Adoption Tax Credit

Awesome News!!!  Taken from the Rainbow Kids adoption website:

Adoption Tax Credit Victory Now a credit and a refund March 01,2010 / Martha Osborne

With the signing of the new health care bill, adoptive parents received some very welcome news. Not only will the adoption tax credit be extended until December 2011, but it has also been increased from $12,170 to $13,170 for adoptions occurring after January 2010. And for the first time, the credit will now be refundable. Families may receive a refund for documented expenses for the adoption of their child. What this mean to adoptive families: The best news: This new tax law means that adoptive parents may apply up to $13,170 of their adoption expenses toward their taxes owed, thereby decreasing the amount owed overall by this amount. However, the news gets even better. For the first time, families may be getting cash back from the IRS for their adoption expenses. That's right, the credit may now be taken as a refund for the first time. In the event that the couple owes less than the tax credit amount stated, they may receive some or all of the balance as a refund on their Federal taxes. The tax credit is important to both international and domestic adoptive families, but it's greatest beneficiaries are the children who will now have permanent families thanks to adoption being more affordable. Many groups and individuals have successfully lobbied to help extend this tax credit beyond its original expiration date of December 2010, and are still seeking to make the tax credit permanent. As we celebrate the extension of the deadline to December 2011, we must also remain vigilant in seeking to make this legislation a lasting gift to the children who wait.

Mocha Club Update!

How cool that we can receive updates on where our sponsorships are going and how they are helping in Africa! Remember THIS POST where we invited you to join with us and Mocha Club to support Orphans in Africa?  Well, now you can see what the guys have been up to for the last three months with the support that they receive through this awesome opportunity!

See what happened on Char & Skiff’s last 10 days in Africa…living in rural Zimbabwe and Ghana, eating local food, and hanging with folks at several Mocha Club projects – the Zimbabwe orphans in Bulawayo, the Grace Orphans and the Grace AIDS project in Sunyani, Ghana…



So, if you haven't done so already.... won't you JOIN US in supporting this ministry in Africa?! It's only $7 per month (the cost of two mochas!) and you receive a FREE t-shirt when you join!  Seriously!  What are you waiting for?!  :)

FREE Food & Water

What an awesome thing to do!  Giving someone free food and water.  There are two great sites that do just that, while playing learning games.  These would be great for your home schooled students or for your child to share at school with their teachers.  Get the whole class involved and see what an impact you can have on the world!!!

A great opportunity to provide food is www.freerice.com 

Pretty great day.... all in all I've donated 136 cups of water and 460 grains of rice in the last 20 minutes.

I dare you to beat my record! ;o)

Just click on the donate now button to start playing.  Here's the link in case my html doesn't work right is www.freepoverty.com

Dressed for HOPE

I LOVE wearing adoption shirts.  Anything to advocate for the orphan!  We're getting ready to make some new ones ourselves, but you MUST check out Kim's new fundraiser for their adoption!  You seriously cannot pass this one up!  Check out her blog HERE and I'd like to tell you not to enter so I can win, but hey.....  it's for the greatest cause I can think of!  Creating bigger families through adoption!  Bringing orphans home to forever families!  So buy as many entries as you can afford!

If you win, you get ALL of this!

AND THIS!!!!

Incredible!!!  Even if I don't win this sweet giveaway I can't wait to see who does!  Congratulations Kim on the coolest fundraiser I've seen to date!  You rock girlfriend!  

Please.... GO!

World Water Day & New Financial Aid!

There are lots of things in the works for JHAM!  We have some exciting events coming up this spring and summer to benefit the orphan and advocate for adoption!  We're so excited to share those things with you in the VERY NEAR future!  We're going to be meeting later this week to get some things in place and start the new season off right!

TODAY..... is World Water Day.  You can 'celebrate' with us and get one of these:

When you buy a water bottle, 15 Africans get clean water. That means fewer women in Africa will have to walk six kilometers to collect water. And because of this, they won’t be carrying the 44 pounds of water that they normally carry on their heads that whole way. Think of what they could do with all the time and energy saved.

That’s not the bottle’s whole impact, though. Now, you can use your “Ripple Effect” water bottle instead of having to buy bottled water. You save money, and fewer plastic bottles end up in landfills, where they can take 1000 years to decompose.  By refilling your water bottle from the tap, you save the energy and resources that otherwise would have been used to manufacture, ship, and dispose of plastic water bottles. With over 50 billion bottles of water being consumed yearly, that’s a lot of energy!

Now consider this: the amount of water used in one flush of a toilet is the same amount as an average person in Africa uses all day for washing, cleaning, cooking, and drinking.

In fact, 311 million Africans lack access to clean drinking water. That’s roughly 45% of the population.Some of you might be thinking this is because there is no water in Africa, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Only 4% of the total renewable water available in Africa is used yearly due to a lack of wells, pumps, reservoirs, and other irrigation systems.  Shocking statistic, isn’t it?

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NEXT is a new resource we found for Adoption Funding!  Awesome site!  Awesome folks fighting for the plight of the orphan!  Check them out by clicking the logo and 'about us' link below!  We hope this will be a valuable resource to someone in search of financing to finalize their adoption!  

Mocha Club

Joint Heirs has formed a team with Mocha Club to help with orphan care and vulnerable children in the Darfur area in Africa. You can join us in this endeavor to provide help to the 'least of these' by joining our Mocha Club team by clicking HERE.

By joining the team you donate a mere $7.00 per month to help these children. When you join the Joint Heirs Adoption Ministry Mocha Team you receive a FREE t-shirt also! You can find details on how to obtain your shirt on the Mocha Club site or contact Renea or Joy through the sidebar contact info on this blog to help you! We'd love to have you join us!

This is an excerpt from the Mocha Club site about the project we are sponsoring:

HIV/AIDS, disease, and war have taken the lives of so many parents in Africa, and that has left orphans for us to care for. These orphans have no form of child services or housing, and therefore are left to fend for themselves, often alone in the desert or the bush. In the Darfur area, the number one cause of death was wild hyena attacks, because the orphans had no safe area to sleep at night. They are also extremely vulnerable to slave raiders when they are left alone.

We provide the children with safe housing, protection, and complete care - food, education, spiritual direction, medical care, and vocational training. And this is only the beginning, as our goal is to develop these children into future leaders in their own communities. Join Mocha Club members in caring for the next generation of Africa – children of hope and dreams.

Each month we will be providing updates on exactly where your money is going, we may even be able to include video, podcasts and other blogs showing your efforts in helping! Thank you!

Widows & Orphans - WIPHAN

One of my bloggy friends, Andrea, is wanting to spread the word about their organization called WIPHAN. They are in need of sponsorships and we want to share with everyone we know (or that reads about us!) what you can do to help!

I know first hand what sponsorship can do for a child. We love our sponsored child in Haiti and it's such a blessing to see her and know what we are doing to help change her life and her family's life. But even greater is the blessing she is for our family. We have changed hearts and changed lives because of Smerelda and children like her. We needed Smerelda as much as she needed us. This week I'm going to be sharing nothing but sponsorship blogs and posts! So fasten your seatbelts! It's going to be a bumpy ride! But one you'll enjoy I'm sure!

From Andrea's blog:

Wiphan was started just 3 years ago…and we’ve just had our 501 non-profit status for TWO years. It went from one friend of ours—to our family—to 3 more families…and we had a board! For awhile—it was just us + 450 orphans + 150 widows. We trusted the Lord to provide the thousands of dollars of month we would need to run–and He has always provided. Last year we started our sponsorship program to invite OTHER FAMILIES to join us! I would LOVE to see all TWENTY of our children who still don’t have sponsors sponsored by Friday!

OK—so how can you help?! We need voices! We need others who have hearts for orphans to speak with us! And if you have a blog—well, you have a voice and you probably have lots of readers!!! The MORE people we refer to the Wiphan site…the MORE people will find out about Wiphan and our sponsorship program!

Zambia isn’t really open to adoptions…so for these kids–the only hope is for them to be cared for in country. We have TWO schools and 450 kids—with MANY MORE who would LOVE to be in our program. BUT before we can grow–we need to find sponsors for the children on our list. Many of our children waiting for sponsors are “older children”. Maybe you don’t qualify for adopting an older child–but you could sponsor one!Maybe your budget really is too tight–but you could blog about them and be their voice!