Linnea and I went and watched ‘Ocean’s 13’ yesterday. It was so nice to relax and watch a movie. We loved the story, I love it when the heist succeeds. I have fun watching George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and all those guys. It looks like they have fun acting.
I would have to say my favorite actor to watch is Brad Pitt, though. He just has ‘it’. Charisma or something. I loved his part in ‘Fight Club’, he almost motivated me to stick to a diet for a couple of days. The movie that really made me realize that life is just unfair is ‘Troy’. I almost started laughing when I watched Pitt as Achilles. A guy just does not have a chance compared with Brad Pitt. He can get any girl he wants.
I was flipping through a magazine at a coffee shop yesterday, and Brangelina was splashed all over the pages. Holding hands with their children…telling of their desire for a ‘rainbow’ family. Pitt has some new tattoos also. Angelina seems to have quite the influence on him, even if she is a little, uh, ‘off’ in my book (ever see the footage of her liplock with her own brother?).
In this spread, Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer, Sunday school teacher, ex-President, and leader of Habitat for Humanity, was also shown. Brad, Angelina, and Jimmy were doing a project together in India. The caption under one of the photos said that Pitt worked really hard and was an ordinary guy (yeah, right).
I think there is always some skepticism about celebrities and philanthropic work, because it is obviously good for publicity, but I almost think that these people actually believe in what they are doing, and it sure beats whatever Paris and Brittany are doing for publicity. I think that the people whose lives are being effected, whose lives are being improved don’t care if this was done for publicity.
As it is obvious that Hollywood sets the trend for so much of culture (I bought ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ yesterday to watch with one of the young teens here because he has a report to do on global warming…there is an ugly can of worms, Al Gore, global warming…subjects the ‘religious right’ love to trash, and one I won’t even go near, until, maybe after I watch the movie), I hope that these movie stars can influence someone in this world to care for orphans. There are so many orphans around the world, Swaziland itself has 60,000 orphans in a landmass the size of New Jersey. If the church won’t care for them, someone will. Maybe it is up to our movie stars to show the church how it is done.
In James 1:27 it says that religion that God finds pure and faultless is to care for the widows and orphans.
The leaders for the Vanguard University group here are named Andrew (he preached today on Jesus’s call for us to suffer for him, pretty convicting as I have been feeling sorry for myself) and Amanda. They are adopting a 6 month old girl from Ethiopia, to make a personal life-changing commitment to this pure and faultless religion. Andrew and Amanda also taught classes in their church, Mariners Church, in Orange County on adoption. They started and direct the adoption ministry at their church.
The purposes of this ministry are (1) to raise awareness that, yeah, actually, orphans are pretty close to the heart of God, and we have been given a responsibility to these children. (2) Education on how to adopt, and provide resources for people to be able to adopt. (3)Provide help and support for a family post-adoption, and (4) to provide ways for people to support orphans without actually having to adopt.
Andrew and Amanda gave me some stats, he said the numbers might not be exact, but they are close….Fifty percent of americans consider adopting. Thirty three percent of those people look to the church for guidance, and the church can (will?) not provide this guidance. The final number of people who consider adopting and then actually adopt is only 2%!
Some other stats that we were not sure of, but sound correct- there are 119,000 adoptable orphans in the US. True orphans, not kids whose parents can’t pay the bills and their kids are in the system, these are orphans, who have no one. There are 400,000 evangelical churches in the US. If 30% of these churches had just one family in them who understood God’s heart enough to actually do something about the orphans, then in the US there would be no more adoptable orphans. With the resources available to the american church, and our unwillingness to do anything, we need to WAKE UP and smell the sulfur fumes.
In Ezekiel 16:49, Ezekiel compares Jerusalem to Sodom (I am sure you have heard of Sodom, you know, the fire and brimstone because they were so evil), but says that Jerusalem has surpassed Sodom in her evil. Sodom’s sins are listed (ever hear of sodomy?) as, listen up because if I know what sodomy is, then I am feeling a little guilty myself,…PRIDE, GLUTTONY, AND LAZINESS (I wonder if God actually cares about those things?)…and to top it off-the poor and needy suffered outside her doors.
I wonder how many of our churches are committing sodomy?
How many churches are not growing because the poor and needy are suffering outside our doors?
My parents were foster parents. They are my biological parents, and I now truly believe they were doing a good thing, actually were pleasing God, but for a long time I hated what having a houseful of foster children did to our family, and most importantly, to me. (it is difficult on a family, because we are human, but I still don’t see anywhere in the Bible that God has called us to the easy life, and I hated having these siblings because I swallowed the belief that I was somehow entitled to…something…or everything(?)…anything I whined for?) But, because kids do what they see their parents do, I know that at some point we will adopt and take in foster children. For my adult years I have not understood God’s heart for the orphans, but spending time with Iris Ministries here and being in the orphanages has awakened, uh, something.
Another thought I have on these orphans is the kingdom mindset and return on investment. If Richard Rohr is correct about brain development, then we are overspending trying to reach people over 20. These old dogs do not want to learn new tricks, because their brains developed the way they did. So to develop ‘kingdom minds’ we as followers of Jesus have a responsibility to develop those minds from the time they are young. Or, again, someone else will develop these young minds in their own agenda.
If the verses in James and Ezekiel do not mean anything, check out these verses:
Jeremiah 22:16- The Lord says, “isn’t this what it means to know me?” to give “justice and help to the poor and needy”.
Job 29:12,13- where Job defends his life and speaks of his former blessings: “I assisted the poor in their need and the orphans who required help. I helped those without hope and they blessed me. And I caused the widows hearts to sing for joy”.
If the church doesn’t wake up to this need, then maybe Hollywood needs to.
