One of the most important aspects of our Home Based Care initiatives in Haiti, Ethiopia, and Kenya is home visitation. Orphans and their caregivers are visited regularly by members of the local church and short-term team members as they go and serve together as partners.
As a practical expression of the Gospel, we visit children and their caregivers, first and foremost, to display our love for them. This is an expression of the love we have received in Christ.
Home Visitation Goals:
- Provide more than just ‘a visit’.
- Promote a sense of compassion, love, belonging, and the reality that these families truly matter.
- Demonstrate loving care and allow for ongoing conversations about who the children and their families are in Christ.
- Make meaningful connections with people in deeper relational ways with the hope that they will be drawn closer to one another and closer to Christ.
“Home based care helps marginalized people in the community find their identity.”
Wolisso Kale Heywet Church HBC Coordinator
Making disciples (teaching them the ways of the Gospel) and visiting orphans and widows are expressions of our love for God and our neighbors. They are expressions of God’s grace.
We are saved by grace to do good works. Love comes from God, by His grace, which empowers us to love others. The greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbors.
Because God loves us and because He has shown us such amazing grace, we visit and care for orphaned and vulnerable children. This love shows the children that God also loves them.
God has graciously chosen to use us in an amazing way – to express His love for creation through our love for His children. Caring for children is an awesome privilege.
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
James 1:27 ESV