Pro Life Conference Update

The last few days brought a challenge: What will l do with the issue of pro life? I can pray for the end of abortion, but what more can I do? The Pro Life conference showed me that it is necessary to be a voice for the unborn and to help people who are considering abortion, to show them we are here for them  and they aren't alone, and with God's help and provision they can raise their child.

I've been praying a lot about the conference; for a change of hearts and a powerful affect on people. I didn't really realize I was praying about myself.

I can do much more than I've done before. As much as I hate to admit it, the abortion issue becomes old hat, and dull to my ears because I've heard it my whole life. Knowing someone who is considering an abortion brings it closer to home.

Yesterday a friend told me his sister is pregnant. I know her, I think she's 19 or 20, probably unmarried, and I know multiple people in her family from church. My friend said many people think of an unborn baby in the early stage as nothing more than a piece of meat (somehow this struck me stronger than "piece of tissue") and how he told his sister the things he heard at the conference; that very early the baby already has arms, legs, nose, gender, eye color, a heartbeat, etc. Hearing these things, she said she doesn't want an abortion.

Personally this challenged me because I could be either judgmental and accusative, or I can look for a way to help her keep her child. She can experience a lot of shame if she keeps her child and I don't want to be the one making her feel ashamed. She will feel much more ashamed inwardly if she aborts. If she has done wrong, there is a mercy seat in heaven and she can approach it in repentance and receive forgiveness. I want to be someone willing and available to encourage her, help her, and support her in a decision to keep her baby.

One thing that makes me want to do more in Pro Life ministry is my name. It took my parents quite some time to choose my name and I went a month or so without a first name. Finally the name they chose was Rachel Esther. In Matthew, the book of Jeremiah is quoted at the time that Herod commands all boys two years and younger to be slaughtered. It says "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted because they are no more." Esther was a woman who became queen over 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia by marriage and discovered a plot to kill all the Jews in the kingdom. She opened her mouth for them and their lives were saved.

Please continue praying for these things, that I would know what God wants me to do with this and that I would continue to be challenged, not stagnant or complacent. Pray for the saving of unborn lives, that God would make himself present through our efforts and that he would be the one helping people and making things right in this land where 3 out of every 4 people are aborted.

Bittersweet Farewell

How much do you love your church family, your work, friends, school and everything around which your life revolves?  What if suddenly one day you picked up and left it all to begin something new on the other side of the world?  That's where I am right now.

I have been immensely privileged to have a wonderful job over the last few months taking care of a little girl whom I like to call fetitsah. I know many wonderful people at my church who have nurtured me, children there I have nurtured, and people with whom I've grown and lived for many years.  I have such lovely friends and family and the house in which I live is very beautiful.  I have been blessed to live with some other young-adult women of God all of whom I love and respect very much and consider them all my sisters, although two of them were born that way.  When leaving it all to go to another place, all these things take on a different meaningfulness.  I love the people among whom I live.

Nevertheless, I am not too sad about leaving because I know I leave on good terms, not because of altercations or bad things happening, but because I go on to something else which God has put on my heart.  I can't say that I love my native home or Romania more, but I have a great love for both places.

I said I'm not very sad about leaving. It's true, but I will still miss the people here.

To what am I going?  Well one might say I have family in Romania as well as here.  No, I didn't grow up with them, they're not the same race or bloodline as I am, my involvement with them and theirs with mine is all relatively recent, but I know such wonderful people there.  I like the way my friend Amber says it, we have the same Father.

Caramidari

Street Scene, Calarasi

Kids in Roseti

Ten Levels high rise apartments, Calarasi