This week hasn’t felt as overwhelming as the last two. Time almost seems to be going too slowly, but I suppose I should enjoy it. I feel a little restless, but I have a few art projects in mind that should be relatively inexpensive to make. I’ve also been experimenting with some new recipes, and I’m excited to try a few more.
I’ve been living off of vegetarian chili and guacamole (not together) this week. It’s not uncommon for me to toss fresh baby spinach into my breakfast smoothies, but this week I combined it with Kiwi and had a tongue-tingling green breakfast. My coworkers were a bit grossed out, but it was so good. Today I made Cream-Cheese Filled Sweet Potato muffins. They weren’t as successful as I’d hoped, BUT I have a few changes in mind for next time. I decided that when I have kids I want to try and make my own baby food. It was easy and kind of fun prepping the sweet potatoes today. One of my coworkers gave me her recipe for homemade Chinese dumplings. That’s next on the list.
Working weekends has its pros and cons. Pros – you have 4 marvelous days off in a row, there are never long lines at the grocery store, and you can almost always find a free treadmill at the gym in the middle of the day…and you get paid more. Cons – you’re not exactly on the same social schedule as everyone else, and your days get all mixed up. This is my second day of four off and I’m already struggling with things to occupy my time for the next two days without spending money… the current lack of creativity is incredibly annoying.
To be quite frank, my life is currently boring and at times lonely. It comes with the transition – relationships take time to develop in a new place and new stage of life. So, while this post is very disjointed and while my blog has been mostly about food recently, I can see the Lord drawing me close to Him and closer to others. He has blessed me. He has blessed me. He has blessed me and I am learning to be thankful.
A verse that has been heavy on my heart, convicting in its context, has been James 1:27 – “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (Taken out of context this can sound legalistic and performance driven – but I’ll leave you to look up the passage).
There are about 225 million professing Christians living in America today.
There are almost ½ million children in the US in need of a loving home. Of those, about 130,000 of these children can be adopted immediately.
Stats from UNICEF:
o In Central and Eastern Europe alone, almost 1.5 million children live in public care
o In Russia, the annual number of ‘children left without parental care’ has more than doubled over the last 10 years, despite falling birth rates.
o Conflict has orphaned or separated 1 million children from their families in the 1990s.
o An estimated two to five per cent of the refugee population are unaccompanied children.
o An estimated 143 million children are orphaned by one or both parents. (‘Children on the Brink 2004. A Joint Report of New Orphan Estimates and a Framework for Action. UNICEF/UNAIDS/USAID. July 2004).
o The number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS is expected to jump to more than 25 million. In 12 African countries, projections show that orphans will comprise at least 15 per cent of all children under 15 years of age by 2010.
These statistics do not include children who have been sold or trafficked, nor do they reflect the portrait of orphans living in countries who fail to report orphan statistics. I think it’s easy to get distracted and overwhelmed with numbers… which is where I’ve been for a while. It’s harder to live with when you realize these are real kids. Caring for orphans and widows is not a special calling reserved for certain individuals – it’s a command and invitation to put my faith in action. I have no idea what that looks like right now in my life, but I do know that I want to live a life that makes sense. A life that lines up with what I believe. A life that reflects the Gospel.
All my love from this Tennessee state, <3 a
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