I’ve arrived back home in the United States.

Africa was as intense, thrilling, unbelievable and compelling as I remembered it to be.

I’m in the process of trying to convert my notes and reflections from the 11 day, 22,717 mile trip into something readable and interesting to share with you.

There are some incredibly exciting opportunities to, as I said back in June, "do some fairly radical things."

Tomorrow is a post about a great film I hope you’ll see. Watch for the first report on Africa this coming Monday, after I’ve had the weekend to do some editing.

Stay tuned!

The first part of this trip to Africa was with Lifesong for Orphans, and it was amazing. I have so much to share with all of you about the incredible work they are doing in Zambia and Ethiopia.

Tomorrow, it’s on to Durame for a visit to the care center where our Emma spent her first months, as well as the health center and family preservation project there.

Then it’s back to Addis Ababa on Tuesday evening to start the long journey home.

As you know, I’m in Zambia right now with a team from Lifesong for Orphans. We’re seeing their efforts to build a foster care program, help entrepreneurs to build self-sustaining businesses, and care for children orphaned by AIDS, malaria and poverty.

But if I could divert your attention for just a moment, there’s a unique opportunity at hand.

There’s an orphanage in the small African country of Liberia with a great name: The Master’s Home of Champions, which is providing a safe and loving home for over 100 destitute and abandoned children…but many are being turned away.

After 14 years of civil war, and nearly 500,000 women and children dead, Lifesong has partnered with this orphanage to try and help them raise the resources they need to care for more of the least of these. This week, they are making a concerted effort to find 70 new sponsors who will make a 1-year commitment at $28 per month.

One of the things I love about Lifesong is that another foundation covers all of their administrative costs and salaries, so 100% of your donation goes directly to making a difference for these kids.

Could you be the person that makes a difference for a little boy who grew up deaf but had the love and support to make him a good husband and father when he reached adulthood? Or the little girl who lost her parents to AIDS but got an education anyway?

That’s what $28 per month – just for a year – can do.

I hope you’ll commit to being one of the 70 sponsors that Lifesong needs this week. If you’re able to, please e-mail info@lifesongfororphans.org to become a sponsor today.

Right now, I’m on an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean headed for Africa. But while I may be the person in the airplane, I’m just half of the team on this mission.

Sweetheart, I love you so much. I’m so thankful for the passion we share for justice, the commitment we share to seeing the global orphan crisis end during our lifetime, and the clarity of vision you always have about the “next step we need to take.” I love that you’re turning your 30th birthday party into a fundraiser for this cause we both care so much about.

None of this would be happening without you.

“Smile” is the hit song that sums it up nicely.

You make me smile like the sun

fall out of bed

sing like a bird

dizzy in my head

spin like a record

crazy on a Sunday night…

You make me dance like a fool

forget how to breathe

shine like gold

buzz like a bee

just the thought of you can drive me wild

Oh, you make me smile!

Don’t know how I lived without you

Because every time I get around you

I see the best of me inside your eyes…

You make me smile.

I love you. Here’s to a lifetime of fighting for all the right things together, seeing the best of me inside your eyes, and just the thought of you driving me wild.

We had a busy board meeting this past Tuesday evening, with a variety of important items, including the budget, the solar project and investing in institutional development.

I’m on the road today and running 90mph, so this will have to be brief.

Suffice it to say: we got way lucky with property tax collections for 2009-10 and ended up having a much smaller deficit than we thought we’d have. Our revenue is still down $5.6MM from where it was, but thanks to the sacrifices of our staff, our expenses are in line with our revenues.

The key question ahead is: are we facing more cuts in 2010-11 when the state finally passes its budget? Or with tax collections actually inching up in California, have we passed the worst of this crisis and things are going to slowly grow back toward the “old normal?”

Either way, we’ll know a lot more in January, and it’s my opinion that we will need to put a decent amount of our reserves to work in the second half of this fiscal year – either covering the impact of state cuts, or hopefully, investing in our institution, increasing access to college and giving our staff the safe and effective facilities they have consistently told us they need.

Reserves are there as an insurance policy to keep our students in their classes and our employees in their jobs. As soon as it becomes clear that we’ve turned the corner, it’s clearly the right decision to put those funds to work achieving our core mission.

» Review the Budget Presentation

We had a long discussion about investing in institutional development. I want to see us put our money where our mouths are, and if we truly want to see dramatic improvement in our capital facilities, we need to develop new ways to fund them. I hope the faculty leadership will partner with the board, because we have deeply shared interests in a positive outcome on this front.

And finally, the solar project. A year in the making and I’m so excited about this development. Fully 68% of our entire college energy usage will go off the grid in 12 months when this solar array goes live. The college will save some $3MM in energy costs over the next 25 years. And all of this while a private company puts up 100% of the capital to build the array and creates jobs in the process!

» Review the Solar Presentation

All in all, it was a great board meeting. We have plenty of challenges ahead, but a lot of opportunity to change higher education for the better in our region and beyond.

We have some friends in the process of adopting two siblings from Ethiopia, ages 5 and 7. Their journey has been long and hard. They reached the point where their program fees were due in just days and they were thousands of dollars short. They were trying to sell furniture, a car, their wedding rings…the situation looked all but hopeless.

On Monday morning, that suddenly changed. Some complete strangers to them stepped forward and gave so generously, their adoption fees were suddenly and completely funded. (Along with a huge portion of their required travel expenses as well!)

As this miracle happened on Monday morning, and we all did the happy dance in the Klein house, Cacey and I were struck by Psalm 68:6: "God sets the lonely in families."

It is abundantly clear who really wants children to grow up in the love and permanence of a family. There is no greater defender of the fatherless than God.

I really dislike asking people for money.

That may sound funny, since I’ve been elected to public office, and more than a few of you have been on the receiving end of fundraising efforts for everything from families trying to adopt, to a hometown soldier denied access to his VA benefits. But I really do.

If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, I’m headed back to Africa this Saturday.

We’d originally budgeted $1,800 of our personal funds for this trip. Cacey and I are deeply committed to making a lasting dent in the global orphan crisis that currently entraps 145 million children around the globe. We felt it was worth every penny.

One thing led to another, and the real cost ended up at about $3,500.

The purpose of this trip is to plant the seeds and lay the groundwork for a whole lot of radical action in the future: from orphan care, to orphan prevention, to adoption advocacy. It’s going to be an intense and purposeful journey: 3 continents, 6 or 7 countries and 22,717 miles in 11 days.

Part of me just wants to figure out how to shoulder those costs myself…but I’m also reminded of how many of you have said: “we see you getting involved in this cause. We want to be a part of what you’re doing. Please give us that chance.”

So I’m not going to do a long or intense fundraising push on this. This one blog post, a few tweets, and that’s it. If you want to invest in this cause and think this is the way to do it, I’d be really grateful for your support to help bridge that gap.

More importantly, I hope you’ll “come along for the ride” via Twitter and this blog.

You can donate online via PayPal, or by check. The mailing address is 11601 Blocker Drive, Suite 100, Auburn, California 95603.

(I need to add that under California law for elected officials and Sierra College board policy, the maximum donation is $420 per person.)

I have a lot of generous friends and family who care deeply about the same things that I do. Thank you in advance.

I knew the moment we left Ethiopia that I would return to Africa. Soon.

Part of it is that a piece of our hearts has taken up permanent residence there. Part of it is that I sensed some incredible opportunity that I still can’t quite put my finger on.

So I’m going back. This Saturday.

I originally thought I’d finish the “Changing the World” blog series by August, but it’s been about what I imagine writing a book can be like. I feel a huge burden to try and make those posts all-but-perfect. (They are definitely not so, but as we say in the tech world, “you’ve gotta ship your product at some point!”)

As it turns out, I’ve written my way up to “Orphan Prevention” and this is a great place to pause. I’ll be visiting a bunch of orphan prevention projects while in Africa, so I’ll be able to finish the series in a much more informed way when I return.

For the first part of this trip, I’ll be joining a group called Lifesong for Orphans. Right after we returned from Ethiopia with Emma this past January, I received an out-of-the-blue Twitter message from their Vice President, and one of the heroes of the adoption and orphan care movement, Andy Lehman. It was an incredible honor to be invited to join this trip with them.

I’ll fly to Amsterdam first, meet up with some of the team members there, and fly into South Africa for one night. The next morning (I sure wish we could see more of Johannesburg, but flight schedules won’t allow it), we fly into Ndola, Zambia, a little copper mining town 15 miles from the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Don’t worry…I’ve already promised Cacey I won’t get involved in trying to broker any peace deals.)

In Zambia, we’ll be seeing a foster care program Lifesong has started, along with efforts to build a school and provide micro-loans to entrepreneurs setting up self-sustaining businesses there. Zambia faces a particularly difficult set of challenges: life expectancy is 30 years, some 20% of the population is infected with HIV, and fully 50% of the population is under age 15.

I’m told by my doctor, who has spent some time there, that 50% of the population also gets malaria every year (don’t worry, I’m taking all the appropriate precautions).

A few days later, we take off from Zambia, touch down to change planes in Nairobi, Kenya, and then land in Ethiopia, the birthplace of my daughter. We’ll spend several days seeing a school and feeding program that Lifesong is building in Ziway, Ethiopia.

After that, the Lifesong team takes off to return to the United States, but I’ll stay behind to visit with my Holt International friends. I’ll travel back down to Emma’s birthplace in Durame, Ethiopia, and see Holt’s growing Shinshicho Health Center, the orphanage in Durame, and the family preservation project there.

I also can’t wait to see my good friend Tesfaye Belachew, Holt’s Development Director in Ethiopia. (He’s pictured with me in the photo at right.)

I barely know what to expect. I know I’ll probably see things that change my perspective forever. I hope I’ll come back with a deep sense of direction about the radical things we need to do to further the cause of changing the world.

I can’t wait to share all of that with you.

Board Meeting Details:

• September 14, 2010 at 4:00PM (public session)
• Sierra College Rocklin Campus, Room LR-133
• Main agenda items begin at 4:00PM, public comment for items not on the agenda at 5:40PM
• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

The board will be adopting a budget for fiscal year 2010-11, despite not knowing what our revenue is likely to be, since California has once again failed to pass a budget…but then, what’s new?   We’ll also be taking action on the contract for our solar array that will take 20% of Rocklin and 90% of Nevada County campus energy needs off the grid at a significant cost savings to the district.

Questions, comments or input is appreciated! Hope to see you at the meeting if you’re in the area.

This post is part of a series on the cause of orphan care, adoption and social change that I hope to make you as passionate about as I am. You may want to start from the beginning if you’re just joining us.

The last three posts have discussed adoption as a lifeline, a last chance for children who otherwise will never know the love and permanence of a family. In some ways, you might say that adoption is one way to "try and stop the bleeding."

But the truth is that for every six children who become orphans, only one will be adopted. That leaves five who won’t be.

Some of these children are trapped in a foster care system that doesn’t value permanence and lets kids shuffle from family to family until they are "adults" at age 18.

Others may wait their entire childhood without being adopted. This typically happens because that child is male, or mixed race, or part of a sibling group, or needs corrective surgery, or has special needs, or some combination of the above.

As I wrote previously, adoption needs to grow as a solution to the global orphan crisis. It would be incredible if the lifeline of adoption could be thrown to two or three or four out of each six new orphans every year. But right now – with all of the government, legal and  financial barriers in the way – it’s just one out of six.

The total numbers continue to be staggering.

In a given year, about 250,000 children find forever families through adoption. Another 1.4 million children (among them 30,000 US foster kids) age out of the system, becoming "orphans for life."

The outcomes for these "forever orphans" is particularly startling. I don’t have international numbers, but among those in the US who reach age 25, 50% of males are unemployed, 60% convicted of a crime; and 75% of females are on public assistance.

In all, some 15 million children without either a mom or dad (500,000 of them in the US foster care system) wait for permanence. Another 130 million children have lost at least one parent, and are classified as orphans because their one remaining parent can’t effectively care for them.

So if you can’t adopt (and many cannot) or if you’ve already adopted all that you can, what are some ways we can fulfill our calling to "defend the fatherless" and care for these orphans?

I see three big ways to care for orphans.

1. Volunteer to Serve Them

Overseas, government orphanages often have 15 or 20 children for each caregiver, and even the best-run private orphanages often have 7 children to a caregiver. Spending your time and using your talents by traveling overseas to give some individual attention to children and some relief to the caregivers can make a huge impact on both you and them.

Writing about this instantly brings to mind when I walked into the young boys room at the Holt transition center in Addis Ababa. I believe I was mistaken for a rock climbing wall because I instantly had about eight six-year-olds hanging from every limb and sixteen hands feeling my very strange hair! These boys were all in the process of being adopted and took turns showing me the photo books their forever families had sent them. It was precious to spend some time with them, and it was amazing to see them light up with just a little one-on-one interaction.

Here at home, there are a variety of things we can do, from big brother / big sister programs geared toward foster youth or at-risk kids, to inviting teens or young adults without a family to your home for Thanksgiving.

At Sierra College (where I serve on the board), our foundation has put together a great effort for newly-emancipated foster youths coming to college and on their own for the first time. They raise money to put together backpacks filled with everything from soap to pencils to gift cards at local stores to a refurbished computer and a $250 voucher for textbooks. The gratitude on the faces of these kids is unbelievable.

And for those of us who are people of faith, I think it’s our responsibility to constantly keep all of these children without families in our prayers.

2. Raise and Donate Supplies

In the United States, our state and local governments provide funding for foster parents. Overseas, most private orphanages have no such funding and exist solely on donations or adoption program fees. So if you can’t adopt another child right now, maybe you should adopt an orphanage!

Every orphanage will have a different set of needs, but the typical ones can be diapers, formula, children’s clothing of all sizes, coats, shoes, educational supplies and toys. Basically, if you need it to run a household with a lot of children, you need it at an orphanage!

3. Sponsor an Orphan’s Education

I think it’s great that many overseas orphanages cover their expenses through adoption program fees paid by adoptive parents. While it does present a financing challenge for the parents, it creates fundraising opportunities tied to achieving permanence for specific children, and the money has to come from somewhere.

One of the challenges at some orphanages is that the funding simply isn’t there to pay school fees for a child. This is especially true if a child becomes "unadoptable" for any of the reasons I mentioned above. When these kids age out of the system, they need the basic skills that education can provide, or most will be doomed to a life of severe poverty. Sponsoring their education can make a huge difference.

Is Orphan Care a Solution?

Orphan Care is very similar to Adoption. Spending our time, talent and treasure to care for orphans isn’t the silver bullet that will magically solve the global orphan crisis.

There is no silver bullet or magic wand, but the next piece of the puzzle is what I’ve come to refer to as Orphan Prevention: working to address developing world poverty in a way that can prevent many children from becoming orphans in the first place.

In many ways, it’s my hope that in the coming years, the combination of Adoption and Orphan Prevention can all but eliminate the need for Orphan Care.

In the mean time, it’s critically important that we give these children a taste of the love and permanence they crave, while equipping them with the tools to thrive after they age out of the system.