Lessons About Haiti

Many people are buzzing about the 7.0 earthquake that happened in Haiti a couple days ago. The devastation is widespread and tragic. SO MANY PEOPLE have died or are dying right now! I took the opportunity today to teach Ladan a little bit about it. Here's what we did:

I showed him a map of the earth's plates and the various ways that they move against, toward, and away from each other. We talked about the effects of this movement. Then we built a Lincoln Log house on a flat square lego plate, put some people and animals inside, and shook it. The house crumbled on the plate, and then everything fell off. The people were trapped under the rubble, and we couldn't even find the mother. We talked about what that would be like if I were trapped underneath our house and no one could find me. We talked about the poverty that existed in Haiti long before the earthquake and how that impacts their ability to recover.

Then I showed him real pictures on the internet of the people and places in Haiti. He did see piles of bodies, which may be a lot for a five-year-old... but it's real... and it's what five-year-olds there are dealing with. We didn't stare at the images for a long period of time like the kids there are having to do, but he did get a glimpse of what has happened.

We talked about all the kinds of ways that people in Haiti are going to need help, the most important of which is to know and trust the Lord of heaven and earth for their help and salvation. Then we prayed for the people of Haiti. We prayed for the people who are helping them. And we prayed that we would know if there is any way that we can help them.

And now Ladan is sitting in his comfortable, stable home making disgusting sounds with his Flarp. It is yet another reminder to me that one of the biggest dangers we face in America is complacency. We like to think we know what's happening in the world because we get a 30-second report on the evening news. We like to think we know something about poverty because we sometimes have to choose between buying a new accessory or a dinner out... and can't have both at the same time. To put this in perspective, I was listening to a missionary pilot talk on the radio yesterday about how quite a few people in Haiti eat mud just to have something in their empty stomachs. THAT is poverty. And that was BEFORE the earthquake.

May God be merciful to the people of Haiti as they attempt to recover!

For an interesting read, check out the following article by Dr. Albert Mohler: "Does God Hate Haiti?"

And if you're looking for a way to help the people in Haiti, may I recommend that you consider giving to one of the following organizations, who will not only help provide physical aid but will provide the people of Haiti with the Gospel of Jesus:

Baptist Haiti Mission

Samaritan's Purse

Missionary Aviation Fellowship

Compassion International

For His Glory Adoption Outreach

There are many others out there, but these are a few I know about and am convinced will make good use of the funds they receive to help with aid efforts.

Fight the Freedom of Choice Act

Way to go Beth Bloom!!!! Beth is a senior in high school at our church, and she sent me the link to the petition to fight the Freedom of Choice Act. This is exactly the type of thing I was talking about in my last post! Please consider taking 30 seconds and signing the petition yourself.

Hopeless for the Helpless?

In the wake of Election Day 2008, I have heard many people commenting on how sad they are for unborn children who will be aborted in our country. I have to say that I am totally right there. If Obama and Congress move to pass the Freedom of Choice Act and lift the ban on partial-birth abortion, there will likely be more helpless babies killed than ever before. (For a description of partial-birth abortion, click here. Warning! It's horrifying!).

I read a few ads during this political season saying, "It's illegal to give a Tylenol to a child without parental consent, but it's okay to perform an abortion on that same child without consulting the parents. Something is wrong with this picture." Pretty wild if you think about it, but sadly it's the case in many states. In the end, the whole thing seems a bit hopeless, right?

Well, maybe not. Here's my take on it. It is totally true that the Lord is sovereign and that He is in control of all of this. We can fully trust Him. However, that doesn't mean that we have to sit back and wait around for some edict to come from the government making abortion illegal in order to protect the helpless unborn. Our sovereign Lord doesn't use only elected officials and their power to outlaw abortion as His means to save babies. If we really are pro-life, then here are a few possible ways we can help to save unborn children right now...

One obvious one is to volunteer at an established crisis pregnancy center. Or team up with other believers in your community to get the necessary training and start a crisis pregnancy center.

Another is to continually remain involved in public affairs and political issues. We can regularly contact our elected officials and let them hear from us on this matter. We should for sure be praying that the Lord softens their hearts, that they hear His voice, and that "pro-choice" officials change their minds.

We can also be proactive in many ways. For example, what about investing our lives in young men and women, whether they are our own or someone else's? What if we loved the Lord so much ourselves that it was contagious and these kids wanted more than anything to have what we have with Him? What if we spent time helping them to realize that, even if abortion is legal, it's wrong? And better yet, what if we spent time helping them to tell the difference between a good relationship and an ungodly one, helping them to realize that, besides pregnancy, there are MANY consequences of sex outside of marriage. The possibility of pregnancy is just one of a host of issues that comes along with doing things in the wrong order, and even perfect protection from pregnancy couldn't protect them from these terrible effects. We also need to teach them that there are MANY rewards and good reasons to save themselves for the one they will marry... and that it really is totally worth the wait. What if we didn't wait for these young people to "figure it out" on their own, and we actually cared enough about them to tell them "no" sometimes, even if they didn't like us very much for a while?

All of those same things apply to college students and grown adults. Even if we don't have the authority to tell them "no", we can take an opportunity to speak the truth to them and lovingly, but firmly, say something they may not want to hear. After all, while the majority of abortions are chosen by young people, there are plenty of adults who make the same choice for themselves.

This is no small battle, and it seems like we're fighting on an uphill slope that keeps getting steeper. Yet, we're not left without hope!

Let's say that each of us took seriously our responsibility to love people well and to proactively work to prevent bad relationships, inappropriate and unhelpful sexual behavior, and untimely pregnancy. What if we were able to help encourage men, women, boys, and girls in their walks with the Lord so that they were positively motivated by the right things? I wonder how many abortions would be prevented then?

And what if some of us were able to dedicate ourselves to serving and loving men, women, boys, and girls in the event that they do end up conceiving a child that they aren't sure they're ready for, in a crisis pregnancy center setting or not? I wonder how many abortions would be prevented then?

It is my encouragement to every person to study what it means to live life in a way that honors the Lord. Find out what it means to fulfill your God-given role as a man or woman. Find out what God says you should look for in a relationship or how He says you should carry out your relationship if you're already in one. Then be committed to that. Commit yourself to sharing that with others and pouring yourself into the next generation of young people who are making tough decisions every day. You will not only be preventing the death of unborn children, but you will be giving life to those who are already walking around outside the womb!

"Vote Your Conscience"

A friend sent me the link to this video produced by the Catholic Church. I would suggest that most of what's included in it pertains to all Christians, not just Catholics... so please take 3 and a half minutes to watch it.

The Hurricane That Hit Louisville

As many of you know, Hurricane Ike went through Galveston and Houston and came straight for Louisville. By the time it reached us on Sunday morning (the 14th), the rain was gone, but the wind was still 75-80 miles per hour. Trees and power lines all over town went down. We were driving out to the Murrays' for lunch after church that Sunday. We were almost there when suddenly a telephone pole snapped in half just about 40-50 yards ahead of us. When the transformer came crashing down, it exploded right in front of us. The top half of the pole was left tangled in the wires and dangling over the road. If we had gotten to that spot just a couple seconds earlier, that transformer could have exploded right on top of us. So we found another way to get to the Murrays', and we all enjoyed lunch without power.

On our way home, we saw ridiculously large trees laying all over homes and cars across town. When we entered our neighborhood, we saw that there were several large trees down. The main entrance had already been mostly cleared of a large tree that fell and spanned the entire roadway. The power was definitely out. We learned that about a half million people were out of power in our area and that it would be 10-14 days before everyone got power back (apparently, they had sent a bunch of our local folks down to the coast to help with Gustav clean-up, so they had to wait for them to return).

Thank goodness I had recently purchased new flashlights and maintained a stock of things like batteries and non-perishable food! Of course, I thought I was keeping them for something like a tornado... definitely not a hurricane. We had also purchased a new cooler right before Ladan's birthday party this summer. Our old one leaked and wouldn't hold ice.

Our food supply was actually my main concern. I had planned our meals really well and had acquired most of everything we'd needed to prepare them for the rest of the month. I was hoping to only spend about $25-$50 more for the rest of the month. Realizing that I couldn't complain if having to spend additional money out of our very tight budget was the worst of it, I still prayed that the Lord would help us keep our food from going to waste. We determined not to open the fridge and freezer so that as much of the cool air in them could stay put.

On Monday morning, we found out that all classes on campus would be cancelled for the entire week. So Chet was home for breakfast! I made pancakes and eggs on the grill. We have a side burner, so it wasn't difficult. The worst part is that a strong wind came toward the end and knocked the remaining uncooked eggs on the ground, making a pretty disgusting mess to clean up.

I decided it would be fun to follow up our breakfast with some coffee. So I marched out to the van and attempted to use our AC adapter to plug in the grinder and coffee pot. It worked GREAT for the grinder, and it warmed up the coffee pot, but I guess it takes more power to actually pump the water through. It didn't work, but at least now we know just in case this need/desire ever comes up in the future. You know, in case we're out camping for real sometime!

A few hours later, our neighbors (who happen to work at Outback Steakhouse) called and said that they had just picked up a box of 24 11-ounce steaks from the restaurant because it had no power and couldn't save the meat. Several of us pitched in veggies, and they invited a bunch of neighbors over to share in the fun. They even had one of the Outback grillers come over and perfect our steaks for us. We definitely weren't suffering!

Then we learned that the seminary was going to be serving dinner that night to the entire seminary community. They decided to serve three free meals a day to everyone for a couple of days (after which their power came back on, and people could purchase meals like normal if they wanted to). We were at dinner that Monday night and ran into Ryan Townsend, our church administrator. He told us that the power at the church had come back on that afternoon and that we could take our freezer stuff and put it in the church freezer! We went home to open our freezer for the first time. Since it was jammed full, everything was still totally frozen through! We transferred it to the church that night and didn't lose anything!

By Tuesday morning, our fridge wasn't very cool anymore, but since we had only opened it about twice, everything was still okay. We were able to find ice at a nearby gas station. It was not an easy thing to find for MANY people, but Chet happened to find it at the first place he stopped. AMAZING!!!!! I did decide to get rid of things like ranch dressing (which we don't often use anyway) and a few other containers that had just a tiny bit left. Otherwise, we didn't lose anything major from our refrigerator either.

Wednesday night our church provided dinner before church. I was at church late for a meeting, so the boys came home first. When they got here, OUR POWER WAS BACK ON!!!!!! Chet sent me a message right before I left the church letting me know it was back, so I was able to load up our freezer goods and bring them home.

I walked in the door, and Ladan shouted, "Mom! God gave us our light-tricity back!" He normally says electricity correctly, but he was so excited that it came out funny. Later that night I was putting him to bed. He walked down the hall to his room, turned, and looked up at his light switch. He slowly moved toward it and flipped the switch. It came on! He was once again SO EXCITED that he started jumping up and down with his hands in the air, screaming, "My light turned on!" He jumped up into my arms and gave me a massive hug and a kiss on my cheek! He prayed that night thanking God for everything that came back on and for taking care of us when our lights were off. Amen to that!

Some people were without power for quite a few days longer than we were. Most of the schools were out for at least a week. And many people are still cleaning up tree limbs and making repairs to their homes all over town.

Compared with many people, we really didn't have it bad at all.

• It was kind of like a camp experience, including the nightly visit to the "mess hall" for dinner... except we were staying in a really nice cabin with our own beds, running water (although cold), flushing toilets, and no bugs!
• We didn't lose any groceries other than a few items we don't use often anyway, and we really did make it through the rest of the month only spending $30 more!
• On top of that, we had meals provided for several days so that the groceries we had will end up going a lot farther than I thought they would.
• Our old antenna works now. Several weeks before the storm, we were having trouble getting even the most basic channels on our antenna, and it was very difficult to get anything to come through on the digital converter box. The problem with digital is that it's all or nothing, but the analog signals were terrible too. So we decided to try a new antenna from Radio Shack. We had 30 days to try it out. The power went out on day 26. By day 29, we decided to return it because the remote had never really worked, and it wasn't really great at getting a strong signal. When I took it back, they explained that these were extremely unusual problems for this model, but because of the power outage, they didn't have any others. I went home, and we figured we'd have to continue the hunt later. When the power came back on, we decided to just plug the old antenna in and see if we could pick up any news (we still hadn't heard anything about what kind of damage was done in Texas or anything). Well, something must have happened during the repairs, because our old antenna works FABULOUSLY now!!!!!!!! We don't have to spend that extra money at all, and if it weren't for that faulty Radio Shack antenna, we may have never known it! (Not that we would have "had" to spend the extra money, but I think you get my point.)
• We got to spend a lot of time with our friends and neighbors helping one another.
• We realized even more what the Body of Christ can do together when there is a need. We were so blessed by things as simple as our friends allowing us to shower in their homes, wash a couple loads of laundry, and store our frozen goods.
• Chet got to rest a little bit more since classes were cancelled for the entire week. Chet's schedule is especially challenging this semester (not the classes, but the times of them), so we were both getting really exhausted. The fact that he was able to catch up more on his sleep was a huge provision from the Lord.
• Our power returned literally hours before the heat returned to town. We didn't have a single sweaty day or night during the outage (although plenty of people across town did).

Hopefully you can see that none of these things are coincidences. And to think that there are probably a million other ways that the Lord meticulously cared for us that we don't have any clue about! That's enough to cause me to fall on my face before Him!

Healthy Foods at School... and the Ice Cream Man

I was watching the local news tonight, and they did a report on the new healthy lunches they're offering kids at the public schools this year. I think the traditional hot lunch is still an option, but I can't be sure. In any case, one of the options is to choose a "boxed" lunch... basically an assortment of "healthy" foods that represent all the foods groups put into a clear plastic disposable container.

First of all, can you even imagine the number of those plastic containers the school district will go through in a single day... let alone an entire school year... or many school years?!? Talk about a ridiculous amount of waste. As if the packaging from the individually packaged items inside isn't enough.

And more importantly, these are just a few of the healthy items I saw in the lunch boxes: chopped veggies, fruit, Scooby snacks, an "Uncrustables" peanut butter and jelly sandwich, etc.

Okay, obviously the veggies and fruit were healthy options, but come on... an Uncrustables sandwich? It's white bread with peanut butter made with hydrogenated oils and way too much jelly for the size of the sandwich. Scooby snacks? Now, I'm not going to go legalistic and say that one can never eat any of these items for any reason, but putting them in a school lunch and calling it healthy is over the top in my mind.

It's no wonder the lunch prices are going up this year... the problem is that most of the money will likely be thrown in the garbage every day.

Sorry for the soapbox post. I'll move on to other more productive conversations next time.

Actually, while I'm here, maybe I'll go ahead and ask this question: Do the ice cream men who drive through your neighborhood creep you out more than they did when you were a kid yourself? Or maybe it's not the men themselves but the fact that the ice cream trucks look like they're literally about to fall apart if they go over one more railroad track that makes me think it's all a little shady? Now, I'm not afraid of the ice cream men in a way that makes me think they're going to pull out a gun on me or something, but if I'm honest I think I'll say that I'll probably teach my kids to run INTO the house when the ice cream truck comes through. Am I crazy, or what?

Rescue In the Jungle

Many of you have heard or read about the 15 hostages in Colombia that have been recovered and freed. If not, you can read about it here. Twelve of them were Colombian, and three of them were Americans. They have been in captivity in the jungle of Colombia in something like a concentration camp environment operated by the guerrilla army in Colombia. These guerrilla armies have basically held the country under their control for 40 years. In addition to the 15 hostages recovered today, it is thought that they still have 700+ other hostages (according to CBS World News).

When Bill Clinton was in office, he executed a program to help the Colombian government, law enforcement, and armies to regain control of their country. President Bush fully supported this effort when he took over. Throughout the last 10 years or so, the American government has spent something like five to six billion dollars to help strengthen and train Colombian intelligence and military efforts.

Today's rescue was an entirely Colombian effort executed by Colombian intelligence and military forces. Apparently, the rescue went off without a hitch. Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician, was one of the individuals rescued. Of all the hostages held in Colombia right now (including the other possible 700+), she was the highest profile. She was the person the rebel guerrillas used as leverage to get what they wanted from the government. The guerrillas have lost an important "weapon" as a result of this rescue.

When I was watching the news report, I had tears in my eyes. I was excited that these people were rescued and that they can be reunited with their families. However, there was more behind my tears. It was the fact that this was an entirely Colombian operation. The US has been supporting them with funding and training for about a decade, and now they're at a point where they have very effectively won a battle against the guerrillas. Sure, the war is still going, but this seems to be a HUGE victory on so many levels. They are becoming more self-sufficient and successful at carrying these operations out on their own.

You know that my brother (Vernon) and his wife (Amber) as well as Chet's sister (Megan) and her husband (Mike) are involved in ministry in Southern Sudan. My brother and Amber have started an organization called His Voice for Sudan, and Megan and Mike work with a church in Midland, Texas that became involved with the ministry in Sudan when my brother was on staff there.

From the beginning, my brother's heart was to help the Sudanese people to become self-sufficient. He did not want to create a situation where the Sudanese in that area become permanently dependent on American churches. Instead, his goal has been to help develop and train the people in the communities to be able to take over for themselves... to produce their own food, educate their children, sell their goods, improve their health, and most importantly, to grow to love the Lord and train their children according to His Word. They work with the Southern Sudanese church leaders to achieve their goals. Whenever they start a new ministry or community development project, they hire all indigenous people and train them. These people will then turn around and train future generations. The goal is that, eventually, these communities will be strong enough to invest their own earnings into the development of the regions around them.

When I heard the story about the rescue in Colombia tonight, I was so encouraged! I just couldn't help but think about the ministry in Sudan (and other ministries to countries in similar situations) and get excited! These "small" victories are worth it all! All the money, investment of time, danger, hardship, heartache.... Christians all over America and Europe are involved with efforts to help the people of Southern Sudan rise up from under the oppression they've suffered for so long. The HARD work is worth it! These people are worth it! Ultimately, even if their circumstances on this planet never change, it is worth it to encourage them with the Truth of the Word. Their eternity is at stake. May the Word go into all Sudan and bear fruit. May there be a turning point in Sudan that brings peace and unity between the North and the South. May the Lord use the Christians of Southern Sudan to impact and change the rest of Southern Sudan, Northern Sudan, and the world! May the people of Southern Sudan execute a great rescue operation in their own country!

If you are interested in learning more about His Voice for Sudan, please visit their website. When you visit their homepage, you'll see that you can sign up to receive e-mail updates from the ministry. These e-mail messages are very helpful and encouraging, so I highly recommend that you take advantage of this option. For an overview of the history and current state of Sudan, you may want to check out the CIA World Factbook entry on Sudan.

As a side note, my brother has been doing a series on depression on his blog. There has been some very interesting dialogue in the comment section, so check it out if you get a chance.