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Here is a little more information about what we have planned for Together Called 2023 in addition to hearing from Skye Jethani and Ross and Staci King throughout the weekend.

Preconference Session Friday Afternoon

Togethering: Empowering Our Family Relationships

We learn who we are and how the world works through our experience of relationships. Hurts experienced in the context of relationships can be healed in the context of relationships. But, what exactly is a healing relationship? Leaning on Empowered to Connect’s connecting practices, in this workshop, we will start to explore how we can better understand “good” parent-child relationships and grow in our own relational practice. 

About the facilitators:

Mark and Kelly Raudenbush have been married for 25 years this Fall and have four children, three biological and one adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. Together, they have been committed to caring for caregivers since they cofounded The Sparrow Fund in 2011. With background in ministry and previous experience on Young Life staff, Mark currently serves as The Sparrow Fund’s Director of Operations. Kelly holds a Master’s degree in counseling from Missio Seminary and earned her Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Clinical Certificate from Georgetown. As The Sparrow Fund’s Executive Director and Sparrow Family Services clinician, she has a particular interest in (a) partnering with parents to help children process and understand their histories in healing ways; (b) encouraging, equipping, and empowering parents as they navigate the effects of trauma and build connections with each other and their children, and (c) helping caregivers and teachers in our own neighborhood and across the world best experience the power of relationship and grow it. 

Optional Breakout Sessions Saturday Afternoon

Breathing, Movement, + Matching: Supporting Our Family’s Emotional Temperature Through Self-Attunement + Coregulation

We have an opportunity as parents to move our family’s emotional temperature as we learn to better manage our own internal state and practice presence with our children. In this session, Dr. Monica will share about the neurodevelopment of the brain and how that knowledge can help us and our children regulate our emotions more effectively. And, she will guide you to experience a few relaxation and stress reduction techniques yourself in real time that you can share with your children.

About the facilitator:

Dr. Monica Pentony is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating trauma across the lifespan. She is passionate about helping people understand the impact of trauma on the brain and body and teaching them to build new adaptive neurology to support a healthy integrated self. She is a certified eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapist, registered play therapist, safe and sound practitioner, and animal assisted therapist. Dr. Monica practices in Frederick, Maryland where she lives with her husband and four children on a farmette in the Catoctin Mountains. When she isn’t in session or wrangling her children, she enjoys quiet time on her porch swing with a hot cup of coffee, chocolate pretzels, and a good book.

Building and Growing Community Within Your Family

Experiencing the impact themselves of transformational community, Evan and Stacey have been practicing intention to integrate vulnerability and build community within their family. In this session, they will share how they have been doing that, what has worked (and what hasn’t), and help you imagine ways you could do similar things for your family. While the content is an organic expansion and application of Curt Thompson’s messages at Together Called 2022, anyone is welcome to the table and can benefit from the conversation.

About the facilitator:

Evan Snyder currently serves as Pastor of Spiritual Formation at Grace Hill Church in Herndon, VA. He and his wife, Stacey, have three kids: Ezekiel, Micah, and Brinley. They adopted their son Ezekiel from Ethiopia in 2011. Adoption and foster care continues to be a significant area of focus for their family and ministry. Evan serves on the advisory board for Foster the Family D.C. which seeks to support and encourage foster and adoptive families, mobilize and equip the community and church for foster care and adoption, and advocate for vulnerable children. He is also a founding member of The Redwood Collective, an organization whose mission is to create spaces of connection and being known for people who are isolated by the nature of their work.

Finding Hope For Us in the Hard

As biological, adoptive, and former foster parents, Ken and Carolyn know hard. Parenting alone is hard. And then, there’s marriage; that is hard too. Sometimes in the hard, we can lose each other. Ken and Carolyn can’t offer you three steps to a happier, healthier marriage. However, they can give you a glimpse into the raw and real of their 37 years of marriage, share some wisdom and tools they have gathered along the way, and help you find hope and encouragement for your own.

About the facilitators:

Ken and Carolyn Ruch have been working at their marriage for over 37 years and have been finding their way through parenting seven children (three bio, one adopted, three fostered) for over 35. They know what it’s like to wait in police stations, psych wards, and emergency rooms and sit through IEP meetings, court hearings, and counseling sessions. They also know what it is like to celebrate small milestones, cheer at graduations, and dance at weddings. Now, they have the blessing of being grandparents to four. Ken is the former president and CFO of George Didden Greenhouses, Inc. and is now retired and delighted to be mentoring his sons at Wedgewood Gardens in Glen Mills, PA. Carolyn is the steward of The Rise and Shine Movement: Equipping Adults to Protect Kids from Sexual Abuse, and a writer and speaker. Together, they spend their Fridays delighting in their grandchildren as they give their mamas a much-needed break and their Friday nights thanking God for the sounds of silence.

We often think of screentime as being disconnecting relationally. But, it doesn’t have to be. Your phone can be a tool (that you almost always have in your back pocket) for connectivity with your child newly home or home with you for a while.

Here are some of our favorite mobile apps for supporting parent-child and sibling-sibling relationships.

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Animal Antics for Families

Developed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, this app is designed to create back-and-forth interactions between grownups and kids. With your child, you can take turns choosing facial expressions expressions and recording dialogue (or noises) for silly animals in different scenes. It can be used with children who do not yet speak English. 

Autism Nonverbal Therapy Game

This app is appropriate and helpful for all kids. In this app, you can help your child create artwork using shapes. It can be used with children who do not yet speak English. 

Breathe, Think, Do With Sesame

Developed by Sesame Street, this app is designed to create back-and-forth interactions between grownups and kids. The goal is to help a Sesame Street monster calm down and solve problems. It can be used with children who do not yet speak English and can be used with English and Spanish.

GoNoodle

A personal favorite, this app has dance videos, brain breaks, games, and mindfulness activities for grownups and kids to do together. It gets everyone moving and laughing like all the GoNoodle materials do.

Hidden Pictures

Remember those hidden picture puzzles in Highlights magazine? Now they’re in an app. This app encourages a monthly subscription program that delivers new puzzles weekly. But, the app is free and includes a limited number of puzzles that you and your child could have fun with over and over again sans subscription.

Photo Play for Families

Developed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, this app is designed to create back-and-forth interactions between grownups and kids. With your child, you can take turns decorating selfies or photos already on your phone and playing hide-and-seek with the photos. It can be used with children who do not yet speak English. 

Sago Mini Friends

Developed for toddlers, this app is fun for grownups and kids to do together and use as an English-language learning tool as you narrate words for simple things. There is a cost, but it’s nice to have no ads and be able to play without wifi. Watch a little trailer HERE.

Sesame Street Family Play

This app offers ideas for over 130 games you can initiate with your child in “real life.” Games are organized into three categories: Keep Busy, Move Your Body, and Calm Down. This can be helpful for when you feel like you need some fresh ideas.  

Small Wonders for Families

Developed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, this app is designed to create back-and-forth interactions between grownups and kids. With games and songs, it can be used with children who do not yet speak English. Watch a little trailer HERE. 

Toca Band

You may hate us for recommending this app as the song is kinda catchy. But, this app really is a lot of fun for grownups and kids to create a musical number (and then play it over and over again!). All the Toca Boca apps are pretty fun, so check out their other apps too. It can be used with children who do not yet speak English. 

Two Player Games

Exactly what it says it is, this app is includes all sorts of mini games that can be played on the same screen by two players—bowling, race cars, ping pong, soccer, etc. It can be used with children who do not yet speak English. 

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When traveling on an adoption trip, don’t forget the impact of your own photos and camera. Consider flagging photos of particular interest so you can easily scroll through the flagged photo folder to show your child photos or allow your child to scroll himself or herself. These photos could include ones he or she may recognize from a photo book you sent before traveling; photos or a video tour of your home, a playground you visit, or pets; photos you received of your child while you waited; etc. And, use your camera not only to take pictures but to communicate to your child how important they are to you and to have fun! Quite possibly, selfies are a universal language for fun. There’s no need for silly filters; simply taking turns mirroring each other’s funny faces with the camera capturing it all really is enough. Ridiculous creates laughter, and laughter is contagiously connecting.

How do you use your tablet and phone for family connectivity? We’d love to hear about your ideas and know your favorite apps so we can keep growing our list and sharing them! Email us at info@sparrowfund.org.

 

Since the start, we have experienced God meeting us in all the various places we may be at our annual marriage retreat Together Called. We are no longer surprised by it; we come with expectation of it. Our 9th Together Called is months away, but we are already filled with great expectation.

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Skye Jethani and his wife Amanda have been friends since high school. They were married in 1999 and currently live in Wheaton, Illinois with their three children. Skye’s father immigrated to the United States from India in 1970 to complete his medical training in Chicago. His mother was a nurse and native Chicagoan. Growing up in a multiethnic home gave Skye a diverse outlook and broad exposure to cultures that continue to influence him. Before college, he had already traveled to nearly 30 countries on five continents. Skye went to Miami University in Ohio and studied History and Comparative Religion with a special focus on Islam. He went on to earn a Masters of Divinity degree in 2001 from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He served as a church pastor for 8 years before founding Measure the Clouds, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping a post-Christian generation discover a ravishing vision of life with God. He has authored 11 books and served for over a decade in numerous editorial and executive roles at Christianity Today. Skye is a cohost of the popular Holy Post Podcast, a weekly show that blends astute cultural and theological insights with comical conversation. We can’t wait to have him join us at Together Called 2023 as our keynote speaker with his wife Amanda. If you are on Twitter, look for him there and get to know him @skyejethani.

Ross and Staci King have been married since 1998 and have been making music together even longer than that. They met in 1997 when they were both a part of the Breakaway Ministries worship team at Texas A&M, quickly fell in love, and sealed the deal. In the 20+ years they’ve been together, they planted a church, adopted 4 kids, traveled the country leading worship and doing concerts, and have had plenty of adventures. They currently live just south of Nashville, TN where Staci homeschools their children and Ross continues his career writing songs, producing music in his studio, and leading worship. They feel called to help regular people have honest conversations about real things. Since they still love singing together and we love experiencing it with them, we are thrilled to have them back for their fourth (official) Together Called.

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Registration for Together Called 2023 will open on Sunday, October 16th. Join our mailing list to get an email reminder. We don’t want you to miss it.

We need sponsors. If you own a business and want to be a part of supporting foster care and adoption by supporting the moms and dads in it, email us. We’d love to tell you more about why we need you and what sponsorship looks like.

“This retreat was just what I didn’t know I needed. It was busy, fun, and I barely slept. Yet, I came home feeling so rested and refreshed.”

“This was the first time I’d ever sat down and heard about adoption from adoptees. It was a very meaningful and raw way to open up the weekend. I appreciated their perspective and everything that they shared. I’d love to be a part of this open conversation again.”

“It was so good to be back together again this year. I was really encouraged and challenged by the recurring themes of vulnerability and concept of no judgment, let’s just help each other get beyond the brokenness.”

“I was apprehensive coming, thinking the speaker would be a verbal version of high-fives and atta-boys and ‘you guys are heroes for adopting.’ . . . So needless to say, the content Curt provided was very appreciated. His ability to hold the importance of connection with God in one hand and neuroscience in the other hand brought encouragement and comfort.”

“It was such a gift to experience even one aspect of the main sessions, but all of them combined was like feeling a taste of the unity and love we will one day know in heaven.”

“Mark’s honesty and vulnerability reminded me of the ‘goodness’ of community and how much I have missed that over the past two years.”

“I am a Scrooge when it comes to forced fun at an event. The games you guys did were the perfect blend of funny and OPTIONAL. Anyone who wanted to be a fly on the wall could and anyone who had Olympic-size dreams to win a retreat game could do that as well. It felt like an inclusive environment all around.”

“Everything was perfect. Truly. We could not have felt more loved and cared for.”

Here’s a sneak peek at what we have planned in addition to hearing from Curt Thompson and Ross and Staci King throughout the weekend.

Preconference Session Friday Afternoon: Casual Conversations, Intentional Storysharing

In Amy Tan’s book The Joy Luck Club, women came around the mahjong table with intention so that they could together turn their attention away from big things that could disintegrate them and toward little things that integrated them. A young adult adopted from China who has been gathering over Zoom with other young people who were adopted likened their times together to those mahjong gatherings except, she explained, what they do is come together with intention to turn their attention away from the little things of everyday life towards really big things–their unique and shared adoption experiences. On this Friday afternoon, a few of those young people are inviting you to sit at the table with them. With Kelly Raudenbush facilitating in person, you will not only get to listen in but be part of the conversation with adoptees from various parts of the country joining us virtually.

About the facilitator:

Kelly Raudenbush has been committed to caring for caregivers since she cofounded The Sparrow Fund in 2011. She earned her Master’s degree in counseling from Missio Seminary in 2002 but paused her professional practice to grow her own family.  Kelly was part of the therapeutic team at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA for 4 years before bringing counseling under the umbrella of The Sparrow Fund in 2019. She has a particular interest in (a) partnering with parents to help children process and understand their histories in healing ways; (b) encouraging, equipping, and empowering parents as they navigate the effects of trauma and build connections with each other and their children, and (c) helping caregivers and teachers in our own neighborhood and across the world best experience the power of relationship and grow it. Kelly has been married to Mark since 1998 and has four children, three biological and one adopted as a toddler from China in 2010.

Saturday Afternoon Breakout Sessions

Building Bridges With Your Children

Kids cannot always articulate what is bothering them, nor know how to build relationships. As parents, it is  often our job to winsomely understand and draw them out. Drawing, role playing, or even petting an animal can be activities that help them to open up and express their feelings and concerns.  In this session, Julie Lowe will share some practical ways we can build authentic relational bridges with our young children (and young adult children).

About the speaker:

Julie Lowe is a licensed professional counselor with over 22 years of counseling experience. She holds a Masters degree in counseling from Missio Seminary and is a registered play therapist. She is also a faculty member at CCEF (Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation) in Glenside, PA. She is the author of Childproof: Parenting By Faith Not Formula, Building Bridges: Biblical Counseling Activities for Children and Teens, Helping Your Anxious Child: What to Do When Your Worries are Big, and Teens and Suicide: Recognizing the Signs and Sharing the Hope. Julie and her husband Greg are foster and adoptive parents with six children and live in the Philadelphia area.

Having Tough Conversations With Grace

What do adoption and sex have in common? They both require ongoing conversations with our children that prompt all sorts of questions in us of what, when, and how. In this session led by experienced adoptive parent and educator Carolyn Ruch, we will explore these questions to empower us as parents with clarity and grace. We will never have these conversations perfectly, but we can have better conversations when we grow and learn together.

About the Speaker:

Carolyn Ruch is a former teacher, an author, speaker, child advocate, and steward of the Rise and Shine Movement: Equipping Adults to Protect Children from Childhood Sexual Abuse. But, her role as mother to seven children (three biological, one adopted, and three foster) is where she’s had her most joyous wins and her most painful losses. Now, a grandmother to three, she spends Fridays with Ken, her husband of 36 years, and two of the most adorable two-year-olds you’ll ever meet. Her other time is spent equipping adults in prevention, volunteering as testimonial coordinator with Women’s Walk with Christ, an international organization promoting discovery, healing, and transformation, and volunteering for The Sparrow Fund by joining other adoptive parents on the mountains and in trenches through their Spring and Fall Gatherings. 

Understanding and Healing Trauma in Your Family

What is trauma? How does it manifest itself in adopted children and the families who love them? In this session, Dr. Phil Monroe will lead us in exploring the challenges of trauma and our responses to it as well as guide us to better understand how we can be agents of healing and growth for all of our children. 

About the speaker:

Philip Monroe is a psychologist and leads Langberg, Monroe & Associates, a counseling practice in Jenkintown, PA. His specialities include trauma care, addictions, and problems with anxiety and depression. For the past 22 years, he has been a part of the faculty at Missio Seminary where he was chair of the Graduate School of Counseling. He is the founder of the Global Trauma Recovery Institute and now Visiting Professor. In addition to his clinical work, he also provides support to the Trauma Healing Institute which mentors and trains clergy around the world to better understand trauma in their communities. Phil is the adoptive father of two. You can read his personal and professional musings at www.philipmonroe.com.   

We started The Sparrow Fund about 10 years ago with a desire to encourage and support families growing their family through adoption. We did that exclusively by offering grants to families adopting internationally to cover the cost to enroll in programs that would give them medical reviews of child referrals and counsel them through the referral process. The grants allowed us to meet a real need for families who might not have received this type of support otherwise. 

What started small started to grow. We started offering training and connecting opportunities for foster and adoptive families including a marriage retreat Together Called which has become a community more than an event. We started serving in orphanages with the primarily goal of building relationships and helping both children and staff more deeply experience relationships. 

As our team grew in 2017, it was the right time to pause and ask if all we were doing reflected who we are and where we believe we should be. As we considered the grant program and our retreats and trainings both here and in China, the words caring for caregivers were imprinted on our hearts. That’s what we want to be about. While the 101 grants we gave to families absolutely met a need and did real good for children and families, our team agreed that we could do a better job aligning our grants with the vision of caring for caregivers. 

We reimagined our grants and started our Sparrow Services Grant program in January 2018. Since then, we have brought 49 families into the program. We still help families access specialized medical professionals who will review their referral with them. But, we offer our Sparrow Services families more than just that. We walk with them; cheer them on; offer individualized support including but not limited to marriage support, a supplemental referral review from a narrative/relational lens, coaching to line up resources they may need once home, and personalized suggestions for building attachment. We commit to offering them pursuing care until they have been home with their child for a full year, no matter how long that may take. There’s no itemized list of all that a Sparrow Services Grants includes because we don’t want there to be a list. Lists feel too impersonal and limiting. We want to care for caregivers and help them in their becoming the caregivers they want to be. 

We have two open application windows annually–January through the end of March and June through the end of September. And, as of January 1, 2022, the application is fully online!

Click here to learn more and apply!

While Giving Tuesday is our biggest fundraiser of the year, it’s more about vision-raising than fundraising. We know that the more people we have holding us up, the more effective helpers we will be. Our hope is for people to catch the vision for what we do and where we are headed as we care for caregivers. We want you to be motivated to give from that place with a desire to make sure that care happens and that you are a part of it.

It’s been a hard year for many. We have set our Giving Tuesday 2021 goal high, in spite of and because of this season of heightened need for the families we serve. Our giving goal for Giving Tuesday on November 30th is $50,000: $15,000 for our counseling program, $15,000 for our grant program for adoptive families, and $20,000 for general operating. To help us get there, five generous, committed donors have pledged to match all gifts dollar for dollar up to $25,000. What that means is that whatever you give–small, medium, or large–your donation will be doubled until we reach $25,000.

We also want to give a little something to you not to convince you to give or pay you back for it. That would take away from the meaning of your gift. We just really like giving, and so do our friends at Advent Blocks. So, we’re randomly choose one Giving Tuesday donor to receive their own set of Advent Blocks to make their family Christmas celebration a little sweeter.

So, here’s how to join us:

• Click on the yellow button on the top of our website that says DONATE and choose GIVING TUESDAY as the purpose.
• Write a check to The Sparrow Fund, put GIVING TUESDAY in the memo field, and mail to 124 3rd Avenue Phoenixville PA 19460

The movie Found, released on Netflix October 20th, tells the story of three teen girls adopted from China as they explore their histories and travel back to China together. On Tuesday, November 16th at 8pm EST, we’re offering a space (via Zoom) for a small group of teens who were adopted themselves (not just from China) to gather to talk about the movie–what they noticed, what made sense to them, what didn’t make sense to them.

If you are the parent of a teen who may want to join us or are connected to one, forward this email or text them a screenshot of it. We’d love to have them part of it. They can let us know they are interested through this Google form: https://bit.ly/3GuTdI0

Questions? Email us info@sparrowfund.org.

February 12th marks the start of the Year of the Ox and gives an opportunity for families to celebrate their child’s heritage in the case of families with children from China and other Asian countries as well as an opportunity for all families to talk about people all over the world and the significance of holidays for bringing families and communities together.

Here are some parent-friendly resources to inspire ideas for how you might be able to take the opportunity to connect with your children.

Readables

• Chinese New Year – Did you know there’s a whole website dedicated to Chinese New Year? Make sure to explore all it has to offer including taboos to avoid like saying happy new year to someone still in bed!
• 22 Things You Should Know – Why fish is a traditional food, what the lantern festival has to do with it, red envelopes, and what’s not allowed.
• History.com’s Chinese New Year 2021 – Updated for the year of the ox, this is a nice overview to explain things like long noodles, house cleaning, and red envelopes.

Interesting videos to watch

• Lunarfest 2021 – Click here to access Yale-China’s online offerings for families in light of COVID restrictions that have canceled in-person celebrations. They’ve creatively put together 16 virtual red envelopes with something special families can access each of the 16 days of celebration including trivia, watching martial arts, shadow puppet demonstrations, crafts, and recipes.
• Fortune Tales, The Story of Lunar New Year – This 5-minute, child-friendly video explains very simply traditions and legends of Chinese New Year.
• Bet You Didn’t Know – Did you know 1/6th of the world’s population celebrates the lunar new year? This 3-minute video published by the History Channel is a nice simple overview.
• The Myth Behind the Chinese Zodiac – This 4-minute animation tells the story of the Great Race, the fable behind the 12 animals assigned to each year.
• The Chinese Zodiac Explained – In this TED talk from technologist and Chineasy entrepreneur ShaoLan Hseuh, you’ll learn about how asking your zodiac sign is a polite way to ask your age and other interesting cultural facts about the animals that mark each year.
• Bringing in the New Year – This 3-minute video features a reading of Grace Lin’s children’s book Bringing in the New Year.
• Chinese Dragon Dance – This video of traditional Chinese New Year festivities was filmed in Shanghai in 2011 and is fun for kids and grownups alike to watch.

Crafts + Activities

• Paper lanterns – Find here some easy instructions for a classic craft that you can use to decorate for the holiday.
• Good luck banner – This will take you to easy instructions for making a traditional new year banner and an explanation to why it’s displayed upside down.
• Lion dance puppet – With this template, you can make a lion dance puppet that looks like the ones in traditional parades.
• Printable red envelope template – The template is free, but it may end up costing you something since traditional red envelopes with money inside are a traditional gift for Chinese New Year.
• Chinese character decorations – Click here to download printables for 8 different Chinese characters (faith, hope, love, friendship, luck, courage, peace, and wisdom) that you can hang up as is or invite your children to decorate.
• Chinese New Year dragon cake – Bake a few bundt cakes and then have fun decorating this dragon as a family.
• 35 Children’s books about Chinese New Year – A list with reviews of each children’s book title related to Chinese New Year.
• Celebrating Chinese New Year activity book – This link takes you to Lifeline Adoption Agency’s free resource with recipes, information, and crafts for your family.