Annie and I are so blessed. we live in maybe the most beautiful place in the world, a place where people save for a year or even years just to visit. we live in a great cottage that more than meets our needs, have a great, loving and supportive church family we now belong to and some great new friends. we understand that we are blessed with great jobs, health-care, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a roof over our heads. though the situation is currently not great, part of our job includes something to drive, and we are blessed in that. we are blessed with a loving, honest, giving and God fearing marriage.
We also understand that we are blessed in a way that few others yet are. we understand that our modest and even poor existence is rich compared to about 70% of the world. we have wanted for a while to adopt a child through Compassion International (
http://www.compassion.com/default.htm), but the condition has been that when we are financially stable we will do that. After a couple of weeks of conviction through various mediums (Dr. Kenneth Labberton's "The Dangerous Act of Worship", lots of stuff from Tony and Bart Campolo, and from hearing some sermons by Francis Chan @ Cornerstone Church in Simi Vally, CA, not to mention the Holy Spirit moving in our own personal devotions) we realized that while we are not lighting fires with cash, we definitely have more than enough to support a Compassion Child. So after an awesome and busy Holy Week where we helped brainstorm, plan, and run our church's Maundy Thursday service, and had a Good Friday service with our middle schoolers where God showed up bigger than we could imagine or prepare for, we came back to our cottage feeling convicted that we needed to do this today.
So Annie hopped on the computer and went to Compassion's website (above, in parentheses) and started looking for a child to adopt. I requested a Latin American child, and Annie wanted a girl (she said that we may not have any on our own! haha) and so we tried to narrow a search. But looking at all the different beautiful faces, and understanding that each one needed help made us feel a little overwhelmed. It is sometimes sad to think of how many children live in poverty, and then when you see a picture, the problem becomes way more real and personal, it has a name, age, place, and biography. It's to some extent heartbreaking, but as we made our way through, trying to choose, i prayed that God would show us clearly. I went away from the computer for a minute to do something, i don't remember what and when I returned, Annie asked, "what about her?" and pointed to Oriana, an 8 year old, beautiful little girl. when I read the first two items on her bio, i knew she was the one. She is from the Dominican Republic, where my mom's father's (my grandpa, abuelo) family is from, and then I looked at her birthday, and it was the same as my mom's. my personal connection was immediate, and Annie hadn't even immediately realized it. We settled on Oriana and adopted her that night online. Compassion will now mail us a packet with a hard copy of Oriana's picture, some stationary to write letters, and maybe other info, i don't know what exactly yet, but soon we get to have a relationship with this sweet little girl.
It still amazes me that we American's are lavishly rich and blessed. in one of his Nooma instructional dvd's Rob Bell, Pastor @ Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids Michigan quotes tons of statistics on poverty and how 1 billion people in the world don't have access to clean world, and how 1 million people wont eat today. But one of the most outrageous statistics is that experts have estimate that for us to remove poverty in the world and provide everyone in the world with clean water, adequate nutrition and health care, it would cost somewhere around $20 billion. Knowing that many corporations make way more than this yearly is of course startling, but consider another fact that Bell reminds, the US alone spends $20 billion every year. On ice cream. Think about this. America stops eating ice cream, and now poverty no longer exists. That is a powerful and amazing thought. of course, I don't suggest that everyone in America immediately and permanently ceases ice cream consumption. But what if we cut it in half and all the rest of the money went to organizations like Compassion, World Vision
, Children's Hunger Fund
, and the others that are alleviating poverty worldwide. maybe other people see this and jump on board. Suddenly our world is transformed and we move on to fight different problems like slavery, forced prostitution and other oppression that exists in the world. I literally get goosebumps thinking about how our generation can change the world in a way that will forever change the way we define poverty. I'm excited not only to be a part of that, but also to see it happen before my eyes.
So I'm writing all of this not to brag about how Annie and I are helping out sweet Oriana, but I'm writing this to show that it can be done. We have decided to make this a priority in our lives, and if that means we eat out less or don't buy as much meat in the store or whatever, we are committed to this little girl and this cause. Hopefully, more people will realize how rich we are, and how we can literally remove beautiful children from poverty. I can't wait till we can adopt another, and I cant wait for when we write, and communicate, and eventually visit and meet.
"Thy Kingdom come,
Thy Will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven"
(this is saying, God, make Your will done here on earth,
. we get a chance to watch God's Kingdom happen here on earth)
Only in Love
JD
this picture is not of Don's meadow, it is of our cottage and the mountains that I see every day, the mountains which lift immediately thousands of feet, and which face east, every new day witnessing one more incredible sunrise, Don's stuff made me think of these, The Ko'olau Mountains. I plan to put up more pictures, both of our Ko'olaus, and of the Cascades, close to where Don stayed.
