Our team at Key Ministry is encouraged by the intentional efforts of so many churches to provide homes for kids in foster care and children available for adoption. Our ministry was birthed out of an initiative by a local church in the late 1990’s to support families within the church I attended who had adopted kids from orphanages in Russia and Bulgaria. We wanted to draw attention to the spiritual needs of kids who have been adopted and there families. We’re pleased Beth Guckenberger will be joining us for Inclusion Fusion 2012 to help address the topic.

Beth and her husband, Todd, live with their family in Monterrey, Mexico where they serve with Back2Back Ministries, an international orphan care ministry headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Both Beth and Todd graduated from Indiana University with degrees in education and between biological, foster, and adopted, are raising nine children. Currently the ministry has operations on three different continents (Mexico, India, and Nigeria). The Guckenberger’s have lived in Monterrey since 1997 and in that time have hosted thousands of guests on the ministry campus.

Beth is the author of Reckless Faith (Zondervan, 2008), Relentless Hope (Standard Publishing, 2010), and Tales of the Not Forgotten (Standard Publishing, 2012). She travels and speaks regularly at women’s and missions conferences, youth gatherings and church services. Her topics include, but are not limited to, orphan care, missions, parenting, marriage/intimacy, and general faith. Her style is story-telling and she draws from her field experience as a missionary and parent of nine children for illustrations to biblical concepts.

Beth will be speaking on the topic…Holistically Serving the Adopted/Foster Child. Here’s a summary of her presentation:

Blending the needs of foster and adopted kids can be challenging and with scriptural and practical examples Beth will share some of her experiences of how she has had to foster/adopt a child right where they are and how to help them enter into a community.

Check out Beth’s website to learn more about the impact of her ministry.

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FIVE DAYS TO GO! Join Beth and over 30 leaders from children’s, family, youth and disability ministry serving as faculty for Inclusion Fusion, Key Ministry’s second annual Special Needs Ministry Web Summit. Inclusion Fusion is made available FREE OF CHARGE to pastors, church staff, volunteers and families everywhere from November 12th-16th, 2012. For an up to date list of speakers, topics, links to speaker blogs and a link for free registration, click here.