What is Adoption?

I have a close friend that has been hanging out with my family for almost twenty years. He frequented our house at mealtimes, we helped him with homework, he went on trips with us to my grandparents, he went to the same college as me. Elizabeth thinks it is funny how we say goodbye to each other. Whether in person or on the phone we always say, "Love you brother."

It did not start out that way, though. I remember one of the first times I met him I thought he was annoying. As I was biking through the neighborhood I felt like he was following me. Over the years we grew close. Our relationship went through plenty of ups and downs. We had our moments of being upset with each other or not wanting to have anything to do with each other. In retrospect that just enhances the idea that he was my brother. 

I remember coming home from college my freshman year and my friend and I went on a walk together. He spoke of his plans for the future and how my family had impacted him. That evening, I knew that despite all the times that I did not want to help him with homework, he was a part of my family.

My junior year of college I did not have a roommate but he might has well have been. In my room I had a bunk bed as well as a soft chair that would fold out into a mat. Over that year me, my friend, and his roommate rotated who slept on what. Due to life events it was a trying year for all of us. But we made it through together and we supported each other. Today we are still very close.

The Google definition is the action or fact of adopting or being adopted.I hate definitions like that. I am fairly certain I would have points taken away in English class if I had defined something like that. To adopt is to legally take another’s child and bring the child up as one’s own. Seems simple enough. When we adopt someone we are saying this person is a part of my family now and I am making myself responsible for their care. When I talk about my brothers I rarely say that Victor is adopted. I just state that I am the middle child. Now once they see us together anyone would be able to tell that he does not share the same genes. I like to tell people that Victor is black because we are twins but he stayed in the oven three days longer than me and it darkened him up a little.

Victor is legally my brother. Honestly, I thought he was my brother before we went through all the legal stuff. I remember being taken into a room to talk with the judge one-on-one. The judge asked me if I would consider Victor as my brother. I responded, “He already is isn't he?” He then asked if their was any reason Victor should not stay in our home. “No,” I said, “he is a part of our family" and I meant it.
In the case of my friend, we never went through the process. We never got a lawyer or paid court fees. We did not sign any sort of paperwork or speak with a judge but we adopted him. He is a part of my family and I do consider him my brother.

Adoption is commitment. As we continue to talk about adoption I want this to be in the forefront of your mind. Even in the legal sense of it, adoption does not stop once the paperwork has been filled out and a child's last name has been changed. Adoption is a constant work, a constant display of love, kindness, patience, and care.

Looking forward we are going to be discussing why we should adopt. If you would like to preemptively add to that discussion or if you care to air questions, comments, or accusations of heresy about the current post please feel free to do so.

For those that have run into trouble with following the blog, it does not seem to let you follow it unless you have a Blogger account. Don't worry though, you can still comment and I will continue to share my posts on Facebook to remind people.

The Awesomeness of Adoption

When I was seven years old a black kid, only three days younger than me, came to live with us. At the time we lived in Kansas City where my dad was trying to start a church. This was the start of my parents attempt at foster care.

Three years later, Victor legally became a part of our family. This, also, signaled the end of my parents attempt at foster care. They realized that if anyone came to live with us they would not be able to let them go without adopting them. For some reason, my parents decided that they did not want a million kids.

Over the next few weeks I am going to be writing about adoption. I recently preached on this subject to my local church. You can listen to it here. I believe this ties into the heart of You Are More Ministries and what we are about. In the course of these writings I will be answering four questions:

What is adoption?

Why should we adopt?

Who do we adopt?

How do we adopt?

As we go along in this discussion I would appreciate it if people chimed in with their stories of adoption, specifically, what has God taught you through the process?

My wife and I have never adopted a child before, other than financial support through Holt International, but we are working in that direction. Financial stability seems to be an important thing. Nevertheless, I do feel like the Lord has been picking at my heart about the subject of adoption so now I spew it to you.

This is the part where I should launch into question one but I will tease my readership with it and give them some time to answer the questions for themselves. Until next time, may you bask in the Father's love!

My Crash Test Children

Children are amazing. It makes no sense at first glance. These things that come out screaming and slimy, quickly begin to poop and pee everywhere. One minute your heart is melting looking at her and the next she's got you calling the in-laws begging for a baby sitter.

They get older and more active, AKA destructive. The day ends and you collapse from exhaustion after chasing her from here to there. Does she have a death wish? She is like the dodos from Ice Age. "Ooh pointy object. Must be a nose picker." "Don't mind me, just practicing my base jumping skills off the piano!" "Stairs plus wagon equal awesome ride, man."

I know I have always had crazy dreams of doing stunts but did my children have to be born with that dash of insanity?

Recently, I fell down the stairs to the basement. I can trip over air so it was not particularly surprising that my wife showed no sympathy. It hurt! My hips, my back, my shoulders all hurt and they hurt the next day. My youngest child bounced down some stone stairs not to long ago, also. It sounded really painful! She cried as one would expect but half an hour later she was fine. If I miss a step coming down the stairs it hurts the next day but my kids can head butt each other and keep on playing.

Children are truly resilient and not just to physical pain.

My grandpa has a commanding voice. Despite being an angel, I have been on the receiving end a few times. It cut through me like a flame thrower through ice cream. I have discovered I have that voice too. Unfortunately, my oldest child has experienced it. That instant look of hurt as I blow my top cuts deep. I instantly regret it.

After calming down I go and apologize. Her response, "Daddy, you made me sad, I love you." It never gets old.

"Daddy, I love you." Children are the closest thing to unconditional love that we experience outside of God.

I do not understand the psychology behind it. Maybe they have not had a chance to be calloused by life. Whatever it is, I want it. Even when I am hurt deeply I want to be able to say, "I forgive you" and let it go. I do not want to carry around bitterness and pain. It is not easy, though.

How much more enjoyable would life be if we did not let all kinds of junk pile on us? Kids see a world of endless wonder. We see all the ways that our children could get hurt no matter how big or small. We stay angry for hours after someone cuts us off in traffic. We bear grudges against our enemies long after we should have forgotten.

But a child says, "I love you."

God says I love you even while we are hurting him. I have never heard my wife say, "I know you are being dishonest but I love you." It does not make sense. "While we were still sinners Christ died for us."

How can I live that kind of love? How can I shrug off the bumps and bruises and let go of past hurts and say, "God made you. You are a beautiful creation. I love you."

One thing I know, it cannot be done without God. Let us discuss it. What helps you, the reader, show love even when it does not make sense? What helps you demonstrate the resilience of a child. Leave your comments below and thanks for reading.

Here's a little song to enjoy while you contemplate God's love.
http://youtu.be/5PcXd2ufFas

His Love Endures Forever

At Central Christian College one of my early morning classes was Theology. 7:30 a.m. is a great time discuss the ins and outs of theodicy, anthropology, hamartiology, Christology, pneumatology, snoozology, and soteriology, just to name a few. (Here's a link to Wikipedia if you want to know what all of those mean.) My professor was very educated and had a lot of good stuff to say. He also had a deep, sonorous voice that after going to bed around 2 or 3 made it easy to slip back into la-la-land. It was a beautiful place full of doves and trinitarian symbols and seas of glass.

DJ Snooze's Afternoon Snooz'ology

The biggest project we had to do in Theology was to write our own creed. We looked at the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed and some others that I cannot remember. I love old stuff like that so I really enjoyed reading the creeds. Coming up with our own did not seem so hard. A one page paper on my belief system is a piece of cake. I just have to use the right flow and poetic resonance for it to be beautiful. The hard part of this task was the ten page paper to support why I said what I believe. What does it mean when I say "I believe in the Resurrection"? The report was difficult but I learned a lot from it. I had to find Scripture to back up what I said. It really made me stop and evaluate why I believe what I believe.

Recently, I was reading Psalm 136. It has always felt like somewhat of a boring read because every other line says, "His love endures forever." This time as I was reading it God pretty much said, "I keep repeating it so that it will get through your thick skull!" I was struggling to see His love and this smacked me over the head, so I decided to right my own psalm as a reminder. Just like writing the creed for class this is my statement of faith. As you read it think about what God's love is and what it looks like to you.

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.
        His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the King of all things.
        His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Awesome Father:
        His love endures forever.
who showers His love on the broken and bruised,
       His love endures forever.
who hurts for our sins.
       His love endures forever.
Praise to the God of grace:
       His love endures forever.
who forgives us while we are still in sin,
       His love endures forever.
who holds nothing against us,
       His love endures forever.
and believes wholeheartedly in us.
       His love endures forever.
Praise to the One who says 'You Are More,'
       His love endures forever.
Who cries out our worth,
       His love endures forever.
and says 'I love you, always.'
       His love endures forever.
'You are my child, my beautiful creation.'
       His love endures forever.
Praise the one who offers redemption,
       His love endures forever.
who restores hearts and rebuilds marriages,
       His love endures forever.
who provides for all our needs.
       His love endures forever.
Glory to the Father who holds us in the dark,
       His love endures forever.
who speaks words of comfort and peace to our broken heart,
       His love endures forever.
who lifts us up when we cannot stand,
       His love endures forever.
who gives us wings excel.
       His love endures forever.
All glory to Him who sits on the throne,
       His love endures forever.
who came and died and rose;
       His love endures forever.
whose blood as shed for our sins.
       His love endures forever.
Thank you Father for living and loving.
       His love endures forever.
Thank you for never letting go.
       His love endures forever.
Thank you for crying, "You are more!"
       His love endures forever!

If you have experienced God's enduring love please share your story in the comments below. We all need a reminder from time to time that He is never letting go.

How 12 Years a Slave ruined my date

Recently, my wife and I went on a date, which sadly is a rare occurrence. Elizabeth had really been wanting to see "12 Years a Slave" especially after all the buzz it got at the Oscars. We missed it in the regular theater, but thankfully we have a second run theater here. After a long day of trying to complete my honey-do list we gathered up the kids, dropped them off at Grandma's and headed to dinner. We had a nice quick meal with a few laughs before heading to the Palace. It was nice to just chat and not have to talk over Ms. Megaphone and Ms. Inquisitive (strange how everyone thinks my children are so quiet).

My wife and I both knew this was probably going to be an emotional movie. Elizabeth apologized in advance for laughing at my more than likely tears. I contemplated the joys of theater popcorn and all the flavor powders you can put on it. I decided next time I would bring a small Tupperware container (anything with round lids are spill-proof!) that I could dump some flavors in. That way, partway through the tub of popcorn I can sprinkle that magical dust on it again. (You know what I am talking about movie-goers.)

By the time the movie ended I did not care about popcorn flavors, or being a good date, or going to get ice cream after. I just wanted to go home, hide under a blanket, and cry. I will not give away too much but the moment that Patsy was whipped I had to force myself to stay in my seat and watch. My body was shaking as tears ran down my face. Nothing in my life seemed to matter. My bits of trivia that I will randomly spout, my love of sweets, sitting in the shade reading a book. It all seemed so pointless. How could so much atrocity have existed? How could people not see them as fellow human beings? It is unfathomable.

I love Civil War history. Even saying that now bothers me a little bit. I like reading about battles and generals and what life was like in the 1860's army. Unfortunately, the very thing I love is an "effect" of something I despise, slavery. I remember watching "Amistad" in eighth grade and being heartbroken by the conditions on the slaver ships. "12 Years a Slave" took me to another level entirely. I know the comparison has been made by others already but when the movie ended I had that hollow feeling like at the end of "The Passion of the Christ" but worse--because it is not over!

The Civil War has ended. Blacks and whites have equal rights. Slavery is illegal but it is not over. It is not gone. Maybe whips are not employed, but people are still suffering, still being oppressed by others. Over the past few years this knowledge has slowly leaked out into our culture. We call it by a different name today but is the same thing, human trafficking.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime defines trafficking as "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or removal of organs."

The legaleze of that is dizzy-ing, but it does a good job of covering all the bases. Human trafficking is a difficult industry to track because it is so secretive. Someone might work on a farm and say "yes, I get a fair wage" out of fear from their master if they tell the truth. Statistics range from 20 million to 30 million people in some form of slavery today. Wichita, where I live, supposedly has a lot of people trafficked through it. Most of this is in the sex industry. Our ignorance says, "People are in prostitution because they want to make good money." Unfortunately, the truth is, many of them are runaways that have been entrapped and now cannot find a way out.

This problem is huge! There are more slaves now than at any other time in history. Recently, Kevin Austen of the Set Free movement came to speak at our church. He spoke quite a bit about what we buy. Sadly, so much of our clothing and our food is made from slavery. Cotton, silk, coffee, chocolate, sugar, pre-cut flowers, tomatoes. The list goes on and on. Listening to Kevin talk it felt like the only way to not support slavery was to make your own clothes from the cotton up and grow your own food. This is an impossible proposal.

What if we changed our buying habits?

My sister-in-law, Rebecca, has been doing this for some years now even if the rest of the family made fun of her. She does not eat chocolate or drink coffee unless it is Fair Trade. This can be difficult. More than once she has had to turn down something delicious, but her conviction is stronger than her desire for those things.  I am finally coming around to her way of thinking, except that it is Easter and there is so many Reese's and Cadbury Eggs to be had.

How do we fix this? How do we stand against so much oppression. One person cannot change this. Frederick Douglass could not end slavery by himself. It took and ever growing network of people to spread the message of freedom for the captives and ultimately a war. We cannot go to war to end this with guns and bombs because it is everywhere.

But we can say "No More!"

We can stop using chocolate, coffee, sugar unless it is Fair Trade. This is more expensive, but this should not stop us. Just buy less of the those items.  Is another Milky Way for only $0.89 really worth the knowledge that somewhere a man, woman, or child is working in the fields dreaming of freedom. We can support  for companies that are endeavoring to produce their products conflict free, such as Levi's. Free2work.org is a great resource for finding out what companies are actually trying. We can keep our eyes and ears open for the hurting around us. Speak love into a child's life before they run away and get sucked into slavery. I will touch on this at a later date but stand against pornography. It is rife with sex trafficking and feeds the desire that sends people to women in prostitution. This whole industry is about money. If we can drastically reduce the cash flow to businesses that use slave labor, they will reevaluate their supply chain. But we each have to say, "No More!"

If you have not seen "12 Years a Slave," I strongly recommend it. The book is an excellent read and gives more details. In the coming months, I will write more about human trafficking. To find out more yourself, Google it! Some organizations that are making a stand are Not for Sale, Set Free, International Justice Mission, the United Nations, Amnesty International, Salvation Army, and ICT SOS. Elizabeth and I are also part of a start up called You Are More Ministries. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. Please take the time to research this issue. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "If you want to see change in the world, you have to be the change." Will you join the modern day abolitionist movement and be the change?

The Ghost Story of Hell

After a long absence of enjoying the ins and outs of life I have returned. In my absence from this blog I have become an assistant manager and watched my wife give birth to a beautiful girl. She is now two and half weeks old. But that’s not what this blog is about, as you can probably tell by the title. Without further ado, “The Ghost Story of Hell.”

“If what you’re saying is true does that mean I am going to hell?”

What a question? How does one answer that and yet not be offensive.

“Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? That He died on the cross and took our sins? That He rose from the dead and offers us new life?”

In numerous discussions I’ve heard people say that God is so loving that He can’t really stand to see so many people go to Hell. I mean God must have a really big ego to say that we have to worship Him specifically. What about all the other religions that are all saying the same thing right?

“Worship the Lord Your God and serve Him only.”

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

I’m pretty sure all the other religions are not saying the same things. The passage to Heaven is not through having a “good” heart and caring about those around you. It does not matter how much you strive to be a better person and do great things for the world around you. Scripture specifically says that the only way is through Jesus.

“That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

It does not take much, but this one thing that God asks of us is such a huge gulf in people’s minds that many will not cross. And because of that the Lord’s judgment awaits. It’s not because God is sadistic but because the world is governed by rules and one of those is “The wages of sin is death.”

It is up to us if we will accept the free gift of Christ and fall in love with Him or if we will forever be distant from Him.

I’m not God. I don’t sit in the judgment. But I know what Scripture says. Rather than lording it over all the “sinners” of the world, this should greatly impact my attitude for them. If I am going too say that someone is going to go to Hell and give them a cursory explanation do I really care about them. If I know that someone is going to suffer eternal damnation shouldn’t I be down on my knees begging God to give me the right words and the time to say them.

Hell is too fictional for many of us. It’s like telling the story of the boy who cried wolf to a kid to scare him into telling the truth. When I told my friend Kenta that a wolf was going to come eat him if he kept lying I knew it wasn’t true. Scare tactics worked for Jonathan Edwards as he spoke to the masses (see “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”), but I think he believed in Hell as more than a ghost story.

See, we don’t want to go there because when one starts picturing their friends in the most miserable torment a burden of responsibility comes crashing down on us. Do we love our friends enough to daily pray for them and take advantage of every moment we get to show them who God is and what He offers. Isn’t it better to risk a friendship and plant a seed than for us to quietly let our friend go to the grave?

My heart has been opened to all of this and I have been praying that God give me a truly loving heart. If I love someone then I should be willing to risk ridicule, embarrassment, and possibly the loss of a friendship to show them how much I care about them and don’t want to see them in Hell. From a guy’s perspective, I know we do crazy things to win a girl and we put our heart out on our sleeve even though societally we are to remain cagey. Shouldn’t we do the same thing in this case, especially since the stakes are higher?

Pray about it. What name does God put in your head? How can you be praying for that person and how can you make sure that you get to hang out with him or her forever?

New Stuff

Hello all. Just letting you know I'm still here. I'm working on an interesting blog about apathy and another on tumors of the groin so there is a lot to look forward to. Make sure you're checking up on me every now and then. Oh, and I have changed it so that you don't have to have a gmail account to comment on the blog so everyone who has been waiting to say all sorts of terrible things about me now has the opportunity.

Thanks to everyone who is praying for me and my family as we meet in Iowa this coming weekend. Continue to be in prayer for God's working in this whole situation. Love you, peeps.