The Invisible Woman

I saw this on another blog this morning, and I loved it!! I just had to share with all the fabulous ladies out there. It was perfect timing to lift my spirits after my third night in a row of maybe two hours of sleep (which was had on the floor of my children's room) and wishing someone would just say "thanks for all the sacrifices you make". (Please don't get me wrong....I KNOW that happy, well loved children are the ultimate "thank you"...but I am only human and the words sure sound nice once in a while.)

Broken for Haiti

I am asking for forgiveness ahead of time because I am pretty sure I am going to botch this post. I am not good with words, and never really have been, so trying to write what I am thinking is difficult, but I am going to try. Please keep in mind that this is just how things appear currently from my perspective. I am in no way saying it is definitely this way.

Haiti is heavy on my heart still. I am broken hearted for all the orphans. I cry when I see news coverage of babies sleeping in the back of large trucks, with no formula to drink, nowhere warm to sleep, no place to call "home". I read news articles and blog posts about orphanages that have collapsed, and they are sleeping in the courtyards with no food or water to drink. But there is a small light at the end of the tunnel. The ones who were in the process of being adopted are slowly being allowed into the country. Emergency Visas are being issued. Orphans are being allowed to join their forever families. Others are being "rescued" and brought to the states for safekeeping until they have a safe place to return to in their home country. There are churches and organizations running to the forefront to fight for the orphan. Praise Jesus! It is heartbreaking that it takes something like this for most people to be advocates for orphans, but their eyes are being opened. Hopefully after this disaster they don't go back to their tunnel vision they had before. Hopefully they continue to fight for the orphan. To speak up for those who have no voice.

Now this is where I will mess this whole post up....though I am broken hearted for the orphans and want to make sure they get food, water, safe shelter, protection, families, or whatever it is they need currently, I believe that there is another group of children who are also orphans whom it appears are being ignored. And that kills me. I haven't heard anyone advocating the cause of the child who is wandering the street looking for their parents. The child who doesn't KNOW if they are orphaned or not. The child that is scared, alone, with not a soul looking out for them. Over 70,000 people have been buried in mass graves, most of them not even identified. The authorities are just trying to get rid of bodies to keep more disease at bay. I KNOW for a fact that those 70,000 plus people left children behind that are currently wandering the streets. Sleeping in the streets. Also starving and dying of dehydration. But I haven't heard stories of anyone trying to comb the streets to find these children.

Or what about the children, that though they have parents currently, they won't any longer when their parents die of completely preventable causes. The mother with the broken arm that shouldn't be fatal. The father with the crushed leg that was trapped below rubble and could of been reset, but now needs amputated, but won't get either and the father will die. Leaving behind another orphan. An orphan whom nobody will really realize is an orphan for probably a very long time. Things are too chaotic for anyone to be actively keeping track of that.

It seems as if everyone is focused on the orphans that were orphans before this disaster....and my heart breaks for those newly orphaned children. The ones who don't even know it yet. In the beginning people talked about the heartbreak over the thousands of more children that will end up being orphaned in the midst of this disaster. But I haven't heard anyone talk about them in a few days. That is just sad to me. I am sure they are scared. How many of them are still wandering and calling out hoping to find their parents? How many cry themselves to sleep in the middle of the street all alone? How many have pretty much come to the conclusion that their parents are dead and feel lost, confused, don't know where to go or whom to talk to? I wonder if any of them stand by the side of the mass graves as hundreds and thousands of bodies are being dumped in trying to identify their mommy or daddy?

These are the thoughts that are keeping me awake at night....

Human Sacrifice and broken souls....

I had a different post I was getting on here to type today. But now I am going to save that for another day. As I was checking out my Blogger Dashboard and all the blogs I follow, I read one that was about Satan and Ugandan children. It was posted by a wonderful blogger who is adopting from Uganda, and it was just a link to a Fox News article.

It was talking about how a BBC investigation has confirmed that human sacrifice is on the rise in Uganda. And the "target" is usually children because they are "pure", however adults are also sacrificed. They will either be actually sacrificed themselves, or sometimes killed and their hearts or livers or whatever body part the "spirits" have requested are taken out and those are sacrificed, along with vases of their blood. Most times people kidnap OTHER children so they don't actually have to sacrifice their own, however they do still kill their own children if the spirits specifically ask for it. There are thousands of adults and children who go missing, and the speculation is that a good majority of those are the victims of these sacrifices. With the rise of prosperity and technology in certain areas, most of these sacrifices that are on the rise in these primitive villages are because they think it will please the spirits and make them rich. The love of money truly being the root of evil here.

I read about a 3 yr old who was kidnapped and left for dead after his penis was hacked off by a neighbor to be used as sacrifice. There was another story of a 10 yr old boy who was kidnapped and was taken to the shrine with knives ready to go to sacrifice him, but was released after they saw he was circumcised, since that made him "impure" for sacrifice. He now has to live his life in hiding. Things like circumcision, scars, and piercings are deemed "impure" so many are starting to pierce ears, circumcise their boys, and even intentionally scar their children just to keep them safe and alive.

The children in this country are already at such a disadvantage. There are more than 2 million orphans in a country about the size of the state of Oregon. And that number is estimated to rise to 8-10 million in the next few years with the continued rise of HIV/AIDS. There are children still being kidnapped and forced to be child soldiers. The ones who escape that fate have to live in hiding only traveling to find food/water at night under the cover of darkness. And then there are the children who are murdered for human sacrifice, with that number steadily on the rise. The children in Uganda are truly being targeted by Satan. We need to step in on their behalf and pray for them, donate to causes that help keep children safe or rescue them, and even welcome some of them into our homes, if that is what the Lord is calling us to do. These are God's children. Just like we are. They are our brothers and sisters.

There is another part of this news article post that breaks my heart almost as bad as these children being targeted and practically hunted. You see, the post on Fox News was just a paragraph summarizing the main points with a link to the full article ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8441813.stm ) on the BBC News page. But on the Fox News page people left comments about the article. And those comments made me sick. And angry. And even made me cry.

There were comments like.... (paraphrased)
~Well no wonder Africa never gets ahead still living in the dark ages like this.
~Great, now we have to worry about Ugandan's coming to the US.
~When they do come to the US and start practicing that here the Libs and ACLU will protect them and sue anyone who tries to stop since it's their freedom of expression.
~No wonder Obama never talks about his relatives in Uganda. He's going to start the same thing here, but at the reverse end of the spectrum. He'll start sacrificially killing elderly.
~Great, this is what we pay for helping every third world country under the sun. We shouldn't be paying another dime ever again.
~So? There was "child sacrifice" in the old testament of the bible.

And then there were the comments that were to be "jokes" I guess....
~Let's finance some free vacations for liberals.
~Not any different that sacrificing your children to the public school system.
~Obama's new health care plan, Witch doctors for everyone.......They work cheap and bring their own masks...
~Now let's watch the Libs slip it into the new health bill

Don't get me wrong, there were people (or should I say one person) that were offended by the article. Of 25 comments posted, 1 was about how disturbing it is.

And I am sick to my stomach. I KNOW it is not being a good child of God by judging these people who say these things. I KNOW I need to love them and just pray for them. But I find it as hard to love them and pray for them and forgive them for their ignorant comments and callous attitude as I do to pray and forgive those who actually perform the sacrifices. Things like this remind me that though there are millions of people who love the Lord and are professed Christians, there are many who keep their views to themselves, and many many more who have not come to know Jesus, our Savior yet.

I don't really have anything to "sum" up this post, but I do know that I am praying for the children of Uganda. And I will ask for forgiveness for judging people as I did today.

Putting it into perspective

Today was the day we had been expecting. The day hubby got laid off again. We knew it was coming. But I held out hope. And it was a selfish hope. We had just decided to go through with the application process for adoption. So I selfishly was hoping that the lay off wouldn't come. I had my application fee ready to go and was just needing to fill out the paperwork.

I will admit I cried. Not at the lay off....God will provide. He always has. But at the fact that the lay off means the adoption process has to wait a bit. I know God's timing is perfect timing. I know God has a perfect plan. But my not perfect human self was already falling in love with a child. A child who may not be born yet, but will be abandoned for whatever reason. A child who may already be sitting in an orphanage waiting, hoping and praying for someone to "pick me". A child that is destined for my Earthly family as part of God's great Heavenly plan.

For now I will keep praying. Keep researching. Keep reading. Keep making friends. Keep talking to whomever will listen about my love for the orphans and starving and hurting children in the world. And who knows....maybe my heartache at NOT being able to apply right now will persuade someone who CAN apply to do it. God has a perfect plan. And in HIS timing, our family will grow. Until then, my passion and love will grow, and my heart will continue to break for the least of these.

The Mingi Children

These amazing faces in this video are of children who were supposed to be murdered. Their tribe thinks they are cursed and will curse the whole tribe if they are on the land. So the children are to be tied up and tossed into the river to drown. Bale, the first child saved, simply had her top teeth grown in before her bottom. That was her "crime".

This fabulous organization is doing everything they can to help save these children. They have started an orphanage for the children rescued. Even if you do nothing else, just pray for the children and the organization that is trying to save these children from being murdered for absolutely no reason.

Drawn from Water from Drawn From Water on Vimeo.

Faces of the Fatherless

This video breaks my heart. Literally brought me to tears when I just watched it a couple minutes ago. It is just scanning SOME of the faces of an orphanage in Uganda. It kills me that these children crying have no mommy or daddy to hug them, kiss them, wipe away their tears and tell them it is going to be okay.

I have said it before, I'll say it again and again....not everyone is called to adopt. But every single person can HELP those children get to a forever family. It can all start with just praying for them. Really, isn't 2 minutes a day to pray for the fatherless worth doing just so these adorable faces can have mommies hugging and loving on them???

Oh, and thanks to lack of food, 10 children died while you were watching that video.....

Awaiting it's arrival

Here are a few excerpts from this book I just ordered - The Hole in Our Gospel - and can not wait for it to get here.

***************************************************
"Let me use a different example. If you read in a newspaper about hundreds of children dying of malnutrition in a famine in Africa, you might pause for a moment of genuine sadness--but wouldn't you finally turn the page, read the sports section, check the TV listings, and go about your daily routine? But imagine for a moment that you somehow discovered one of these starving African children dying on your front doorstep the very next morning as you left for Church. Would you not stop everything, pick up the child, and rush her to the emergency room, offering to pay whatever it might cost to save her life? You would almost certainly respond with urgency as one human being to another, and that faraway famine you had read about the night before would very suddenly become intensely personal. You see, our problem is that the plight of suffering children in a far-off land simply hasn't gotten personal for us. We may hear about them with sorrow, but we haven't really been able to look at them as if they were our own children. If we could, then we would surely grieve more deeply in our spirits. We would weep for their parents, and we would respond with far greater urgency" (The Hole in Our Gospel, p. 59)

"The total income of American churchgoers is $5.2 trillion. (That’s more than $5,000 billion.) It would take just a little over 1 percent of the income of American Christians to lift the poorest 1 billion people out of extreme poverty. Said another way, American Christians, who make up about 5 percent of the Church worldwide, control about half of global Christian wealth; a lack of money is not our problem." (The Hole in Our Gospel, p. 216)

"Almost one in seven worldwide, 854 million people, do not have enough food to sustain them. This makes hunger/malnutrition the number one risk to health globally, greater than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. About 25,000 people die each day of hunger or related causes—9 million people per year." (The Hole in Our Gospel, p.135)

**********************************************************

I am so excited to read this book, to see what new things it speaks to my heart, and to see how it will continue to change me so that I love on the least of these. I'll leave you with one last thought.....

DID YOU KNOW THAT ONE CHILD DIES EVERY 5 SECONDS FROM HUNGER RELATED ISSUES?? ........... HOW MANY CHILDREN JUST DIED WHILE YOU READ THIS POST???

And does the thought of that bother you enough for you to do something, anything, about it??

Asking for prayers...

There is an wonderful Canadian family trying to bring their adopted children home from Africa, but the Canadian government is not allowing that to happen right now. Tomorrow, Wednesday January 6, 2010, there is an effort to get people praying and even fasting pleading for the Lord to work miracles to let the paperwork hurdles with the Canadian government be overcome so this family (and the others also trying) can bring their children home.

You can read about the prayer request here....and you can read about the family we are praying for here.

Reflections on last year, looking forward to the new one.

Last year at the start of the New Year I chose to not necessarily have a "resolution". Instead, I looked over my life like I looked at things the way I did back in the days when I was a career driven woman. I thought about what I wanted to "accomplish" and tried to figure out what one or two things would give me the BIGGEST impact on my life without stretching myself too thin with too many things to work on. It all came back to my relationship with God, and putting Him first and in control of my life. And what a year it has been!

I felt slightly more patient with my children, my heart became even more forgiving, my "priorities" got even more rearranged. I felt more at peace with whatever was happening at the time, faithful in knowing the God was in control. I stressed about things less. (Don't get me wrong....I still worried, I still wrote list after list, and had a million different backup plans for things...LOL... a girl can only change so much in a year.) And I absolutely fell in love with the "least of these". A dear friend introduced me to a blog ( The Journey ) and my life has not been the same since. It is a blog of a wonderful girl who felt the Lord calling her to do more with her life. And the way she has stepped out in faith is truly inspirational. Head on over there to read a bit, and I know you won't regret it!!

While following along with Katie's blog, I stumbled up 147MillionOrphans.com. All I can say is "wow". Two moms with 13 kids trying to bring light to the orphan crisis while helping to feed the children in Katie's program in Uganda. The number of lives that are being touched is amazing! Another amazing thing happened, though, while reading all of these wonderful blogs. A small little flame that had been burning since I was a teenager, but had almost been distinguished, suddenly became a raging fire. And that fire was for orphans and adoption. I felt the NEED to spread the word about the orphan crisis, and felt an even greater NEED to adopt. And in the course of all the different readings, it was Uganda that was tugging at my heart.

I admit, I thought I had lost my mind. I already have two very busy toddlers who drive me close to insanity on a daily basis. I have said more times than I can count that I am DONE having children. This uterus is in retirement. But that could be God's sense of humor at work. By adopting, I am still done literally having children, and this uterus would still be in retirement. LOL. :) I was starting to feel so strongly again about God calling me to adopt that I brought the idea up to my mom hoping for her to agree that I had completely lost my mind. Nope. No such luck. She thought it sounded like EXACTLY the plan God had for me. Well, when she didnt' help the situation...lol....I brought it up to hubby. I just KNEW he would be the one to tell me I was crazy and let me get back to some normalcy with my thoughts. Nope. He let me down, too. I asked him casually one night if he'd think I was crazy if I told him I felt a calling for us to adopt. He looked at me and nonchalantly said "No. I mean, why not? We have plenty of love to share." Now, for those who know my husband, I am pretty sure you could imagine my head literally SPINNING after that type of a comment. He just doesn't say stuff like that. The final straw that finally broke me to accept that I was in fact crazy, (but crazy in a good way-the kind of crazy that God loves us with), and that I may of just been on the right path after all, was when we were in the car driving home from the grocery store and I was just telling hubby it was so expensive that we'd never be able to afford it, we drove right by a church that had their reader board saying "Where God guides you, He will provide for you." Okay then, Lord....guess you can't spell it out much plainer than that. :) I guess I will embrace this craziness with wide open loving arms, just like You did for me.

Looking into this upcoming year, I realize that with hubby being laid off more often than not, we won't be able to necessarily start the actual adoption process any time soon. But I can still pray for the orphans to find forever families, I can help families bring their children home, and I can spread the word to everyone who I meet about just how big this orphan crisis is. Not everyone will feel a calling to adopt, but everyone CAN make a difference in the lives of orphans.

"...once our eyes are opened we can't pretend that we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act." Proverbs 24:12

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
James 1:27