Saturday, October 20, 2012

Hope

My fast has ended I feel God encouraging me to place all my hope in him.  I read through the book 30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless, my hope seemed to drain out, the evil and oppression some live through is hard for me to comprehend and as I wait for our children to come home and I pray that they are not experiencing these kind of things, I must put all of my hope in him.

A couple of weeks ago I asked the church congregation to pray for our children as the wait seemed to be dragging on forever, and of course I got emotional as I always do when I talk about our adoption.  After church, people asked me if we'd been matched with a child yet, etc etc., and I knew they couldn't comprehend my bond to children I didn't know anything about or even how many children we're getting.  It's hard to explain that I know because God has told me there are two and it's hard to explain that God has already connected my heart to theirs and so my heart aches to hold them in my arms.  I know people mean well and they are trying to understand, and yet they don't understand.  I feel like an island in this adoption.  I see others on the horizon trying to see and understand but their view is limited and their understanding limited because their knowledge is all gathered from a distance.

A week or so after I shared at church, a lady stopped me after Sunday school and asked me how our adoption was going and I went into my usual explanation, but she stopped me and  held out her hand to me.  I didn't understand at first that she was trying to give me something.  She handed me a small, yellow glass disc and on it was the word HOPE.  She said, "you just hold on to this while you wait."  I teared up and thanked her.  She had touched my heart deeply, maybe she hadn't experienced the ups and downs of adoption but she had understood my despair and knew I needed hope that day.  I know she was being obedient to God, He had sent her to gently remind me where my hope should be placed. 

Romans 15:13
So I pray for you Gentiles that God who gives hope will keep you happy and full of peace as you believe in him.  I pray that God will help you overflow with hope in him through the Holy Spirit's power within you.

Leigha

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Female Suicide Bombers

Day 14

Definition:  Women who are recruited to die with explosive belts strapped around their waists o kill others under the guise of equality, the promise of rehabilitating a family member, or cleansing their own reputations.

Female suicide bombers believe their destiny is to become the bride of Allah in paradise.

Streets, hospitals, babies and children's events are named after "martyrs."

A portion of the book: "The women were awkwardly silent.  Malbrook spoke a little about her daughter, spoke with pride, but there was something else in her voice and manner.  She seemed weighted with sadness; a deep, abiding grief that she had never stopped carrying since the day she lost her daughter.  Her voice was soft.  She told the women that she still cried all the time, "day and night" for Wafa--who had died several years before.

One of the women went to Malbrook, and held her hand.  She looked into the older woman's eyes as she knelt beside her.  Then she prayed, never turning away her gaze.  Tears flowed on more than one face in the room.  'Did you know what she was going to do?'  one of the women asked, referring to Wafa's plans to kill herself as a female suicide bomber.

'No,' said her mother.  'If I had known, I would have stopped her.'
(30 Days of Prayer for he Voiceless)

Oh Father the you would hear the crys' of these desperate women.  That you would intervene.  I pray you would send missionaries to reveal to them the truth of your love, that they would not feel compelled to kill themselves and others.  Oh Father be with the victims and the families of those who are murdered, only you can heal the wound.
In Jesus name, Amen.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Pornography

Day 13

Definition: Pornography is the explicit depiction of sexual activity in literature, films, photography or the Internet, that stimulates erotic feelings.

The pornography industry is a $57 billion global business, $12 billion of this is in the US.  This is larger than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises in the US.

47% of Christian men say pornography is a a major problem in the home.

A portion of the book:  "She will be invited onto the movie screen of his mind, loyal to him as he trains his body and mind to think of her as an object to grope and ravage and touch.  And then with a a single movement of his finger, the flip of a page, she will be ushered back into the dark recesses of his mind.  With the click of his finger at  his computer, she will be filed away.  She will wait there until he tires of the other lovers, old an new: a fix, a stimulant.  His beautiful lover without a name." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

Oh Father forgive us for turning something so beautiful into something so harmful.  You intended sex to be between a husband and a wife an expression of love and when it is made into something it wasn't meant to be it wrecks havoc in so many lives.  Father help those trapped in pornography to break free and find freedom in you.  In Jesus name, Amen.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Barren Women

Day 12

Definition:  A woman incapable of conceiving or unable to get pregnant.

In some places motherhood is the only way for women to enhance their status within the family.

The impact of infertility is compounded because women are generally held responsible for reproductive failure.  This blame may result in divorce, husbands taking a second wife, difficulties with in-laws, domestic violence and economic abandonment.

This is a topic I know too well.  I don't even have to deal with many of the repercussions that many women do, but i know the pain that comes from not being able to bear a child.  God has used my infertility as a great blessing to us, we have children from Colombia and Ethiopia and without a very hard dry season of infertility we wouldn't have know the beauty of adoption.  It has taught us so much, we have a new deeper understanding of all that the Father has done for us and we better understand that he adopted us for his great pleasure.  but for many cultures infertility is viewed much differently and adoption isn't even in their vocabulary.

Let's read a portion of the book:  "I am barren.  Every month I hold my breath and say a prayer--many prayers--and every month the turning moon mocks my fragile hopes as it calls forth another river of blood.  Oh God, what would I give to stem that implacable tide!
I am despised by men who don't see any purpose for me apart from bearing children.  I am pitied by women who are more favored than I, and of whom I am jealous with an intensity that sometimes borders on madness.  I am utterly alone, and full of emptiness that devours me from the inside out -- a long, slow, agonizing death of the heart.  Little by little I am being eaten alive, and one day there will be nothing left." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

Oh Father that you would open the wombs of these women.  That you would hear their prayers just as you did with Leah and Rachel.  Oh Father, that cultures would change and women would be valued for who they are and not for how many sons they can produce.  Open eyes to see women the way that you see them.  In Jesus name Amen.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Incest

Day 11

Definition:  Sexual intercourse or other sexual activity between persons so closely related that marriage between them is legally or culturally prohibited.

68% of incest survivors were adult victims of rape or attempted rape.

In East Africa 9 out of 10 girls are abused by the people who they trust most.

A portion of the book:  "'You're a woman now Anna.'  By this , her uncle means that she can be kicked, mutilated, sold like a commodity, burnt, at the stake, raped.  'You're a woman now, Anna,' says her uncle.

When Anna closes her eyes to pray, the memory plays out in her mind. the nightmare of that night forces itself upon her against he will.  All at once she is on her uncle's farm again , in the barn.  There to see the new litter of kittens her uncle said were born early that morning.  Before she can ask him where the kittens are, his hand is on her shoulder.

There are no kittens.  Then it all happens.  Quickly.  He grabs her by each arm and pushes her into the hay.  The scream is sucked out of her chest as she is pushed harder against the ground.  Her voice is trapped somewhere between her stomach and her heart.  She can't pull away." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

It makes me so angry and sick to type these words, to imagine what this young girl was forced to endure.  I can't begin to imagine the suffering that she faced, by someone who was supposed to love and protect her. 

Oh God, I cry out to you with an anguished soul.  I pray you would come to these children, who are victim of incest and bring your healing to them.  I pray they would allow you to minister to them as only you can.  Bring people in their lives that can help them heal and overcome this evil violation.   I pray for your justice to come here on earth as it does in heaven.  I pray these perpetrators would not get away with their crimes.  I pray government officials would diligent tin caring out justice.  In Jesus name Amen.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

China

Day 10

Definition:  China is the  world's most populated country with over 1.3 billion people, 637.5 million of which are women.

The age old bias towards boys, combined with the one-child policy imposed since 1980, has produced the largest, the highest , and the longest gender imbalance in the world. 

Women, who are up to 9 months with their second or third child, may be taken to the hospital by regional population control officials for induced abortions.

A portion of the book:  "I have buried the memory of you deeply within.  My heart feels like a hardened tomb, cold, filled with no light.  But every year around this time, the time of your birth, a memory tremors through my body, sharper, more painful than the contractions that delivered you into our cruel world.

Your father was so excited that day, he was sure you would be a boy.  we drove for hours by us a week before your arrival, winding through rice fields so we could get help from a better doctor.  Your father held me to the bed, buried his face in my chest, cried with me after he quietly nodded his head at  the doctor who took you out of the room.

I wanted to scream at the doctor, "Just one!"  That's all you were, just one more girl, surly there would have been room and food enough in this country.  But no.  It is a cruel world.  Who am I to defy its rules?" (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

God created man in his own image...male and female he created them. Gen. 1:27

Oh, Father, reveal your truth to the Chinese people that one gender is not better than another.  Please Father let the value you have for women reign their hearts.  hear the cry of mothers all over China mourning for their lost daughters.  Be merciful Father. 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Female Labors

Day 9

Definition: Female labors are women who work too long, too hard, and too much, especially in back breaking manual labor.

The majority of women earn on average 3/4 of the pay of males for the same work. 

On one hectare farm in the Indian Himalayans, a pair of bullock's works 1064 hours. a man works 1212 hours and a woman 3485 hours in a year.

     A portion of the book:  The women of the village would laugh about it, look up from their work as they cooked around the fire, and push their tongues through spaces once filled by teeth and smile.  They tried to prepare me for the day when the village midwife would put a knife between my legs and cut me.
     "You"ll scream until you fade into dark dreams, then wake up groaning in pain.  The most pain you will ever know."
     "You'll pray to God that you could die.  It is one of the times in your life you"ll wish you were born a man."
     "But you won't have to work for a week."  And then they would all laugh.  Around the circle they would go, energized by each other's playfulness after another tiring day, each new comment like another stick thrown into the fire, until they felt warmed and comforted by the laughter.
     "A week of rest, of sleeping, of nothing."
     "You'll feel restless with so little to do."
     "But oh, you'll remember that week, daughter.  When you're out in the field planting seeds with your own hands, bent over the dry earth."
     " When you're walking all that way from the river with a jug of water on your head, the sun beating down on you."
     "When you're fetching firewood, or watering the goats."
     "When your husband chooses to lie with you at night--"
     "or in the morning, or in the afternoon!"
     "When you bury another baby in the ground, you"ll remember that week of rest."  The women sitting around the fire would become quiet.  Some busy again with work.  Some would stare into the fire.  Their faces betrayed their fatigue.  Skin weathered by wind and dryness and sun.  Bodies taut, hands strong and muscled. 
     "You'll wish you could bite that stick between your teeth and welcome the pain, if only to a have a few days rest." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

Who is like our God who rescues the poor from those too strong for them? Psalm 35:10

Can you imagine?  I can't.  What if I was born into that?  Why was I placed here?  In such a place of privilege and freedom.  I don't know and I don't understand, but I know we have a responsibility to help, to pray, to educate others, to help save these women.  We can make a difference even if it is just for one.  Imagine if you were that one.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Purdah

Day 8

Definition:  Purdah is the practice of the seclusion of women from public observation by covering their bodies from head to toe.  It is also a state of social isolation, which confines women to their homes.

Purdah is frequently carried to such extremes that women suffer from softening of bones, eczema and ulcers due to lack of sunlight.

In Bangladesh, woen have been attacked with acid because they were brave enough to be seen in public, transgressing the traditional boundaries of purdah.

Purdah includes the restriction of women's access to medical care.

A portion of the book:  "As Nailah entered the world, mourning and disappointment were all around her.  Rejection was written all over their faces.  Her father's pursed lips, silent curse; Grandmother and the other women's rigid shoulders, frozen in silence, heads bowed, looking at the ground; Uncle kissing father's cheek, holding him by the shoulders, whispering; Grandfather, with tears in his eyes.  Nailah's birth was a disaster because she was a girl. 

Mother's faceless face, covered in dark cloth ; another passage and another birth awaiting Nailah.  A covering to surround Nailah like the placenta that followed her out of her mother's body like a shadow, that once held her, hid her from her family's expectant view.  A layer to shadow her whole life behind walls meant to protect her modesty and the family's honor, behind closed doors and separate chambers.  A new skin to cover her skin, to hide it from sun, from wind, from roving eyes, the unchaste.  A dark layer to hide her tears and the smile few will ever see." ( 30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

Oh Father,
The oppression that these women face is beyond anything I can imagine.  The rejection from the whole family , just for being a girl?  How can it be?  The way Satan has permeated this society with these evil traditions is frightening.  Oh Father, that you would send your light into these dark places.  That the light of your love would bring release for the captives that you would reveal your love and perfect plan for their lives.  That they would know just how much you love your daughters. That doctors in these lands would speak out against these practices.  I pray you would open the eyes of the men in this society to see just how precious and valuable women are to you.  That these women would see themselves as you see them.  Oh Lord, begin to break down these strong holds that soon a generation of women would be able to feel the sun, wind, and rain upon their faces.
In Jesus name, Amen.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Eating Disorders

Day 7

Definition:  An eating disorder is a compulsion where a person's eating habits damage their health.  The eating may be too excessive (compulsive overeating), too limited (restricting), or cycles of binging and purging.

95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.

Eating disorders have been diagnosed in girls as young as seven.  81% of 10 year olds in the United States are afraid of being fat.

The average American Woman is 5'4" tall and weighs 140 lbs.  The average American model is 5'11" and weighs 117 lbs.

A portion of the book..."She thinks the problem is her body, but really it is in her mind.  She cannot see how thin she has become with self-hatred, how the skin of her face pulls tightly over her cheek bones and eye sockets, how her hips have all but disappeared.  She is miserable at the sight of herself. always unsatisfied, seeing herself as "too fat" when in reality, she has brought herself almost to a point of weightlessness.  She cannot hear her body's groaning; she has made it hungry but will no longer feed it.

She remembers the first time she put her fingers in the back of her throat, heart beating anxiously and how the fingers were like a gun and she hesitantly pushed the weapon further down her throat.  Then suddenly her stomach was empty.  She and been afraid at first, but it was simple and she painless, really.  The next day it was easier, she knew what to expect, knew that her stomach would cramp and tighten as she bent over the toilet, that if she ran the water at the sink people at the house could not hear.  It was her little secret.  She told herself she would only do it a few times a week, would continue exercising and only purge occasionally, just as a way to help her body rid itself of calories, to get control of the fat before the fat took control of her." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save, He takes great delight in you.  He will rejoice of you will singing and quiet you will his love.  Zeph 3:17

Dear Father, I pray these girls facing eating disorders, would be found out.  I pray people would open bathroom doors and see, really see the pain these young girls are in and help them seek help.  Open ours eyes to see those that are hurting right before our very eyes.  Oh Lord that these girls would see themselves as you see, beautifully and wonderfully made.  i pray that their minds' would be renewed by the power of your word.  Let us not turn a blind eye to the suffering around us, but let us rise up and help those in need.