Guarding and unguarding my thoughts

I've encountered a life-changing read this Lent in the book, A Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision. It is a compelling, challenging book for Christians. It is a compelling, challenging book for me.

I have been processing the book at the same time that our pastor has begun a sermon series on our thought lives. The basis of his sermon series is this passage from Romans 12 "I beseech ye, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye prepare your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (pardon -- I have the KJV memorized and it never sounds right to me unless in this version).

As our pastor has pointed out, scripture is clear here that disciplining our thoughts brings us into alignment with the will of God. He talked about how important it is to choose to expose our minds and, thus, our spirits to things that build us up and encourage us to be holy. And, of course, I thought about tv shows and songs and other media (like the internet *ahem*). I thought about what a huge difference it makes in my life to filter the things which influence me. And I thought about how, a year ago or so, I decided to listen to sacred music most of the time and how much that has changed what goes through my head throughout the day. I love the snippets of scripture that appear with melodies at odd moments. The echoes are just lovely.

But while processing my reaction to the earthquake in Haiti, especially through the lens of "the hole" in my gospel, I've realized that while God wants me to guard my thoughts when it comes to those things I seek out to entertain me, that God wants me to unguard my thoughts when it comes to the suffering of others. I am finding that to participate in the grandeur of self-focused thought refinement without applying the exercise to the world beyond is so...hollow. It is "the hole," I guess. And I have realized that the desire to live an insular existence is not a holy desire. I've thought about how many of us will gladly watch CSI or, heck, MYSTERY on PBS or will expose ourselves to all manner of crazy, violent thoughts and dissonant behavior, but won't watch the news or look at pictures of a disaster or read statistics of suffering or even discuss the presence of evil in the world. Being careful not to see the news does not mean that the news doesn't happen.

So, while being called to set my mind on things above, I've been being reminded to open my eyes and see -- really see-- this world God loves.

Thus, my prayer this Lent has been two-fold. First --"May the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Reedemer." And, I've been praying the prayer of Bob Pierce, World Vision's founder, "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God."

Moving on...

I talked with my friend whose sister I have referenced in the past few posts about adopting children from Haiti (both are college friends). In our discussion, we talked about how she and her family are dealing with things -- the aftermath of the earthquake, if they've found Wendy and Josiana, how her mother who was in Haiti at the time is coping with things, what the latest news is on the adoption front for the two children who are in Pittsburgh...

During the conversation, my friend said something like, "You know, it's odd. No matter how much you want to stay in the apex of emotion when something like this happens, at some point, your body and mind and spirit simply won't let you. You start to move on, if even involuntarily."

She's right, of course. We move on. The challenge is whether, in our moving on, we hold some wisdom in our hearts from that which we've experienced and thereby move a little closer to where God wants us to be.

I pray my heart is much wiser. I'll share more in the coming days, I think. In the meantime, we are moving on...

A family united at last

Tonya's sister-in-law Catrina has FINALLY been united with her Haitian adopted daughter in Pittsburgh. See the very cool video here!

My friends' new children

My friends who have been looking for their Haitian adoptees, are headed to O'Hare tonight to fly to Pittsburgh where they will meet a 12 year old girl and a 9 year old boy sibling pair from Haiti's BRESMA orphanage. These children will be theirs in the near future -- a permanent part of their family that includes my friends' birth children, a 10 year old boy and 7 year old girl.

If Wendy and Josiana are found, they, too, will join my friend's family. I know that even though she never thought of herself as a mother-of-many, she is PRAYING, PRAYING, PRAYING that will be the case.

I am, too.

Not back to normal

We had dinner at my parent's tonight. I thought about children with no food, incomplete families in mourning, people without shelter. I just do not understand going about business as normal right now. Seriously. If you are someone who has managed to be largely unaffected by this crisis in Haiti, can you please tell me how you've managed that?

In the meantime I want to share some links I've encountered and I'm going to apologize to the Deputy Headmistress for largely plagiarizing her post. Go there if you want to see the links with her eloquent verbage.

First, a blog by a Global Ministries (Disciples of Christ-related) missionaries.

Blog entries from a World Vision employee on the ground.

More info from The Haiti Rescue Center.

A story on Haiti rescues, including the rescue of a three-year old boy.

A missionary family living and serving in Haiti whose home has become a hospital.

A blog by a nutritionist who works with a foundation promoting health in Haiti.

Contact those representatives again PLEASE!!

From the For His Glory website...

We need you all to act again on behalf of all our children. Currently, we have two families from Argentina and one from Canada adopting. Our governments are not cooperating and working together to get all our kids out, they are dragging their feet. We are going to start losing babies due to dehydration if we do not evacuate these children quickly to the U.S. and then process them here. We do not have time for a one by one assessment of the state of their adoption process and issuance of visas prior to evacuation.

Please, begin contacting your governors and continue to pressure your senators and congressmen to get a plan in place, quickly, to evacuate the children to the U.S. The Argentinean and Canadian Governments could then work with the U.S. to bring their children home from the U.S. Time is of the essence. This is not going to look good for the U.S. , the State Department, the other world governments or the United Nations if our children, who survived the earthquake, begin to perish because the governments and agencies would not work together to quickly evacuate all the children in the orphanages.

This needs to be a united effort. PLEASE CALL YOUR GOVERNORS, SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN AS SOON AS YOU RECEIVE THIS MESSAGE.

We have confirmed reports that Governor Ed Rendell form Pennsylvania went to Haiti and has brought back 54 children to Pennsylvania from an orphanage. If this can happen for them, it needs to happen for all the orphans that are suffering in orphanages with little supplies, starting to experience diarrhea and sicknesses due to the conditions.

PLEASE ACT NOW ON BEHALF OF OUR BABIES AND CHILDREN.

Thank you,

Kim Harmon,President

____________________

If you feel like you can't come up with a letter, here's the one I composed and sent in about a minute and a half. Feel free to use it. PLEASE take the brief amount of time required to do this.

Dear Representative ______,

I am writing to you concerning the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti and the humanitarian crisis developing there.
As you probably know, thousands of Haitians are orphans housed in various orphanages throughout the country. Many of these children are in the process of being adopted by families in the US and other countries.
Sir, these children need visas NOW in order to come to the US. The situation is such that the children cannot wait to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. They need medical assistance.
I ask you now to do what you can to grant children temporary visas and bring them to the US, even if it is possible that they will be sent to families in other countries later. Here, they can receive medical treatment and have basic needs met. In Haiti, they simply will not have that chance.
Please act quickly and urgently on behalf of these children.
Thank you,

Joy and heartbreak at the same time

The kids from the BRESMA orphanage have gotten out. God bless the Pennsylvania governor who went and got them. My friends received word that 54 children were on the plane -- everyone but their two.

I continue to pray...

More on Haiti... and perspective

A friend from college is adopting a sibling set, Wendy and Josiana, from Haiti from the BRESMA orphanage featured on CNN, etc. When the earthquake occurred, the birth parents of Wendy and Josiana, came to the orphanage and took their children because they feared for their lives. These parents are loving parents who gave up their children only when they were certain adoption by others was possible; they love them very, very much. They thought they were helping but they didn't know that help was on the way. Now those parents, with no money, resources, etc. are trying to provide for their children while the orphanage DOES have resources, food, water...

It's a heartbreaking situation.

I've been thinking about Haiti a lot in the last week. Yesterday, at church, I felt the weight of the tragedy throughout the entire service. When I got home, Dennis and I had a very frank discussion about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going as a family.

I have always been one of those people who is fascinated by trends, to a certain extent. I'm going to blame it on growing up during the Coca-cola sweatshirts/ jeans-with-a-triangle-on-the-rear late 80's/ early 90's, but my desire to keep-up-with-the-Jones' is deeper than that. I have found myself too fascinated by Pottery Barn and Anthropologie stores, too enthralled with decorating shows, too taken with the idea of making more visually perfect that which we have...

I'm breaking free from that thinking. We don't have cable tv, so I never watch decorating shows anymore, but I replaced some of that with some blogs that tend to focus on making things more and more pretty. I get that; I do. But when a tragedy like an earthquake that, for all intents and purposes, has debilitated an entire nation occurs and one is reminded that a thousand tragedies, perhaps not of this scope, but of real importance occur every day, well, making a pretty tassel for one's lamp seems so... unimportant.

I am trying not to judge others, though I confess I don't understand how this loss of life cannot be affecting everyone in some significant way. I am judging myself primarily. I think Dennis and I have been realizing over the past few months that we have choices to make in this life, and deliberations to process, and how act on those deliberations will determine how we and our children see this gift of life. We want them to know that while God blesses us with resources that allow us to live a beautiful life, we also have a profound responsibility to His kingdom. The fact is, the resources He's given us can also allow others to live a more beautiful life, sometimes just by the fact that they HAVE life.

I'm curious if others are feeling or have felt a similar nudge in the past few days? Or perhaps at another time?

Something you CAN do NOW for Haiti

I am reposting an email I received from a friend today. This is something YOU can do that would make a difference for Haiti. Please consider reposting this on your blog or facebook (you can create a note with the info and direct your facebook friends to it in your status update). We really CAN make a difference! Thanks! ~April

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A quick recap: My wife Cathy was in Haiti when the earthquake hit. Traveling with a mission group from the Carmelite Community of the Word from the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese, they were in a small village about 50 miles north of Port-au-Prince. No one the group was hurt and they are now in the Dominican Republic awaiting a flight this afternoon to Miami. In addition, our daughter and her husband are in the process of adopting two children (Wendy & Josiana--brother and sister) from Haiti. The two children are in an orphanage in Port-au-Prince. Fortunately, no one in the orphanage was hurt in the earthquake, but now they are threatened with a severe lack of drinking water and food.

Beyond for sending money to one of the relief agencies, there is little we can do as individuals to help. EXCEPT...

Like Wendy and Josiana, there are hundreds of Haitian orphans who are awaiting final approval for adoptions to families in the U.S. The building in Haiti where the adoptions are processed was destroyed in the earthquake. It may be years before the processing can resume.

However, the U.S. can grant temporary visas to all orphans whose adoptions were pending before the earthquake. With the grant of visas the oprhans could then come to the U.S. to live with their adoptive families, but be classified as "foster care" children until the final paperwork is completed. In granting the visas, the evacuation of the hundreds of orphans stuck in this limbo will free space in Haitian orphanages for the thousands of new orphans that have been created by this emergency. Please note that under U.S. rules, any family that applies to adopt a foreign child must first be certified as a foster care family, so there is a safe-guard system in place to insure that these oprhans who would come here under this plan will be safe.

PLEASE, PLEASE. Contact your U.S. Senators asking that they put pressure on the United States Citizenship and Immigrantion Service (USCIS) to grant "temporary visas" to all Haitian orphans now in orphanges awaiting the completion of their adoption process.

This is a real way to help and it will cost nothing. You can send Emails by going to the website for the United States Senate (http://www.senate.gov/) and finding the links to your two senators' websites.

If you have contacts or friends in any agency of the U.S. government who could push this idea with USCIS, please reach out to them to help, too.

Thank all of you for your concerns, good thoughts and most of all prayers for my family these past few days. ~Ed