Books
Explore books written by CAFO leaders to care for vulnerable children and families and those who care for them
Effectively Engaging Churches
Four Principles to Help Your Organization Church Engagement Strategy Thrive
BY JASON JOHNSON
You believe the Church is the answer to the problem your organization is trying to solve, but you’re struggling to get the ear of a busy pastor, navigate through the complicated structures of various church ministry departments or are just having a hard time helping churches see how they can truly make an impact through the work you are doing.
Everyone Can Do Something
A Field Guide for Strategically Rallying Your Church Around the Orphaned and Vulnerable
BY JASON JOHNSON
Whether you are launching a new foster care, adoption or orphan care ministry or leading an existing one, Everyone Can Do Something is designed to rally your church around the care of the orphaned and vulnerable in strategic, effective and sustainable ways. You’ll discover the principles you need to take the next best steps for your church, your ministry and the families and children you are serving.
Mission Wise
Scripture, Science, and Serving the World's Most Vulnerable
BY JASON JOHNSON & Nicole Wilke, PhD
Mission Wise curates today's best practices and principles to give you clarity and confidence to take the next step forward in your mission strategy. Through a dynamic integration of Scripture and science, you’ll discover what the most current research says about best practices for global engagement in things like short-term mission trips, child sponsorship programs, forming strategic partnerships, family-based care of children and more
Reframing Foster Care
Filtering Your Foster Parent Journey Through the Lens of the Gospel
BY JASON JOHNSON
Foster parents face a unique set of circumstances and experience a wide array of emotions that few can relate to. Their journey is one of equal parts beauty and brokenness, joy and heartache, excitement and exhaustion. There is no textbook on how to be a foster parent, no formula, no simple three-step guide. But there is hope—in God’s capacity to bring great beauty out of tragic brokenness.
Becoming Home
Leading the Way in Solving the Orphan Crisis
BY Barna Group and Jedd Medefind
Becoming Home is for anyone who has wrestled with how to address the orphan crisis. When Christians choose to adopt, foster, mentor, or support care for orphans around the globe, it reveals God's true character to the world like nothing else we can do. Becoming Home unpacks specific steps everyone can take to care for orphans in distress and practically show love - not because of a sense of duty, guilt, or even idealism, but because God has first loved us.
Four Souls
A Search for Epic Life
BY Trey Sklar, Jedd Medefind, Mike Peterson & Matt Kronberg
Four Generation X-ers share their adventures of their year-long trip around the globe, as well as their realization of what it means to live completely for Christ. More than just a collection of thrilling stories, Four Souls chronicles the dawning realization that came through the adventures: that life to the full what the authors call epic life is found only in radical commitment to Jesus Christ.
Upended
How Following Jesus Remakes Your Words and World
BY Jedd Medefind
Upended invites the follower of Jesus to become an apprentice to Jesus, particularly in the choices that shape our lives most: how we communicate and connect. Join this exhilarating exploration of the often overlooked, often oversimplified character of Jesus and His unparalleled way of communicating. Study, echo, and embrace the ways of the Master. Your life will inevitably be upended. Not always how you’d imagined, but certainly for the better.
When There is Crisis
A Handbook for Christian Foster & Adoptive Families Facing Serious Struggle
BY Rachel Medefind
Foster and adoptive parents long for their children to experience hope in places of deep and complex pain. Yet seasons of behavioral, emotional or developmental crisis can be part of the journey — and may feel overwhelming. When There Is Crisis is a handbook to guide you through these seasons as a parent — or equip you to walk alongside families in these moments of crisis.
Until There's More Than Enough
Working Together to Transform Foster Care Where You Live
BY JASON WEBER
The second edition of Until There’s More than Enough is a faith-based field guide for collaborative foster care transformation in your community. Gleaning from the experience of dozens of government, nonprofit, and faith leaders from across the country, Until There’s More than Enough represents a set of principles and practices that will help advocates, churches, and organizations in your community work together to transform foster care.
Farmer Herman and the Flooding Barn
A story about 344 people working together, to solve a big, big, big problem
BY JASON Weber
Farmer Herman and the Flooding Barn is a children’s book about 344 people working together to solve a big, big, big problem. AND it’s illustrated by 344 kids, adoptive and foster parents, child welfare professionals, pastors, organizational leaders, recording artists, and authors who are all counting on the power of unity to bring hope to over 400,000 kids in foster care.
Caleb Koala's Comeback Ride
A Journey to Overcoming
BY Nicole Wilke, PHD
With the love and support of his beloved Grandpa, Caleb Koala embarks on a heartwarming journey and discovers his God-given ability to do hard things. This bilingual picture book is an essential read for adults caring for children who have experienced early adversity, from parents and grandparents to social workers, therapists, global orphan care providers, and church ministry leaders.
Created to Heal
How Neuroplasticity Offers Hope for Children & Their Families
by Nicole Wilke, PhD, Meredith Morgan Caleb and Alisha Pangborn
The brain was created to heal. In this brief and simple book, we will walk through how brains form, how they respond to their environments, how they heal, and practical steps we can take to promote brain recovery in people who have experienced early adversity. There is hope, and healing is possible.
Overcoming
What Scripture and Science Say About Resilience
by Nicole Wilke, PhD and Amanda Hiles Howard, PhD
As our cultural understanding of the impact of childhood trauma has deepened, it's easy to overlook the extraordinary resilience that can grow from the soil of early adversity. Overcoming: What Science and Scripture Say About Resilience provides a comprehensive exploration of what adversity and trauma truly mean, laying the foundation for a deeper understanding of these complex experiences.
