Haiti Update II

So, after I posted my Haiti Update, I found out that things have radically changed.  Specifically, President Martelly announced late last week that he will be signing a Presidential Order requiring the use of an agency in adopting from Haiti.

The Haitian Senate had similar legislation, but it had not passed yet, and it is unclear whether it ever will.  Part of this law also may prevent women who have never married from adopting as it would require either a divorce decree or a death certificate as a method of proving the woman was heterosexual.  If you weren't ever married, you could not adopt.

What this likely means is that I cannot proceed with the adoption without hiring an agency.  This will at least double the cost.  While it is not clear if I can continue with the adoption using an agency to do the home study and some training classes, I believe that will require more than that.  At this point, I had to have a home study for US immigration.  The orphanage/creche I was using has decided to require an agency.  When Haiti becomes Hague compliant, this will be required anyway.

So, for me, this will require a rethink of the process.  I can start working with an agency, but don't know if spending $25,000+ is a wise decision when a domestic adoption may be much less than that.  In any event, I am still on track to be a foster parent starting this fall.

Haiti Update

I am still in the paperwork stage for the Haiti adoption.

I have about 75% of my dossier ready to go.  I'm only waiting on the homestudy (which hopefully will be done soon) and one reference letter.  My goal had been to send the dossier in before fall, and that does appear to be a possibility at this point in time.  I also have to sign a few documents, but that can wait until I have the rest of the dossier put together.

Adoptions in Haiti appear to be moving smoothly.  The orphanage I'm working with dozens of children who are awaiting matching, and few dossiers in process within the Haiti government.  Some of the dossiers are clearing the governmental process in a few months!

Can Toddlers Get It?

We have Bible School this week.  One of our groups is preschoolers - aged 3 to 5.  Many of them are used to going to day care, but don't know how to do many things.  We had to teach them to play duck, duck, goose, as most of them had no idea how to pat each other on the head and walk around the circle.

So, this got me to think about how many of those children understand our Bible stories.  Can a 3 year old grasp the concept of sin and what Christ's death means?  Do they have a long enough attention span and the ability to put together the ideas?

Some of them seem to get it, primarily because these are things they hear regularly at home and church.  Some of the unchurched kids have more difficulty, but hopefully in time, it will become a more familiar concept for them.

Bible Translations: ESV

The ESV Bible is one that I had never really used, as I grew up in a church that used NIV.  I did not have much experience with other translations of the Bible.  We did have a King James Bible in the house, and I learned Psalm 23 from it because I liked the way the words flowed better (must have been the early poet in me).

I had decided to buy an ESV, but couldn't really find a good reason to do it until a couple weeks ago when one of my classes required me to read three separate translations of the gospels.  So, I bought an ESV Study Bible.  I am impressed with all the maps, and footnotes in it (much like I was with my worn NIV Study Bible.  I find the introduction and explanation at the beginning to be  a fascinating look at how the translation committees determine how to translate various Hebrew and Greek words and meanings.

I haven't noticed significant differences from the NIV, but I haven't really compared line to line or verse to verse.  Hopefully, after I read each gospel in each translation, I'll have a better idea how the two differ. 

Now, I need to come up with another translation to use.  I like the New Living Translation (NLT) and have found it to differ from the NIV, usually in a more understandable manner.

What Bible Translations do you like?  Why?  Is which translation you use something you ever think about?

Remembering the Lord: Write This Down

Do you journal?  Do you make lists?  Both are great ways to remember things.  I love writing and do some journaling, but find my life is not interesting enough yet still too busy to write something everyday.  However, it is fun to go back and look through the events of my life and my feelings at the time.  I often find that the words remind me of how my life has changed since that snapshot of my life.

God encourages us to write things down to remember them.  Since the Exodus from Egypt, Jews recite the Shema twice a day.  The words are based on the instruction from God in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. 

God instructs that we are to love Him fully, and obey His law.  We are to impress God's word upon our hearts and upon our children.  God then explains how we are to accomplish this: by talking about Him and His word constantly daily and by reminding ourselves about them, including writing them down where we can see them as reminders.

By journaling to keep track of God's help and provision, we can remember His power, His work in our lives, and His great love.

And that's something to write about.

Half Marathon Training

I admit it - I've been slacking off on my training.  But today, I actually walked/ran 4 miles.  I decided I needed to put in some distance to help get things going.  It actually went fairly well, and I do still have some time to prepare as the half marathon is not until late September.

I've been looking for a training plan, but haven't turned up anything.  Apparently going from non-runner/couch potato to running a half marathon is not recommended or maybe it is better to say, it is not considered sane.  Perhaps a 5K would have been a better choice!

Abortion Outed on a Billboard?

A New Mexico man lashed out at his ex-girlfriend by posting a billboard proclaiming he would have a 2 month old child if the mother had not decided to abort the child.  Despite the fact that his name is not on the billboard, nor is hers, she is suing him for harassment and invading her privacy.  He claims free speech.

It seems to me that he is not violating her privacy, as she is not named, however, the people they know may recognize him and realize what she has done.

If abortion is a woman's right, then why is she embarrassed by the billboard?  Her friends are claiming it was a miscarriage, but it does not appear she is alleging that in the lawsuit.  If it was a miscarriage, it seems she should be alleging libel or slander, not harassment and privacy claims.

I find it ironic that the "right" to abortion is clashing with a specific right listed in the Constitution.  It seems that speech should win, but it didn't in the case of abortion protesters at abortion facilities.

Rob Bell's Love Wins

I finally finished reading Rob Bell's book Love Wins.  The short review is that Bell asks a lot of questions but never provides a satisfactory answer for them.  He seems to want to make everyone happy, and in the end, satisfies no one.

Bell's analysis is at times questionable.  For example, on page 47, he relates the story of John & James' mother requesting they be seated at Jesus' right and left.  Bell's analysis is "she doesn't want bigger mansions or larger piles of gold for them."  But rather, "she understood heaven to be about partnering with God to make a new and better world, one with increasingly complex and expansive expressions and dimensions of shalom, creativity, beauty and design."  Huh?    It seems to me that she was asking that they be rewarded with power, which then caused the other disciples to become indignant at her bold request.

Bell consistently refers to the Creation story as a poem.  It is hard to determine whether he does this to avoid the word "story" or if he is minimizing the truth found within the Creation story.  He also appears to subscribe to the idea that the writer of Revelation is not John the Beloved Disciple, but rather a pastor (small "P").  Not big issues, but may demonstrate how loose and fast he is with the rest of scripture.

Later in the book, Bell draws on church fathers to support his idea that God will reconcile with all people.  However, his citations leave much to be desired.  First, he never directly pinpoints were this support can be found within the church father's work.  Second, he fails to reveal that Origen was nearly excommunicated by the early church and the church councils for his views.  The other church fathers he cites are, by Bell's brief quotes, not affirming the idea of universalism, as he is inferring.

Bell harps upon God's love, but rarely mentions God's holiness.  To me, these are balanced concerns, to Bell, holiness is a long lost cousin no one invites to the party.  Bell harps on the idea that if God consigns some to hell, then God is cruel, vicious and mean, not loving.  Why is it mean to give someone exactly what they wanted?

Bell asserts that Jesus is found everywhere, declaring that Paul finds Jesus everywhere (p 144).  This seems very close to pantheism to me.  Because Jesus is everywhere, "he is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe." (p 155).  He seems to be arguing that Jesus is both exclusive and inclusive, and that the door of heaven is wide open to everyone, regardless what you believe.  In the extreme, the eucharist unites everyone, apparently including those who never partake of it.

Bell asks many questions, but never addresses the other hard ones - if everyone is saved, then will the person who murdered my loved one be in heaven? What about Hitler?  What about that ex who cheated on you?  What about the killers of missionaries?  Even if none of them ever felt remorse in this life, they still get into heaven?

Reading Bell's book quenches the fire of evangelism and sucks meaning out of the Christian faith.  Why bother trying to convert anyone to following Christ when God will allow them multiple chances until they say "yes" to him?  Jesus' death was a solution for everyone, but Bell never explains why God gave us free choice, the choice to sin, to begin with?  Isn't God cruel to put us through this life filled with sin, poverty, sickness, and sadness if He could have stopped it at the Garden of Eden?  If God gets what God wants, then our choices do not matter.  So why bother with this pathway?

Instant Gratification

I went grocery shopping today.  As I walked up and down the aisles, I realized how many food products I purchase are designed to make cooking faster.  There is precooked bacon, frozen meals, and packaged meal kits, all designed to make feeding you and your family faster.

Diet pills flourish because they promise instant results, disregarding the fact that the extra weight did not appear overnight.

We carry cellphones so that we can instantly connect with whomever, however we want.  We have wi-fi devices of various sorts so that we can instantly upload a picture of our vacation or daily lives.

News is available twenty-four hours a day.  You don't have to read a book or go to a movie to find out what the plot points are.  Movies are available on-demand, so we don't have to wait to see them on TV or on DVD.

We live in a culture of instant gratification.  It permeates everything we do, including our spiritual life.   The whole Judgment Day event was about people wanting to know now what God has hidden for later.

I see this in my own life when I want to know what my future holds now, instead of waiting for later.

But God firmly believes in delayed gratification.  He promised to Adam and Eve that he would send a redeemer, and He did - in His own time.  He promised to Abraham and David that He would send a Son who would reign forever, and He did - in His own time.  When Jesus returned to heaven, He promised He would return, and He will - in His own time.

These are the promises I need to remember.  Promises that everything does not happen instantly or upon my whim.  And this may truly be counter-cultural.

Counting the Cost

When I started seminary two years ago, I recognized that it would radically change my life.  Nearly all my vacation time would have to go towards attending the on campus intensives twice a year. (In fact, I'm not sure that I will have enough vacation toward the end, but I'll worry about that later).

I also knew that I would have much less free time than I used to have in order to read, blog, watch TV, surf the web, and to spend with family.

All of that has been true.  What I wasn't quite prepared for was the fact that much of it I don't miss.  TV is one thing I don't miss very much, although I do still watch my fair share of it.  My attendance at racing events has plummeted - I used to attend a race per week, now I'm lucky to get to one per season.

This weekend is my favorite weekend at Knoxville - Hall of Fame Inductions.  I've met scads of neat people, some famous, some not famous at all.  But listening to the old drivers set around and tell stories on one another is an unbelievable experience.  I've gotten to know several of the people who return each year.

But, I think I'm going to have to miss this weekend.  I have too many other things that must be completed (like a couple papers), and I have tons of projects that I keep having to put off due to homework or lack of time.  While it isn't a firm decision yet, it is one that I think I will have to make this year.