Leap Year!

We hope you are all well and want you to know how much we appreciate your support!

Here are a few of the things we have been up to this month:

Cultural Values: Honor

Showing honor to one another is a part of living out of the belief that everyone carries intrinsic value. This belief is a fundamental part of our culture and identity as an organization. With a focus to build up our team we are highlighting this value with posters for each youth home, stickers for staff to pass out (when they observe someone showing honor) and activity based programming that helps illustrate what honor and respect look like for each of our residents.

Honoring others means that we are noticing their qualities and strengths, rather than fixating on their flaws. It also means that we are reminding them of those strengths, encouraging them and building them up. When talking about each other we aren’t bad-mouthing or gossiping, or spreading rumors. We want to cultivate and guard this culture of encouragement, respect and understanding within all of our teams and homes.

Community Connections

Our Ministry Director had the privilege of meeting Paul & Tabitha Norris from Post Falls Idaho. They have a non-profit ministry called ‘Broken Vessels Hidden Treasures’ that aims to empower those with disabilities to discover their role and purpose in the kingdom of God. His strength is made perfect in our weakness, and that is the good news they herald in their speaking engagements around our nation.

Paul & Tabitha also carry a huge burden for kids in foster care. They invited Naphtali to their home to record a podcast with them, in which she shares how our faith in God enables us to care for our residents and our staff team.

Click the button below to listen to the podcast and find out more about this amazing couple and the work they are doing to honor the disability community and inspire value and purpose to all.

Listen to Podcast

How to Train Your Team: Photo-shop their photos!

“How to Train your Newbie” was a session we had a lot of fun with during our monthly All Staff training day. Themed after ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ This training introduced our newest training program, which includes an IN-house trainer who will meet new hires and take them through the first crucial day of training in the homes. They meet the staff and residents, tour the home, and learn important logistics and policies.

With an emphasis on excellence in our training we have worked hard to add quality to our orientation, in-house and management training. It has been a rewarding season seeing new efforts roll out to help our staff feel equipped and empowered to make a difference in the lives of our residents!

Many of our amazing staff showed up in unlikely forms in our training presentation!

< New trainer; David Gilmartin

What does Excellence look like?

We have recently put an emphasis on the concepts of Knowledge, Skill and Character. We need all three to do anything excellently. Knowledge and skill can be easily trained, character is something we each need to cultivate within ourselves. I may have the knowledge and skill necessary to do a very good job at cleaning a bathroom, but do I have the character to clean the bathroom excellenlty, or do I feel it is ‘beneath’ me? Do I have a bad attitude about it and therefore do a mediocre job of it? Character traits of humility and honor help us to give our best to whatever task is before us.

Trip to Malawi!

Our team of 6 head out to Lilongwe on March 26th. Supplies for the 2nd orphan home will be purchased and the building will begin!

We will also be meeting with agricultural non-profits to help with sustainability training for local farmers, and our team will be ministering in village churches on Easter Sunday!

We appreciate your prayers for these efforts, and healthy and safety for our team.

Help build the orphan home

Help us raise funds for the work in Malawi by purchasing items from our Merch Campaign! We have limited edtion designs for tshirts, Champion brand crewnecks, and stickers! All proceeds go to supplies for the the house build.

Source Youth Home Updates

Our Hilltop Team welcomes Devin Johnson as Weekend Manager! Devin has 4 kids, (2 boys, 2 girls)ages ranging from 14 yrs old to 6 months old. His previous job was working with adults with disabilities, and he also served in the Air Force.

Our Riverbluff Team welcomes Savanna and Sagar.

Savanna is in nursing school, and grew up around kids with special needs/disabilities. She loves the opportunity to support our DDA clients and has learned so much from them. Every client is unique and being around the different personalities and perspectives is her favorite part of this job.

Sagar was born and raised in a refugee camp and moved to the States at the age of 16. He has a B.A. in film from Eastern Washington University and has spent 10+ years volunteering to help local kids and teens with refugee backgrounds. He has a heart to help our DDA kids achieve the full potential of their dreams.

Prayer Points

Three of our four Houses have experienced recent shifts in management teams. Pray for this time of transition for all our new managers, and for the staff teams they oversee.
This winter has been full of virus’ and colds for our team. Prayer for health and strengthened immune systems!
We have several areas we are expanding in and could use prayer for wisdom and favor as we proceed.
With a value focus on Honor, please pray that we each individually come to a deeper place of understanding on how we show honor to one another, and that we are able to teach this value to the residents in our homes.

Thank you for your continued support!