One little girl who was the least of the least according to the world’s standards – has become a Voice for the Voiceless around the World.
Tin-Tin’s Day in Maluku
Chyndi
2022.03.05
Understanding the true meaning of ministry
In my writing this time, I want to discuss the true meaning of ministry.
While writing this post, I remembered a spiritual song in church back in the day. The song most often sung by Sunday school children at the time of offering and at the beginning of worship. A song with movements to awaken the spirit of little children to praise God. A song titled “Do Not Get Tired” I think is a song that is beautifully packaged in some profound sentences about the meaning of a noble work that God desires. Yeah right ! A song that becomes an ‘alarm’ for God’s servants to continually work yields good fruit in God’s farm.
However, did you know that from this song we can learn a lot about the real church service world. It is not easy for us to serve God by doing secular work outside service simultaneously, but the Holy Spirit teaches us not to give up and quickly get tired in serving Him.
According to the Apostle Paul himself in his letter Acts 20:22-24 regarding His calling in the gospel, preaching the Word of God. Many torture he faced, but once again with a firm statement Paul said to forget what lies behind and run towards the goal which is to get the crown of life as a ‘wage’ from every tiredness of working in the field -Yes God.
From the example of the Apostle Paul, I myself realized that responding to a call to serve God is not an easy thing, but I continue to strive to learn to work in His field. Yes! In the field of God. Therefore, let us continue to strive to bear the fruit of good life out of our personal lives as well as in our work in serving God and others.
Believe in the Holy Spirit will always give us strength and ability in life’s most difficult moments to help us overcome every problem.
Service to us is an honor that we have earned, referring to the letter of the Apostle Paul on the meaning of a ministry (1 Timothy 1:12). Get us excited to return to responding to God’s call for ministry He wants.
In practice, the ministry we receive is not easy because we must have a pure heart in helping those around us who need a helping hand. Therefore, with this ministry, we are so blessed through the testimony of our brothers and sisters in God.
For that, with a full spirit and a pure heart in the presence of Allah our Father. Let’s unite our purpose to serve Him back with the fiery Holy Spirit to preach the gospel, serve others and be a blessing to those around us. So that they can see the glory of God through our lives.
Today, as my Avi wisdom I am going to share a need – a need for a little girl that is still an orphan but loved and chosen by God for a very special family! This family needs help to bring her home. We know this family from a divine encounter at a medical appointment for one of our girls.
Today.15 weeks and 3 days since our princess went with Jesus. Yes I am counting not only the weeks but the days and hours as I wait to be running with Avi hand in hand. It is also one week until her 12th birthday – February 27th. Everything is as raw and painful as it was on that very first day. I am not a writer at heart. I don’t like to write. I would rather be outside running or pretty much doing anything else. But today I need to write.
Photo: Avi
Today, I read the book of Ecclesiastes in search of something. I did not find what I was searching for but I still stand on what I believe. The Bible is true – all of it! I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that He rose again. The only song that we sang in church this week that held any meaning for me was “My Hope is Built On Nothing Less”
My hope is built on nothing less / Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness; / I dare not trust the sweetest frame, / But wholly lean on Jesus’ name. / On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; /All other ground is sinking sand. / When darkness veils His lovely face, / I rest on His unchanging grace; / In every high and stormy gale, / My anchor holds within the veil. / His oath, His covenant, His blood, / Support me in the whelming flood; / When all around my soul gives way, / He then is all my hope and stay. / When He shall come with trumpet sound, / Oh, may I then in Him be found; / In Him, my righteousness, alone, / Faultless to stand before the throne.
I could share everything that is wrapped up in every tear I shed every day of missing her physically here with us but what I need to share is the importance and value of her life. Avi inspires us to do more – be a louder voice – help more – adopt more – love more – give more.
When we adopted Avi, we needed help to bring Avi home and someone gave. Someone gave the remainder of her adoption costs and to this day, I still do not know who that person was.
Today I am asking that in honor of our Avi that you would read this adoption story below and HELP! Please give and no amount is too small – all donations will be tax deductible and every penny will go directly to paying their costs to bring home their third daughter from China.
By check: Ting Ministries 29 East Poplar Street, Lebanon Pa 17042
Please note: For Mercy
A friend of mine has written so beautifully what is on my heart about a child with more severe special needs. I am the blessed one to have been given the gift of Avi and her sisters. I ask you to please read and share this story and gift with others. Thank you from a very humbled heart -Stephanie
Mercy & Her Sisters: An Adoption Story
“Adoption. It’s always been on my heart to be family for children who need a mommy and daddy. Special needs children were always tugging at my heart. I yearned to nurture and love them, wanting them to see they have value and worth as a person.
So we began our journey of adoption summer of 2016 and brought home Miah from China, who had just turned 3 years old. Despite doctors’ predictions regarding her cerebral palsy and other medical challenges, she can now walk with the assistance of medical equipment. When we were in the process of her adoption there was another little girl whom we wanted to go back to adopt. So in September of that year we started the adoption process again. But the medical review was very negative, and when we received the update from the orphanage we were devastated. The report indicated extreme developmental impairment. We decided not to go ahead with her adoption, and I was determined to put this child out of my mind. We began to search for another child to bring home. In 2017 we brought home Malia at age 6 years old with cleft lip, cleft palate.
Miah and Malia
The summer of 2018 God spoke to me and said that we needed to go back and get the little girl we had said “no” to. I realized then that the decision we had made was based on fear and selfishness. I did not want to parent a child that would require lifelong care. You see, we are soon to be 56 and 57 years of age with four adult children. I wanted time to myself. But, I began to meditate on the fact that we are not our own, we are bought with a price by the blood of Jesus. I am not here for myself but to bring honor and glory to Him. I desperately needed to find out if this thought of returning for the child we had said “no” to was my own feeling or the Holy Spirit speaking to me. I had deleted all of this child’s information from my computer never to read it again. But I was able to recover all of her information and history by a few phone calls. As I read over and looked at the updated video I was no longer filled with fear. I had a peace about it. I started praying about it and that if it was the Lord telling me we needed to adopt her then my husband would have to agree. He did not. So I put her picture on the refrigerator and asked him to pray about her and then proceeded to write him a long letter detailing my own journey from fear to courage. I got down on my knees every day in front of that picture and prayed that the Lord would speak to my husband’s heart, since there was no way we could go ahead with this adoption if we were not of the same mind.
One morning as I was reading my devotions, I read, “He will refresh you with mercy”, and I knew right then we were to name her Mercy.
Satan did not want this little girl to come home and decided to ramp up his tactics. I was now facing much resistance from other family members. I asked a few prayer warriors to join me in the fight. But the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. I knew God was urging me to fight for this child despite the resistance.
A few months later my husband agreed to go ahead with the adoption. He had slowly realized that to say “no” to adopting this child would be disobedience and a sin since God was clearly asking us to bring her into our family.
Mercy’s sisters
Children with special needs have value. They are made perfect and designed just the way God wanted them to be. I want the world to see what they will add to our lives in regards to their gifts and strengths, and how they are wanted and valued, instead of what they take or require. We live in a society preoccupied with deficits as opposed to strengths. We need to dwell in possibility, helping our child thrive, respecting their timeline for development, setting a foundation for engaging our child’s gifts, whatever that may look like for the child, instead of trying to fix what is wrong. Many of these special needs children grow up and go on to accomplish great things.
But there are lives that come into the world neither to do great work nor to bear great burdens, but simply to be. They are the flowers of the garden which have no active mission. But they gladden the sight of Jesus. By their mere perfume, by their mere beauty, they have brought Him joy: by the very preservation of their loveliness in the valley they have lifted the Master’s heart.
Is adoption hard? Yes, but hardships develop beauty in the soul; they thrive on them; they bring out all the best in them; ease and comfort only leave them barren.
We still are carrying the financial loan from Malia’s adoption and now will be adding to that loan with Mercy. But nothing is hard for God. Without a sound or sign, from sources invisible and seemingly impossible, He will provide when the timing is right.” ~Judy, friend of Ting Ministries
Ting Ministries – Proverbs 31:8-9 BE A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS
During the more than ten years that I have had this blog, one of the sweetest blessings for me has been the incredible people who I have met along the way. They’re the families that remind me that a surrendered life is truly the only way to live. They’re the precious families that I have seen choose the road less travelled–and walk it out with so much grace, love and abandonment. Easy? Never! Worth it? Always! I am so grateful for the families that have always been such a sweet reminder to me that giving God everything that we have and everything that we are is a life I long to live.
Several years ago I connected with Stephanie–a fellow adoptive mom who, like us, had opened her heart and her home to children who struggled more than others. One of their sweet girls comes from the same orphanage as our Hasya and, like our daughter, was so desperately malnourished and was also abandoned in a crib.
Family! It changes everything for a child.
Stephanie and her husband Brian run a ministry called Ting Ministries which brings help, relief and the unconditional love of Jesus to many around the world. The Carpenters have adopted seven beautiful daughters who all have some type of special need – some mild and some more severe – but they are all their treasured daughters. Their special needs include: deafness, blindness, post traumatic stress disorder, cerebral palsy, spastic quadriplegia, spina bifida, feeding tubes, epilepsy/seizure disorder, need for cochlear implants, club feet, and other orthopedic issues, failure to thrive, global developmental delay, institutionalization, etc. Their first adoption was from Russia. Sasha was never supposed to walk and was headed to a mental institution. She is now 20 years old and a double major at Bucknell University. God of miracles!
With their huge hearts for the fatherless, it was no surprise that God called this faithful family once again, this time to bring home two of the neediest, most forgotten older girls who desperately need someone to come for them. For many months the Carpenters have fought to get one of the girls paper-ready and available for international adoption.
Anyone who has ever adopted a child from hard places can testify to the fact that when we step out in faith and fight for a child to come home, the battle rages. This family has faced trial after trial as they have trusted the Lord for the lives of these two girls. But God has been faithful! The process is moving forward and the Carpenters are praying for a medical expedite since both girls are not doing well.
Having walked in their shoes a few times, I so understand the heart and enormous amount of faith that it takes to say yes to children who come from unfathomable situations, even if the whole world is against you. Even if every fiery dart of the enemy causes setbacks and heartache. Even when you have no idea how God is going to provide.
I long for money to be the very last of their concerns. Increased regulations and fees sadly mean that adoptions are costing even more than they did just a few months ago. Of course it shouldn’t be that way, but it is, and we can’t change that. The cost of adoptions should never be an obstacle that keeps a family from a child! Now, more than ever before, families stepping out in faith to bring children home NEED the church to rise up and be a part of their journey by sowing financially. Our churches need to be pouring into adoptions, as do we, the bride of Christ. The problem of millions of abandoned children in the world should be our problem, and there are ways that we can all do something–even when we never feel called to adopt ourselves.
The Carpenters have a long, difficult journey ahead of them as they journey toward bringing Hope and Brittan home. And once home, they’ll face unknown medical issues, many hospital visits, and the usual period of adjustment as a family. Both girls have extensive special needs, and so much is unknown at this point. How beautiful would it be if finances were the last of their concerns? How amazing would it be if the financial burden was completely lifted by those of us who have a heart for the orphan? Let it be so, Lord!
Would you please prayerfully consider joining with this precious family in prayer and in giving? They still need about $17,000 to be fully funded. I know my God can do it! All donations are tax deductible through their ministry and can be made HERE.
Thank you so much for praying and for trusting that these two little darlings will be home very soon. I am so grateful!
Thank you to all the friends who contributed to this post and who have been interwoven with our adoption story of Hope and Brittan…
Annie Hamlin Speaks about Her Friendship with Stephanie…
“Many of you may know my sweet, amazing friend, Stephanie Carpenter, founder and director of Ting Ministries. I first “met” this amazing family about 10 years ago. The Lord used Steph to plant a seed, one that would grow and change my life forever!
Not only did the Lord pick a sweet, incredibly faithful mentor for me but He picked one whose heart is exactly as mine.
Steph loves to run – check!
Steph loves animals – check!
Steph is involved in dog rescue – check!
Steph is heavily involved in orphan care – check!
Steph has adopted multiple times – check!
The difference is that this amazing family has adopted 7 beautiful, higher needs girls from all over, including Bulgaria and China. They are in process for 2 more high needs girls from China, who were locked away in a room, left to die. Steph fought to get them file ready and have fought against SO many attacks since their process began.
Steph’s girls are amazing and beautiful and so very very special but their needs are more than most families are willing to take on. Steph and her wonderful Hubby, Brian, chose to follow the Lord with abandon! Their home and their hearts are so full of love and blessings and tremendous witness. They are the founders of Ting Ministries.”
About Ting Ministries (from their website):
“We are the Carpenter family. We have seven (soon to be nine) special daughters adopted from all around the world! Brian and Stephanie Carpenter are founders/directors of Ting Ministries – a 501(c)3 Christian nonprofit orphan ministry. We are passionate about caring for “The Least of These” and being a Voice for the Voiceless.
Our daughters all have some type of special need – some mild and some more severe – but they are all our treasured daughters. Their special needs include: deafness, blindness, post traumatic stress disorder, Cerebral Palsy, spastic quadriplegia, Spina bifida, feeding tubes, epilepsy/seizure disorder, cochlear implant, club feet and other orthopedic issues, failure-to-thrive, global developmental delay, institutionalization etc.
Our first adoption was from Russia and Sasha was never supposed to walk and was headed to a mental institution. She is now 20 years old and a double major at Bucknell University. Sasha is also the Administrative Assistant and Director of Social Media of Ting Ministries and has a heart for the aging out orphans.
Ting Ministries got its name from the Carpenters’ daughter Ellianna, whose Taiwanese name is Ya-Ting which means “to listen with your heart.” Avigayil “Tin Tin” is adopted from the Philippines and her orphanage and region is where Ting Ministries began ministry work in 2009. Today, Ting Ministries works in the USA, Philippines, Ukraine, China and Bulgaria.”
Annie Shares Our Urgent Need:
“I am writing this today to ask for help. Steph, in the middle of their adoption of 2 more high needs kiddos, helped us with our adoption of Will in so many ways, too many to even get into here but now they need help!
This incredibly faithful family needs $4,577 and they need it… like yesterday!!!
The total from their agency for the remainder of the adoptions, including travel and post adoption services, is $35,277
Please take a moment to pray for this family, to share this post and if you feel so led… DONATE!
Not feeling as if you are being called to adoption? Well, this is a wonderful way to help another family who has felt called and has said “YES Lord!”
“Do you see these beautiful young ladies? At first glance, they seem to be happy, enjoying meal and having a great time… Yes, they are enjoying food for the first time in a few days!!! Can you believe it??? When I asked them what you ate in the morning? We did not have breakfast today. What did you eat yesterday? Nothing. How about the day before yesterday? Only tea … It’s terrible! How you would feel, if you are a young mother expecting a baby?
Marichka (in pink) and Masha, two girlfriends and are going through a very, very difficult time now… They share not only their clothing but also joy and problems. Marichka should give birth to a baby girl in January. Her baby does not feel very well. Bad medical tests. Later we will know more details. Her belly is so tiny that you can not even tell that she is pregnant at all… And this is on the 7th month!!! Marichka often starves… In a month she has nowhere to go! Masha is already homeless! Today we just met with each other by a miracle! This is another story. But anyway, if we had not met, Masha would have spent the night in the street today! And maybe even one more night, two, a week, a month… It’s very cold, windy and rain. In some parts of Ukraine it is already snowing! Can you imagine this? The young lady all alone and hungry on the street? What would have happened, if it had not been God’s mercy to this precious young lady? Even scary to imagine … We found a temporary housing for Masha. But we do not know what to do next? How to be? We just can not leave these abandoned children on the street! Both girls do not have winter clothes and a lot of necessary things. They are both feeling cold today and now! And for this reason they got sick. Marichka needs medicines to ensure that her baby girl will be healthy. She tries hard and she needs help. A young mother loves her darling daughter and worries about her. They worked some time ago and earned 25.00 uah per day($0.90)! Yes, Yes! 25uah per day($0.90)! This is less then a $1.00 !!! They quit this job because it’s not enough to eat at least once a day!!! Can you imagine what they feel these days??? Hungry, barefoot, without necessary clothing, cold, lonely, without hope, disappointment, fear. Both girls were crying today…could hardly hold back tears so as not to burst into tears. Our hearts are broken. Thousands of thoughts in the head. What to do? How to be? Now the tears running down the face. Pain. A terrible pain for these orphaned children… It tears your heart into a million pieces…
Dear friends, we need the mercy of God!!! Please, pray with us about these two precious souls!! Pray that God has blessed and revealed to us His will. We have some thoughts on how to help these two sweet young ladies, but is there a will of God in this? If not, then God would show us and open other door. Pray that God will send funds to buy the necessary clothes and food for the first time, while Masha will find work and Marichka as well. Since she is expecting the baby, we are not sure that she will be able to work. God already answered to many your prayers! Will you help please to show the love of Christ to these poor and lonely souls, not only in words but also in deeds? That they are not alone, that they are precious and loved? To give them hope and their hearts would opened to Jesus Christ, where they can find rest for souls, joy and grace. Every donation is precious and greatly appreciated! One time gifts for food and medicine or monthly sponsors of 30 or 60 dollars welcome!
To send gift of love through PayPal: tingministries@comcast.net or send a check: Stephanie and Brian Carpenter Ting Ministries 904 State Drive Lebanon, PA 17042 USA Please, leave a note “For Marichka or Masha”. Thank you very much! May God bless you!
