Introducing DJ: How YOU Can Help Change the Story for a Superhero-in-Waiting

May 20, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

Meet DJ, a Superhero-in-Waiting from China

There are 132 million orphans in the world.

132 million.

All innocent superheroes-in-waiting. All Supermen and Superwomen just waiting for families to teach them how to fly. All heroes just waiting for someone to help them SEE and discover their “super.”

It doesn’t take perfect families to impact orphans. It doesn’t take perfect people. It simply takes the love of a PERFECT GOD, poured out through the available hearts of flawed families who are willing to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

If we don’t fight for these superheroes, who will?

If we don’t speak for them, who will?

If we don’t open our hands and our hearts and our homes, WHO WILL?

Not everyone can adopt. But everyone can do SOMETHING.

Like Leia’s family, you can sell or buy jerky.

Like Erin’s family, you can organize, volunteer at or run a 5K to fundraise.

Like the Storyteller Missions team, you can travel to orphanages, share narratives, purchase books that support orphan ministry and make it a passion to TELL and TELL AGAIN THE ORPHAN STORY.

And this summer, you can help us tell ours.

Meet DJ – a Cuthredible for summer 2016.

Telling Their Story: How One Group of Volunteers Makes a Difference, One Orphan Narrative at a Time

May 18, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

I love stories.

Professionally, I work for a publishing company that tells the true, inspirational life stories of real people with real problems who’ve fought for change and discovered transformation in the truth.

Personally, I thrive on telling the tales of my failures, my superheroes, my life and my God.

There’s something so remarkable about sharing life experiences in real, raw and vulnerable ways. It connects us. It empowers us. It inspires us. It encourages us. And as I’ve learned to do it better in both a professional and a personal setting, I’ve seen firsthand the POWER of the story.

Sharing our story, our whole story (not just the one we put on Facebook), openly frees us from the shackles that trying to keep it hidden in the dark puts on. Guilt, shame and failure can’t call our names in the shadows when we’re proclaiming courageous truth in the light.

It lets other know that they’re not alone. That someone else has been there, too. And that there is life and even laughter after the trials and tragedies we sometimes face in this world.

And it encourages others that, if God can do it for us, He can also do it for them. It builds our faith. It builds our confidence. It builds our trust in a God who moves mountains.

Running the Good Race: How One Family Serves Superheroes-in-Waiting, Even After Losing Their Own

May 17, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

We share an anniversary this weekend and birthdays one day apart and were actually IN CHINA bringing home our superheroes the very same week. But we didn’t become friends (and THEN meet, because that’s how we roll) until months after we had brought home and fallen in love with the superheroes who completely rocked our worlds.

Erin was a friend of some friends, and from the moment our third-party friend sent me a link to her blog, I knew I needed more of her family in my life.

Erin had a beautiful way with words. She shared in real and raw ways about adoption, homeschooling, kid-raising and camping (I’m still stealing her firepit recipes), and the light of Jesus just emanated from the pages of her blog.

I followed her story as she documented the adventures of HER 2-year-old Chinese orphan-no-more, Bekah, who loved watermelon, named her doll “Adverb” and learned English faster than any of my American-born children ever did.

I read about Bekah’s integration with the four other superheroes the Leininger family already had in their home, and how she, who had barely been introduced to a car seat, jumped right into the hiking/camping/adventure-seeking mix with reckless abandon, even despite congenital heart conditions that should have theoretically slowed her down.

I fell in love with this little superhero who this family told repeatedly was their girl “forever and ever and ever.”

And I sobbed as I followed Erin’s journey through Bekah’s complicated heart surgery that, three weeks later, ended in a farewell here on Earth and a homecoming up in Heaven.

Blog