A Tale of Two Missions with Juan Williams dramatically demonstrates that when it comes to education, freedom always works.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. ~ Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV)

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court chose death and made abortion legal in the United States.

Since that day, nearly 55 million children created by God in His image have been murdered before ever being given a chance at life.

This joyous story of a reunion of a birth mother with her daughter conceived in rape and given up for adoption is unlikely to happen today. Children conceived in rape are routinely aborted, as if the children should be punished for the crimes of their fathers.

Added 1/23/12: I learned about a pro-life advocate who herself was conceived in rape. Rebecca Kiessling has a dramatic story to tell that changes hearts and minds about exceptions to abortion.

Through the years, I have written a number of posts about abortion and the sanctity of life, especially on the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that made the lives of unborn children less valuable under the law than the convenience of their mothers. Here are links to some of them:

• Absolute Truth vs Personal Opinion
• Abortion: Legalized Murder
• A Thirty-Six Year Tragedy
• The Most Basic Human Right: Life
• Slavery and Abortion – Moral Relatives
• The Case Against Abortion

O Lord Jesus Christ, who dost embrace children with the arms of thy mercy, and dost make them living members of thy Church; protect unborn children from being murdered in the womb; turn the hearts of lawmakers and people to end the evil abomination of abortion; and allow every child created by thee to fulfill thy plan for their life; through thy merits, O merciful Saviour, who with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest one God, world without end. Amen. (adapted from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer

photo credit: Caitlinator

Fortunately for slaves on Southern plantations, yes. Unfortunately for many other slaves around the world, no.

According to the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST):

There are more slaves in the world today than at any point in history. Slavery is more affordable, more wide-spread, and more entrenched in 2011 than it was in ancient Rome or the antebellum South of America. Modern-day slaves, also called human trafficking victims, can be male or female, from any country, or representing any ethnicity. They can be enslaved in any industry, although common industries include domestic servitude, agriculture, the commercial sex industry, factories, and the service industry. Human trafficking is truly a global crime.

Today, January 11th, is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Most of us believe that if we had lived during the days of slavery before the Civil War that we would have stood against it. Now there are more slaves than ever in history, and we all need to realize the magnitude of this problem and make our voices heard to bring an end to it.

Love 146, an organization to end sex slavery and exploitation, has posted quotes from the nineteenth century regarding slavery for the past several days. I recommend you begin with the first post and read them all. Then ask yourself if you feel compelled to help the cause of ending slavery of all kinds around the world.

November is National Adoption Month.

set aside each year to raise awareness about the adoption of children and youth from foster care. This year’s National Adoption Month initiative targets adoption professionals by focusing on ways to recruit and retain parents for the 107,000 children and youth in foster care waiting for adoptive families.

The issue of adoption is very important to me for two reasons:

1. As parents, Jack and I adopted our son at age 11.
2. As a passionate advocate for life, I want loving homes for children who are allowed to live through their birth rather than being killed in the womb.

We adopted our son more than three decades ago after years of being unable to have children of our own. Like most parents, we wanted a baby, but adoptable babies were scarce and still are. Millions of babies are murdered each year, while families desperate to have children remain childless. “Unwanted” babies may not be wanted by their birth parents, but they are wanted by parents who would love and care for them.

On the other hand, older children languish in foster care crying to be part of a family while parents looking for children never consider them because they aren’t newborns.

Older children can be extremely difficult because of their experiences during the early, formative years of their lives. Often, they have been removed from abusive or neglectful homes. Many have been bounced from foster home to foster home year after year. Educators may give them little attention. The children may have disabilities, physical and mental. They find it hard to love and accept love because they have been rejected so often in their young lives they have given up believing anyone will ever care for them. They may have been born with fetal alcohol syndrome or addiction to drugs their mothers took during pregnancy. Most likely, they will have low expectations about their own futures.

No, adopting an older child is not easy. It can be stressful and heartbreaking. I don’t talk about our experiences out of respect for the privacy of our son, who went through some difficult times but is doing well now.

Sometimes everything works out from the beginning, and the children adjust well. Other children end up in prison or on the streets in spite of their adoptive parents’ love and best efforts.

But what a blessing when a child who has been in all kinds of trouble through his teenage and early adult years turns his life around—gives up drugs and alcohol, gets a steady job, and marries. Without a loving family from whatever age he was adopted, that responsible adult might be in prison for life, homeless, or even dead from substance abuse or gang violence. Knowing your adult child is self-supporting and happy makes all the pain and heartache worthwhile.

There were few adoption and parenting resources available for us when we adopted our son. After the legal process was over, we were on our own, with no guidance on how to deal with the issues that had developed in the first eleven years of his life. I’m so glad to see so many resources available now to help adoptive parents understand what to expect and know how to best deal with problems that arise. If you want a child or children, consider adopting an older child who has been in foster care. Do your research and find the information you need about how to adopt and parenting after adoption.

Jack and I and our son would have all benefited from our having more information.

And from the other side of adoption, I encourage pregnant women who, for whatever reason, feel they can’t care for a baby to carry the baby to term and allow your baby life with a loving family through adoption. No, that’s not easy, either. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to carry a baby for nine months, then hand the child over to someone else. But it’s the most loving thing a mother can do if she doesn’t want the baby or can’t care for the child. Your baby and the adoptive parents will be blessed, and you can know that you have been the source of great happiness for other people.

You may not be a prospective adoptive parent or a birth mother, but you can share adoption information with anyone you know in either category. You can thank birth mothers who gave babies up for adoption and adoptive parents who made a good home for a child in foster care. You can raise awareness about adoption and thereby contribute to bringing children and parents together.

photo credit: tiswango

If you are a caregiver for an Alzheimer’s patient (or know one you’d like to help), I’d like to recommend a helpful book. The author Nancy Nicholson, in addition to being my sister, is a social work consultant with experience working with Alzheimer’s patients as well as personal experience as a caregiver for our father. Help! What Do I Do Now?: Caring for Your Loved One with Alzheimer’s is short and easy-to-read but packed with useful tips.

The video below shows the willing sacrifice of an Alzheimer’s caregiver, representative of millions of caregivers around the world.