Children

Sunday: Day of…

Partying, relaxation, worship, work, leisure, rest — Sunday tends to be a Day of one or more of the above.

This particular Sunday — November 8, 2009 — gets double duty in the special Day of department.

International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church

There are literally millions of Christians around the world who suffer simply because they call themselves Christians. In many countries, Christians are martyred for their faith. The world watched in horror the unbridled violence that was unleashed on Christians in Orissa state, India last year. There are other places in the world, such as North Korea, where acts of persecution take place, but we often don’t see or hear the full story.

This Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

President of Open Doors USA Carl Moeller says Sunday is an important day for believers. “This is a day when the church in the free world remembers and prays for our brothers and sisters who are suffering persecution in places where Christianity is not free.”

Moeller describes the type of persecution Christians are facing today. “Well over 100 million Christians face discrimination, alienation, sometimes unjust arrest and harassment, imprisonment, torture and even death.”

He adds, “These 100 million Christians, our brothers and sisters, truly need our prayer so that they can stand strong in the midst of the suffering.”

Orphan Sunday

Over 143 million orphans worldwide long for the love of a real family.

According to the United Nations, there are 80 million orphans in Africa alone, a number that is only rising. Even in the United States, 122,000 foster children are legally eligible for adoption, waiting for a family to love them enough to adopt them.

When surveyed, over 50 percent of people said that if they were looking to adopt, they would go to their church for information. Unfortunately, most churches don’t know where to direct people when asked. This Sunday, their questions may finally be answered.

November 8 is Orphan Sunday. Orphan Sunday is a day set aside for churches to recognize the needs of orphans internationally, to begin thinking of ways to implement adoption information into their congregation, and to learn more about adoption.

I wonder.

Do these special Day of days have any sort of impact on regular folks?

Uganda: Child Sacrifice

How is this different from child sacrifice in “more civilized” countries?

As famine looms in Uganda, child sacrifice is on the rise. The crisis hits the poorest living in the north and east, fueling the demand for the rituals.

A police report confirms 23 deaths since the beginning of the year. One child abuse worker helping ANPPCAN Uganda says while child sacrifice used to occur mainly in the Ugandan central region, unemployment and poverty have given way to a new kind of witch doctor who practices in a wider geographical area.

Lee DeYoung with Words of Hope agrees and notes a startling trend: “The numbers have increased, and at least in some cases, those have been the bodies of children of believers.”

Source: Child sacrifice on the rise in Uganda

Handy Pornography!

Way back in 1994, I wrote for our school and church a piece I called Handy Pornography! Here’s an excerpt from early in the article:

Why this increasing freedom of exposure? Well, facts are facts, you know. The news must be reported; stuff must be advertised and sold; anthropological discoveries must be made known; technological advances must be demonstrated. Do any or all or these explain or justify the increasing indecency? Hardly!

Is there news value in having a woman in ice skating attire flinging her leg way up toward the reader? No, the issue is not news. Did Scientific American need to use a picture of Marilyn Monroe with her dress flying up overlaid on a picture of President Abraham Lincoln? No, the issue is not advanced computer technology. Do bikinied women actually make a car or radio controlled airplane more attractive, or a soap more effective? No, the issue is not advertising and commerce. Do pictures of third-world, partially-nude women help us understand their cultures better than simply telling the reader they don’t cover themselves from the waist on up? No, the issue is not anthropology.

Folks, we have been snookered and taken in by a “conspiracy” of the enemy of our souls! Can you see how he is successfully wearing down our resistance to immorality? We still stand against Playboy, but will our children? If we allow in our homes what our grandparents called pornography, will our grandchildren allow in their homes what we call pornography? If we don’t bat an eye about these things which would have jolted our grandparents, will the things that still jolt us have any effect on our children’s children? Remember, what parents excuse in moderation, children justify in excess.

I urge you to read the entire article. Despite the title (Handy Pornography!) and the URL (www.anabaptists.org/writings/softporn.html), it is not pornography. Not even so-called soft porn.

“Are You Virginia?”

The few times we’ve air-traveled post-911 with minors, I’ve been grateful for this loophole:

Loophole allows minors to bypass airport security

When an Oregon teen talked his way onto an airplane bound for Chicago last weekend, he unknowingly revealed a little-known hole in airport security.

Kids don’t have to show photo ID.

That may come as a surprise to many air travelers. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, travelers are accustomed to removing their shoes, not carrying liquids and otherwise coping with strict protocols of airport security.

But when it comes to conducting minors through airports, security and efforts to preserve air passenger convenience intersect in a highly unusual way.

The Transportation Security Administration requires all air travelers 18 and older to show a boarding pass and government-issued photo ID to enter security screening.

But minors generally don’t have government-issued IDs. So security officers don’t expect them to have one, says Dwayne Baird, the TSA’s public information officer for the Northwest.

That makes sense enough. But….

Read it all

My Child

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(in our kitchen — over the sink — September 26, 2009 — 10:51 pm)

O Lord my God, shed the light of Your love on my child. Keep him safe from all illness and all injury…. I do not ask that he be wealthy, powerful or famous. Rather I ask that he be poor in spirit, humble in action, and devout in worship. Dear Lord, smile upon him.
— Johann Starck

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:6,7).

Jason Daniel Mullet

Luke and LaVay’s fourth child. And our fourth grandchild.

He was born at the hospital in Madras (Oregon) in the wee hours of the morning. On October 1. At 2:36 am.

After I dropped Ruby off at the emergency entrance at 2:24 — after leaving home at 11:45 (or was it 11:54?).

So here’s Ruby holding him at 2:56 in the hall outside the room in which he was born — a scant 20 minutes earlier!

Ruby and Jason

Late the next afternoon, we stopped by the hospital before heading for home.

I was impressed again by the well-crafted little hands of a newborn. Here are four pictures I took: Read it all

Above all, love God!
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