Archive for the ‘Caroline’s Promise’ Category

Leap Year

On February 29 every 4 years we make up the loss of a full day to maintain lunisolar calendars.  Read more about leap year on Wikipedia.

I believe that Joshua 10:12-13 is why we have leap year so that God can display His glory and majesty while breaking His own rules of science.  He can do that and anything He wants because He is God!

Joshua 10:12-13 (New International Version)

12On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel:
       “O sun, stand still over Gibeon,
       O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”

 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on [a]its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.

Joshua may have had his science wrong, but his heart was pure.  He probably thought that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth.  He asked God to do a ridiculous thing that defied His laws of nature (AKA a miracle).

We have asked the sun to stand still in many ways in the past few years for our:

  1. Family

    We will officially adopt our son on June 9, 2009! There were several miracles that took place in order for this to be possible.  We were told at 1 time that he would possibly not make it out of the hospital alive before he came into our care.  He was once on 6 medicines and way underweight.  He is now healthy, on zero medicines, and is on track for his weight with no complications. We were even told once that it would be impossible to adopt him.  God made the sun stand still in so many ways and He gets glory for it!

  2. Health

    Miracle after miracle took place in the revealing, the diagnosis, the correction, and healing of Martha Marie’s brain and gall bladder surgeries in 2008!Many of you helped us beg God to make the sun stand still through prayer, volunteering, child care, meals, financial giving, and encouragement and we can never thank you enough!

  3. Ministry

    We have felt a calling to church planting in the past year or so.  We don’t know what that means yet, but we have spent the past 2 years preparing for it through books, blogs, attending church services, conferences, and the things I am learning at my current employment.I currently do not have plans to leave Southern Wesleyan University or our current church (First Wesleyan Church, Greenville).  I am however asking God to make the sun stand still and do something absolutely ridiculous through our personal ministry to the least of these.  I am not satisfied until our family can make a difference for others in the name of Jesus so that people can walk from life to death.  This will probably mean bivocational ministry (working my full time job while doing ministry).  Our current church wants to start a new service of some type.  This may be where this mentality of planting ends up, even if it does not result in a church plant.  It may just mean planting a new service.

    In February, Martha Marie began directing Caroline’s Promisein South Carolina.  There are 143 million orphans worldwide.  Caroline’s Promise exists to educate and make people aware of how they can make a difference in the life of one of them. 

    The problem is not that there are 143 million orphans.  That is the outcome of a variety of circumstances.  The problem is that some good people are doing nothing about it.  Thank you for those that have supported orphans through your prayers, giving, volunteering, and/or attending the fundraising banquet in April.  The banquet was fully underwritten by your generous giving and $9,000 was raised in addition on the night of the banquet to help orphans worldwide.

    Several years ago, Martha Marie felt the calling to pursue playing the guitar.  She felt like a fish out of water not knowing what to do about a good quality guitar and not knowing how to play.  After brain surgery, life will never be the same for us.  Life is much more purposeful now.  It was go time.  We asked the sun to stand still to provide a guitar and lessons.  God sent an angel  (you know who you are) to provide lessons and help us find the guitar she needed.  Just 9 months later after starting lessons, our pastor invited Martha Marie way outside of her comfort zone to start playing guitar and leading a few songs each Sunday morning as a worship leader in our church. 

If times are dark for you now or the storm is unbearable, ask God to make the sun stand still so you can march to freedom because of what Christ did on the cross for you to claim redemption for His plan for your life.

If times are peachy and tribulations are not in sight, take advantage of the opportunity to be on the offense and destroy the enemy’s (Satan) plans by asking the sun to stand still so you can march to victory.

Posted by Eddie Smith on May 3rd, 2009 No Comments

Big News!!

We have some big news….and no, we are not pregnant! :)  

We felt over a year and a half ago to pursue foster care.  From there we felt led to pursue adoption and as many of you know we are about to finalize our adoption of our little boy in the next couple of months.  Through the whole process God has messed up our hearts in such a huge (but good) way!  I feel like God has given us a small glimpse of just how much His heart breaks over orphans. 

Eddie and I have been praying what our next step should be…we want to make a difference for orphans so badly…should we continue to do foster care?  Do we need to adopt 20 more kids?  Seriously we did have that thought briefly but considering that our house, car, and wallet would not be able to add an additional 20 kids at the moment we decided that might not be the way to go :)   As we’ve continued to pray, God has worked in His own way to show us exactly what He wants our next step to be….and that is to start Caroline’s Promise in South Carolina!

Some of you may be familiar with Caroline’s Promise, but for those of our friends and family who are not, let me catch up you.  Caroline’s Promise was founded five years ago in North Carolina by David and Lisa Holbrook.  They have an amazing story of how God orchastrated several events together to not only bring a little orphan girl (Caroline) from Guatemala into their family but as well bring hope to orphans all over the world through a ministry that they felt God led them to start, Caroline’s Promise.   Please check out www.carolinaspromise4u.org if you’d like to see what the mission of this ministry is all about.  Since Caroline’s Promise began in North Carolina over five years ago, God has exceeded all of their expectations and many orphans have found hope!!

Lisa and I got together last November to attend an adoption conference and she mentioned to me that maybe I should start praying about beginning Caroline’s Promise in South Carolina.  Honestly I thought she was crazy at first :)   But..I felt that God just kept bringing it to my mind in the weeks following the conference.   Less than two months later, I called Lisa and told her yes…I feel called to do this.  What’s scary is that I am in over my head and have absolutely no idea what I’m doing :)   but I know that “wherein I’m weak, His strength is made perfect!”  Praise the Lord!

 We have planned a fundraising banquet that will be held Tuesday, April 14 at Southern Wesleyan University.  This banquet will allow us to begin reclaiming hope for orphans in South Carolina and the outermost parts of the world!   Feel free to e-mail  marthamarie@hotmail.com if you would like to get involved in this ministry….anybody anywhere can a play a huge part in this!  I truly believe God has incredible things ahead!   God is going to do big things through Caroline’s Promise because we know that this is His idea….His heart!

Posted by Martha Marie Smith on February 6th, 2009 No Comments