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Heart's Cry Children's Ministry is thrilled to announce our official Foster Care program in Panama as part of our Family Services project.  HCCM was chosen by the Panamanian government earlier this year to be a part of their pilot program to place children temporarily in foster homes within Panama, rather than in orphanages.  We signed the official Agreement between HCCM and SENNIAF at an official signing ceremony, and have begun implementation of this program.  We are pleased to announce that 1 family has already been assigned 2 children under this program!  2 more children out of the orphanage and into a loving home!!           

This foster care program is all part of the wonderful plan God has shown us here in Panama, of how He is working to care for these precious children.  After God moved the country to change the law in July of 2013, this program became a possibility.  We have been working to organize and structure it since then, and this is the beginning of something wonderful and challenging.  Please pray for the details and staff for this program, and also for the children and families that God calls to be a part of this.  This foster care program, the first of it's kind in the Republic of Panama, is critical to the well-being of children brought into the system.  The goal is to keep them out of institutions (to protect them from the affects of institutionalization) and place them into loving, safe families.  Finding the families, training them, supervising them, supporting the children, protecting them and providing for their needs: all seems an insurmountable task, but with God ALL things are possible.       

ORPHAN SOFTWARE UPDATE:

 After 3 years in the making, this software is finally a reality!  HCCM was pleased to partner with a local software company, Aura Software, who completed this project at a discounted rate.  The owner of the company, Ilan Shatz, understood the benefit that this software would have on children in Panama if implemented appropriately, and so he graciously granted us a discounted fee to complete the software to our specifications.  HCCM worked with a team from Aura Software and SENNIAF to finalize this long-awaited project.  It's final implementation and training occurred in March.  They are now using this software at SENNIAF!  We will soon start to see the effects of this efficiency that has been created, as the government processes the children's files.  Children long since "caught in the system" WILL be affected.  Children's files WILL start to move faster through the bureaucratic process.  The changes ARE happening.   We praise the Lord for each victory in the process, this being a pertinent piece to the puzzle that had to be corrected.  Thank you for praying this into effect.  Please continue to pray for the implementation and transition of the government staff at the user level, as this is vastly different from anything they have known or used before.          

 PRAYER, PRAYER AND MORE PRAYER

 Why do I ask for prayer?  Because I know it's the only way true change can happen.  Every thing we have set out to do has only come about after at least 1 year, sometimes 3+ years, of steadfast prayer.  So when I send a newsletter out and ask for prayer, it's not a generic way to close an update.  It's a genuine request for you to join with us as we pray to the God of the universe, the God of angel armies, the only wise King, who adores each and every one of us and loves to intervene in our affairs.  He wants us to ask Him to do great things, and he totally does them!  He is able to do AND HE ACTUALLY DOES DO more than we could ever ask or imagine.  Praise the Lord!  So what now???  What's the prayer request??? 

Continued open doors.  Panama elected a new government party in July.  All heads of state and department heads are changing, along with most of the top rung of the government staff.  It is quite different than in other countries.  When a different party is elected, there is MUCH change.  Political appointments are made to departments, often times regardless of knowledge or expertise.  Our continued work in Panama could even hang in the ballots.  Much is unknown at this point, yet I know the Lord is in control.  He alone holds the hearts of kings and government officials.  He can change a heart and soften even the hardest of hearts.  Please pray with us over the hearts of the new leaders...  Specifically, the new Director of SENNIAF, Idalia Martinez.  Please pray that the great programs which began under the previous administrations would not only continue, but grow...  Specifically, the new foster care program and our intense involvement therein.  The new Director was officially sworn into office about a week ago.  We are preparing a presentation to meet with Idalia Martinez in the next week or two.  But I just ask for prayer regarding the work that the Lord led us to, that we will be able to continue it and that no person would hinder what the Lord began.

Psalm 77:20 struck me last night.   

"You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron."   

After the law change / the beginnings of foster care / the orphanage project starting, we feel a tiny smidgen of what Moses and Aaron must have felt.  The Lord chose to use our feeble hands to hold these precious little one's hands and help to lead them out of bondage.  There were so many others involved in this great process, yet it was our gentle Father that led us all every step.  And we have been rejoicing all the way out, praising the Lord.  Similar to how the Isrealites must have felt leaving Egypt.  And now, it's as if we've come upon the sea in front of us and an army behind.  Similar to how the Israelites might have felt... "Really, Lord?  After all that?  What are you going to do?"  They might have asked.  There is no other way, than to trust the Lord of Hosts.  To ask Him for another miracle.  To allow Him to continue to lead the way.  Please join us in asking our Father, Daddy God, to part the waters: To pierce the heart of the new Director and her staff, so that they will work for the Lord alone in order to do His will regarding His children.