My Personal Quest into "Predestination" vs "Freedom of Will", a letter to my children. (Part 2)

This is the second part of my series on this quest. If you didn’t get to read the first part, here it is.  This is a letter to my children; however I thought that making it public will benefit some that may want to embark on the same quest:

My dear children,

This debate is not new to me. I actually have been hearing about it in messages, books and articles through the years. It’s quite popular. However, it wasn’t until I read this passage the other day that the thought of finally organizing my thoughts about it through the exercise of writing things down came to mind. It was interesting to me that it wasn't Romans 8:29-30, which is classically the passage that most people addressing this debate quotes. I hope to be able to get to many other places in the bible that shed light on this issue. So this won't be a short process.

So today I want to address some insights on the few parables that I am using as springboards to launch me into this study.

-For first time in my Christian life understanding the parable of the Sower, the parable of the Weeds, and the parable of the Net has been a challenge to me. (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, 24-30,36-42, 47-52)*

-Jesus explained the first 2 parables, however at first sight when I looked at them from the lenses of the age time debate of Predestination vs Free-will (Calvinism vs Arminianism), it seems to me these parables may or not present potential facts regarding the validation of one or the other.

-Some of the questions that came to mind when I read this passage today were: How are God's sovereignty and  freedom of will represented in the types of soil Jesus is referring to? And also, how can we explain the concept of freedom of will, if both the "Weed seed", and the "Bad fish" where bad from the beginning?

-I believe that regardless of whether this text is indeed related to this debate, a Holy Spirit led inquiring into it is very important to the mature Christian for the sake of allowing one’s heart to take stances regarding our confidence to preach the gospel, and also to contribute to our view of God and our trust in Him. Do we really view Him as a God that is all powerful and who is really in control of all things? Do we trust God's sovereignty when facing evil or trials?

-If God is the one who does the choosing, then when praying for unsaved dear ones, we should primarily focus on praying that God would choose to open their spiritual eyes, and make the transformational work in their heart which is prerequisite for a person to even start being responsive to the Gospel, instead of praying that that person would just willfully decide to start listening to it.  I hope that getting a better understanding on this subject would give me more peace when facing the way others respond to the gospel, knowing that God is ultimately sovereign over who gets saved, and why.

-I believe that taking either position should not affect the believer’s assurance of salvation, or his willingness to readily preach the gospel and make disciples, as only God, and not us merely humans, knows who are the citizens of heaven regardless of who did the choosing. I believe we are still called to preach the gospel and spread the “seed” as frequently and widely as we can, and allow God to take care of the outcome.

-With this in mind I am going to try to embark on a personal quest to try to sort out my understanding on whether we are predestined to be God’s children or not.  I pray that some of my findings embolden my witness for Christ and my passion to delight in and live for Him. And to trust Him completely.

-On trying to avoid any presumption, I have to understand that this may very well be a quest to last a lifetime. However I pray that God rewards my desire to understand His will, and lead me to fruitful study. I also pray that some of my answers help my children embark in their own quest with God to grow in him and savor His eternal pleasures, after all we were created to get to know Him: “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” -John 17:3


To be Continued..

Our Adoption Journey - New Update: Steadely Moving Forward to Go Across that Ocean...of Paperwork!

Hello friends!

As promised, here's a super overdue update regarding where we are on our adoption process. Thank you so much to all of you who haven't stopped praying, asking us questions or showing interest in our adoption journey! We have been specially blessed to know that some of you have even been encouraged to become a forever family yourselves. Yes! For those of you that have recently joined our supporting group and haven't read our previous updates, here they are: Update # 1, #2, and #3. Also, to those that want to know how can you specifically pray for us at this point, there is an updated prayer request list at the bottom of this post. We covet your prayers!



As always we'll spice up your reading with some of our latest family pictures




And invite you to join our wishful thinking as we imagine our daughter being part of them!

 Ok, so without further ado, let us share where we are at the moment. We hope this is informative specially for those looking to adopt in the future:

At this point we believe to be at the tail end of the 2nd step of our "Paperwork pregnancy". Just as a reminder, and at a very high level, the five major steps of an Chinese adoption are:  Applying and Obtaining the Agency Approval,     Compiling the Dossier (Documentation to get approved by China and the U.S),  Being matched with our child,  Traveling to China to bring our child home and last Bonding and Post-placement.

We would love her to try the best Sweet potato casserole of the world, Daddy's!

Or just join our joyful noise as we sang carols after dinner during Christmas!

Every step mentioned above involves lots of action items. We don't want to bore you with details, but please free to ask us if you like to know. It is true, adopting a child requires lots of diligence in the way of legalities that need to be taken care of. And now being in the middle of the process we understand why. In the case of international adoption, making sure that you are dealing with a legitimate organization prevents fraud and abuse.  Human trafficking is rampant worldwide, including the U.S, but is even more rampant and less restrained in underdeveloped countries. Therefore the need for inter-country treaties like "The Hague Convention" which establishes parameters for international adoptions. If you are interested in becoming a forever family, one of the first things you have to make sure when choosing your agency, is that it is a "Hague accredited agency".  The Official Intercountry adoption website  is a good place to educate yourself about many of the details of international adoption. You can read about the status and requirements to complete an adoption from virtually any place in the world.

We dream with getting her 'Thing 3" family t-shirt

And watching  her devour her Birthday cake! =)

At this point we have completed most of our "Dossier", which is the compilation of all the documents required to be approved by the Chinese government. This is a list of roughly about 15 documents (Birth-marriage certificates, employment-income verification, financial statements, social workers interview, etc.) that need to be notarized, and certified by different local, state and federal officials, before they are sent for final approval by the Chinese government. That is how the expression "paperwork-pregnancy" was coined. Capiche?! No joke, dealing with so much red tape has felt a bit like morning sickness at some times.  But do not be discouraged, it's is doable. Our agency has been of great help to keep ourselves organized and going at a good steady pace at this stage of the process.

and to play and read silly stories with mommy and brother!

And to grab Daddy's other leg...wouldn't that be fun!

At this point we are specifically waiting for the last piece of document to add to our pile which is the approval by the Department of U.S immigration. Once this is received, the whole stack will be translated into Chinese and shipped to the CCCWA or the China Centre for Children's Welfare and Adoption, which is the office that finally approves our family to bring our daughter home.

We are eagerly waiting for you sister!

We have a lifetime of love & adventures  to share with you!

Ok friends I think this gives you an idea of where we are at now. The next time we will be sharing about our Adoption agency CCIA and why we chose to work with them. Again thank you very much for your continuing support and prayers. We are overly ecstatic for the success of our fundraiser "Bubbles for Hope".  We have for sure been super busy making soap, but what a difference when you are exhausted for a purpose! =)

We can't wait 'til the moment where we can hold your hand too! =)

Here is the list of specific ways you can pray for us now:

• Pray for God's protection over our daughter's life. That the Lord surround her with angels and compassionate people that would protect her thru whatever circumstances are leading her family to abandon her or giving her away.

• Pray for her health. (I'm tearing up here, this is hard to type) Please pray that God would touch her body with the power of His healing. That He would be her doctor and her main care taker. That He would provide compassionate people, physical and financial means to care for whatever physical challenges she's facing, whether these may be congenital, or any diseases coming from the orphanage setting. Please pray that God would supernaturally strengthen her immune system.

• Please ask God that she will be given favor and be assigned a foster mother that provide the care and love that she needs at her early age. If this is not possible, that she be surrounded by loving caretakers in her orphanage that would be passionate about caring for these little children.

• Please pray for protection against any abuse or any harsh circumstances that may cause her to be psychologically, emotionally or physically wounded. And please pray for us as we try to learn about compassionate healing parenting. That the Lord give us the wisdom, stamina, patience and means that we need to love her to health, thriving and to Him.

• Please pray that God's favor be upon us as we work on the tail end of our paperwork. Please pray specifically that the Secretary of State and the Chinese embassy would expedite the certification of documents and that immigration would give us our approval soon.

• Please pray that God would orchestrate the timing of our matching with her. That He gives us peace knowing that the waiting is not arbitrary, and that He's the author of our story.

Xie, Xie,

Paola

My Personal Quest into "Predestination" vs "Freedom of Will", a letter to my children. (Part 1)

Dear readers, this is a letter to my children. However I thought that making it public may benefit some that perhaps have faced the same questions at some point. Here it is.


My dear child,

Since day one, when we first open our lives to treasure God above everything else and start our pilgrimage towards that special heavenly home, questions will be knocking on our doors. Some questions will be perplexing; others discouraging, yet others may even feel hurtful.  Whichever the nature of questions or doubts you have, I want you to remember that we can always ask God. He wants us to ask him. Otherwise He would not have left the Holy Spirit to teach us all things. (See John 14:26)*.  When we humbly approach God for answers, He actually uses them to strengthen our faith and make our experience with Him the more enjoyable and our lives for His sake even the more fruitful.  Picture a father that sits down with his son to teach him with undivided attention and zealous devotion. This is how God likes to teach us. And everything, including the stuff that makes both the questions and the answers has its origins in Him. (Colossians 2:2-3)*. So rest assured that you will get more than you ask for, in God, you will always get not the answer that you’re looking for, but the answer that you really need.

So with this in mind, let me share with you, one of my current quests on documenting some of my personal understanding regarding the age old debate  on whether God chooses us to be his children, or we choose Him.  Many call this debate the debate between “Predestination” vs “Free Will”  or “The Calvinistic Debate".

Some questions like: “Why should I bother preaching the gospel if people are going to come to God if He wills anyway?” or, “Why should we make people accountable for their sin, if God doesn’t predestine everyone to go to heaven?”, or "why does God choose to withhold His truth from some people?", or “Why did God allow evil anyway?” steam from this debate.  And that’s why I think that every Christian should tackle these questions at some point of their pilgrimage.

I want you to know that being on either side of this debate doesn’t affect your salvation, you can be confident on your faith if you are standing on either side. However, a clearer understanding on this issue will definitely embolden your faith, especially when facing life trails.

Finally, I want you to remember that I am not theologian, but just a honest believer wanting to know and experience God. I will never get to all there is out there to read by doctors and theologians on the subject.  I just need to get enough answers trusting that God in His grace will provide them. After all he said that if we lack wisdom, we can confidently ask Him. (James 1:5). However, I hope that some of my findings, or even more, some of my questions, encourage you to dig deeper, bring your own questions, and even your own doubts to a God who is eager to teach you. He really is.

To be continued..

 

“We are Called to Treasure Him Because He Treasured us first” - A few thoughts on the Parable of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl

In my efforts to write more this year I have decided to post some of the lessons and insights I will be getting from my study of the Bible this year. I had some sort of epiphany this morning -At least, I like to believe it was, which sparked my desire to sit down a write. Even though I believe the best journal, message and even book one can write with the lessons got from scripture should be “life itself”, “spoken words” and “daily choices”, I think there is a value to write things down…and share them. Not only to use it as a reminder for later on, but because others can be edified by it. When I was thinking about others this morning, the first ones that came to mind were my children.  And even though I seriously doubt they will be interested in reading my notes on hardcopies many years from now, which will probably be a rarity,  I certainly think, they may be interested in checking their momma’s blog. -Again, I like to think they will..I pray they do!  So anyway, since I am already doing some writing while I work on my BSF homework, I am as might as well, going to try compile my insights and post them in my blog. It’s not a super deep and exhaustive study, (I’m not using any commentaries at this point) but going a little deeper than a quick casual reading on short passages has proved to be of great help to me.   I hope to get better at succinctness with time and practice. So here it goes. Today the lesson was on the Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl from Matthew 13: 45-46:

 

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶ When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

 

My dear children, this is some of what I believe this passage is saying:

 

• The treasure represents God and His kingdom.  We are to treasure Him above anything else in our lives because we were created for Him, and nothing else in the universe can give us more Joy than this. When He is in the first place in our minds and affections, everything else falls into place. 

• Even though cross-referencing other passages against this one may raise some questions about the right interpretation of “Treasure”. The meaning at first could be perceived as ambiguous as it refers to “God” in some places, (See Psalm 73:25-26, Col 2:2-3)* and to us in some others.  (See Deuteronomy 7:6)* I favor both interpretations. I don't think they're mutually exclusive in the sense, that we treasure God because He treasured us first. We are intended to love God because He loved us first.

• In the same way “the Pearl” can mean "us" as the lost treasure that God came to rescue. He found it and bought it for a really hefty price: Jesus' blood. It can also mean "Jesus" as the treasure that God made available for us.  He’s the treasure that we must get to make sense of it all, and to have a real perspective on value. To find joy, meaning, and hope. To learn and experience what delight really is!!

• The “Merchant” in this passage refers to both "us" and "God" in the sense that He will never ask us to do anything that He hasn't already done. He doesn't only show us what to do, but also produces in us to will it and to do it: (See Phill 2:13)*. He actually modeled it and then wants to do it in and thru me. He is the ultimate mentor.

 

• “Selling everything" to buy the pearl from God's perspective may refer to leave His throne to become a man and die for our sins. From our perspective: To let Him have priority over absolutely everything else in our lives: Letting Him have precedence in our affections, and thoughts, and energy, and time, and money, etc.

 

I think Jesus didn’t interpret these parables because He left the Holy Spirit to teach us and explain to us all things. It is a joy to sit at the feet of the Holy Spirit and have Him explaining to you what Jesus meant thru these words. But most importantly to help you give them full meaning when they become a reality in your own walk with God (See John 14:26)*

 

 

Our Adoption Journey: "Our Paperwork Pregnancy & Hoping for a Future Birth Overseas"

Ok, here I am, finally able to sit down for a little while to give you an update on what’s going on with our adoption.  For those of you that have recently joined our supporting group and haven't read our previous updates, here they are: Update # 1, and  #2.

What a ride friends!Even though we are thrilled at the prospect of enlarging our family; handling the day to day of family life, our little ones, our fundraiser and the adoption process all at the same time keeps us quite busy. But we trust that if God called us to it, He’ll see us through it. This is certainly an experience that is making us grow in stewardship of our resources. Especially time!

As always we'll entertain you with our pictures as you read thru! This is from a got together with my family that came to visit from Colombia a few weeks ago. Wouldn't our future child look super-cute on these pictures?

Ok, as many of you know, we decided to pursue an international adoption from the country of China. We are specifically attempting to bring home a special need child from the province of Henan, located in Central Asia. We are slowly moving forward through the milestones of the journey, which at a high level consist of:

1.     Applying and Obtaining the Agency Approval

2.     Compiling the Dossier (Documentation to get approved by the Chinese & the U.S Gov't)

3.     Being matched with our child

4.     Traveling to China to bring our child home

5.     Bonding and post-placement

 

Yeah, I bet he/she would love to enjoy a family pool party!

Every step is quite involved, and we are experiencing the morning sickness of a “paperwork pregnancy” as we diligently work on the paper-chasing of step #2.  So far we are very pleased with the service and professionalism we have experienced by the agency we chose: CCIA (Chinese  Children Adoption International).

We will try to expand on the process of how we selected them in a future post, where we will also share a little more on the cost and financials of adoption. For now, we want to share a bit about the different types of adoption and why we decided to adopt internationally.

And throw water balloons at daddy!

And bake a birthday pizza with brother!

And steal daddy's chef hat!

For families interested in adopting in the United States, there are three types of adoption: Adoption of a new born, adoption of waiting children through the foster care system, and international adoption. Even though the online resources to learn about adoption are plentiful we highly recommend 2 books that helped us tremendously to get a better understanding on the subject.  The first one: Succesful Adoption, a guide for Christian Families is a great resource to get answers to most of the questions regarding the adoption process. From adoption types, costs, the process, samples documents, to the post-adoption considerations, this book was really worth to read before jumping into our journey. 

The second book that was greatly helpful and inspiring was: Adopted for Life by Russell Moore. This book was very insightful regarding the “why” of adoption. We highly recommend it to learn about the meaning of adoption for a Christian believer and what are the many different ways the bible points us to respond to the fate of the orphans and the less privileged.  Not every family is called to become an adoptive family, but we are all called to get involved. We believe that each family responding to the calling to adopt is led to approach a special type of adoption according to what they consider is a best fit for them.

And jump his wiggles out!

In our case we arrived to our decision as a combination of many factors. We’ll name a few:

We’ve had a lifelong interest and involvement with global missions which has increased our responsiveness towards needs in other parts of the world. We believe that adopting internationally is a great way to live out a missional lifestyle, which is something we want to be purposeful about.  Also, we have close friends that have adopted special need children, and we’ve witnessed how much more manageable this is than what we initially thought. We have been blessed by seeing these families blossom and reap the rewards of investing themselves into these children. Educating ourselves on the subject has helped to evaporate a bunch of myths on the subject plus we consider ourselves tremendously blessed by living in a country with much more medical resources to help a special need child.

And get to know many places with all of us!

Why China right? Well, probably the response to this question deserves a post on its own.  But to keep it short for now, we will share that even though in the last few decades China has experienced an exponential growth in many areas the need on vast areas which haven’t seen this progress remains mind-boggling.  This is especially truth in rural areas of central and west China. We also learned that the worldwide adoption landscape changes continuously.  Countries open, close and alter their adoption policies, making adoptions more or less difficult and costly. So, as we screened the different possibilities, reliability and affordability were way high on our choosing criteria, which led us to consider an adoption from Asia.

And bury herself in sand with brother!

China has been very consistent on their adoption policies which have paved the path for many families to complete successful adoptions during this season. Therefore we feel led to enter this window of opportunity to make our dream adoption come true. And we haven’t even mentioned our interest in Asian culture! We hope that somehow this experience boosts our endeavors to help our children learn Mandarin. =)

 

And participate in family feasts!

Ok, this is enough information for now. Again we appreciate so much all the support we have received from all of you! From your encouraging words, questions, prayers, to your interest on our Bubbles for Hope fundraiser. Please keep them coming! We are really humble to belong to this wonderful community and group of friends!

Yes dear sister, we are waiting for you to come home!

Yes dear brother, we even have many birthday gifts for you too!

For those of you prayer warriors, we covet your prayers! So here are our specific prayer requests at this point:

*For positive and timely outcomes on all the documents and processes that we have initiated/requested from governmental offices.  And for us to remain on task and encouraged through this tedious process.

*For God’s favor and leading of the multitude of people that has an input on our adoption journey.

*For God’s protection, provision over our child in the orphanage. And for all the orphans that are waiting for a matching family there too.

*For God’s guidance and provision as we continue working on our fundraiser and look into financial aid programs.

Xie, Xie! =)

Paola

Florida Homeschooling Convention 2013: The 80 One-liners We Took Home

Here it go, finally we can say that we got our first convention under our belt! We really had a blast and were greatly inspired, encouraged and challenged as we get ready to start this family journey. We put together some of the highlights of the convention with the hope that this will be a blessing for some of you. We firmly believe that these are good lessons for any type of family not just for homeschoolers. So fasten your belts and enjoy the ride with us! =)

 

1. Home is best

2. Parents are best

3. Learning happens 365 days a yr

4. Every child is a master piece

5. When facing feelings of inadequacy: God didn't say to Moses: My curriculum will make you "talk", he said: I made the deaf

6. Relationship with child is most important

7. Don't lose the relationship with your child over "algebra"

8. Strong marriages, strong families, make strong homeschools

9. Education is discipleship & discipleship starts at home

10. Don’t compare your children with other children

 

 

 

 

11. Don't pressure your children, fruit will eventually grow

12. Successful homeschoolers are flexible

13. Spirit led homeschooling is not bound by legalism

14. Keep your focus on eternal significance

15. Homeschooling doesn't save you

16. Do not sacrifice your marriage in the altar of homeschooling

16. Discipling your children: leading by example

17. Arrows: Our goal is to train our children to have the greatest impact in the world for His kingdom

18. Days feel long but years pass fast

19. Follow the leader: Jesus

20. Being yoked with Christ
 

 

 

 

21. Enjoy the journey

22. Choose to enjoy the journey God has chosen for you

23. Don’t let your curriculum interfere with your relationship with your child

24. Your children won’t remember you as the perfect mom, but will remember that you loved them

25. For a successful homeschooling, make it a quest, "an intentional commitment" to pursue a relationship with Jesus

26. We cannot change the hearts of our children, but the Holy Spirit can

27. Your children don't need a perfect parent, they need a parent that would point them to a perfect God

28. Are you seeking success in a "program, a curriculum, a solution, or are you seeking "God's face" as the word says?

29. God doesn't want you to try so hard to live a life that is pleasing to him, as much as allowing your relationship with him to produce a life that's pleasing to him

30. We control to the level of our fear and we serve to the level of our trust

 

 

 

31. Humanism: You are able to accomplish it if you try hard enough vs Christianity: Do you trust enough?

32. Prayer for yourself and your family:: "Dear Lord help me to love you well, and to love people well"

33. We are weary because we don't know how loved we are

34. You are the keeper of the keys, the keys to unlock your child's learning style.

35. For the Kinesthetic-active learner, quiet movement -Mindless & repetitive- while learning is a plus

36. Break out of the box of our public schools and realize that the strengths of the kinesthetic learner are needed to fulfill very important roles in our community

37. Giggles and wiggles are gifts in your children’s personality

38. TED videos are a useful tool for homeschoolers

39. Make sure that your children get enough exercise to help them focus, for some children that means “Hours” a day!

40. it’s my job as a parent not to focus on their weaknesses, but to identify their strengths and use them to help them become the person they're meant to be

 

 

 

41. Multisensory education: using the areas of strength of your brain while strengthening your areas of weaknesses

42. Learning is a process of learning and forgetting

43. A multisensory learning experience requires multiple senses involved

44. We can’t assume that we understand our children; we have to go to God and ask for help to be able to figure out their world

46. Learn to wait and rest!!!!

47. Wanting to serve can also hinder your relationship with God

48. Are there stillness in your calendar?!!!!!!!!!!!

49. God’s love for you is louder than any pile of laundry, baby crying, or any messy house

50. All the things that you need for Godliness, living your life and homeschooling are contained in knowing Christ!!

 

 

 

51. God is relentless when it comes to show you his love and shaping you into Jesus' image

52. God is not impressed with what you have to offer, your very best is a mess

53. The Lord wants you to be dialysis dependent on Him

54. Make sure that academia-knowledge is not where your children find their security

55. Another big source of distraction is recreation

56. Are we teaching our children that they have to be busy and entertained to be fulfilled?

57. We are constantly homeschooling our children by modeling our daily behavior

58. Are we teaching our children to live a rushed, over-busy lives by the way our days look like?

59. About socialization: The exact reason to homeschool, so children get the opportunity to receive a much broader and carefully planned exposure to society

60. Teach your children to forgive: it is easy to teach them when they're 4 than when they are 40

 

 

 

61. Know God is jealous for your children, know that only God can change and quicken their hearts, nobody and nothing else can

62. Three questions when choosing a curriculum: Does it overwhelm me?  Does it fit my learning style? And Am I choosing out of fear?

63. Curriculum doesn’t have to be expensive; most of the good stuff is free!

64. It may not work; and if it doesn't work shelve it

65. Curriculum is the assistant not the educator

66. Education can easily become an idol

67. Focus on the relationship

68. Stressed is desserts spelled backwards

69. Be real with others, don't try to be the Super homeschooler mom, it doesn’t exist anyway

70. Children need quiet, and you also need to be quiet as well sometimes, so they can listen to God.

 

 

 

71. Don't let school interfere with your education

72. Put on your oxygen mask first

73. Influencing your child's heart is more important than obedience

74.Children are like cookies, you always burn the first batch

75. Seek to motivate by respectful affection not just by fear of authority

76. Lies Homeschoolers believe: Everybody's children are smarter, they have a cleaner house, they cook better meals, they're more spiritual than you and have a better marriage than yours

77. Marriage is the stem; everything else is a leaf that will grow back

78. Keep your priorities straight, Homeschooling can be a black hole that sucks everything in!

79. You're the best momma of the world for your children!

80. You're the best Daddy of the world for your children!

 

 

Now, what about you? Do you have any that you would like to add? Feel free to chime in and share your wisdom!

 

 

 

Our Adoption Journey: 2nd Update, Talking About One of Our Propellers!

Here we are, finally able to sit down to give you a second update regarding our adoption process. Here it is a link to the first one for those new to our journey. The last few days have been quite busy in our quarters trying to get our Handmade Soap Adoption fundraiser going.  From learning the trade to getting the word out, this has been a fun but time-consuming adventure! We are so grateful for all those of you that are shown your support by trying our soap! If you haven’t heard about it, you can check the post created on the subject by our family Soap-making master, AKA my Honey. I promise you’ll get a chuckle or two! =)

Wait for more updates on our Hand made soap adoption fundraiser! =)

Ok, The last time we left you with the anticipation of letting you know about our approach to the first fork on the adoption road: International vs Domestic. After much prayer, conversation and heart searching we have come to the conclusion to pursue an international adoption. We want to share with you about how we personally wrestled with such sensitive question. And we want to make it as informative as possible for those of you that would like to look into this option in the future as well. We are so blessed by those that are praying for us and have graciously shown an interest in our journey through your questions, prayers and support! Actually the two most common questions we have gotten so far are first related to international vs domestic adoption, and second to why adoption is so darn expensive. We will be addressing these and more of your questions in our future posts soon! So keep the questions coming and stay tuned!

 

A brother or a sister? From where? Yuppiee!! =)

This time we think it's good to pause for a moment, and maybe drastically change the tone of our conversation to share our thoughts regarding one of the several reasons behind our desire to adopt.  We will be sharing more of the “Why’s” of the adoption for our family in future posts as well, but this time we want to share our motif  in view of what’s going on with the Kermit Gosnell’s trial case. We are grateful for all the fellow bloggers and Facebook friends that have boldly brought the horrific reality of late term abortions to the public attention when most of the main stream media want to hide it. We applause all of them, as these killed babies need an increasing advocacy as do all the misinformed mothers that shy away from a pro-life choice due to fears and lack of education, and then fall prey in the hands of unscrupulous abortionists.

So mommy is my brother there even thought I don't see him yet? 

As many of you know, since the pass of the Roe vs Wade law in the 1970’s, millions of babies have been murdered on a daily basis in the United States. That is without counting the many, many millions more that suffer the same fate worldwide. We don't have much room in this post to go too deep into the scoop of the matter. There is enough out there for you to read an inform yourselves and even to get your head spinning! If you are ones of those who wonder where to start, checking out the National Right to Life website can be a good place.  There you can find easy to read fact-sheets that quickly give you a high level view on the matter and they also provide you with tons of helpful links to go deeper into your search. Just to give you an idea to spark your concern, let me tell you that there have been more than 50 million aborted babies in the U.S only since 1973 and Planned Parenthood the biggest provider of abortions in the States is a billion dollar a year corporation that reported $1.048 billion in revenues in the fiscal year ending 6/30/10.

Yes!

So, the continue incidence and acceptance of abortions thanks to governmental patronizing laws and the increment of abortion providers swarming out of a decaying moral culture that idolizes money and power should create a practical response on our side. And that is what we want to talk about: Our.  Practical.   Response. 

We believe that getting informed on the subject is a great start, but the situation calls for a much greater response than that. If we say that we care for these babies and mothers, we should take action and make decisions that go along the path of counter attacking this social ill. Otherwise, we are not better than the bystander that just shows interest on the matter out of morbid curiosity or desire to be perceived as an intellectual in conversations. We believe that especially in the Christian circles, the subject of abortion instead of leading us to depressing, dead ending conversations should propels us to respond with a very personal and specific level of involvement.  In the case of our family, our personal response has been to embrace adoption. To give a mother the chance to save her child's life through this live giving alternative.We know that we can’t save every baby that has been and will be murdered, but we can at least save one.  And that, dear friends help us feel as if we are sharing in with the wounded in this fierce battlefield.  I know that different families may want to become forever families for many different reasons. But this is one of the main reasons we want to become one.

"Mommy, did I look this precious when I was in your tummy?"..more darling, more precious!

Now, we understand that this is not the only response that everybody should take. Maybe you or your families don’t feel the calling to adopt.  However, there are many other ways that you can become an active participant according to the way God leads you. But please be one, do not just change the subject, turn off the T.V, your Smartphone and move on with your life.  God’s will is for you to be a channel of his compassion and mercy. To care for the voiceless, to be a shining light in this world full of darkness.

I think some of the ways this fellow blogger posted are very practical and doable. You can click here to read the full article. But let me summarize some of them:

1.      Talk about it: with your friends, Facebook, in your blog

2.       Give to your local pregnancy resource center: Time, money, resources

3.      Encourage, support and unwed mommy

4.      Love on a woman who has had an abortion

5.      Adopt (Or help others do so)

6.      Teach your children that these things are NOT OK. NO one else in the world will teach them these.

I would also encourage you to get involved with the Youth ministry at your church or community, become a mentor to an orphan, engage on prayer against this scourge.  And above else, share Christ with others.  He is the only hope for this fallen world and the only who has the power to change people from the inside out. And rest and be comforted in Him, knowing that God is the ultimate one that will bring full redemption to this world, and will not only wipe every tear but also will judge with unparalleled equity.