Caring for US Orphans in Texas

With family breakdown worsening in our world, we know that we’re living amidst a global orphan pandemic, but that pandemic also exists right here in the United States. Churches across Texas have started rising up to provide care for children who need family, and for more than twelve years Bishop Aaron Blake has been leading the charge. The Global Orphan Project is excited to join Bishop Blake and announce our expansion into Texas.

Bishop Blake brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the ministry. In 2000, he was a bi-vocational pastor serving as a guidance counselor at Brownwood High School.  One student named Melvin needed a place to call home and asked Bishop Blake for help.  Having raised six children already, he and his wife, Mary, were experienced empty nesters.  They opened their home, and life changed.  A year later, the Blakes had six, new foster sons who all played on the Brownwood High football team.  Mary said she couldn’t cook dinner fast enough.

The Blake’s experience and leadership ignited a call within Greater Faith Community Church to care for US orphans.  Over the next decade, this faithful church of less than 200 members became family to scores of children previously living in the foster care system.  As the movement grew stronger, other ministry leaders and state leaders took note.

The last two years Bishop Blake has chaired The Advisory Committee on Promoting Adoption of Minority Children (ACPAMC), a church/state partnership committed to providing family for Texas children in need.  Last week, Aaron was selected to receive the national CWLA Community Partnership Award for his “great support of and work with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.”  This collaboration is quickly becoming a model adopted in other states like Michigan and Hawaii.

“One of the answers to changing the outcomes of thousands of children is the church.  The heartbeat of God is to care for widows (broken families) and orphans,” explains Blake.

As GO Project’s Field Director, Bishop Blake will focus on equipping local congregations to launch local, church-based care ministries for orphaned and abandoned children.  With an office south of Dallas and significant relationships in Austin, Blake will use his domestic adoption and foster care expertise to help churches care for orphans in their own backyard and around the world.

“Mary and I are graciously excited to join The Global Orphan Project Family,” Bishop Blake explains. “Twelve years ago God directed us to develop an orphan care and family ministry model through our local church.  We began with three legs of a four-legged stool: foster care, adoption and orphan missions.  Now we’re engrafting our ministry with the international ministry of The Global Orphan Project.”

Bishop Blake’s passion for hurting children is unmistakably supernatural, and it is transforming lives all over the country.

Learn more about domestic orphan care HERE>>

Hear more from Bishop Blake on caring for US orphans…

The State. The Church. Adoption. from The Global Orphan Project on Vimeo.