2019 Summary of Grants

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

This Annual Summary is about 2019. Its purpose is to reflect on the work of the Foundation in 2019 and highlight some of the notable projects that we supported in that year.

In recent years, the annual summaries have also included expressions of our faith and calling as a Christian organization with a mission to love and serve God by allowing him to work through us to lift up those around us in meaningful ways. We are continually challenged to evaluate whether that is in fact what we are doing.

So this year, rather than looking only at 2019, we decided to look more carefully at a few of the initiatives we have been pursuing over the last several years that involve animal welfare in Dallas, Texas children in foster care, and clubfoot relief in Africa. What follows will describe these three projects, some of the results we have seen, and our hopes and objectives for the projects as we move forward.

In addition, we include in the section, A Look Forward, an even broader statement of objectives we adopted in 2019 to help guide our work into the future.

Now, of course, notions of “moving forward” and looking “into the future” are shrouded by the events of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic and the movement for racial and social justice present new filters through which we must look at all of our work, so we are mindful of the need to hold our objectives loosely as we proceed.

In 2020, we have moved to address critical needs presented by these events and we will have more to say about those efforts in our 2020 Annual Summary.

For now, suffice to say we are listening, learning and trying to remain open to see the paths God is preparing for us to follow. We are confident in our mission and trust in our Lord but we are also challenged to evaluate the means we have been using to accomplish our objectives.

As the clouds part and our vision is sharpened, we resolve to adapt our means as needed to further the causes we know to be true; children need to be protected from abuse and neglect, children diagnosed with physical and mental disabilities need care and treatment, inequities in opportunities available to children living in lower income neighborhoods need to be addressed, and justice needs to be pursued. We will continue to advance these causes as we look for ever more effective ways to achieve these goals.