40 Days of Prayer & Fasting

Dear Friends of Grace Babies’ Home,

A newborn baby goes through 10-12 diapers a day. The average cost of a diaper is $0.26. A days worth of diapers for a newborn costs approximately $3.12. The average cost of a Starbucks coffee is $3.00. Would you consider giving up your coffee to provide diapers for a day for an orphaned baby?

Our family has decided to participate in a 40-day give up fast. We will start on March 16th and go until Easter morning on April 24th. For forty days we will give up something that is comfortable but not essential. By giving up that certain something we will be saving money. We will then give that savings to Grace Babies Home via email or text. Every time we give up something, we will stop, email or text our donation, and pray for the babies that will one day live under our roof.

We believe that God is going to do incredible things in our family through this act of sacrifice and lesson on giving. We want to invite you and your family to participate in this 40-day give up fast with us.
Anything you and your family decide to give up has a cost and therefore a savings when you give it up. By directing those savings to Grace Babies’ Home you are choosing to invest in the lives of orphans - a worthy cause that pays eternal dividends.

How does it work?

Type the item or activity that you choose to give up in the subject or body of your email or text along with the amount of your donation. You can do this as many times a day as you give up something. (We plan to have our kids take turns sending our emails.)

For example, if your family chooses to give up snacks and you estimate the value of the snack you are choosing to not eat at that moment to be $2.00, you would send a text or email written “snack 2” in either the subject or the body to gbh@mogiv.com

Note: if you do not already have an account with Mogiv, at this point you would receive an email directing you to set up your account and funding source. Once your account is set up, you can text or email gifts as often as you give something up.

If your teens have their own cell phones, sign them up! When they give up their soda, teach them to donate the savings. The Mogiv site has a great page to view graphs and charts of everything that you have given up. Our family plans to use this tool during family devotions to observe how we are doing on our give up fast.

Here are a few things you and your family can pray about giving up, but the possibilities are endless.
Dessert
New Book
Lunch
Coffee
Dinner
Beer
New Clothes
Sunday Brunch
Snacks
Cigarettes

It may be that you plan to give up any purchases that you don’t absolutely need for 40 days, or that what you give up varies from day to day. There is only one rule in giving – give as purposed in your heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, give cheerfully (2Cor 9:7).

If you plan to join us in this 40-day give up fast, you may want to take two minutes to log onto the Mogiv site ahead of time and set up your giving account. On March 16th we will begin daily posting to the GBH blog specific ways you can be praying for the babies as you begin to give up.

God bless you,

Juan Strutton
Director, Grace Babies’ Home

PS – Please feel free to share this giving opportunity to your friends and family.

A Big Week

Thanks to all of your prayers, the first coat of stucco made it on to the Baby Home just before the weekend storm hit. Also, we had a crew from our sending church, Horizon Christian Fellowship come on Saturday and get the upstairs patio ready for stucco as well as start painting the upstairs bedrooms. Indeed, it was a big week.

CALL TO ACTION

PRAY - Please pray for dry weather as the stucco crew continues their work on Monday the 7th.

SHARE - Cut and paste this link into your Facebook status.

GIVE - Help us care for abused and neglected babies. Your $40 monthly gift can help change one life and stop the cycle of abuse and neglect for generations to come.

Calvary Church of Santa Anna

This week we were blessed to have four men from Calvary Church of Santa Ana working on the Baby Home. Led by John Fenn, the group in various forms has had a hand in building every building currently at GCH. Their rich history of service here and the memories they have of this place are a huge blessing to us. This week they focused on some drywall finishing and installation of the sound proof flooring upstairs.

CALL TO ACTION

PRAY - The stucco team begins its work on Monday. Please pray that the Lord would hold back the rain long enough for them to get the first two coats on.

SHARE - Post this on your Facebook and Twitter feeds using the share button above.

GIVE - $40 per month will help us care for the babies that God has already chosen to live in this home. That’s $1.33 per day. Is there something you could give up daily that costs $1.33?

Reality

This weekend we hosted a team from Reality Church in Ventura. They were able to finish priming the walls in most of the upstairs rooms. Also, we started working on the septic system again. On January 2nd I put out the prayer request for a crew that would stucco the exterior of the Baby Home. Every blog post since then has included a request to pray for God’s hand in this process. I was reminded that we serve a God of abundance this last Friday, when I received not one but four different contacts that were interested in potentially taking on this part of the project. One of those contacts confirmed today. They will start on Monday the 21st. The Lord’s silence on the matter since January was a test of my faith. Looking back at my prayer requests, the time it took from the first request until God’s faithful answer to our prayers was exactly 40 days.

CALL TO ACTION

PRAY - Pray for dry weather when the stucco team begins work on the 21st.

SHARE - You can use this story of God’s faithfulness and testing to introduce your friends and family to the ministry of Grace Babies’ Home.

GIVE - Click on the “Sponsor a Baby Now” button above to sponsor a baby for $40 per month.

Prayer and Horizon

"Prayer does not prepare us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work." 

— Oswald Chambers

It was a busy week at Grace Babies' Home as work continued inside and out. Dave and Heather Peddie, dear friends of Lionel and Helen Liebrecht, visited us from Canada. The Peddies’ are prayer warriors and came all the way from Calgary to spend a few days praying over the land and buildings. We spent two days preparing for and praying over the entire GCH and GBH property. Using wooden stakes with over 25 verses that we had chosen to pray over the ministry written on them, we cleansed and claimed the land. The stakes were placed at every corner and every gate of the property. It was a powerful time of prayer and fellowship. On Friday, Dave Rosenberg arrived at the YUGO office from the bay area. He brought 4 refrigerators, 2 microwaves, a dryer and 2 washing machines that were all donated to GBH. We were also blessed to have Horizon Christian Fellowship here on Saturday to keep the drywall work going. We are 99% finished with hanging drywall.

CALL TO ACTION

PRAYER- We have a few leads for stucco. Pray that they will work out.

SHARE - E-mail this blog to 3 people and ask them to sign-up to receive updates.

GIVE - Sponsoring a baby in the name of your sweetheart would make a great Valentine.

Friesen Family

This week we were visited by the Friesen family who came all the way from Vancouver to work on the Baby Home. The whole family pitched in helping clean, organize and prep the upstairs drywall for texturing. Richard helped install all of the bathroom fan/lights and began installing electrical outlets and switches. Also, fellow YUGO missionaries Ron Struska and Tom Coles began the texturing process upstairs.

CALL TO ACTION

PRAY - Please continue to pray for the stucco crew that has yet to be revealed.

SHARE - Please share the blog with friends and family. 

GIVE - Would you consider sponsoring a baby for $40 per month?

Drywall, Drywall, and More Drywall

The time of cutting, lifting and screwing drywall in the Baby Home has almost come to an end. Thanks to another hard working group from Grace Chapel of Indio, all of the remaining downstairs drywall, minus two bathrooms, has been hung and about half of it has been taped. This week we will begin texturing the upstairs as well as installing all of the electrical fixtures and switches.

CALL TO ACTION

PRAY - Continue to pray for the crew that will stucco the building. God has selected them but has yet to reveal to us who they are and when they are coming.

SHARE - Please continue to share this blog with anyone that you would like to see blessed by the ministry of Grace Babies’ Home.

GIVE - $40 a month will help provide the necessary funding for Grace Babies’ Home to continue following God’s command to care for the fatherless.