Todd and Mary McNeal were spotlighted this months online at Foursquare.org.  November is adoption month and our national Foursquare Church wanted to spotlight a family. I could think of no better family than our friends the McNeals.

Check out the article.  http://www.foursquare.org/articles/1093,1.html

Originally published August 11, 2009 at www.foursquare.org  (http://www.foursquare.org/articles/960,1.html)

By: Bill Shepson

Joseph Fehlen and the people of South Everett Foursquare Church in Washington, where he and his wife, Christy, have pastored since 2007, are proof positive that you don’t have to have a huge church to have a huge impact on the community. The congregation of approximately 75 has spearheaded some of the most successful community outreach efforts in the city, affecting the area’s most poverty-stricken and at-risk citizens.

Through a non-profit ministry called Start Out Right, the church comes together with local schools, community groups, police and others with a heart for their community to conduct an annual giveaway of backpacks filled with school supplies to the residents of Casino Road—a two-mile stretch of high-density apartments and low-income families. More than 72 percent of the students in the Casino Road neighborhood are classified as low income, according to state statistics.

Joseph and Christy Fehlen receive a check for Start Out RightDepartment store giant Fred Meyer recently awarded a $10,000 grant to Start Out Right, which Joseph says has been used toward this year’s backpack giveaway this month. The grant, which comes from employee donations, was one of only three given by Fred Meyer to community partnerships in the region.

“We have a clear desire to reach the people on Casino Road,” Joseph told Foursquare.org. “We are doing this through working closely with the apartment owners, school officials, as well as city and state officials. We want to plant ‘missionaries and pastors’ into each and every apartment complex, to help develop healthy communities.”

This is Start Out Right’s third year, and is just one of the ways the people of South Everett Foursquare are influencing their city. The church works closely with Casino Road Ministries—a non-denominational non-profit run by a church member—which offers after-school Bible clubs and homework clubs for Casino Road students.

“We want to encourage, equip and entrust people to do the work God has designed for them in their areas of influence,” says Joseph. “That is how [Start Out Right] started. We had a couple of people who felt they wanted to run with it, and it has grown these last three years.”

The growth has been dramatic, in fact. In 2007, the ministry gave away 217 backpacks filled with school supplies. In 2008, they handed out 1,086. Their goal this year is to give away more than 2,000. Each backpack represents hope, giving students a chance to start the school year with the tools and support they need to succeed.

Start Out Right is making a difference, one life at a time. Joseph tells the story of an encounter at a recent fundraising event, where the non-profit had a school-supply and cash-collection barrel at the local Fred Meyer. Chuck, a member of his church, met a single mother of six who was living in her car.

“She recently was approved to move into an apartment complex we are reaching out to, but was currently homeless,” Joseph explains. “Chuck brought her to our church to give her some food, and on the way back told her about Start Out Right; he wanted to make sure she came by to get some supplies [during the upcoming giveaway]. On the way back to the store, one of her kids wanted to give some money to help other kids with supplies. So she emptied her pockets of her last 11 cents into the donation jar.”

For more information on Start Out Right and the ministry of South Everett Foursquare Church, log on to StartOutRight.org and SouthEverett.org.

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By: Bill Shepson, a Foursquare credentialed minister and freelance writer in Los Angeles

A broken arm from dad, smelly men touching her in bad places and constant beatings were just a part of life at three years old. A filthy environment with cat, dog and rodent feces littering the floor, scary people, itching from scabies and lice, it all seemed normal.

Life is different now. She has been in a stable, loving home for a year. She misses her little sister but sees her twice a week and knows she is safe. It is so different to have clean sheets or for that matter a bed. She never knew her old life was bad. It was the only thing she knew. Soccer at the YMCA, counseling, and trips to the park with her foster parents are fun. Seeing mom is good but dad is still scary. She starts preschool next year. She feels safe for the first time in her short life.

Is she living with a typical foster family? No, her foster parents are a gay couple.

Should she be removed?

With a shortage of licensed foster families where will she go? Should she go back to an abusive family? Be bounced around from one over capacity foster family to another? Should she be institutionalized?

 

Imagine a child is drowning at the local pool. Should the lifeguard be barred from saving the child because he or she is gay? Or worse, should we not allow the gay lifeguard to save the child and then not save the child ourselves? After all, it is hard to save a drowning child. We have a busy life. It is inconvenient to save dying children. It would be hard to save a child just to have the child leave us. Or worse yet, we save the child only to have the child go home with an abusive parent. Still, better to let the child drown than to have her saved by a homosexual.

 

Unfortunately this is the attitude of some in the Christian community. Rather than promote foster care and adoption we as Christians are more interested in deciding who God can use to save his children. We are in the business of removing safe, stable homes for children. Look no further than Arkansas new law sponsored by Arkansas Family Council and Focus on the Family that bans fostering and adoptions by gay or unmarried couples. Arkansas currently has over 3,500 children waiting for permanent homes.

Imagine what the result would be if rather than spending our time deciding who is worthy to save Gods children, we as Christians spent our time saving children. As Christians it is our duty and privilege to care for the orphans, widows, poor and the aliens (immigrants) among us.

 

I believe we have lost our way. Read the book of James or the story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew. Do we truly believe the Bible? Do we truly believe it is our duty to save the oppressed? Or have we become like the Pharisees, so obsessed by the rules that we neglect to do what is right and commanded?

 

I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe it is my duty to save children. I believe my God is big enough to use someone as flawed as me to rescue kids. I believe Jesus uses others to save children. Gods work will be done, with or without us. As Christians, let us concentrate our efforts doing God’s work, not preventing others from doing the same.

Todd McNeal