Priceless

 

I couldn't put this book down-- and think every adult should read it.  If you don't know much about sex slavery and it's modern day presence, this book will open your eyes. At the risk of sounding preachy, I have to say that I really believe that as American Christians we need to do a better job of stepping out of our zones of comfort and complacency to minister to the poorest and most helpless among us.  I think we (myself included!) get so wrapped up in our own lives that we become blind to the evil that is going on in our world.  All the while, there are orphans and children enslaved that are waiting and longing to be rescued from the hell on earth they are experiencing.

Yesterday, my youngest daughter, Siena, was sick with the flu.  She was not herself and was attached to me the entire day.  All she wanted was for me to hold her and comfort her through the yuckiness she was feeling.  At one point while I was holding her, it dawned on me that there are children just like her all over the world who feel worse than she does for longer periods of time, but there's no one holding them.  I mourn for these children.  I mourn for the girls like those in this book who are forced to do unspeakable things for someone else's profit while too many people turn a blind eye.
 
As followers of Christ, we are the answer!  We have to be brave enough to ask God what He wants us to do about these issues.  We have to care.  If not us, then who?

At the end of this book there was a link to a website, http://www.iempathize.org/,  that allows you to take a personality profile for free to find out if you are a prevention, intervention or restoration personality.  Your profile will come up right away, and it gives you practical suggestions of how your specific personality might best engage in justice issues.

Update

Last Friday, Jamey and I were able to get all the paperwork redone that wasn't up to par.  On Monday, we had our last homestudy (our Certificate of Completion is currently taped to the front of our refrigerator)!  Right now, we're waiting for a new passport in the mail, a reference letter that needed to be redone, a couple other little things, and the final draft of our written homestudy report.  When we get all of these things, we're ready to submit our Dossier!  I'm trying not to get too excited because there's always the possibility that kinks will come up, but if all goes smoothly we could be sending it out next week at the earliest!!  It's hard to believe we're at that point.  If you think of us, please pray that we don't overlook anything as we tie up loose ends and that everything with the Dossier goes smoothly--oh, and even though I feel like I'm doing good with everything right now, I could always use more patience. :)

Your Pain Has Changed Me

I love this song, titled "I Saw What I Saw", that Sara Groves wrote about Africa after having gone there.  There have been a couple of nights when I've been up late looking over adoption stuff and have listened to it over and over and over.  I haven't even been there yet, but feel that Africa has already become such a part of my heart over the past several years as we've sponsored children from, read about, prayed for and now are adopting from this continent. 

Africa, the pain of your people (particularly your orphans) has changed me, your dreams inspire me and your courage has caused me too to question what I'm afraid of, what I know of love and what I know of God....

The Sin of Our Generation?

Here's a quote to pierce your heart by the President of World Vision, Richard Sterns:

"I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation.  I look at my parents and ask, where were they during the civil rights movement?  I look at my grandparents and ask, what were they doing when the holocaust in Europe was occuring with regard to the Jews, and why didn't they speak up?  And when we think of our great, great, great-grandparents, we think how could they have sat by and allowed slavery to exist?  And I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?"

It can be overwhelming to consider what messy, imperfect people like ourselves can do about a problem as big as 147 million orphans in the world.  However, one life can make a significant impact with a willing heart, and a simple prayer like this, "Lord, I am willing to fight for what is yours, burden me." (taken from Eric Ludy's Depraved Indifference video).

Another Bump in the Road

So I've already been feeling lately like the paper chase is never going to end, and then I get an email this morning.  Ugh.  It was from the Dossier (the fancy name for all the paperwork we have to compile to send to Washington DC then on to Ethiopia) coordinator at our adoption agency.  She just got copies of almost all of our paperwork that I recently sent to her and said that we're going to have to re-do almost all of it because the typed date on top of the papers doesn't match the notary date. 

Lovely.  Another bump in the road.

After hearing this, I went to pray and ball my eyes out.  Then I called my husband and cried some more to him.  Of course, he put things in great perspective and is going to take a day off this week so that we can get it all redone--or some of it redone--we'll see how things go.

By the way, the Orphan Care/Adoption/IJM meeting we had at church went amazingly well.  My husband spoke passionately from his heart and it was great to see so many people interested in and moved by this cause.  It's my dream that the children's wing of our church will someday look like the United Nations--we'll see what God's going to do with this grassroots movement!

We're Privileged Indeed...

Another compelling and challenging video. 

Encouraging Words

Today I read this quote on a blog I follow and just had to share it on mine:

"The reward for considering the helpless is not just the end result, but the pain, the heart pain, that accompanies it. It is cleansing to hurt when God Himself hurts; it is a good thing."

I don't know the depth of these words like some adoptive families do, but I was reminded by this quote in a moment that I needed it, that it's truly a privilege to suffer for "the least of these". 

Confession

Can I confess something?  It is REALLY hard for me to let go of control.  This whole adoption process has been one moment after another of me fighting for control then having to relinquish it.  I want to control my husband and make him get everything done on my time table.  I want to control my social worker and have her finish our homestudy really quickly.  I want to control all the external elements that get in the way of getting things done.  I want to know exactly how everything is going to play out before it happens!  Throughout this entire process, I've vaccilated between working really hard to try to make things happen and getting frustrated that everything's not going as smoothly as I want it to to throwing up my hands and backing away thinking that what I do is no use.  What a journey this has been AND we're only half-way there! 

I trust that God is working to lead us to the exact child/ren that He has for us.  He forknew from the beginning of time that they would be ours.  I read the testimonies of other families that have adopted and am reminded over and over of God's sovereignty and goodness.  I believe that when the day comes that we have our child/ren in our arms, there's much that will come into focus.  Until that day, I'll continue to struggle to give up the control that I don't have in the first place to the One who does.  I'll fight to hand over these children of my heart who I love so much already but have never embraced to the loving Abba Father who loves them more than I ever could.

Update

We're nearing the end of the paper trail.  I'm hoping and praying for only one more month before we send our Dossier to Ethiopia and officially become "paperwork pregnant".  It'll be over a month past when I had originally hoped we'd have it sent, but as I continue to learn: there's a lot that's not in my control (a lifelong lesson)!  We're just finishing up tying loose ends and waiting for our social worker to complete our homestudy draft. 

In the meantime, in a couple of weeks we are able to host an Orphan/Adoption/International Justice Mission event at our church along with another child advocate.  We are praying that God brings lots of people, AND that He stirs up the hearts of those who come to do what they can to look after orphans and children who are trapped in modern day slavery.  I'm so excited to see what God has in store for this body of believers.  I know He's moving in power!