 
Rosey with her nephew Arlo (photo above)
Rosey and Alex on Easter Sunday (photo on right)
Generations Epiphany
As many of you who have been following us know, we have long been exploring a inter-generational and communal response to supporting families who choose to provide foster care or adopt children with special needs. This project was christened Generations Epiphany. In 2014 Generations Epiphany made significant steps forward to this end. We formed a founders committee and partnered with Faith Immanuel Lutheran Church in East Lansdowne where a number of families have recently been approved as foster/adoptive families. Our 2015 goals are as follows:
- to develop our relationship with these new families.
- Profile families with whom we partner.
- Conduct needs assessments and provide support that will enhance the foster/adoptive commitment of our Generatons Epiphany families.
- Recruit senior citizen involvement with Generations Epiphany.
We will be updating regularly.
Rev. Dr. Moses Suah-Dennis:The Power of Adoption
Rev. Dr. Moses Suah-Dennis knows about the power of adoption. He states, “My life wouldn’t be what it is without the assistance I received from generous, loving adults who helped me survive a difficult childhood. Let me tell you from personal experience, if you help one life to be better, raising up one child, that assistance has a multiplying effect. That one child loved may go on to help a lot of children later, spreading that love so generously given.” As a pastor, Suah-Dennis adds, “If you are a person of faith, adoption is something Jesus calls us to do—loving others as we love ourselves.’ This is a powerfully good action we can take today.”
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Denise (Chester, PA) , Esther (DRC) & Monica (South Sudan) : Moses 3 daughters |
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Jeannie (7) and Diana (5) refugees from DRC |
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Gideon, Esther & David, siblings resettled refugees from DRC |
Moses Suah-Dennis was born to Simeon Dennis and Nyamah Sunday Suah in 1970 in Simeon Town, Bong County, Liberia. Nyamah Sunday Suah was Simeon Dennis’s fifth wife. Shortly after Moses was born, that marriage dissolved. Nyamah Sunday Suah returned to her home village with Moses where Dennis was adopted by his aunt. Together Moses and his adoptive aunt moved on to Kakata, Margibi County, Liberia, where she joined the Lutheran Church and enrolled Moses in the Lutheran Elementary School in 1979. His aunt’s adoption and her placement of Moses in the Lutheran Elementary proved pivotal to Moses Dennis-Suah’s life. There he met Rev. Henry George, the parish principal and evangelist, who became Moses’s surrogate father. Moses began training to become an ordained evangelist himself. On the weekends he and Rev. George would worship with satellite congregations, training leaders and performing baptisms. Moses described those years as “on the job training.”
The Liberian civil war broke out in 1989, setting the country in turmoil, leading to years of violence and hundreds of thousands dead. Moses’ life was in danger. For a young man, there were two basic options, join the government army or one of the rebel groups. It was a bleak choice to be forced to make.
Fortunately, Moses had another option. His relationship with the church gave him access to many people who appreciated him. One family invited him to join them in America, leaving the violence of civil war and that awful choice behind. Moses accepted, beginning a long journey from Liberia as the war escalated in November of 1990. By 1993, Moses had arrived in Ghana and was living in a refugee camp. It was a place to “dump refugees” as Moses states, abandoned farm land littered with tents and mud houses. Moses discovered one of his sisters lived forty-five minutes away in the capital city and she was able to help Moses in attending high school. Moses’ surrogate father and mentor Rev. George was at that time the leader of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Rev. George introduced Moses to Pastor T.B. Dankawa, who sponsored Moses in high school and college.
With degrees in religious studies and Christian ministry from the Ghana Christian College, Moses began helping others as he had been helped by so many generous and loving souls in his young life. He assisted in the establishment of the Emanuel Liberian Lutheran Refugee Congregation in Ghana and shepherded a three hundred member congregation. During that time, Moses developed relationships with the Tabernacle Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Finally, on July 26, 2001, Moses arrived in Philadelphia. The first months were rocky. He ended up staying with a Liberian family in Philadelphia who were friends of his sister in Ghana. He joined Tabernacle, which encouraged him to attend the Lutheran Theological Seminary. Graduating in 2005, Moses married his wife Helena December 10, 2005 and was called to pastor of Immanuel Lutheran and together they were soon involved in foster parenting. In 2007, after a series of foster children had come through their care successfully, they met two girls who would become their adopted daughters in 2012.
After the adoption of their daughters, Moses and Helena thought they were done with adoption and foster parenting, until Lutheran Children & Family Service approached them in 2013. Working with this organization, Moses and his wife recruited eleven parents to accept children from Africa. Now Moses and Helena have realized God has called them into this ministry, recruiting parents for adoption, working with the Epiphany House of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, moving into the future, a brighter future for many children in need of love and care.
Moses explains that most people in Africa adopt children in need who become part of their families as a matter of course. It is part of what makes Moses and Helena open to the process. Moses concludes, “Helping those children, innocent kids born into circumstances they can’t control, who have no culpability for their parent’s decisions, is a faith calling for me. As a Christian I understand that Jesus talks about caring for the least of these and for the little children.”
He concludes, “We all have an opportunity to help these orphan children become better people than they might become otherwise. We can offer them better lives. We want to make a difference in the world. Adoption allows that to happen. Many of these children have been abused. They desperately need our love and compassion. We can help as I was helped.”
~Rev. Jeffrey B. Snyder
© 2016
www.tech4tots.org
Clean out your supply closet today and change a life forever! Donate used technology products and/or old supplies that are no longer needed and help fund our efforts to provide care and loving homes for children in need.
For over 20 years Epiphany House has been providing both adoptive and temporary housing to children of all ages and backgrounds with some having mild to severe disabilities.
Helping is easy! Just drop off your used mobile phones, computers, monitors, laptops, tablets, iPads, Ink cartridges at the following convenient locations:
- 1313 South Pennsylvania Avenue, Morrisville, PA 19067 weekdays
- 322 N. Lansdowne Avenue, Lansdowne, PA 19050 everyday
- 52 Berlin Rd Ste. 3000, Cherry Hill, NJ 08034 weekdays
- 65 Penn Blvd., East Lansdowne, Pennsylvania 19050 weekdays
Businesses: We offer free pickup for businesses with multiple devices - just provide an address and phone number and we'll contact you to make arrangements.
Tech for tots is a sustainable fundraiser organized for Epiphany House by Phil Lanctot, Jr. We are immensely grateful for all that he has and is doing to develop this project. The following is a message from Phil with a link that will allow you to participate. In the final week of 2014 it is a great opportunity for businesses or corporations who are looking to recycle technology equipment or unload inventory while earning a tax write off.
Here's a way you can contribute to a great cause and reduce your 2014 tax liability by cleaning our your supply closet and donating unused supplies and electronics.
For over 20 years Epiphany House has been providing both adoptive and temporary housing to children of all ages and backgrounds with some having mild to severe disabilities.
Visit www.tech4tots.org today. Epiphany House is a qualified 501.3C non-profit organization and your donation is tax-deductible.
"The children are our future.
When the guns
take aim at them,
we make war on the future;
we despise and destroy the least protected.
The children are a clue.
Will the clue be read aright?"
...Daniel Berrigan |
