Love your enemy?

According to Google maps, I could drive 15 minutes south-east  from Mozdok, N. Ossetia-Alania, (early home of my Russia-born son, Roma) to the border of Chechnya, the homeland of the Boston Marathon terrorists. North Ossetia-Alania and Chechnya are bordering states. The former is predominately Christian, the latter, 95% Muslim.  Had Roma been born on the other side of that thin, invisible line, he might have been born and raised an adherent of Islam, and taught in the same manner as the marathon bombers. It almost seems an "accident" of birth to be born on the "wrong" side. I'm sure God sees it differently. 

Maybe because I have worked at a high school for 13 years, my reaction to the Boston Marathon terrorists is profound sadness. I am in no way minimizing the trauma of the victims of the bombing. I am heartsick about the lost lives and limbs, and lives forever altered.  I also listened to reports of prom groups including the "terrorist," his typical high school life, shocked teachers, and family photos of the 19-year-old in their homes.  By all estimations, the younger terrorist was an intelligent, "normal," "likable" kid, like so many I have known at my high school. What went so terribly wrong?

I have had many young friends at school over the years who I have often lamented  their lot in life. If they had grown up in a different home, with different circumstances, they would be so different.  That is true of all of us.  Such is life.  And yes, there is such a thing as "evil," but as Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn recognized, "If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.  But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."

Has our "America is great," fist-pumping reaction to killing/capturing the terrorists fueled more animosity, or brought us closer to peace? I imagine that scene playing out on a small scale, at the N.O.A–Chechnya border.  What if, instead of a show of defiance against hostility, the Christian residents in N.O.A.(or fill-in-the-blank) continued to lovingly serve their neighbors in Chechnya (or fill-in-the-blank). Would, at some  point, those being loved stop lobbing bombs back over the border?  Sure, one cannot negotiate with terrorists. Jesus didn't ask us to negotiate with them. He commanded us to love them! "Love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you."

Did Jesus know what he was asking is humanly impossible? We need Divine help.

I have seen posts on the internet that do not dignify the victims, nor edify Christ. We act like we are on two opposing teams, "evil" verses us, and we'll do whatever it takes to "win." Do I believe that God loves Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as much as He loves me? As hard as that is to fathom (for I am pretty lovable!), I suppose it is true, otherwise, how can He be God?

I believe Jesus' command is possible, and practical. German philosopher, Hegel, said, "We learn from history that we do not learn from history." The continuation and escalation of wars since his death 180 years ago certainly proves his point. The human race continues to enjoys its hatred, and we keep forgetting where our hatred leads us.

Freedom of (informed) choice

Roe versus Wade "celebrates" its fortieth anniversary this year. 

My kind and gentle daughter, Kellie, was spat upon a couple of weeks ago while she and other committed pro-lifers prayed silently in front of an abortion clinic in Pittsburgh, PA. Why are these silent, though visible, warriors seen as a threat? And where does such hatred come from? Abortion was once, to some, a impassioned impulse to help . . .

Bernard Nathanson was a compassionate young doctor who began his residency in an obstetric and gynecologic clinic in New York in the 1950s.  He attended hundreds of emergencies resulting from self-inflicted abortions and those performed by backstreet butchers.  The use of crude and unsanitary tools often left patients infected and hemorrhaging, and sometimes sterile, or dead.  Usually poor women fared far worse than affluent women who could pay for better “treatment.”  

Driven  by his desire for social equality, he cofounded the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, now known as the National Abortion Rights Action League, or NARAL.  In 1970, when New York relaxed its abortion laws, Nathanson opened the nation’s largest abortion clinic where he claims to have performed over 40,000 abortions, including two on mistresses whom he himself had impregnated.

After his efforts to legalize abortion on demand were rewarded in 1973 with Roe versus Wade, Nathanson accepted a new job in obstetrical services, although he continued to perform abortions. A dazzling new innovation, ultrasound technology, had suddenly made this field very exciting.  Doctors, for the first time ever, had a "window" into the uterus to observe the developing fetus. Nathanson was shocked by what he saw.  He could observe the intricate structure of the skeleton and the pumping heart, which can be detected as early as the eighteenth day after conception.  Even fingers and toes were visible.  All anatomical parts are present after only twelve weeks.  This new knowledge changed Dr. Nathanson. 

In a 1974 article for the New England Journal of Medicine, he wrote that in abortion “we are taking life,” and “the deliberate taking of life, even of a special order and under special circumstances, is an inexpressibly serious matter.”  He wasn’t suggesting an end to abortion, only that physicians “must work together to create a moral climate rich enough to provide for abortion, but sensitive enough to life to accommodate a profound sense of loss.” The article alienated his NARAL colleagues and sparked impassioned controversy.   One consequence he had not anticipated was invitations to speak at pro-life rallies.  Dr. Nathanson accepted, though he was clear that his opposition to abortion was based on science and not on any religious conviction; he, in fact, considered himself a “Jewish atheist.”  In his first book, Aborting America, published in 1979, he was critical, at that time, of the pro-lifers’ flawed religious point of view.  That year he stopped performing abortions.  His work with abortion had begun as a noble idea to help the poor.  The ultrasound technology had shed light on an even more helpless victim: the unborn. 

Nathanson had an epiphany about using the ultrasound equipment to illustrate his new conviction.   With permission from patients, he asked a colleague to record abortion procedures.  Even though he knew what happened during an abortion, what he saw on the screen repulsed him.  He saw babies being torn apart, tiny bodies trying in vain to scoot away from the probing, sucking tube intent on vacuuming them out of their safe sanctuary.  One twelve-week fetus, even after being mortally wounded, continued to thrash about, heart racing,  in obvious distress, opening its mouth in what could be best described as a scream of pain and fear. 

Believing the video’s message was essential, Nathanson released “The Silent Scream” in 1985.   About this time, Dr. Nathanson began his struggle with sleepless nights, depression, and guilt over his part of the mass slaughter of innocent babies.  He contemplated suicide more than once.  He read self-help books and sought counseling.    He could find no peace. After years of suffering and seeking, he found his absolution in a conversion to Christianity beginning in 1989. In a similar development, Norma McCorvey, better known as Jane Roe, the lead plaintiff of Roe v Wade fame, also had a dramatic Christian conversion in 1995. She regrets her role in the landmark case and is also now an outspoken pro-life advocate. 

Abortion on demand has been legal in this country for forty years. Even if it were repealed, abortions would not cease.  But the cavalier attitude toward abortion “rights” has dulled the moral conscience for what used to be a heart-wrenching decision made with agonizing resignation. Joycelyn Elders, Surgeon General in the Clinton Administration, said that abortion has “an important and positive public health effect.”  Never mind the women who suffer after the fact because they were ill-informed or ignorant of the negative physical and emotional consequences of abortion. Elders also said, "As a Christian, as an individual, as a doctor, I am absolutely opposed the the death penalty." 

Why does the  pro-choice camp fight even modest limits to their “right” to choose, for example, parental notification in the case of minors, optional sonograms before abortions, or even praying pro-lifers outside clinics?  Because they understand that abortion is about more than abortion.  It is a clash of worldviews: God and the sanctity of life versus the individual’s moral autonomy which is repulsed by any challenge to their personal "rights." 

Is abortion simply a matter of removing an unwanted blob of tissue, like a tumor or a wart, or is abortion the act of killing a human being with unique potential of personal and physical traits that cannot be replicated?  “Terminating a pregnancy” and even “abortion” can be vague, innocuous language, compared to “the deliberate taking of life” as Dr. Nathanson put it. It is deceitful and manipulative to call abortion anything but what it is. 

Let’s be honest, so pro-choice women can at least make an informed choice. 

Help from the Motherland

There was a spike in my blog's pageviews yesterday. When I checked my "audience," I was excited to learn a large percentage of my readership came from RUSSIA. Twenty one views from Russia! Being the techno ignoramus that I am, I am baffled at this new development. Perhaps because the profits from But the Greatest of These is Love go to orphan care for Russian orphans, my blog has had exposure in Russia.

So I started thinking . . .

My son, Roma, was born in 1994. We adopted him from Russia in 2002, at age seven. Before we left for Russia in April, 2002, we sought information about possible siblings. We had heard stories of families traveling to adopt one child, only to discover the existence of siblings. We wanted no surprises. We were not opposed to adopting a sibling group, but we wanted time to adjust to the idea.

We learned that Roma did indeed have siblings, a younger brother, Rostislav, and older sister, Lianna, born in 1999 and in 1984, respectively. The paper trail on little "Roostic" as Roma called him, disappeared when Roma entered the Mozdok Home for Children in 2000. We learned that Lianna was not available for adoption because of her age. She was almost eighteen.

As Roma learned to communicate in English, he would share stories of  Roostic and Lianna. Roma only remembered Roostic as a baby. He had more tender memories of Lianna. She would visit him in the orphanage and bring the little sweet-toothed boy (that much hasn't changed!) gifts of candy. Roma said that Lianna came one day crying and told him that Roostic was lost to them. I have hopefully guessed that perhaps Roostic was adopted, since he was a desirable baby at the time the children were removed from their family. We learned after we returned to the U.S. that Roma's doting sister could have been awarded custody of Roma if we had waited another month until she reached her 18th birthday. We were pushed through the process at an unusual speed. We completed our paperwork the end of January and left for Russia on April 22. We joked at the time that rules were being bent  to get our little dictator out of the country before he took over leadership! Is it possible that the paperwork was rushed through before Lianna hit her age of adulthood? I guess we will never know. I have always worried and prayed for Lianna. And for Roostic. Once, at a large reunion of adoptive families I spotted a boy younger than Roma that had his same spark, and resembled him, but Bruce assured me that boy was too old to be Roostic.

If I have readers in Russia, perhaps they know Lianna. And maybe a U.S. family adopted Roostic and lives close enough to visit.

Here is what I know of my son's family history. Last name: Sudzhashvili, father, Igor. They lived in North Ossetia, near the Caucasus Mountains. Lianna's birthday is May 31, 1984. Rostislav was born in December, 1999.

It might be a long shot to ask for help, but stranger things have happened! 

Use it or lose it: your mind!

Just when we thought the pendulum couldn't swing any further toward insanity in dealing with gun facsimile- toting tots, we are proven wrong. A seven-year-old Maryland boy was suspended earlier this month for nibbling his pop-tart into the shape of a hand gun, aiming it at his classmate, and uttering the forbidden words "bang, bang." Predictably, the principal was quick to bring down the gavel on the "pop-tart terrorist."

Can any society endure this level of stupidity?

Well, now our elected officials here in Maryland, with obviously nothing more pressing to do, have introduced legislation to deal with such foolishness. "The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013" is designed to prevent principals from suspending or expelling students who make "a hand shape or gesture resembling a gun" or bring to school "any object that resembles a gun but serves another purpose."

Maryland State Senator, J. B. Jennings, who introduced the bill, explained, "These kids can't comprehend what they are doing or the ramifications of their actions."

The same could be said about the adults issuing the over-the-top consequences for this new "sin." The harsh and irrational treatment, as well as the recorded suspensions on the children's permanent record could have lasting effects on their education. Some children even have probation officers and a police record!

This is the culture that adults have created for the children. We have created mega-hit violent video games that many experts claim alter a child's sense of reality, and blatant sexual content in the media that is proven to have ramifications, and our "leaders" are worried about imaginary guns? Is this perhaps an attempt to indoctrinate children in a worldview that demonizes firearms, instead of rooting out genuine diseases of our culture? This is a distraction!

If politicians and school officials really want to correct the problem of violence, they are going to have to go much deeper than throwing the book at imaginative children brandishing pretend guns.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. For example, gun ownership is common in Norway, yet Norway, a country of almost 5 million, has one of the lowest per-capita homicide rates in Europe. So what is our problem? It is much deeper than imaginary guns!  When a chronic sickness isn't healed, the symptoms do not go away. The same could be said about so called, gun control. People intent on doing harm will use other weapons at their disposal: their fists, baseball bats, knives, cars . . . planes.

It might be an appropriate time to mention that I have never owned a gun. Nor have I ever been outraged or terrified when a student at the high school where I work holds his fingers to his head like a gun in what has always been an innocuous show of boredom. Should I alert the deputy (another band-aid) now employed in the school system?

It is a pretty safe bet that finger, paper, or pop-tart guns have never harmed anyone. But the evidence of harm on young minds is mounting against the devastating results of media violence and graphic sexual content. Why is there no public or political outcry to ban these "weapons"? Why are parents shirking their duties of supervision ("super"  vision—think about it!) American schools have declined and are currently rated "average" globally, even though per-student spending is the highest in the world, with no close seconds. Something is out of kilter.

Instead of treating imaginative child's play as a pathology, we need to spend our time and money solving real problems. My blog is called "Consider it all joy" for a reason. I am sure that God is in control. He is relentlessly calling us back to Him. Jesus said, "Love God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind. Let us not forget the mind part.

God did not give us a spirit of fear

My spiritual memoir, But the Greatest of These is Love, has been out for over six months now. I am encouraged by the responses of the readers and thankful for those who have contacted me to share their reactions to my faith journey with God through adoption. I appreciate the cards, emails, and calls from friends. I have been surprised by the messages from complete strangers:

"We have lived such parallel lives . . . I adopted my two daughters from Russia, my second one also in April of 2002. I felt like I was sitting with you on the plane at Dulles!"

"I have always felt a nudge to adopt."

"Your story has made me question what I might have missed by not "listening" to God."

I even received a phone call from an apologetic gentleman who thought he might be out of line for using my home phone. I was, however, thrilled to hear from him, especially when he said my book was "phenomenal!"  He used that word to describe my little narrative! And people I have never met have blogged about my book, and written reviews on Amazon! I am humbled by this attention. I am also amused by the common description "honest" used in many of the correspondences, as if I could be anything but truthful when I am writing about my experiences with God. He is the main Character who knows this story better than I do. I could hardly make it up, especially by making myself look less like the self-centered mother I was, who wanted no part of God's up-close-and-personal invitation to join Him in taking care of the least of these, in my case, an orphan. Another common adjective used in describing my book is "powerful." How could I have given this book "power" apart from God? It is impossible. 

My fondest hope is that you will read But the Greatest of These is Love and be encouraged that God's will for our lives is infinitely richer than the safe lives we can plan for ourselves. The biggest obstacle to action is fear, and fear is always the enemy. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." (2 Timothy 1:7 NLT) All profits go to Orphan Care Resources, an organization that trains Christians in Russia and Ukraine to step out of fear and into faith to care for and adopt the orphaned children of their countries.

Please feel free to contact me on my home phone at 301-829-nine-zero-zero-four. Leave a message and I will get back to you. Everyone has a story. I would love to hear yours.  Find me on Facebook to read some of the public posts about my book and see photos from my journey.  I would appreciate your "like"s and comments. 

Teach the children well

Allow me my rantings . . .

This week I read here about an eight-year-old boy in Maryland who pointed his fingers like a gun at a class mate who pretended to shoot him with a bow and arrow as the class studied Native American culture. The "gun"-toting boy was suspended for "threatening to harm self or others." Although his "gun" was found to be unloaded, his crime was on par with bringing an actual weapon to school.

A five-year-old Pennsylvania girl was suspended for ten days for making a "terrorist threat" with her hot pink Hello Kitty bubble gun she and her friend were playing with as they pretended to be kitties.

A ten-year-old boy was taken into police custody in Virginia for showing his friends on the bus his toy gun  with an orange tip purchased from a dollar store. Hardly a look-a-like gun.  He had forgotten to take it out of his backpack from the weekend of play. He was charged with "brandishing a weapon" and fingerprinted.  He now has a juvenile record and a probation officer.

We throw the book at these youthful "offenders," punishing them to the fullest extent of the law, and then some.

On the opposite end of the power spectrum, wealthy businessmen, powerful politicians, superstar entertainers and athletes are given passes for their proven behaviors of lying, cheating, stealing, drug use, prostitution involvement, extra-marital affairs that often result in children out of wedlock, dalliances with young women in their employ, and the list goes on. These indiscretions are called "personal." Not only are their moral lapses forgiven but they are often elevated to a position of super stardom as political experts, high-paid speakers, narcissists who are immune to rules and punishment and consequences for bad behavior.  These are role models for our children. So now we circle back to the children.

Common sense is called for instead of this Keystone Kop lunacy. This from a country where directions on irons say, "Do not iron clothes on body," and on a portable stroller, "Caution: Remove infant before folding for storage," and my favorite (?): on a motorcycle helmet-mounted rear-view mirror, "Remember, objects in the mirror are actually behind you."

Really? What must other countries think of us?

If the Russians love their children too

In 1985, the English musician and songwriter, Sting, released a song entitled Russians (song and lyrics found here). I remember where I was when I first heard the chilling lyrics that ended, "What might save us, me and you is if the Russians love their children too."  Sting was writing about the threat of nuclear war, but the plague of being orphaned has devastated the children of Russian far more than war. The song's mournful chords and poignant words brought quick tears to my eyes. It also apparently planted a seed deep in my heart. It would take 17 years for the seed to germinate and deliver, at the age of seven, my youngest son, Roma from Russia.

In 1992, at their annual Spring concert, my eldest daughter's fifth grade chorus sang Song for a Russian Child, (found here) commemorating the fall of Communism. I stifled sobs, thankful for the dim lights. No one around me seemed so "touched." (Admittedly, I am a crier!) I think God was foreshadowing what was to come, softening my heart for the children of Russian. The particular Russia child He would send to me wouldn't be born for another two and a half years, but He watered the seed.

When Godless Communism inevitably failed, generations of Russians were optimistic, but untrained in love and altruism. (During the height of Communism, only 6-10 % of the population could be labeled as "believers in God.") Almost 800,000 Russian orphans are the consequence. Ninety-five percent are "social" orphans, meaning they have at least one parent who has either voluntarily turned them over to the state-run orphan system, or who has had their parental rights terminated by the courts. Less than 3%  are considered for adoption by Russian families.

Orphan Care Resources (OCR) is equipping believers to care for orphans, and thus, correcting the broken system. In light of Putin's pending ban on American adoptions, the success of OCR is just in the nick of time, as if God has heard the cry of his people and devised an alternate plan for His cast-off children. With the help of OCR, Russian and Ukrainian Christians are stepping up and being trained to answer God's call to take care of their country's forsaken children.

Recently compiled 2012 data (from the Russian OCR website) reveals hopeful news:

• 60 new training events advertised

• 67,862 potential adoptive parents who attended motivational events

• 24,000 prints resources distributed

• 3,049,434 hits on website, compared to 671,000 in 2011

• 1,150 people receiving regular resource and event updates, up from 400 in 2011

• 1,554 prospective parents attended pre-adoption training.

• 561 children placed with families

• 948 parents received post-adoption counseling

I pray the 3% of Russian adoptions by Russian parents mushrooms at such a rate that we cannot miss God's hand in the transformation.  As these new parents embrace God's call to take care of the "least of these," they will discover what Godless Communism could never teach them: the joy that comes from love, sacrifice, and obedience to God's call, when the Russians love their children too.