through children’s music education (in directing several youth acoustic bands), and through performance with her family band throughout the southwest region.

Upon entering her fifth decade of life, she wondered if she would ever fulfill the vision she had of ministering on the mission field. Prayers, dreams and internet surfing led her to the Visiting Orphans website. Over a period of months, Jeanne felt led to take the plunge and sign up to visit Grace So Amazing ministries in Mirebalais, Haiti with VO. That trip was just the first step to a whole new chapter in Jeanne’s life—a chapter in which God is bringing all of those early, varied interests into one focus—and it is a chapter in which God truly broke her heart for the people of Haiti.

Jeanne is brushing off her old signed language skills to work with the Deaf children of Mirebalais, and delights in the culmination of this true intercultural experience. At the same time, the musical experiences of recent years have also influenced her journeys as the children sing and sign joyful praise and the teams worship alongside their Haitian brothers and sisters in the blessed community surrounding Grace So Amazing ministries. Jeanne believes that wherever she is—at home or in Haiti, or beyond, if God wills it—a Heart Song of love for Jesus accompanies her earthly journey.

Jeanne feels truly blessed to serve alongside her team members in Haiti and to Go. Be. Love. She is eternally grateful for the opportunities afforded by Visiting Orphans and believes that the love song born in the hearts of these precious children will one day ring out as the praise song of Haiti.