Blessed

WOW, I have been so busy I have neglected my blog for a bit. Fortunately, part of the business has been with my ETSY shop, which has raised over $600 for Compassion so far (thanks to amazing customers who love Compassion and who have supported me!), and writing my fabulous Sponsored kids who continue to amaze me with their insight and beautiful spirits!

My own son has also kept me busy by becoming a PRESCHOOLER this week!  Wow! Time flies so fast.

 This past Sunday our amazing pastor at Calvary Baptist Church spoke about Paul and his message to the church from prison in the book of Philippians. During the course of the message, the pastor talked about four things that we often idolize, or allow to come between us and a full life in Christ. Those four things, he listed, are our desires for Comfort, Approval, Control, and Power.

We want to be comfortable, to be free of stress and have all the "creature comforts" we can accrue. Sometimes we strive for comfort at the expense of following Christ's direction in our lives.

We want the approval of others, often to the point of denying our true nature as children of Christ because we yearn for others to look up to us.

Many of us are afraid to lose control of our environment, our daily schedule...we grab for control and when we can't control a circumstance we are ruled by fear and anxiety.

Finally, power can easily become the sole focus of our lives, striving for more and more at the expense of other people, even those we most love. In our reach for power we can often compromise our ethics and our relationship with Christ.

As I listened to the sermon, it ocurred to me that these are all things our sponsored children lack. Most, if not all, of our sponsored children lack comfortable surroundings, clean running water, soft beds with multiple sets of sheets and downy pillows, air conditioning, plenty of food...  Most of our sponsored children lack the approval of the greater community because of their poverty. Most of our sponsored children have no control over their daily lives-they wake, and they are at the mercy of circumstance. Finally, the most powerless among us are children, and those children in poverty are the least powerful of all.

As I thought about it, I thought--no wonder God loves these children so much. They are the category of blessed spoken of in the Beatitudes. They embody who God would like us to become in spirit--blank slates, unfettered by material possessions and power, open to his true Love.

I am so humbled to be part of the lives of these children. I know that they will bless me in a multitude of ways they will never know. I only hope I can bless them in some small way so that they can move forward in God's will and share his love with their families and communities.

The Power of "Can"

Sometimes we forget the power of our words. This morning on the radio I heard a story about a boy with a learning disability--he couldn't listen to someone speak and comprehend very well--but he could read and understand perfectly. This boy was verbally tested by his school and placed in "special education" classes where he continued to do very poorly....until his freshman year in high school. During that year, a substitute teacher noticed something special about him and began to test him in different ways than anyone had before. After a series of tests administered in writing rather than verbally she said to him "I believe you are just as gifted as the other kids--you don't need to be in these classes. Why are you still in special ed?"

As a result of her confidence in him, the boy went back to his teachers and asked to be retested using written formats. He passed with flying colors and re-entered the primary classes at his high school. He graduated with straight A's, went on to receive a PhD, and is now a professor of psychology at a university.

The power of words is astounding. I wrote a brief essay once for NPR's "This I Believe" essay series called "I am a Dancer," where I describe how one sentence affected my perception of what I could do for nearly 2 decades.

I know my mom would never remember this, because she encouraged me to try ballet and gymnastics as a child, but when I was a little girl I overheard someone at church tell her that I didn't have the right "body type" for ballet. Essentially, I was too chubby. Overhearing that one sentence, spoken not out of spite I'm sure, but just an offhand statement that I am certain that mother didn't even know I overheard, resulted in years of an overwhelming belief that I "couldn't dance."

I could play music, I could march in a band--all things that require rhythm--but I "couldn't dance." For some reason that was a forbidden world to me all because of the power of words. Then one day words unlocked a magic door... My freshman year in college I had a roommate who loved to dance... One day she looked at me and said "come on, get up and dance with me!" I said to her "But I can't dance!" She laughed and said "Yes you can! I'll show you how! Anyone can dance!" Her words, "yes you can," opened up a whole realm of art previously closed to me.

In the years since I have taken lessons in ballroom, salsa, swing, contra dance, and Middle Eastern dance and have taught lessons in Middle Eastern dance and have led worship dance programsin church. I've danced on stage in at least 7 states. I'm no star, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know one thing--I CAN dance.

Praise dance on Stage with the Alexandria Dancers (I'm on the front left)

Have you spoken words of life into your sponsored children lately? Have you told them they CAN defeat poverty? Have you told them they ARE princes and princesses, destined for the kingdom?

This I Believe--these children are VALUABLE to Christ Jesus. They CAN make a difference in their families, communities, and world! Let's speak hope into their lives today!

The Value of a Daughter

"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." Psalm 24:1

I am convinced that nothing causes more grief to the heart of Jesus than when a young child is brutally stripped of their purity, left broken and trembling, reduced to nothing more than object. It happens every day, in every country (including ours). I think it is the ultimate expression of evil, and the ultimate satisfaction for Satan when innocence is corrupted at the hands of greed and sick, twisted desire.

Absolutely nothing in world news breaks my heart more than the knowledge that, daily, hundreds of thousands of children are kidnapped or tricked into slavery, forced to endure beatings and worse as they are locked into dirty brothels to suit the fancies of wealthy, disgusting patrons. These precious children are often drugged to induce compliance, which eventually results in dependence on the brothel owners. As a result, even when they are allowed the "freedom" to venture outside the walls of their prisons, they no longer run because they cannot escape the prison of addiction to the chemicals they have been force fed.

In the book "Half the Sky," journalists and authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn make the case that prevention is far more effective than rescue from trafficking and slavery. Wess Stafford makes the same argument in his book "Too Small to Ignore." In fact, I think we all are familiar with Benjamin Franklin's fire-fighting advice, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

That's where we come in! It seems so overwhelming when you hear the statistics, which range from estimates of 3 to 27 million children (young children and teenagers) enslaved in brothels, depending on the source of the data. But, consider this...the Pew Research Center found that, in 2010, United States citizens identifying themselves as Christians numbered greater than 246 million. That is nine times as many Christians as the high-end estimate of trafficked children. Imagine, then, if a 10th of all people identifying themselves as Christians in the United States sponsored a child... Could we make the enslavement of children for such sick, disgusting, evil purposes a distant memory?

Because, like it or not, a lot of what the problem can be reduced to is desperation... Families in poverty are desperate, and girls are often expendable. In some cases parents knowingly sell their girls to brothel owners, while in other cases they send their girls off to what they believe will be respectable jobs, where "friends" and relatives end up selling the girls. Sometimes the parents know but lack the resources to track their daughters. Sometimes the girls just disappear and the parents never know. Either way, if their daughters were MORE VALUABLE AT HOME THAN IN A BROTHEL, much of these types of transactions could be avoided. IF the daughters HAVE A VOICE and some PROTECTION, they may be saved.

How to raise the value of a daughter? Educate her. Provide her with knowledge of her own self-worth, her value in the eyes of Christ. Develop a skill that she can leverage for her benefit--that will make her a source of pride for her family, as well as a source of income. Women worldwide prove that they are capable, resourceful, and hard workers when given education and half a chance for success. When fathers and mothers can see the value and the necessity of their female children for the survival of their families, they are more likely to step up and protect them. If female children are worth enough at home as to be prohibitively expensive for brothel owners, there will be fewer bought and sold.

Hope. We have hope. These children have hope. We can give hope to at-risk children by sponsoring them so that they can build value in the eyes of their families and communities. We can teach young women that they have value beyond their bodies in the heart of Christ. We can teach young men that women of all castes deserve respect and dignity and love. Jesus did not believe in disposable humans. Neither do I.

My mom shared the following Hawaiin parable with me, which I recently read again in "Half the Sky"... I thought I'd share it with you, here...

A man goes out on the beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up in the tide. A little boy is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back into the water. "What are you doing, son?" the man asks. "You see how many starfish there are? You'll never make a difference." The boy paused thoughtfully, and picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean. "It sure made a difference to that one," he said.

Please...consider sponsoring an at-risk child today. GET ANGRY. The things happening to these precious children of God are despicable and inexcusable. You can make a difference to one, and one can make a difference to many.

What if...

In the hot summer morning, a newborn baby cries out as her mother gives a final push and cry of delight. As the baby is gently delivered to her arms, the mother smiles into the soft, perfect face of her daughter, tears of joy flowing down her flushed cheeks. The moment is brief, however, as reality thunders down around her and she grasps the magnitude of what this baby's birth means. Another mouth to feed. Another impossibly hungry, grasping mouth to suckle and nourish when she herself barely has enough food to survive. Another pair of grasping arms reaching for love when she has 5 other pairs of arms already seeking her, clinging to her, voraciously pursuing her affection. Another spirit hoping, dreaming, wishing...when she has no hope to give, no dreams to nurture, no wishes to grant.

Tears turned from joy to despair now, the mother hands her daughter to the nearest pair of arms and begins to wash herself. Finally clean, she carries her new daughter to the single-room dwelling her now six-member family calls home. Already waiting are 5 pairs of forlorn eyes, hungry mouths, ragged frames. She has no help. Crushed by the shame of being unable to provide for them, her husband left months ago, and she has not heard from him. Overwhelmed with responsibility, the mother considers ending her precious newborn daughter's life. She knows the hardships a young girl will face in her world. She knows the potential for exploitation, for grasping and eager male hands to reach for her daughter's precious body before it is even fully grown; the likelihood that her daughter's sweet spirit will be crushed by the cruelty of wealth in the hands of evil. It is almost more than she can bear.

Almost.

Then, in the quiet of that hot summer afternoon, beneath the soft hum of insects, she hears footsteps approaching. She peeks out, exhausted, red-faced, swollen, surrounded by 5 curious faces and one sleeping bundle, and sees someone approaching. It is a man. The pastor from the local mission church. She is fearful at first--what could he possibly want from her?

He introduces himself and peeks in at the sleeping baby. One tiny body slips out of the door and wraps withered arms around his leg. He hugs the little boy gently. He is there to offer help, he says...support, love, health care, food, and vitamins for this baby. It is a program run by people who believe that there is a great God who loves and cares for every person, and they want to help her...HER!...care for her family. He tells her that he can also help her enroll her other children in a local center that will teach them about how to read and write, and about the God that loves them. And they will be fed three times a day--three times!

Though this is a fiction account, it is reality for millions of women in developing countries across the globe. But we can make a difference for these women and children, and we can do so with so very little sacrifice in our own lives that it seems absurd not to help. Compassion International Child Survival Program provides prenatal care, food and supplements, infant survival training, health care, and support to mothers in developing countries. Please consider making a one-time or recurring donation today. As little as $20 can make a big difference in the life of a precious baby.

And, of course, please consider sponsoring a child...it will bless you more than you can imagine.