This Christmas, I get to hold my three month old son in my arms. I get to gather my two older daughters together, rumpled in their ballerina pajamas, on Christmas morning. I get to hear their hearts beat as I hug them and see the life dance in their eyes.
Not every mother gets to experience that this Christmas.
For many, the holidays are a time of incredible grief. Someone is missing. Since becoming a mother, infant and child loss, the adoption and foster care processes, abortion trauma and child disease have moved my heart to compassion. This world is affected by a great and restless evil – one that will one day be brought to justice. But in the meantime, the Church is meant to actively fight against the effects of sin in the world. Not all of us have the same burden; some of us are specifically called to one of the above areas of need, others are called to sex trafficking and exploitation, to prison reform, and to myriad other issues reflecting the love and justice of God. In this post, I give you a list of organizations you can support monetarily as the Lord leads.
This December Josh and I are going over our final numbers for the financial year. The most delightful part of this process (because faxing paperwork and lots of phone calls aren’t my fave!) is picking the organizations we want to support. We regularly support our local church, Compassion International (two young girls in Peru), and First Fruits of Zion (our bible study). Half the donations of our merchandise shop go toward our local food pantry, Manna Project. But we truly believe God has given us a heart-burden for a reason, and it is delightful to find organizations whose mission we can fully invest in, knowing they are doing God’s work.
I realize this is not an exhaustive list. I have polled my audience and done some research into these organizations, and they best fit the type of ministries and work toward which I want to direct my audience.
We are personally donating to several of the organizations below, and I hope you will as well. Most of these are faith-based, but not all.
Adoption + Foster Care Ministries and Organizations
- Safe Families: surrounds families in crisis with support to prevent the need for foster care or adoption
- Black Family Adoption: WAT!: adoption grants to black families seeking to adopt
- Bethany Christian Services: aids vulnerable children, refugees and immigrants, placing children with families in their own countries
- Life Song for Orphans: mobilizing the church to care for orphans by adopting, caring, and giving
- One More Child: anti-trafficking, single mom and family support for vulnerable children
- Forgotten Initiative: mobilizes people to support the foster care community
- Show Hope: offers adoption aid to overcome financial barriers to adoption
- A Child Waits: adoption grants and aid for domestic and international adoption
- The Pearl Project: helps bring healing to children with a history of trauma
- Fawn + Foster: baby items shop; 50% of profits donated to aid foster children
- Fostering Love Co.: another shop funding foster care families
- Michigan Foster Closet: provides clothing, shoes, toys and more to local foster families free of charge
- Bring Me Hope: provide orphans a safe and fun place to heal; event based, needs donations due to Covid cancellations
- Isabel’s House: safe care for families in crisis
- Hope Found: support for survivors of human trafficking (Arkansas)
Post-Abortive Ministries and Organizations
- Embrace Grace: support for single pregnant women so they can have their dreams and babies too
- Let Them Live: Defending the defenseless – support for single moms
- Deeper Still: retreats and support for women who have had abortions
- Save the Storks: changing the dialogue around pro-life to one of compassion and action
- Rachel’s Vineyard: retreats for psychological and spiritual healing post abortion
- Your state’s Right to Life Org
- And Then There Were None: helps abortion workers leave the industry
- Eastgate Ministries: safe house, post abortive care, counseling for women who have experienced rape and abuse
Child and Infant Loss
- Trappist Caskets Child Fund: donations are used to provide custom caskets by the monastery to families who have lost a child.
- Laurel Box: custom gift boxes for bereaved mothers (also for miscarriage and infertility)
- Sufficient Grace Ministries: support for grieving parents
- Hope Mommies: gifts, retreats, and support for bereaved mothers
- I Am Fruitful: hope for those struggling with infertility and miscarriage
- MEND: support for mommies enduring neonatal death
- No Footprint Too Small: support for mothers, fathers and families affects by infant loss (Nebraska)
- Joyful Mourning: hope filled community for miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss
- Eve’s Victory: NICU, miscarriage and infant loss care packages
- Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep: Gifts professional remembrance photography to families experiencing infant loss
- Love Jessica: provides funds for medical and funeral expenses for family experiencing loss
- Aubrielle’s Hope: aid for burials, cremations and funerals after the death of a child
Child Illness/Disease Organizations and Medical Expense Funds
- Abel Speaks: supporting families who chose to carry a child with a life limiting diagnosis
- RIP Medical Debt: donate to cover the medical debt of families in need
- Go Shout Love: shop provides funds for families on rare medical journeys
- Sisters by Heart: care packages for families with children with congenital heart disease
- Joni and Friends: provides custom fit wheelchairs another support for families with disabled members
- Blue Skies Ministries: retreats and support for families going through childhood cancer
- Reece’s Rainbow: fundraise for adoption of international children with special needs
- Be Not Afraid: support for parents walking through prenatal diagnosis and loss
- Tiny Hero: resources for families with CDH
- Beads of Courage: improving quality of life for children and teens coping with serious illness – through art
- Open Hearts for Orphans: provides lifesaving medical equipment to fund heart surgeries for orphaned and abandoned children
DonorSee: this ministry provides for the poorest people of the world, and what’s really neat is you can pick a project to donate to – then see a video of the people you are serving and how your help changed their lives! This is a new organization to me and I love how it connects donors and those in need “face to face”.
No More Baby Blisters: you can donate to provide much needed medical care and research to stop this painful disease affecting children worldwide.
If you have considered donating to me and my ministry, instead, please donate to one of these in my name and let me know. That would bless us! We are fully supported by book and shop sales; when you buy our products, you support my family and team. There are people in far greater need this Christmas than us.