Susan B. Anthony refused to pay a fine for voting because in the 1800s United States law prohibited women from voting. Anthony did the right thing. In 1920 American women secured the right to vote.
Jeremiah 1:11 Amplified Bible says, "Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said, I see a branch or shoot of an almond tree [the emblem of alertness and activity, blossoming in late winter]." Women have gone beyond the right to vote and are now pursuing global equality and freedom. In 1953 Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit became the first woman president of the United Nations General Assembly. Today Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the eldest of eight children, a mother of four children and an anti-apartheid activist, is the head of the African Union which is focusing on an African renaissance of growth, peace, stability and development.
Being pro-woman is not being anti-man. Galatians 3:27-29 New Living Translation Bible says, "And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you."
God promised Abraham that he would be blessed, be a blessing to others and would have an abundance of descendants. However, some people hate males and females. In China since 1971 336 million unborn girls and unborn boys have lost their lives through abortion and 222 men and women have been sterilized. Many of these abortions and sterilizations are forced. A ChinaAid News March 24, 2013, "With ChinaAid's Help, Two Victims of China's One-Child Policy Granted UNHCR Refugee Status" article reports that in 1995, when Guo Yanling was eight months pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. In 1999, she was forcibly sterilized. In 2006, she was imprisoned for not being able to pay a fine for having more than one child. The Chinese government also refused to issue household registrations to her and to her husband, Du Yiliang's, three children without which they are unable to attend school or receive government benefits. Guo Yanling's and Du Yiliang's abortion, sterilization, educational and economic terror experience is typical in China. What isn't nearly as typical is that with ChinaAid’s help, Guo Yanling and Du Yiliang have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commission on Refugees and are living in Thailand.
In America unborn baby boys and unborn baby girls had their right to life stolen by the 1973 US Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision.
While America has many Christians and Jews, America has a persistent problem in ensuring the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. The 1927 US Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell ruled that forced sterilization of people with disabilities was not a violation of their constitutional rights. By the 1970s more than 60,000 disabled people were sterilized without their consent.
We need to fully defeat the idea that only certain people can contribute to society and are entitled to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Former Mexican President Benito Juarez said, "El respecto ajeno es la paz" (The respect for the rights of others is peace.") Christian Minister and Civil Rights Activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God's universe is made; this is the way it is structured."
Showing posts with label Women's History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women's History. Show all posts
Monday, July 8, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
Big-Hearted Is Best For All People
1 Timothy 6:17-19 Amplified Bible says, "As for the rich in this world, charge them not to be proud and arrogant and contemptuous of others, nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches, but on God, Who richly and ceaselessly provides us with everything for [our] enjoyment. [Charge them] to do good, to be rich in good works, to be liberal and generous of heart, ready to share [with others], In this way laying up for themselves [the riches that endure forever as] a good foundation for the future, so that they may grasp that which is life indeed." Mary Church Terrell was born into a family of wealth. Her father, Robert Church, although born a slave became the South's first African American millionaire. Instead of leading a life of pride, arrogance and contempt for others, Mary Church Terrell led a life of good works.
Terrell was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a speaker, writer and activist for freedom and equal rights for African Americans and for women of all races. Terrell was big-hearted. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois were black leaders with different views on how to achieve African American progress. Terrell saw merit and areas of disagreement in both perspectives; yet she helped both men.
She also was a married woman who helped women of all races. Terrell worked with suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt. After American women gained the right to vote in 1920 Terrell organized women to become active in the Republican Party and in international groups. Terrell said, "We believe we can build the foundation of the next generation upon such a rock of morality, intelligence, and strength, that the floods of proscription, prejudice and persecution may descend upon it in torrents and yet it will not be moved."
While everyone will not be materially wealthy, God calls everyone to be big-hearted. Proscription, prejudice and persecution are heart problems. The remedy is the love of God living on the inside of creyentes (believers) and overflowing on the outside. 1 Corinthians 13:3-7 Amplified Bible says about love, "Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing. Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]."
The enemy of love, Satan, is always working to make our hearts small. While American women got the vote in 1920, in 1924 the US Immigration Act shut down almost all immigration from Asia and in 1973 the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision stole the right to life from unborn girls and unborn boys.
A Chinese proverb says, "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." The US House of Representatives lit a candle recently by passing the Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act which protects the life of unborn girls and unborn boys age 20 weeks and older. The Senate also lit a candle by passing immigration reform.
Un dicho says, "Clamor del pueblo sube al cielo" ("The outcry of a people rises to heaven.")
Now is a good time to pray passionately to God that the Senate will pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the House will pass immigration reform and President Barak Obama will sign both into law.
Terrell was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a speaker, writer and activist for freedom and equal rights for African Americans and for women of all races. Terrell was big-hearted. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois were black leaders with different views on how to achieve African American progress. Terrell saw merit and areas of disagreement in both perspectives; yet she helped both men.
She also was a married woman who helped women of all races. Terrell worked with suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt. After American women gained the right to vote in 1920 Terrell organized women to become active in the Republican Party and in international groups. Terrell said, "We believe we can build the foundation of the next generation upon such a rock of morality, intelligence, and strength, that the floods of proscription, prejudice and persecution may descend upon it in torrents and yet it will not be moved."
While everyone will not be materially wealthy, God calls everyone to be big-hearted. Proscription, prejudice and persecution are heart problems. The remedy is the love of God living on the inside of creyentes (believers) and overflowing on the outside. 1 Corinthians 13:3-7 Amplified Bible says about love, "Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing. Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]."
The enemy of love, Satan, is always working to make our hearts small. While American women got the vote in 1920, in 1924 the US Immigration Act shut down almost all immigration from Asia and in 1973 the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision stole the right to life from unborn girls and unborn boys.
A Chinese proverb says, "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." The US House of Representatives lit a candle recently by passing the Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act which protects the life of unborn girls and unborn boys age 20 weeks and older. The Senate also lit a candle by passing immigration reform.
Un dicho says, "Clamor del pueblo sube al cielo" ("The outcry of a people rises to heaven.")
Now is a good time to pray passionately to God that the Senate will pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the House will pass immigration reform and President Barak Obama will sign both into law.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness
1 Corinthians 11:11-12 Amplified Bible says, "Nevertheless, in [the plan of] the Lord and from His point of view woman is not apart from and independent of man, nor is man aloof from and independent of woman; For as woman was made from man, even so man is also born of woman; and all [whether male or female go forth] from God [as their Author]." God's ideal of working together in harmony under the leadership of God is not always implemented in reality. Where God's ideals are not implemented oppression is.
Young Molly Welsh was an employee in the late 17th century in Britain. Her employer said she stole a pail of milk. Welsh said a cow kicked over the pail and spilled the milk. The quarrel ended with Welsh's employer arresting her.
British law allowed for Molly to be hung for stealing. Instead she was sent to a tobacco farm in Maryland, which was a colony of Britain at the time.
For seven years Welsh worked as an indentured servant. Then she earned her freedom and rented a farm close to the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Within a few years she bought a small farm and two slaves one of which was a man with the last name Bannaka from the African country Senegal who said he had been a prince in his homeland.
Molly Welsh freed Bannaka and her other slave around 1696 and married Bannaka whose name changed to Banneky. They stayed on their farm because a marriage between a black man and a white woman wasn't legal.
Their eldest of four daughters, Mary, married a man named Robert who was from Guinea West Africa. Robert kept Mary's name of Banneky.
Mary and Robert Banneky had three girls and one boy named Benjamin born November 9, 1731. This Benjamin is the Benjamin Banneker famous in history as an astronomer, mathematician, inventor and writer. Molly Welsh was also very fond of her grandson who she introduced to the Bible and encouraged his love of learning.
An African Swahili proverb says, "The way you bring up a child is he way it grows up." Benjamin Banneker grew up in a family where women and men of different races loved each other. They also valued equality and freedom and were able to live and work together harmoniously under the leadership of God.
Benjamin Banneker was a free African American man who lived during the time of legal African American slavery in the United States. In 1791 Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson who was secretary of state to President George Washington and had earlier drafted and signed the US Declaration of Independence, which says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
The Chinese invented fireworks. Banneker's letter was fireworks comparing African American slavery to the bondage of the American colonies before they obtained independence from Britain. Banneker's letter to Jefferson advocating African American equality and freedom became famous and says:
"Suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude; look back, I entreat you ....You were then impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature; but, sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence, so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others."
The Brazo River in Texas was named Los Brazos de Dios which means In the Arms of God. God does not use His arms for criminal acts to oppress humanity. He has His arms open to a now and forever relationship with a wide variety of people. John 17:3 Amplified Bible says, "And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent."
God is the Author of freedom, equality, peace and all that is good and wants to share His goodness with many. Many Christians and Christian ideas are in America and elsewhere. Today in America Welsh and Bannaka would not have to hide from the law their interracial, marital love on a Maryland farm; African Americans are not subject to slavery, and Welsh would not be hanged for allegedly stealing in Britain. However, some people are still oppressed. "As long as there is one ... oppressed human being in this world the struggle la lucha continua," said Dr. Georgia McMurray, educator, writer, activist who had the progressively degenerative muscle disorder Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
On July 4th America celebrates independence from Britain. The ultimate source of oppression is Satan. God is the Liberator. Is there a day you celebrate your liberation from Satan? Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Young Molly Welsh was an employee in the late 17th century in Britain. Her employer said she stole a pail of milk. Welsh said a cow kicked over the pail and spilled the milk. The quarrel ended with Welsh's employer arresting her.
British law allowed for Molly to be hung for stealing. Instead she was sent to a tobacco farm in Maryland, which was a colony of Britain at the time.
For seven years Welsh worked as an indentured servant. Then she earned her freedom and rented a farm close to the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Within a few years she bought a small farm and two slaves one of which was a man with the last name Bannaka from the African country Senegal who said he had been a prince in his homeland.
Molly Welsh freed Bannaka and her other slave around 1696 and married Bannaka whose name changed to Banneky. They stayed on their farm because a marriage between a black man and a white woman wasn't legal.
Their eldest of four daughters, Mary, married a man named Robert who was from Guinea West Africa. Robert kept Mary's name of Banneky.
Mary and Robert Banneky had three girls and one boy named Benjamin born November 9, 1731. This Benjamin is the Benjamin Banneker famous in history as an astronomer, mathematician, inventor and writer. Molly Welsh was also very fond of her grandson who she introduced to the Bible and encouraged his love of learning.
An African Swahili proverb says, "The way you bring up a child is he way it grows up." Benjamin Banneker grew up in a family where women and men of different races loved each other. They also valued equality and freedom and were able to live and work together harmoniously under the leadership of God.
Benjamin Banneker was a free African American man who lived during the time of legal African American slavery in the United States. In 1791 Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson who was secretary of state to President George Washington and had earlier drafted and signed the US Declaration of Independence, which says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
The Chinese invented fireworks. Banneker's letter was fireworks comparing African American slavery to the bondage of the American colonies before they obtained independence from Britain. Banneker's letter to Jefferson advocating African American equality and freedom became famous and says:
"Suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude; look back, I entreat you ....You were then impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature; but, sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence, so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others."
The Brazo River in Texas was named Los Brazos de Dios which means In the Arms of God. God does not use His arms for criminal acts to oppress humanity. He has His arms open to a now and forever relationship with a wide variety of people. John 17:3 Amplified Bible says, "And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent."
God is the Author of freedom, equality, peace and all that is good and wants to share His goodness with many. Many Christians and Christian ideas are in America and elsewhere. Today in America Welsh and Bannaka would not have to hide from the law their interracial, marital love on a Maryland farm; African Americans are not subject to slavery, and Welsh would not be hanged for allegedly stealing in Britain. However, some people are still oppressed. "As long as there is one ... oppressed human being in this world the struggle la lucha continua," said Dr. Georgia McMurray, educator, writer, activist who had the progressively degenerative muscle disorder Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
On July 4th America celebrates independence from Britain. The ultimate source of oppression is Satan. God is the Liberator. Is there a day you celebrate your liberation from Satan? Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Whose Time Is It?
Ephesians 5:15-17 Amplified Bible says, "Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil. Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is."
The Chinese invented the mechanical clock. It is never a good, productive use of time to be outside the will of God.
Jeanne Louise Calment was 122 when she died in 1997 in France; she holds the record for the world's longest living person in modern times. Jiroemon Kimura died at age 116 in Japan in 2013 and is the world's oldest man in modern times. No matter how long we live, this earthly life will end. Ending it without a relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit equals a second death. Revelation 20:14-15 English Standard Version Bible says, "Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." Creyentes (believers) have their name written in the book of life and need not waste any time now or ever.
The second death can be avoided. John 1:12 Amplified Bible says, "But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name—"
Helen Keller is a creyente who was blind and deaf. As a young person and even into her 70s and beyond, Keller traveled making speeches to help people live better lives. Keller said, "I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God."
A North African proverb says, "Every day of your life is a page in your history." Keller used her time on earth to create an outstanding history. She was a creyente who had a several-decades-long friendship and business partnership with Anne Sullivan and was a writer, speaker and advocate. Keller spoke out for a variety of causes including disability rights, women's right to vote, just working conditions for the poor and international peace.
God probably said to Helen Keller at the end of her earthly life "... Well done, you upright (honorable, admirable) and faithful servant! You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little; I will put you in charge of much. Enter into and share the joy (the delight, the blessedness) which your master enjoys" (Matthew 25:21 Amplified Bible.)
Do you believe God will say likewise to you? Are you making history pages in God's timing and will?
The Chinese invented the mechanical clock. It is never a good, productive use of time to be outside the will of God.
Jeanne Louise Calment was 122 when she died in 1997 in France; she holds the record for the world's longest living person in modern times. Jiroemon Kimura died at age 116 in Japan in 2013 and is the world's oldest man in modern times. No matter how long we live, this earthly life will end. Ending it without a relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit equals a second death. Revelation 20:14-15 English Standard Version Bible says, "Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." Creyentes (believers) have their name written in the book of life and need not waste any time now or ever.
The second death can be avoided. John 1:12 Amplified Bible says, "But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name—"
Helen Keller is a creyente who was blind and deaf. As a young person and even into her 70s and beyond, Keller traveled making speeches to help people live better lives. Keller said, "I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God."
A North African proverb says, "Every day of your life is a page in your history." Keller used her time on earth to create an outstanding history. She was a creyente who had a several-decades-long friendship and business partnership with Anne Sullivan and was a writer, speaker and advocate. Keller spoke out for a variety of causes including disability rights, women's right to vote, just working conditions for the poor and international peace.
God probably said to Helen Keller at the end of her earthly life "... Well done, you upright (honorable, admirable) and faithful servant! You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little; I will put you in charge of much. Enter into and share the joy (the delight, the blessedness) which your master enjoys" (Matthew 25:21 Amplified Bible.)
Do you believe God will say likewise to you? Are you making history pages in God's timing and will?
Friday, May 24, 2013
Opportunity Should Be Grabbed
In addition to conducting runaway slaves in the American South to freedom in the American North and in Canada via the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman (whose previous name was Araminta "Minty" Ross), also gave speeches about African American freedom and women's rights.
Sometimes during her speeches Tubman had seizures and fell asleep because of a disability acquired as a teenager when a slave overseer threw a lead brick at her head intended for a runaway slave.
Some stay in anger, self-pity, unforgiveness, bitterness and other negativity in response to sickness or disability, spoiling their relationship with self and others.
The lead brick cracked Minty Ross' skull. She was unconscious for a while. For months she could not speak or walk. However, Minty Ross was grateful to God for saving her life. Also the slave for whom the lead brick was intended got away to freedom. Word about Minty got around the slave quarters, and from that time on instead of being called the childhood name of "Minty," her name was changed to her mother's name of "Harriet" for her sacrifice that helped someone else.
Over time Harriet Ross also embraced the concept of Romans 12:21 Complete Jewish Bible which says, "Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good."
After marrying John Tubman, Harriet Tubman ran away to freedom. Then she helped 300 slaves to runaway to freedom via serving as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman also joined the Union Army during the Civil War and served in various capacities. In 1863 she rescued about 800 slaves via a raid on a Confederate camp. Nobody knows how many ex-slaves she saved by nursing them back to health in the Union military camps during the Civil War.
Tubman didn't let her seizures and sleeping spells stop her from public speaking, conducting on the Underground Railroad, leading a military raid and serving humanity in other capacities. She was thankful for what God gave and used it to the max.
A Persian proverb says, "Opportunity should be grabbed."
Alfredo RodrÃguez was a jazz pianist in Cuba. In 2006, RodrÃguez was selected to play at the Montreux Jazz Festival. While there, he performed for Quincy Jones, who was so impressed that he asked to work with RodrÃguez. James C. McKinley Jr. writes in his May 22, 2013, The New York Times article "Latest in His Hyphenate? Manager Quincy Jones, After Years as a Performer-Producer, Now Scouts Young Talent," "Lured by the offer, Mr. RodrÃguez defected from Cuba on a trip to Mexico in 2009, then waded across the Rio Grande at Laredo, Tex., with nothing but a few T-shirts and a suitcase full of his compositions. The vice president of Quincy Jones Productions, Adam Fell, flew Mr. Alfredo to Los Angeles, then housed him for two years while he started touring and working on a debut album."
Some Nigerians give a kola nut to signify friendship. Harriet Tubman signified her friendship to others through service. Quincy Jones and Adam Fell combined friendship and business. Pastor and US Citizen Saeed Abedini has a friend in the American Center for Law and Justice who is organizing the letter writing and petition signing campaign to free Pastor Abedini from Evin prison in Tehran, Iran, at http://www.savesaeed.org. Pastor Abedini is in jail because he helped set up Christian house churches and a secular orphanage in Iran. Zhang Futao has a friend in ChinaAid. ChinaAid News reports in the May 18, 2013, article "Family Planning Officials in Jiangsu Province Beat Farmer to Near Death for Unauthorized Births," "Zhang Futao, of Group Five, Nangou Village, in the town of Beigou, in Xinyi city, is now hospitalized in critical condition and fighting for his life after suffering severe head injuries from the beating by the family planning officials who burst into his home at about 8 p.m. on Wednesday (May 15). They then kidnapped Zhang to Tashan Brigade and made his family pay a ransom." Zhang Futao and his wife have three children, a girl age 12, a boy age six and another girl age 4. China has a one child policy. Read the full story at http://www.chinaaid.org/2013/05/family-planning-officials-in-jiangsu.html.
People everywhere need friends. Enemies exist like Kermit Gosnell and Douglas Karpen who perform abortions killing baby boys and baby girls. Abortionists like Karpen and Gosnell even kill babies born alive after botched abortions, adolescents and women.
Fifteen-year old Denise Montoya hemorrhaged and died after a 26-week abortion done by Douglas Karpen. "“When he did an abortion, especially an over 20 week abortion, most of the time the fetus would come completely out before he cut the spinal cord or he introduced one of the instruments into the soft spot of the fetus, in order to kill the fetus,” said Deborah Edge, who worked as a surgical assistant for Karpen for about 15 years until leaving in March, 2011;" read more at http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/.
Becoming a good friend is a journey. A Japanese proverb says, "Even a thousand-mile journey begins with the first step." The first step to being a good friend is to receive a relationship with the best Friend God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost (1 X 1 X 1 = 1). We cannot be the friend we should be and love people the way they need to be loved without the love and the power of God Himself coming to live inside us and changing us. John 1:12-13 Amplified Bible says, "But to as many as did receive and welcome Him. He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name--Who owe their birth neither to bloods nor to the will of the flesh [that of physical impulse] nor to the will of man [that of a natural father], but to God. [They are born of God!]"
Creyentes (believers) who are reinas y reyes (queens and kings) have a God who loves us passionately now and eternally. He is working on us to love Him and to love other people likewise. 1 John 4:7-11 New Living Translation Bible says, "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other."
Sometimes during her speeches Tubman had seizures and fell asleep because of a disability acquired as a teenager when a slave overseer threw a lead brick at her head intended for a runaway slave.
Some stay in anger, self-pity, unforgiveness, bitterness and other negativity in response to sickness or disability, spoiling their relationship with self and others.
The lead brick cracked Minty Ross' skull. She was unconscious for a while. For months she could not speak or walk. However, Minty Ross was grateful to God for saving her life. Also the slave for whom the lead brick was intended got away to freedom. Word about Minty got around the slave quarters, and from that time on instead of being called the childhood name of "Minty," her name was changed to her mother's name of "Harriet" for her sacrifice that helped someone else.
Over time Harriet Ross also embraced the concept of Romans 12:21 Complete Jewish Bible which says, "Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good."
After marrying John Tubman, Harriet Tubman ran away to freedom. Then she helped 300 slaves to runaway to freedom via serving as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman also joined the Union Army during the Civil War and served in various capacities. In 1863 she rescued about 800 slaves via a raid on a Confederate camp. Nobody knows how many ex-slaves she saved by nursing them back to health in the Union military camps during the Civil War.
Tubman didn't let her seizures and sleeping spells stop her from public speaking, conducting on the Underground Railroad, leading a military raid and serving humanity in other capacities. She was thankful for what God gave and used it to the max.
A Persian proverb says, "Opportunity should be grabbed."
Alfredo RodrÃguez was a jazz pianist in Cuba. In 2006, RodrÃguez was selected to play at the Montreux Jazz Festival. While there, he performed for Quincy Jones, who was so impressed that he asked to work with RodrÃguez. James C. McKinley Jr. writes in his May 22, 2013, The New York Times article "Latest in His Hyphenate? Manager Quincy Jones, After Years as a Performer-Producer, Now Scouts Young Talent," "Lured by the offer, Mr. RodrÃguez defected from Cuba on a trip to Mexico in 2009, then waded across the Rio Grande at Laredo, Tex., with nothing but a few T-shirts and a suitcase full of his compositions. The vice president of Quincy Jones Productions, Adam Fell, flew Mr. Alfredo to Los Angeles, then housed him for two years while he started touring and working on a debut album."
Some Nigerians give a kola nut to signify friendship. Harriet Tubman signified her friendship to others through service. Quincy Jones and Adam Fell combined friendship and business. Pastor and US Citizen Saeed Abedini has a friend in the American Center for Law and Justice who is organizing the letter writing and petition signing campaign to free Pastor Abedini from Evin prison in Tehran, Iran, at http://www.savesaeed.org. Pastor Abedini is in jail because he helped set up Christian house churches and a secular orphanage in Iran. Zhang Futao has a friend in ChinaAid. ChinaAid News reports in the May 18, 2013, article "Family Planning Officials in Jiangsu Province Beat Farmer to Near Death for Unauthorized Births," "Zhang Futao, of Group Five, Nangou Village, in the town of Beigou, in Xinyi city, is now hospitalized in critical condition and fighting for his life after suffering severe head injuries from the beating by the family planning officials who burst into his home at about 8 p.m. on Wednesday (May 15). They then kidnapped Zhang to Tashan Brigade and made his family pay a ransom." Zhang Futao and his wife have three children, a girl age 12, a boy age six and another girl age 4. China has a one child policy. Read the full story at http://www.chinaaid.org/2013/05/family-planning-officials-in-jiangsu.html.
People everywhere need friends. Enemies exist like Kermit Gosnell and Douglas Karpen who perform abortions killing baby boys and baby girls. Abortionists like Karpen and Gosnell even kill babies born alive after botched abortions, adolescents and women.
Fifteen-year old Denise Montoya hemorrhaged and died after a 26-week abortion done by Douglas Karpen. "“When he did an abortion, especially an over 20 week abortion, most of the time the fetus would come completely out before he cut the spinal cord or he introduced one of the instruments into the soft spot of the fetus, in order to kill the fetus,” said Deborah Edge, who worked as a surgical assistant for Karpen for about 15 years until leaving in March, 2011;" read more at http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/.
Becoming a good friend is a journey. A Japanese proverb says, "Even a thousand-mile journey begins with the first step." The first step to being a good friend is to receive a relationship with the best Friend God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost (1 X 1 X 1 = 1). We cannot be the friend we should be and love people the way they need to be loved without the love and the power of God Himself coming to live inside us and changing us. John 1:12-13 Amplified Bible says, "But to as many as did receive and welcome Him. He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name--Who owe their birth neither to bloods nor to the will of the flesh [that of physical impulse] nor to the will of man [that of a natural father], but to God. [They are born of God!]"
Creyentes (believers) who are reinas y reyes (queens and kings) have a God who loves us passionately now and eternally. He is working on us to love Him and to love other people likewise. 1 John 4:7-11 New Living Translation Bible says, "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other."
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Why Is a Man Like a Pepper?
When runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad were babies, Conductor Harriet Tubman would give them a small dose of a painkiller to cause the babies to sleep. The dose was small enough not to harm them, but large enough to ensure they were safe and did not slow down the Underground Railroad.
A Hausa of West Africa riddle asks, "Why is a man like a pepper?" Answer: "Until you have tested him, you can't tell how strong he is."
Harriet Tubman was tested as a conductor for the Underground Railroad. Instead of allowing challenges like delivering babies from slavery to freedom cause her to kill people, she creatively solved problems. Empowered by God the Holy Ghost, Tubman was able to rescue 300 runaway slaves and conduct them to safety in the North of the United States and in Canada without losing one slave.
God has a variety of heroes. ChinaAid, Women's Rights of China and US Congressman Chris Smith are heroes who helped husband and wife Li Fu and Cao Ruyi save their their only child, a son named Li Dahai, from death by forced abortion. China is afraid of babies. The Chinese one child policy includes forced abortions and forced sterilizations. When Cao Ruyi was five months pregnant she was forcibly taken to a hospital to have an abortion because she did not have the proper paper to have a child. No hospital bed was available. Her abortion was delayed enough for ChinaAid, Women's Rights of China and US Congressman Chris Smith to intervene. Cao Ruyi gave birth in a secret place, but she and her husband still face a $15,000 fine for the unauthorized birth of Li Dahai, which means "our help came from overseas." Read more of the story at http://www.chinaaid.org/2013/03/cao-ruyi-whose-near-forced-abortion.html.
Most families in China are not rescued like Li Fu, Cao Ruyi and Li Dahai. Ma Jian writes in her May 22, 2013, The New York Times editorial "China's Brutal One-Child Policy," "On ramshackle barges moored on the remote waterways of Hubei and Guangxi, I met hundreds of "family-planning fugitives" -- couples who'd fled their villages to give birth to an unauthorized second or third child in neighboring provinces.
Almost every one of the pregnant women I spoke to had suffered a mandatory abortion. One woman told me how, when she was eight months pregnant with an illegal second child and was unable to pay the 20,000 yuan fine (about $3,200), family planning officers dragged her to the local clinic, bound her to a surgical table and injected a lethal drug into her abdomen.
For two days she writhed on the table, her hands and feet still bound with rope, waiting for her body to eject the murdered baby. In the final stage of labor, a male doctor yanked the dead fetus out by the foot, then dropped it into a garbage can. She had no money for a cab. She had to hobble home, blood dripping down her legs and staining her white sandals red."
A Persian proverb says, "No one is without grief." Brutal abortion practices are in America too.
In America if you are unborn and suspected of having a disability, you can be legally killed via abortion. Even if you are unborn and not suspected of having a disability, you can be killed for virtually any reason at all stages of pregnancy. American state abortion law has some variation. The Kermit Gosnell case is one that exposed that babies are also born alive but then killed after botched abortions. The following LifeNews.com link shows that Douglas Karpen is a Kermit-Gosnell-type abortionist killing unborn babies, babies born live after botched abortions and women: http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/; "“When he did an abortion, especially an over 20 week abortion, most of the time the fetus would come completely out before he cut the spinal cord or he introduced one of the instruments into the soft spot of the fetus, in order to kill the fetus,” said Deborah Edge, who worked as a surgical assistant for Karpen for about 15 years until leaving in March, 2011;" 15-year old Denise Montoya hemorrhaged and died after a 26-week abortion done by Karpen.
1 John 3:8 Amplified Bible says, "[But] he who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one], for the devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done]." Dissolving the works of the devil begins with exposing them. Abortionists cut off the body parts of baby girls and baby boys, dismember and destroy the unborn in other ways via abortion. Babies are dying inside their mothers' womb and being born alive then killed after botched abortions. Abortionists are also killing adolescents and women. Extensive media coverage of what goes on inside abortion clinics is essential. Please share media like the following The Atlantic article: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/why-dr-kermit-gosnells-trial-should-be-a-front-page-story/274944/. Evil can be stopped.
Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, VA 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
A Hausa of West Africa riddle asks, "Why is a man like a pepper?" Answer: "Until you have tested him, you can't tell how strong he is."
Harriet Tubman was tested as a conductor for the Underground Railroad. Instead of allowing challenges like delivering babies from slavery to freedom cause her to kill people, she creatively solved problems. Empowered by God the Holy Ghost, Tubman was able to rescue 300 runaway slaves and conduct them to safety in the North of the United States and in Canada without losing one slave.
God has a variety of heroes. ChinaAid, Women's Rights of China and US Congressman Chris Smith are heroes who helped husband and wife Li Fu and Cao Ruyi save their their only child, a son named Li Dahai, from death by forced abortion. China is afraid of babies. The Chinese one child policy includes forced abortions and forced sterilizations. When Cao Ruyi was five months pregnant she was forcibly taken to a hospital to have an abortion because she did not have the proper paper to have a child. No hospital bed was available. Her abortion was delayed enough for ChinaAid, Women's Rights of China and US Congressman Chris Smith to intervene. Cao Ruyi gave birth in a secret place, but she and her husband still face a $15,000 fine for the unauthorized birth of Li Dahai, which means "our help came from overseas." Read more of the story at http://www.chinaaid.org/2013/03/cao-ruyi-whose-near-forced-abortion.html.
Most families in China are not rescued like Li Fu, Cao Ruyi and Li Dahai. Ma Jian writes in her May 22, 2013, The New York Times editorial "China's Brutal One-Child Policy," "On ramshackle barges moored on the remote waterways of Hubei and Guangxi, I met hundreds of "family-planning fugitives" -- couples who'd fled their villages to give birth to an unauthorized second or third child in neighboring provinces.
Almost every one of the pregnant women I spoke to had suffered a mandatory abortion. One woman told me how, when she was eight months pregnant with an illegal second child and was unable to pay the 20,000 yuan fine (about $3,200), family planning officers dragged her to the local clinic, bound her to a surgical table and injected a lethal drug into her abdomen.
For two days she writhed on the table, her hands and feet still bound with rope, waiting for her body to eject the murdered baby. In the final stage of labor, a male doctor yanked the dead fetus out by the foot, then dropped it into a garbage can. She had no money for a cab. She had to hobble home, blood dripping down her legs and staining her white sandals red."
A Persian proverb says, "No one is without grief." Brutal abortion practices are in America too.
In America if you are unborn and suspected of having a disability, you can be legally killed via abortion. Even if you are unborn and not suspected of having a disability, you can be killed for virtually any reason at all stages of pregnancy. American state abortion law has some variation. The Kermit Gosnell case is one that exposed that babies are also born alive but then killed after botched abortions. The following LifeNews.com link shows that Douglas Karpen is a Kermit-Gosnell-type abortionist killing unborn babies, babies born live after botched abortions and women: http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/; "“When he did an abortion, especially an over 20 week abortion, most of the time the fetus would come completely out before he cut the spinal cord or he introduced one of the instruments into the soft spot of the fetus, in order to kill the fetus,” said Deborah Edge, who worked as a surgical assistant for Karpen for about 15 years until leaving in March, 2011;" 15-year old Denise Montoya hemorrhaged and died after a 26-week abortion done by Karpen.
1 John 3:8 Amplified Bible says, "[But] he who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one], for the devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done]." Dissolving the works of the devil begins with exposing them. Abortionists cut off the body parts of baby girls and baby boys, dismember and destroy the unborn in other ways via abortion. Babies are dying inside their mothers' womb and being born alive then killed after botched abortions. Abortionists are also killing adolescents and women. Extensive media coverage of what goes on inside abortion clinics is essential. Please share media like the following The Atlantic article: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/why-dr-kermit-gosnells-trial-should-be-a-front-page-story/274944/. Evil can be stopped.
Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, VA 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
You Cannot Borrow a Face
At age 16 Mary Shadd taught African American students. As an adult in addition to teaching and public speaking, she started a weekly newspaper, The Provincial Freeman, which was geared to help African Americans with life in the Northern United States, and she married Thomas Cary. Later on Mary Shadd Cary became a recruiting officer for the Union army.
After African Americans were freed from slavery and colored men got the right to vote, women of all races still could not vote in America. Some men and women were organized to help women secure the right to vote. Mary Ann Shadd Cary organized the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise Association and became a lawyer in her senior years.
Mary Shadd Cary was always doing something for freedom, equality and justice. She says, "It is better to wear out than to rust out."
Creyentes (believers) who are reinas y reyes (queens and kings) are called to fight the life-long good fight of faith in our good God against that which is evil. Saul, who later became the Apostle Paul, met Jesus Christ on a road in Damascus, Syria. Saul was so impressed that he spent the rest of his life traveling and telling people of various cultures and languages about a now and eternal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton writes in her Declaration of Sentiments, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal." The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:28 Amplified Bible, "There is [now no distinction] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Sometimes the truth about equality takes time to take hold in a society. All societies have people who are not treated equally. A ChinaAid News March 24, 2013, "With ChinaAid's Help, Two Victims of China's One-Child Policy Granted UNHCR Refugee Status" article reports that in 1995, when Guo Yanling was eight months pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. In 1999, she was forcibly sterilized. In 2006, she was imprisoned for not being able to pay a fine for having more than one child. The Chinese government also refused to issue household registrations to her and to her husband, Du Yiliang's, three children without which they are unable to attend school or to receive government benefits. Guo Yanling's and Du Yiliang's abortion, sterilization, educational and economic terror experience is typical in China. What isn't nearly as typical is that with ChinaAid’s help, Guo Yanling and Du Yiliang have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commission on Refugees. Notes of encouragement to Du Yiliang and Guo Yanling, requests for interviews and financial contributions to ChinaAid's Emergency Relief Fund can all be submitted to ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu at http://www.chinaaid.org/2013/03/with-chinaaid-help-two-victims-of-china.html.
In America if you are unborn and suspected of having a disability, you can be legally killed via abortion. Even if you are unborn and not suspected of having a disability, you can be killed for virtually any reason at all stages of pregnancy. American state abortion law has some variation. The Kermit Gosnell case is one that exposed that babies are also born alive but then killed after botched abortions. The following LifeNews.com link shows that Douglas Karpen is a Kermit-Gosnell-type abortionist killing unborn babies, babies born live after botched abortions and women: http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/; "“When he did an abortion, especially an over 20 week abortion, most of the time the fetus would come completely out before he cut the spinal cord or he introduced one of the instruments into the soft spot of the fetus, in order to kill the fetus,” said Deborah Edge, who worked as a surgical assistant for Karpen for about 15 years until leaving in March, 2011;" 15-year old Denise Montoya hemorrhaged and died after a 26-week abortion done by Karpen.
How many abortionists are like Kermit Gosnell and Douglass Karpen? Where is the extensive media coverage of what goes on inside abortion clinics?
An African proverb from the nation Angola says, "You can borrow a basket and a sieve; you cannot borrow a face." Once people are killed via abortion, they cannot get their life back.
After African Americans were freed from slavery and colored men got the right to vote, women of all races still could not vote in America. Some men and women were organized to help women secure the right to vote. Mary Ann Shadd Cary organized the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise Association and became a lawyer in her senior years.
Mary Shadd Cary was always doing something for freedom, equality and justice. She says, "It is better to wear out than to rust out."
Creyentes (believers) who are reinas y reyes (queens and kings) are called to fight the life-long good fight of faith in our good God against that which is evil. Saul, who later became the Apostle Paul, met Jesus Christ on a road in Damascus, Syria. Saul was so impressed that he spent the rest of his life traveling and telling people of various cultures and languages about a now and eternal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton writes in her Declaration of Sentiments, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal." The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:28 Amplified Bible, "There is [now no distinction] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Sometimes the truth about equality takes time to take hold in a society. All societies have people who are not treated equally. A ChinaAid News March 24, 2013, "With ChinaAid's Help, Two Victims of China's One-Child Policy Granted UNHCR Refugee Status" article reports that in 1995, when Guo Yanling was eight months pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. In 1999, she was forcibly sterilized. In 2006, she was imprisoned for not being able to pay a fine for having more than one child. The Chinese government also refused to issue household registrations to her and to her husband, Du Yiliang's, three children without which they are unable to attend school or to receive government benefits. Guo Yanling's and Du Yiliang's abortion, sterilization, educational and economic terror experience is typical in China. What isn't nearly as typical is that with ChinaAid’s help, Guo Yanling and Du Yiliang have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commission on Refugees. Notes of encouragement to Du Yiliang and Guo Yanling, requests for interviews and financial contributions to ChinaAid's Emergency Relief Fund can all be submitted to ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu at http://www.chinaaid.org/2013/03/with-chinaaid-help-two-victims-of-china.html.
In America if you are unborn and suspected of having a disability, you can be legally killed via abortion. Even if you are unborn and not suspected of having a disability, you can be killed for virtually any reason at all stages of pregnancy. American state abortion law has some variation. The Kermit Gosnell case is one that exposed that babies are also born alive but then killed after botched abortions. The following LifeNews.com link shows that Douglas Karpen is a Kermit-Gosnell-type abortionist killing unborn babies, babies born live after botched abortions and women: http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/; "“When he did an abortion, especially an over 20 week abortion, most of the time the fetus would come completely out before he cut the spinal cord or he introduced one of the instruments into the soft spot of the fetus, in order to kill the fetus,” said Deborah Edge, who worked as a surgical assistant for Karpen for about 15 years until leaving in March, 2011;" 15-year old Denise Montoya hemorrhaged and died after a 26-week abortion done by Karpen.
How many abortionists are like Kermit Gosnell and Douglass Karpen? Where is the extensive media coverage of what goes on inside abortion clinics?
An African proverb from the nation Angola says, "You can borrow a basket and a sieve; you cannot borrow a face." Once people are killed via abortion, they cannot get their life back.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Sexual Confidence
Sexually confident people can be both lovers and fierce warriors. Harriet Tubman carried a shotgun on her when she conducted runaway Southern slaves to freedom in the North and in Canada. She threatened to shoot anyone who would turn back. Tubman wasn't being cruel. She was waging war in love. Returning runaways could betray the other runaways and expose the stationmasters who maintained places for runaways to stay on the journey to freedom. An exposed stationmaster could face criminal prosecution and even the death penalty.
Sexually confident people don't erase their sexuality to gain equality, freedom or something else. Sojourner Truth had a deep voice. Once when speaking publicly some said she was a man, and she showed them her breasts. Both Sojouner Truth and Harriet Tubman dressed as women while doing some things that were not considered traditionally female.
Tubman and Truth also worked cooperatively with men as did Deborah, a leader of the nation of Israel in Old Testament times, and Queen Nzingha of what is now the African country, Angola. William Still of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee and Thomas Garrett are some people who funded Harriet's rescue missions. Sojourner Truth was a colleague of abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Deborah encouraged Barak to be a strong military leader repelling a foreign invasion. Queen Nzingha formed alliances to keep her country free of foreign domination.
These women are Bible believers who took seriously God's command to rule the earth as female and male. Genesis 1:27-28 Complete Jewish Bible says, "So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. God blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.”
Satan attacks the sexual confidence of both men and women.
A West African proverb says, "Silence is also a form of speech."
Satan seeks to silence those who do not cooperate with him. Reinas y reyes do not cooperate with him; we expose deeds of darkness and try to stop them. The trial and sentencing of Abortionist Kermit Gosnell has received some media attention with his killing of babies born alive after botched abortions and the death of a woman. LifeNews.com has also reported on another Gosnell-style abortionist named Douglas Karpen. Read his story at http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/.
Where is the muckraking national and global journalism investigating the entire abortion industry? How Many Abortionists Like Gosnell and Karpen Are There? What Is the Abortion Industry Really Like? Since the beginning of China's one child policy more than 330 million babies have died by abortion. Since Roe v. Wade, there have been more than 55 million abortions in America and very little coverage of what's going on in abortion clinics. A comprehensive investigation of the abortion industry is long overdue as it impacts people at all levels of society.
Sexually confident people don't erase their sexuality to gain equality, freedom or something else. Sojourner Truth had a deep voice. Once when speaking publicly some said she was a man, and she showed them her breasts. Both Sojouner Truth and Harriet Tubman dressed as women while doing some things that were not considered traditionally female.
Tubman and Truth also worked cooperatively with men as did Deborah, a leader of the nation of Israel in Old Testament times, and Queen Nzingha of what is now the African country, Angola. William Still of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee and Thomas Garrett are some people who funded Harriet's rescue missions. Sojourner Truth was a colleague of abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Deborah encouraged Barak to be a strong military leader repelling a foreign invasion. Queen Nzingha formed alliances to keep her country free of foreign domination.
These women are Bible believers who took seriously God's command to rule the earth as female and male. Genesis 1:27-28 Complete Jewish Bible says, "So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. God blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.”
Satan attacks the sexual confidence of both men and women.
A West African proverb says, "Silence is also a form of speech."
Satan seeks to silence those who do not cooperate with him. Reinas y reyes do not cooperate with him; we expose deeds of darkness and try to stop them. The trial and sentencing of Abortionist Kermit Gosnell has received some media attention with his killing of babies born alive after botched abortions and the death of a woman. LifeNews.com has also reported on another Gosnell-style abortionist named Douglas Karpen. Read his story at http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/.
Where is the muckraking national and global journalism investigating the entire abortion industry? How Many Abortionists Like Gosnell and Karpen Are There? What Is the Abortion Industry Really Like? Since the beginning of China's one child policy more than 330 million babies have died by abortion. Since Roe v. Wade, there have been more than 55 million abortions in America and very little coverage of what's going on in abortion clinics. A comprehensive investigation of the abortion industry is long overdue as it impacts people at all levels of society.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
How Many Abortionists Like Gosnell and Karpen Are There? What Is the Abortion Industry Really Like?
Some are jealous, envious and hateful of what we have. They pretend to be our friend and try to get us to do things to "help" us that are really intended to harm us.
Satan had a special relationship with God. He lost that and couldn't get it back. In jealousy, envy and hatred of the relationship Adam and Eve were having with God, Satan pretended to be Eve's friend and influenced her to eat the harmful forbidden fruit. She then influenced Adam to eat it (Genesis 3).
Civil Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer went to a doctor believing she was getting friendly medical treatment; instead her doctor sterilized her because he hated black people and their sexuality. Fannie Lou Hamer had enviable social skills gained as the youngest of 20 children and used those skills to help African Americans gain voting rights and power within the Democratic Party.
Jealousy, envy and hatred are not racially exclusive. In China in the name of helping people, the Chinese one child policy has lead to more than 330 million deaths by abortion and 196 million sterilizations. Imagine that--the populations of one continent and one country being exterminated; that is what more than 330 million abortions represents; it's more than the population of America and Australia combined.
A Chinese proverb says, "pointing to a deer and calling it a horse;" meaning "right and wrong are deliberately mixed up." Satan specializes in confusion. Satan got Eve to mistake the identity of God. Eve thought that God was her enemy denying her power and thought that Satan was her friend helping her to choose something good.
God made Adam and Eve as reyes y reinas (kings and queens.) They ruled the earth and enjoyed sex without fear. Genesis 2:25 Complete Jewish Bible says, "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed."
Today sadly much of sexuality is soaked in fear. The spirit of fear does not produce freedom. Abortion and sterilization in China are about coercion. A ChinaAid News March 24, 2013, "With ChinaAid's Help, Two Victims of China's One-Child Policy Granted UNHCR Refugee Status" article reports that in 1995, when Guo Yanling was eight months pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. In 1999, she was forcibly sterilized. In 2006, she was imprisoned for not being able to pay a fine for having more than one child. The Chinese government also refused to issue household registrations to her and to her husband, Du Yiliang's, three children without which they are unable to attend school or to receive government benefits. Guo Yanling's and Du Yiliang's abortion, sterilization, educational and economic terror experience is typical in China. What isn't nearly as typical is that with ChinaAid’s help, Guo Yanling and Du Yiliang have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commission on Refugees. Notes of encouragement to Du Yiliang and Guo Yanling, requests for interviews and financial contributions to ChinaAid's Emergency Relief Fund can all be submitted to ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu at http://www.chinaaid.org.
Some people want us to think that it is helpful to kill people and to mutilate their bodies as opposed to finding solutions to challenging situations. In America our sexuality policies do not have the level of coercion that China's do, but both America's and China's sexuality policies are rooted in fear, confusion, hatred and other evil.
American segregation was promoted as a way to empower people at the expense of other people. Today we don't have legal segregation, but we do have legal abortion. Legal abortion is promoted as a way to empower people at the expense of other people. Christian minister and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in a 1963 letter from the Birmingham, Alabama, City Jail, "Injustice anywhere is a treat to justice everywhere."
Common sense should show that abortionists, people who cut apart baby girls and baby boys and dismember them in others ways for a living, are not compassionate, quality medical providers to adolescent and adult women. The job of an abortionist requires cutting off a good conscience.
The trial and sentencing of Abortionist Kermit Gosnell has received some media attention with his killing of babies born alive after botched abortions and the death of a woman. He should be exposed for the grisly murderer he is. LifeNews.com has also reported on another Gosnell-style abortionist named Douglas Karpen. Read his story at http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/
However, where is the muckraking national and global journalism investigating the entire abortion industry? Since the beginning of China's one child policy more than 330 million babies have died by abortion. Since Roe v. Wade, there have been more than 55 million abortions in America and very little coverage of what's going on in abortion clinics. A comprehensive investigation of the abortion industry is long overdue as it impacts people at all levels of society.
Every abortion involves an unborn baby, a male parent, a female parent and others.
Parenting is undervalued and distorted globally. In America a pervasive idea exists that parents are asexual caretakers of children, and if you want passion, find it in infidelity instead of marriage.
The first parents were married, naked (sometimes having sex) and it was natural, beautiful, passionate and good. Let's get back to the original design of sexuality. Using the Bible as our guide, why not collect the best of various cultures and incorporate it into our own? In the movie Dances With Wolves, the wife of the Sioux Native American holy man is on top of him making love with her husband while friends and family are in the tent mostly sleeping. Children need to see a model of marriage with love and incredible sex. Make us want to be married. On the occasions that siblings are produced from marital lovemaking, embrace them instead of trying to erase them through abortion.
Marital lovemaking is primarily for the closeness of the couple. Some beautiful sexuality is not connected to pro-creation. The Japanese describe oral sex as love licks.
An African proverb says, "When an elder dies it is as if a whole library has burned down." Let's check out the library before it burns down. What are some wonderful martial lovemaking ideas from Africans, Native Americans, Japanese and others?
Chinese pillow books are small, sex-instruction manuals, each on a specific topic with illustrations. You can include erotic poems written by you or someone else, pressed flowers, cards, mementos, clippings from magazines and/or books with your notes, prose of your own on special paper and whatever you and your spouse enjoy. Books can be titled Touch Me Like This, Play Time, Hot Dates, Beautiful Butts, Fellatio, Cunnilingus, Intercourse Positions, S & M Alternatives, Strategies for Presenting a Sexy Marriage to Our Children or something in a code known only to each other. What are the titles of your Chinese pillow books?
Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Satan had a special relationship with God. He lost that and couldn't get it back. In jealousy, envy and hatred of the relationship Adam and Eve were having with God, Satan pretended to be Eve's friend and influenced her to eat the harmful forbidden fruit. She then influenced Adam to eat it (Genesis 3).
Civil Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer went to a doctor believing she was getting friendly medical treatment; instead her doctor sterilized her because he hated black people and their sexuality. Fannie Lou Hamer had enviable social skills gained as the youngest of 20 children and used those skills to help African Americans gain voting rights and power within the Democratic Party.
Jealousy, envy and hatred are not racially exclusive. In China in the name of helping people, the Chinese one child policy has lead to more than 330 million deaths by abortion and 196 million sterilizations. Imagine that--the populations of one continent and one country being exterminated; that is what more than 330 million abortions represents; it's more than the population of America and Australia combined.
A Chinese proverb says, "pointing to a deer and calling it a horse;" meaning "right and wrong are deliberately mixed up." Satan specializes in confusion. Satan got Eve to mistake the identity of God. Eve thought that God was her enemy denying her power and thought that Satan was her friend helping her to choose something good.
God made Adam and Eve as reyes y reinas (kings and queens.) They ruled the earth and enjoyed sex without fear. Genesis 2:25 Complete Jewish Bible says, "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed."
Today sadly much of sexuality is soaked in fear. The spirit of fear does not produce freedom. Abortion and sterilization in China are about coercion. A ChinaAid News March 24, 2013, "With ChinaAid's Help, Two Victims of China's One-Child Policy Granted UNHCR Refugee Status" article reports that in 1995, when Guo Yanling was eight months pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. In 1999, she was forcibly sterilized. In 2006, she was imprisoned for not being able to pay a fine for having more than one child. The Chinese government also refused to issue household registrations to her and to her husband, Du Yiliang's, three children without which they are unable to attend school or to receive government benefits. Guo Yanling's and Du Yiliang's abortion, sterilization, educational and economic terror experience is typical in China. What isn't nearly as typical is that with ChinaAid’s help, Guo Yanling and Du Yiliang have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commission on Refugees. Notes of encouragement to Du Yiliang and Guo Yanling, requests for interviews and financial contributions to ChinaAid's Emergency Relief Fund can all be submitted to ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu at http://www.chinaaid.org.
Some people want us to think that it is helpful to kill people and to mutilate their bodies as opposed to finding solutions to challenging situations. In America our sexuality policies do not have the level of coercion that China's do, but both America's and China's sexuality policies are rooted in fear, confusion, hatred and other evil.
American segregation was promoted as a way to empower people at the expense of other people. Today we don't have legal segregation, but we do have legal abortion. Legal abortion is promoted as a way to empower people at the expense of other people. Christian minister and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in a 1963 letter from the Birmingham, Alabama, City Jail, "Injustice anywhere is a treat to justice everywhere."
Common sense should show that abortionists, people who cut apart baby girls and baby boys and dismember them in others ways for a living, are not compassionate, quality medical providers to adolescent and adult women. The job of an abortionist requires cutting off a good conscience.
The trial and sentencing of Abortionist Kermit Gosnell has received some media attention with his killing of babies born alive after botched abortions and the death of a woman. He should be exposed for the grisly murderer he is. LifeNews.com has also reported on another Gosnell-style abortionist named Douglas Karpen. Read his story at http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/
However, where is the muckraking national and global journalism investigating the entire abortion industry? Since the beginning of China's one child policy more than 330 million babies have died by abortion. Since Roe v. Wade, there have been more than 55 million abortions in America and very little coverage of what's going on in abortion clinics. A comprehensive investigation of the abortion industry is long overdue as it impacts people at all levels of society.
Every abortion involves an unborn baby, a male parent, a female parent and others.
Parenting is undervalued and distorted globally. In America a pervasive idea exists that parents are asexual caretakers of children, and if you want passion, find it in infidelity instead of marriage.
The first parents were married, naked (sometimes having sex) and it was natural, beautiful, passionate and good. Let's get back to the original design of sexuality. Using the Bible as our guide, why not collect the best of various cultures and incorporate it into our own? In the movie Dances With Wolves, the wife of the Sioux Native American holy man is on top of him making love with her husband while friends and family are in the tent mostly sleeping. Children need to see a model of marriage with love and incredible sex. Make us want to be married. On the occasions that siblings are produced from marital lovemaking, embrace them instead of trying to erase them through abortion.
Marital lovemaking is primarily for the closeness of the couple. Some beautiful sexuality is not connected to pro-creation. The Japanese describe oral sex as love licks.
An African proverb says, "When an elder dies it is as if a whole library has burned down." Let's check out the library before it burns down. What are some wonderful martial lovemaking ideas from Africans, Native Americans, Japanese and others?
Chinese pillow books are small, sex-instruction manuals, each on a specific topic with illustrations. You can include erotic poems written by you or someone else, pressed flowers, cards, mementos, clippings from magazines and/or books with your notes, prose of your own on special paper and whatever you and your spouse enjoy. Books can be titled Touch Me Like This, Play Time, Hot Dates, Beautiful Butts, Fellatio, Cunnilingus, Intercourse Positions, S & M Alternatives, Strategies for Presenting a Sexy Marriage to Our Children or something in a code known only to each other. What are the titles of your Chinese pillow books?
Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Pastor Saeed Abedini Out Of Solitary Confinement; Struggle for Freedom Continues
Matthew 25:34-40 Complete Jewish Bible says, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take your inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you made me your guest, I needed clothes and you provided them, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the people who have done what God wants will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you our guest, or needing clothes and provide them? When did we see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’ The King will say to them, ‘Yes! I tell you that whenever you did these things for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did them for me!’ Talking to God, writing to Pastor Saeed Abedini and signing the petition at http://www.savesaeed.org are having a beneficial effect. Pastor and U.S. Citizen Saeed Abedini has been released from solitary confinement and returned to the general prison population in Evin prison in Tehran, Iran. Ask someone today to pray, to write to Pastor Saeed Abedini and to sign the petition.
Solitary confinement is psychological abuse. In 1952 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela spent time in solitary confinement. He nearly went mad having no one to talk to and nothing to read.
The fight for Pastor Abedini's freedom is far from over. His struggle shows a lack of religious freedom in Iran. Pastor Abedini had been helping to build Christian house churches and a secular orphanage when Iranian authorities decided to place him in house arrest and eventually in jail for threatening the national security of Iran! Oppressors fear things like love, equality, freedom, diversity and truth.
Christian Minister and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King, Jr., says, "Freedom is never given to anybody. For the oppressor has you in domination because he wants to keep you there."
Please share some unusual prayers and efforts to get people to write to Pastor Abedini and to sign the petition for him. Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P.O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virgina 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Can Pastor Saeed Abedini be freed from Evin prison? Yes.
Can we overcome the fear of women, immigrants, people from the ghettos and barrios and others? Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, America’s largest Hispanic Christian Organization with more than 40,000 member churches, said in a Martin Luther King, Jr. service speech that we need a Joshua generation that does not acquiesce to or allow itself to be manipulated by the donkey or the elephant; we need a generation sold out exclusively to the agenda of the Lamb. Elizabeth Cady Stanton said in her Declaration of Sentiments at the first US women's rights convention, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal."
Can China's one child policy with forced abortion and involuntary sterilization be stopped? “Anything is possible in this world,” said Chen Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught lawyer and human rights activist, to an audience at the Christiania Theater in Oslo, Norway on Tuesday regarding changing human rights abuses in China ("Chen Guangcheng: Chinese Government “In A State Of Madness”" May 14, 2013 article by Rosie Gray, BuzzFeed Staff.)
Solitary confinement is psychological abuse. In 1952 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela spent time in solitary confinement. He nearly went mad having no one to talk to and nothing to read.
The fight for Pastor Abedini's freedom is far from over. His struggle shows a lack of religious freedom in Iran. Pastor Abedini had been helping to build Christian house churches and a secular orphanage when Iranian authorities decided to place him in house arrest and eventually in jail for threatening the national security of Iran! Oppressors fear things like love, equality, freedom, diversity and truth.
Christian Minister and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King, Jr., says, "Freedom is never given to anybody. For the oppressor has you in domination because he wants to keep you there."
Please share some unusual prayers and efforts to get people to write to Pastor Abedini and to sign the petition for him. Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P.O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virgina 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Can Pastor Saeed Abedini be freed from Evin prison? Yes.
Can we overcome the fear of women, immigrants, people from the ghettos and barrios and others? Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, America’s largest Hispanic Christian Organization with more than 40,000 member churches, said in a Martin Luther King, Jr. service speech that we need a Joshua generation that does not acquiesce to or allow itself to be manipulated by the donkey or the elephant; we need a generation sold out exclusively to the agenda of the Lamb. Elizabeth Cady Stanton said in her Declaration of Sentiments at the first US women's rights convention, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal."
Can China's one child policy with forced abortion and involuntary sterilization be stopped? “Anything is possible in this world,” said Chen Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught lawyer and human rights activist, to an audience at the Christiania Theater in Oslo, Norway on Tuesday regarding changing human rights abuses in China ("Chen Guangcheng: Chinese Government “In A State Of Madness”" May 14, 2013 article by Rosie Gray, BuzzFeed Staff.)
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Overcoming the What Ifs
The Apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:7-8 Amplified Bible, "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control. Do not blush or be ashamed then, to testify to and for our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for His sake, but [with me] take your share of the suffering [to which the preaching] of the Gospel [may expose you, and do it] in the power of God."
One of the things the spirit of fear does is it attacks our mind with the "what ifs." About one year ago Chen Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught lawyer, escaped house arrest in Shandong, China, walking at night for several miles until he met up with He Peirong, who drove him to the US embassy in Beijing, China. Guangcheng probably got attacked with the thought, "What if I get caught? How will the Chinese authorities harm me?"
Harriet Tubman probably also had times in her life when she was attacked with the what ifs. Harriet Tubman started out as Harriet Ross born into slavery in Maryland. As a teenager, a slave overseer hit Harriet in the head with a lead brick because she was blocking his throw to stop another slave trying to escape slavery. Harriet was hit so hard that she became unconscious. The hit did lifetime damage. From that time on she suffered seizures and uncontrollable sleeping spells. Having a disability didn't mean that Harriet wanted to remain a slave. When she thought about escaping slavery, what if thoughts probably came to her mind like, "What if I run away and get caught by slave catchers and their bloodhounds? Will I be whipped? Will I be sold further South? Will I fall asleep or have a seizure at the worst possible moment?"
Some parents today decide to have prenatal testing. They may be thinking thoughts like, "What if the test determines that our baby has a disability like Down syndrome? What if the pregnancy is carried to term? How long will I be a parent? How am I going to afford this? What happens when I die? What will people think and say about a disabled child? How will they treat us?"
Fear comes to all of us. What does God say to do with it? "Have not I commanded you? Be strong, vigorous, and very courageous. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9 Amplified Bible) When fear attacked Chen Guangcheng, he still moved to escape house arrest inflicted on him by Chinese authorities for filing a 2005 class action lawsuit against local officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China's one child policy. When fear attacked Harriet Tubman, she still moved to escape slavery via the Underground Railroad (a network of people who helped runaway African American slaves find freedom in non-slave American states or in Canada.) Some parents instead of choosing to abort their child who may or may not have a disability, choose life and celebrate it. Sarah and Todd Palin have a son who has Down Syndrome. Their car bumper sticker says, "My kid has more chromosomes than your kid."
Creyentes (believers) are reinas y reyes (kings and queens). We are not called to be intimidated by adversity. We are called to press through adversity overcoming evil with good. Philippians 1:28-29 Amplified Bible says, "And do not [for a moment] be frightened or intimidated in anything by your opponents and adversaries, for such [constancy and fearlessness] will be a clear sign (proof and seal) to them of [their impending] destruction, but [a sure token and evidence] of your deliverance and salvation, and that from God. For you have been granted [the privilege] for Christ’s sake not only to believe in (adhere to, rely on, and trust in) Him, but also to suffer in His behalf."
Chen Guangcheng is still speaking out about human rights abuses in China while his family in Shandong, China is being persecuted by Chinese authorities. Chen Guangcheng, Yuan Weijing, Guangcheng's wife, and Bob Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid, are currently in Europe meeting with governmental authorities and human rights organizations to shine the light on China's human rights abuses. Harriet Tubman not only escaped slavery for herself, she also successfully lead hundreds of slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Some parents are not only choosing life for their unborn babies, they are also working to make it illegal to kill people just because they have or may have a disability.
The spirit of fear seeks to get us to cooperate with evil and to focus on failure/difficulty or potential failure/difficulty. No one has a totally successful easy life. Having failures and difficulties are not reasons to faint. For creyentes, our destination is a now and eternal relationship with a good, loving God. A Yoruba of Nigeria proverb says, "One should keep one's eyes on one's destination, not on where one stumbled."
Share some destination stories of overcoming the spirit of fear. Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P.O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
One of the things the spirit of fear does is it attacks our mind with the "what ifs." About one year ago Chen Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught lawyer, escaped house arrest in Shandong, China, walking at night for several miles until he met up with He Peirong, who drove him to the US embassy in Beijing, China. Guangcheng probably got attacked with the thought, "What if I get caught? How will the Chinese authorities harm me?"
Harriet Tubman probably also had times in her life when she was attacked with the what ifs. Harriet Tubman started out as Harriet Ross born into slavery in Maryland. As a teenager, a slave overseer hit Harriet in the head with a lead brick because she was blocking his throw to stop another slave trying to escape slavery. Harriet was hit so hard that she became unconscious. The hit did lifetime damage. From that time on she suffered seizures and uncontrollable sleeping spells. Having a disability didn't mean that Harriet wanted to remain a slave. When she thought about escaping slavery, what if thoughts probably came to her mind like, "What if I run away and get caught by slave catchers and their bloodhounds? Will I be whipped? Will I be sold further South? Will I fall asleep or have a seizure at the worst possible moment?"
Some parents today decide to have prenatal testing. They may be thinking thoughts like, "What if the test determines that our baby has a disability like Down syndrome? What if the pregnancy is carried to term? How long will I be a parent? How am I going to afford this? What happens when I die? What will people think and say about a disabled child? How will they treat us?"
Fear comes to all of us. What does God say to do with it? "Have not I commanded you? Be strong, vigorous, and very courageous. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9 Amplified Bible) When fear attacked Chen Guangcheng, he still moved to escape house arrest inflicted on him by Chinese authorities for filing a 2005 class action lawsuit against local officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China's one child policy. When fear attacked Harriet Tubman, she still moved to escape slavery via the Underground Railroad (a network of people who helped runaway African American slaves find freedom in non-slave American states or in Canada.) Some parents instead of choosing to abort their child who may or may not have a disability, choose life and celebrate it. Sarah and Todd Palin have a son who has Down Syndrome. Their car bumper sticker says, "My kid has more chromosomes than your kid."
Creyentes (believers) are reinas y reyes (kings and queens). We are not called to be intimidated by adversity. We are called to press through adversity overcoming evil with good. Philippians 1:28-29 Amplified Bible says, "And do not [for a moment] be frightened or intimidated in anything by your opponents and adversaries, for such [constancy and fearlessness] will be a clear sign (proof and seal) to them of [their impending] destruction, but [a sure token and evidence] of your deliverance and salvation, and that from God. For you have been granted [the privilege] for Christ’s sake not only to believe in (adhere to, rely on, and trust in) Him, but also to suffer in His behalf."
Chen Guangcheng is still speaking out about human rights abuses in China while his family in Shandong, China is being persecuted by Chinese authorities. Chen Guangcheng, Yuan Weijing, Guangcheng's wife, and Bob Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid, are currently in Europe meeting with governmental authorities and human rights organizations to shine the light on China's human rights abuses. Harriet Tubman not only escaped slavery for herself, she also successfully lead hundreds of slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Some parents are not only choosing life for their unborn babies, they are also working to make it illegal to kill people just because they have or may have a disability.
The spirit of fear seeks to get us to cooperate with evil and to focus on failure/difficulty or potential failure/difficulty. No one has a totally successful easy life. Having failures and difficulties are not reasons to faint. For creyentes, our destination is a now and eternal relationship with a good, loving God. A Yoruba of Nigeria proverb says, "One should keep one's eyes on one's destination, not on where one stumbled."
Share some destination stories of overcoming the spirit of fear. Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P.O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Chen Guangcheng Doesn't Settle For Less Than The Best, Why Should You?
God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost is a God of excellence and completion. He doesn't want us to behave halfheartedly and haphazardly toward Him or toward other people. Luke 10:27 Amplified Bible says, "And he replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 3 John 1:2 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Dear friend, I am praying that everything prosper with you and that you be in good health, as I know you are prospering spiritually."
Creyentes (believers) are reinas y reyes (queens and kings.) We are valuable and deserve outstanding treatment both male and female and of whatever racial, ethnic or other background. Satan wants us to think small and settle for less than God's best.
For years abolitionists and women's rights activists worked together supporting each others causes. Yet when the Fifteenth amendment was ratified in 1870 effectively extending the right to vote to African American men and other men of color, some wanted women to suck it up and shut up about their lack of a right to vote.
Abolitionists and women's rights activists like Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others said we are going to stand up and to continue to seek all that is due us.
Christopher Yuan, who used to practice homosexual sex and is now a celibate, public speaker for Jesus Christ says that unconditional love is not unconditional acceptance of bad behavior.
Are you refusing to deal with bad behavior in a relationship? God doesn't settle for less than the best. God cares enough about us to bring His best out of us and in our relationships.
About one year ago the US and China agreed to allow Chen Guangcheng, his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children to leave China and to come to the United States. China agreed not to harass or to harm the Chen Guangcheng family still in China. In 2005 Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught lawyer, filed a class action lawsuit against local government authorities involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China's one child policy. He was put in jail then in house arrest in Shandong, China.
Guangcheng, Weijing, their son and their daughter are in the United States now, but Guangcheng's nephew, Chen Kegui, was arrested shortly after Guangcheng left China last spring after Chinese authorities burst into his house, and he attempted to defend himself. Chen Kegui is currently in jail and has not been taken to a hospital for treatment of acute appendicitis. Chen Kegui is married to Liu Fang. The couple have a young son, Chen Fubin. Last Thursday morning Guangcheng's brother, Chen Guangfu, was beat up by unidentified men who stopped him while he was riding his electric bike, which they destroyed. Other acts violence have been perpetrated against the Chen family since Chen Guangcheng came to America last year.
In addition to testifying before Congress on April 9, 2013, Chen Guangcheng and others have been speaking and seeking to get China to honor all of their side of the agreement that allowed Guangcheng to leave China while bringing attention to forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China's one child policy and other human rights abuses in China.
One of Guangcheng's friends is Bo Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid. They have been meeting with members of Congress. They reaped some fruit from their labors when a letter dated May 13, 2013, was sent to Secretary of State John Kerry signed by both House Speaker John Boehner and Minority leader Nancy Pelosi as well as six other senior Republican and Democratic members of Congress including Chris Smith, Frank Wolf, Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, Joseph Crowley, James McGovern and Rick Larsen.
Some of the things the letter urges US Secretary of State John Kerry to obtain are:
1) medical treatment for Chen Kegui
2) medical parole for Chen Kegui
3) a meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry, Chen Guangcheng and Yuan Weijing
4) denial of US visas to 44 officials involved in persecuting Chen Guangcheng's family
Bad behavior can be brought around to good. God doesn't often speak to us audibly. He usually speaks to our inner person leading us to what is right. If we don't do what He says, God can use community correction. Unity can be used for good. An East African proverb says, "When minds are the same, that which is far off will come."
Pray that US Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barak Obama's administration takes the actions requested in the bi-partisan Congressional letter. Don't only pray about leaders, pray about all of your life and relationships. God enjoys a lot of communication and is very responsive. He wants the best life for us privately and publicly. 1 Tesalonicenses 5:17 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960 dice, "Orad sin cesar." 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Bilingual Bible New King James Version Bible says, "Pray without ceasing."
Creyentes (believers) are reinas y reyes (queens and kings.) We are valuable and deserve outstanding treatment both male and female and of whatever racial, ethnic or other background. Satan wants us to think small and settle for less than God's best.
For years abolitionists and women's rights activists worked together supporting each others causes. Yet when the Fifteenth amendment was ratified in 1870 effectively extending the right to vote to African American men and other men of color, some wanted women to suck it up and shut up about their lack of a right to vote.
Abolitionists and women's rights activists like Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others said we are going to stand up and to continue to seek all that is due us.
Christopher Yuan, who used to practice homosexual sex and is now a celibate, public speaker for Jesus Christ says that unconditional love is not unconditional acceptance of bad behavior.
Are you refusing to deal with bad behavior in a relationship? God doesn't settle for less than the best. God cares enough about us to bring His best out of us and in our relationships.
About one year ago the US and China agreed to allow Chen Guangcheng, his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children to leave China and to come to the United States. China agreed not to harass or to harm the Chen Guangcheng family still in China. In 2005 Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught lawyer, filed a class action lawsuit against local government authorities involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China's one child policy. He was put in jail then in house arrest in Shandong, China.
Guangcheng, Weijing, their son and their daughter are in the United States now, but Guangcheng's nephew, Chen Kegui, was arrested shortly after Guangcheng left China last spring after Chinese authorities burst into his house, and he attempted to defend himself. Chen Kegui is currently in jail and has not been taken to a hospital for treatment of acute appendicitis. Chen Kegui is married to Liu Fang. The couple have a young son, Chen Fubin. Last Thursday morning Guangcheng's brother, Chen Guangfu, was beat up by unidentified men who stopped him while he was riding his electric bike, which they destroyed. Other acts violence have been perpetrated against the Chen family since Chen Guangcheng came to America last year.
In addition to testifying before Congress on April 9, 2013, Chen Guangcheng and others have been speaking and seeking to get China to honor all of their side of the agreement that allowed Guangcheng to leave China while bringing attention to forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China's one child policy and other human rights abuses in China.
One of Guangcheng's friends is Bo Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid. They have been meeting with members of Congress. They reaped some fruit from their labors when a letter dated May 13, 2013, was sent to Secretary of State John Kerry signed by both House Speaker John Boehner and Minority leader Nancy Pelosi as well as six other senior Republican and Democratic members of Congress including Chris Smith, Frank Wolf, Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, Joseph Crowley, James McGovern and Rick Larsen.
Some of the things the letter urges US Secretary of State John Kerry to obtain are:
1) medical treatment for Chen Kegui
2) medical parole for Chen Kegui
3) a meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry, Chen Guangcheng and Yuan Weijing
4) denial of US visas to 44 officials involved in persecuting Chen Guangcheng's family
Bad behavior can be brought around to good. God doesn't often speak to us audibly. He usually speaks to our inner person leading us to what is right. If we don't do what He says, God can use community correction. Unity can be used for good. An East African proverb says, "When minds are the same, that which is far off will come."
Pray that US Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barak Obama's administration takes the actions requested in the bi-partisan Congressional letter. Don't only pray about leaders, pray about all of your life and relationships. God enjoys a lot of communication and is very responsive. He wants the best life for us privately and publicly. 1 Tesalonicenses 5:17 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960 dice, "Orad sin cesar." 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Bilingual Bible New King James Version Bible says, "Pray without ceasing."
Sunday, May 12, 2013
All Mothers Work
Embrace a variety of motherhood methods. Galatians 5:14 Amplified Bible says, "For the whole Law [concerning human relationships] is complied with in the one precept, You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself."
Ida B. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. She was the eldest of eight children. Her parents died in 1878 of yellow fever. As a teenager Ida got a teaching job to financially support her brothers and sisters. Being a teenage parent did not discourage her from motherhood. In her 30s in 1895 she married Frederick Barnett, and they had four children. Before and after marriage Ida B. Wells was a journalist, speaker and activist for the rights of African Americans and women. In addition to speaking out against lynching and segregation, in 1896 she helped to found the National Association of Colored Women, the National Afro-American Council and Women's Era Club.
Wells said, "I had...found that motherhood was a profession by itself, just like schoolteaching and lecturing." What about eliminating the term "working mother?" All mothers work. Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Instead of having multiple careers simultaneously, Angela Yuan chose to be a domestic engineer while her and her husband's two sons were minors. Careers have their high points and their points of humiliation. A high point for Ida B. Wells was in 1887 when she became part owner and reporter for Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. A point of humiliation was when in 1891 she was fired from her teaching job because of the content of her writing. A high point for Angela Yuan was when her son, Christopher Yuan, began work on his dental doctorate degree. A point of humiliation was when he told her that he was practicing homosexual sex, was not going to become part of his father's, Leon's, dental practice or stay connected to the Yuan family.
Romance novels are half of all mass market paperback books sold in the United States. Adventure, incredible sex and other excitement are often included in romance novels. The intensity of real life hardship is often missing. Naghmeh Abedini married her sweetheart Saeed Abedini in 2004. Later the couple had two children. In July 2012 she and their children were separated from Saeed indefinitely when Iranian authorities placed him under house arrest, then in Evin prison in Tehran, Iran, for threatening the national security of Iran by helping to set up Christian house churches in Iran and also a secular orphanage. Now Naghmeh is a married single mother. Help free Saeed, who is also a pastor, from prison, by writing letters to him and by signing a petition at http://www.savesaeed.org.
Sometimes mothers are not missing their husband, but they are missing their children. More than 330 million boys and girls have been killed by abortion in China; many of these abortions are done forcibly. A ChinaAid March 24, 2013, "With ChinaAid's Help, Two Victims of China's One-Child Policy Granted UNHCR Refugee Status" article reports that in 1995, when Guo Yanling was eight months pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. In 1999, she was forcibly sterilized. In 2006, she was imprisoned for not being able to pay a fine for having more than one child. The Chinese government also refused to issue household registrations to her and to her husband, Du Yiliang's, three children without which they are unable to attend school or receive government benefits. With ChinaAid’s help, Guo Yanling and Du Yiliang have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commission on Refugees. Notes of encouragement to Du Yiliang and Guo Yanling, requests for interviews and financial contributions to ChinaAid's Emergency Relief Fund can all be submitted to ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu at (267) 205-5210.
Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, who is the president of The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, America’s largest Hispanic Christian Organization with more than 40,000 member churches, writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial "Trust Act Seeks to End Trivial Immigrant Arrests," "Juana Reyes provides for her family by selling homemade tamales outside a busy Wal-Mart not far from where I live. At least she used to.
Last month Juana was arrested for selling her tamales without a permit and was held in jail for 13 days, while her two children were placed in foster care. Juana was just released, but she now faces deportation back to Mexico, despite having lived in California for 20 years and being the sole caregiver to her children, both U.S. citizens." Many Latino and other immigrant mothers and fathers are being separated temporarily and permanently from their children by American immigration policies.
Motherhood and fatherhood are honorable professions. Exodus 20:12 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land which Adonai your God is giving you." Happy Mother's Day!
Ida B. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. She was the eldest of eight children. Her parents died in 1878 of yellow fever. As a teenager Ida got a teaching job to financially support her brothers and sisters. Being a teenage parent did not discourage her from motherhood. In her 30s in 1895 she married Frederick Barnett, and they had four children. Before and after marriage Ida B. Wells was a journalist, speaker and activist for the rights of African Americans and women. In addition to speaking out against lynching and segregation, in 1896 she helped to found the National Association of Colored Women, the National Afro-American Council and Women's Era Club.
Wells said, "I had...found that motherhood was a profession by itself, just like schoolteaching and lecturing." What about eliminating the term "working mother?" All mothers work. Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
Instead of having multiple careers simultaneously, Angela Yuan chose to be a domestic engineer while her and her husband's two sons were minors. Careers have their high points and their points of humiliation. A high point for Ida B. Wells was in 1887 when she became part owner and reporter for Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. A point of humiliation was when in 1891 she was fired from her teaching job because of the content of her writing. A high point for Angela Yuan was when her son, Christopher Yuan, began work on his dental doctorate degree. A point of humiliation was when he told her that he was practicing homosexual sex, was not going to become part of his father's, Leon's, dental practice or stay connected to the Yuan family.
Romance novels are half of all mass market paperback books sold in the United States. Adventure, incredible sex and other excitement are often included in romance novels. The intensity of real life hardship is often missing. Naghmeh Abedini married her sweetheart Saeed Abedini in 2004. Later the couple had two children. In July 2012 she and their children were separated from Saeed indefinitely when Iranian authorities placed him under house arrest, then in Evin prison in Tehran, Iran, for threatening the national security of Iran by helping to set up Christian house churches in Iran and also a secular orphanage. Now Naghmeh is a married single mother. Help free Saeed, who is also a pastor, from prison, by writing letters to him and by signing a petition at http://www.savesaeed.org.
Sometimes mothers are not missing their husband, but they are missing their children. More than 330 million boys and girls have been killed by abortion in China; many of these abortions are done forcibly. A ChinaAid March 24, 2013, "With ChinaAid's Help, Two Victims of China's One-Child Policy Granted UNHCR Refugee Status" article reports that in 1995, when Guo Yanling was eight months pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. In 1999, she was forcibly sterilized. In 2006, she was imprisoned for not being able to pay a fine for having more than one child. The Chinese government also refused to issue household registrations to her and to her husband, Du Yiliang's, three children without which they are unable to attend school or receive government benefits. With ChinaAid’s help, Guo Yanling and Du Yiliang have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commission on Refugees. Notes of encouragement to Du Yiliang and Guo Yanling, requests for interviews and financial contributions to ChinaAid's Emergency Relief Fund can all be submitted to ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu at (267) 205-5210.
Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, who is the president of The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, America’s largest Hispanic Christian Organization with more than 40,000 member churches, writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial "Trust Act Seeks to End Trivial Immigrant Arrests," "Juana Reyes provides for her family by selling homemade tamales outside a busy Wal-Mart not far from where I live. At least she used to.
Last month Juana was arrested for selling her tamales without a permit and was held in jail for 13 days, while her two children were placed in foster care. Juana was just released, but she now faces deportation back to Mexico, despite having lived in California for 20 years and being the sole caregiver to her children, both U.S. citizens." Many Latino and other immigrant mothers and fathers are being separated temporarily and permanently from their children by American immigration policies.
Motherhood and fatherhood are honorable professions. Exodus 20:12 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land which Adonai your God is giving you." Happy Mother's Day!
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Are Stereotypes Godly?
Sometimes people try to put people in boxes that the Bible does not place them inside. The Bible records that Deborah led the Israelites as a judge and prophetess, and that Sarah was a domestic engineer. God approves of women working in a variety of ways.
The universe that God made is full of variety. God likes variety, but He does not like vice. It is harmful behavior to reject the way God made us. God made us male, female, African, European, Asian, Latino and with many other qualities. Our biology is not an accident. Long before God created the earth, He planned everything about us the way He did because it pleased Him and because He loves us passionately. So when we reject our biology we hurt God; we also hurt ourselves.
The bodies God gave us are awesome and built for good treatment. Galatians 5:14 Amplified Bible says, "For the whole Law [concerning human relationships] is complied with in the one precept, You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself."
A Twi African proverb says, "Love is the greatest of all virtues." Love ensures that our relationships with God, self and others work well.
God is the source of the kind of love expressed in Galatians 5:14 giving us the power to celebrate who we are and to develop in a way that is also better for people around us.
Godly enhancements don't erase our Designer's creation. When Deborah became a judge and prophetess she never stopped being a woman. Some people are not satisfied with being a male or female and want to change their gender. Some feel that being another gender will free them to live a more fulfilling life.
Every society makes rules about what people are suppose to be and do, and these rules usually place some type of bondage on people that God doesn't. A Chinese proverb says, "Pointing to a deer and calling it a horse;" it means "right and wrong are deliberately mixed up." Some are deliberately trying to mix up God and the devil by falsely portraying God as an advocate of bondage. The truth is God desires us to live in maximum freedom, so that we can be of maximum service to God and people. Galatians 5:13 Amplified Bible says, "For you, brethren, were [indeed] called to freedom; only [do not let your] freedom be an incentive to your flesh and an opportunity or excuse [for selfishness], but through love you should serve one another."
God called creyentes (believers) who are reinas y reyes (queens and kings) to a dynamic life. Sarah left the country of her birth, traveled and ended up being the matriarch of a new nation of people. Sarah had an adventurous life. If a life of adventure does not appeal to you, then it may be that God has a different, equally valuable plan for you.
If you are uncomfortable in your gender or any other aspect of your humanity, talk to God about your discomfort. He is able to take our inner life and turn it into something good inside and outside. Today, the National Day of Prayer, is a good day to talk to God as is any day at any time. Sometimes family, friends and others are not available to talk to us, but God is. God is everywhere at all times, and He is always doing good.
While we cannot be everywhere at all times, God wants us to cooperate with Him to be doing good like He does. Imagine if most people loved God, loved themselves and loved other people and write to me about it at:
Michele F. Jackson
P.O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, VA 22195
Also share a tweet @Michelelove30 via the social media Twitter.
The universe that God made is full of variety. God likes variety, but He does not like vice. It is harmful behavior to reject the way God made us. God made us male, female, African, European, Asian, Latino and with many other qualities. Our biology is not an accident. Long before God created the earth, He planned everything about us the way He did because it pleased Him and because He loves us passionately. So when we reject our biology we hurt God; we also hurt ourselves.
The bodies God gave us are awesome and built for good treatment. Galatians 5:14 Amplified Bible says, "For the whole Law [concerning human relationships] is complied with in the one precept, You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself."
A Twi African proverb says, "Love is the greatest of all virtues." Love ensures that our relationships with God, self and others work well.
God is the source of the kind of love expressed in Galatians 5:14 giving us the power to celebrate who we are and to develop in a way that is also better for people around us.
Godly enhancements don't erase our Designer's creation. When Deborah became a judge and prophetess she never stopped being a woman. Some people are not satisfied with being a male or female and want to change their gender. Some feel that being another gender will free them to live a more fulfilling life.
Every society makes rules about what people are suppose to be and do, and these rules usually place some type of bondage on people that God doesn't. A Chinese proverb says, "Pointing to a deer and calling it a horse;" it means "right and wrong are deliberately mixed up." Some are deliberately trying to mix up God and the devil by falsely portraying God as an advocate of bondage. The truth is God desires us to live in maximum freedom, so that we can be of maximum service to God and people. Galatians 5:13 Amplified Bible says, "For you, brethren, were [indeed] called to freedom; only [do not let your] freedom be an incentive to your flesh and an opportunity or excuse [for selfishness], but through love you should serve one another."
God called creyentes (believers) who are reinas y reyes (queens and kings) to a dynamic life. Sarah left the country of her birth, traveled and ended up being the matriarch of a new nation of people. Sarah had an adventurous life. If a life of adventure does not appeal to you, then it may be that God has a different, equally valuable plan for you.
If you are uncomfortable in your gender or any other aspect of your humanity, talk to God about your discomfort. He is able to take our inner life and turn it into something good inside and outside. Today, the National Day of Prayer, is a good day to talk to God as is any day at any time. Sometimes family, friends and others are not available to talk to us, but God is. God is everywhere at all times, and He is always doing good.
While we cannot be everywhere at all times, God wants us to cooperate with Him to be doing good like He does. Imagine if most people loved God, loved themselves and loved other people and write to me about it at:
Michele F. Jackson
P.O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, VA 22195
Also share a tweet @Michelelove30 via the social media Twitter.
Friday, April 26, 2013
What Would You Do For Love?
A Kaonde African proverb says, "Husband and wife must be loyal to each other." Wife, Ellen Craft, and husband, William Craft, were reliable to make their relationship work with the benefits of freedom. Ellen was also so fair-skinned that she could pass for white even though she was of mixed European and African ancestry. William was of African ancestry. They were both slaves. Ellen cut her hair and posed as a white man traveling with her black slave. Traveling in this manner the married couple escaped slavery in Georgia and went to freedom in England.
True love inspires great actions. Romans 5:8 Amplified Bible says, "But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us." 1 John 4:11 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Beloved friends, if this is how God loved us, we likewise ought to love one another."
"... In the Bible we are all considered brothers and sisters despite our race, color or nationality," wrote Pastor Saeed Abedini in a letter to his wife, Naghmeh Abedini. Pastor Abedini was setting up an orphanage and Christian house churches in Iran when Iranian authorities put him under house arrest in July 2012 separating him from his wife and their two children. In September 2012 they arrested him. In January 2013 Iranian authorities sentenced him to an eight-year prison sentence for threatening Iran's national security. The US State Department, US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union have all called for Pastor Saeed Abedini's release, and over 573,000 people worldwide from over 180 countries have signed a petition lending him support. A campaign to write letters to him for his May 7th birthday and to sign the petition is being coordinated at http://www.savesaeed.org.
Everyone can thank God for having a birthday to celebrate. God is author of life, but not of discrimination. Acts 10:34 Amplified Bible says, "And Peter opened his mouth and said: Most certainly and thoroughly I now perceive and understand that God shows no partiality and is no respecter of persons." Please call Governor Mary Fallin at (405-521-2342) to ask her to sign into law HB 1403 The Nondiscrimination in Treatment Act of Oklahoma which protects the elderly, seriously ill and disabled by preventing medical providers from denying individuals life-saving treatment based on their quality of life.
Discrimination is deadly for the young too. Since China's one-child policy was implemented in the 1970s more than 336 million babies have been killed by abortion;that's more Chinese baby boys and baby girls have lost their lives to abortion than the combined total population of the United States of America and Australia; in America since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion 55 million babies have been killed.
When righteousness reigns, God is pleased. It's easier to receive a right relationship with God and people in free and open societies. China is not such a society.
One person trying to open up China and to eliminate forced abortions and forced sterilizations is Chen Guangcheng. Guangcheng is the husband of Yuan Weijing and the father of a girl and a boy. He became internationally known for filing a 2005 law suit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy.
Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, access to the Internet blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night. His wife and daughter were living with him under house arrest. This family was prevented from meeting their wider family, including Chen Guangcheng's and Yuan Weijing's son, who lived elsewhere with an aunt.
Tejas is the name the Spanish gave to the area that became the US state of Texas. The Spanish chose the name based on a Native American word for "friend."
Guangcheng, who became blind as a result of a childhood illness and now wears dark sunglasses, had friends help him to escape from house arrest in April 2012. He Peirong is a key member of a group of activists who organize support for Guangcheng in China. He Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy in Beijing. Were they traveling in a Corolla, the best-selling car of all time produced by the Japanese company Toyota?
A deal was worked out between China and the United States; now Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who also helped the disabled win public benefits and aided farmers fighting illegal land seizures, lives in New York with his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children.
On April 9, 2013, he testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of 130,000 Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.
Wherever evil exists, so do fear tactics. 2 Timothy 1:7 Amplified Bible says, "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control."
What are some ways love is winning over fear?
True love inspires great actions. Romans 5:8 Amplified Bible says, "But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us." 1 John 4:11 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Beloved friends, if this is how God loved us, we likewise ought to love one another."
"... In the Bible we are all considered brothers and sisters despite our race, color or nationality," wrote Pastor Saeed Abedini in a letter to his wife, Naghmeh Abedini. Pastor Abedini was setting up an orphanage and Christian house churches in Iran when Iranian authorities put him under house arrest in July 2012 separating him from his wife and their two children. In September 2012 they arrested him. In January 2013 Iranian authorities sentenced him to an eight-year prison sentence for threatening Iran's national security. The US State Department, US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union have all called for Pastor Saeed Abedini's release, and over 573,000 people worldwide from over 180 countries have signed a petition lending him support. A campaign to write letters to him for his May 7th birthday and to sign the petition is being coordinated at http://www.savesaeed.org.
Everyone can thank God for having a birthday to celebrate. God is author of life, but not of discrimination. Acts 10:34 Amplified Bible says, "And Peter opened his mouth and said: Most certainly and thoroughly I now perceive and understand that God shows no partiality and is no respecter of persons." Please call Governor Mary Fallin at (405-521-2342) to ask her to sign into law HB 1403 The Nondiscrimination in Treatment Act of Oklahoma which protects the elderly, seriously ill and disabled by preventing medical providers from denying individuals life-saving treatment based on their quality of life.
Discrimination is deadly for the young too. Since China's one-child policy was implemented in the 1970s more than 336 million babies have been killed by abortion;that's more Chinese baby boys and baby girls have lost their lives to abortion than the combined total population of the United States of America and Australia; in America since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion 55 million babies have been killed.
When righteousness reigns, God is pleased. It's easier to receive a right relationship with God and people in free and open societies. China is not such a society.
One person trying to open up China and to eliminate forced abortions and forced sterilizations is Chen Guangcheng. Guangcheng is the husband of Yuan Weijing and the father of a girl and a boy. He became internationally known for filing a 2005 law suit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy.
Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, access to the Internet blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night. His wife and daughter were living with him under house arrest. This family was prevented from meeting their wider family, including Chen Guangcheng's and Yuan Weijing's son, who lived elsewhere with an aunt.
Tejas is the name the Spanish gave to the area that became the US state of Texas. The Spanish chose the name based on a Native American word for "friend."
Guangcheng, who became blind as a result of a childhood illness and now wears dark sunglasses, had friends help him to escape from house arrest in April 2012. He Peirong is a key member of a group of activists who organize support for Guangcheng in China. He Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy in Beijing. Were they traveling in a Corolla, the best-selling car of all time produced by the Japanese company Toyota?
A deal was worked out between China and the United States; now Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who also helped the disabled win public benefits and aided farmers fighting illegal land seizures, lives in New York with his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children.
On April 9, 2013, he testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of 130,000 Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.
Wherever evil exists, so do fear tactics. 2 Timothy 1:7 Amplified Bible says, "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control."
What are some ways love is winning over fear?
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Hasty and Happy Don't Often Go Together
An African proverb from Kenya and Ethiopia says, "Hasty marriages bring hasty divorces."
Sometimes we can fall in love and marry a fantasy. How many people thoroughly communicate their beliefs about spirituality, sex, money and other areas of life and seek to learn these from their potential spouse and his/her family before marriage?
Many people in America have participated in sex outside of marriage. Not everyone has the same beliefs about it. Some spouses are able to receive forgiveness from God for participating in sex outside of marriage, but they don't extend that forgiveness to their spouse and distrust their spouse for some or all of their marriage. Some spouses also misinterpret uninhibited sex as a sign of sexual infidelity. Many other marital, sexual misinterpretations and mistreatment goes on.
What precisely are your expectations of marriage?
Jesus Christ says in Matthew 7:12 Complete Jewish Bible, "“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that sums up the teaching of the Torah and the Prophets."
Don't you want someone to understand and appreciate the real you? Wouldn't spouses, family and friends want likewise? Communication and compassion are critical.
While we can share a relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost with whosoever, whosoever cannot be in our circle of intimacy.
Proverbs 18:22 Amplified Bible says, "He who finds a [true] wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord." A true wife wants a true husband. A good marriage is the fellowship of two spiritually mature Christians who are continuously cooperating with God to change into His likeness.
Many people receive Christ, but refuse to grow in their relationship with Christ, themselves and other people. The Bible gives us the blueprint for living after having received a relationship with God the Father, God the Son and Messiah Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit. Joshua 1:8 Amplified Bible says, "This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success." Some people want to succeed in their relationships and other areas of life, but they are not willing to do what it takes to succeed. Love includes discipline. Brian Tracy writes in his book No Excuses! The Power of Self-Discipline 21 Ways to Achieve Lasting Happiness and Success, "One of the most important requirements for success, once you have decided what it is that you want, is the quality of willingness. Successful people are willing to pay the price, whatever it is and for as long as it takes, until they achieve the results they desire. Everyone wants to be successful . . . . But most people are not willing to pay the price. Occasionally, they may be wiling to pay part of the price, but they are not willing to pay the whole price. They always hold back. They always have some excuse or rationalization for not disciplining themselves to do everything that they need to do to achieve their goals."
Many of the qualities we seek in a spouse are desirable for friends too. He Peirong is not married to Chen Guangcheng; they are friends and human rights activists. He Peirong was not one of Chen Guangcheng's first followers, but later she became a key member of a group of activists who organize support for Guangcheng in China.
Standing up for human rights in China is a threat to one's own life and the lives of one's family and friends because China is not a free and open society. Making these decisions should not be done lightly neither should the decision to marry someone be made lightly.
Chen Guangcheng is the husband of Yuan Weijing and the father of a girl and a boy. He became internationally known for filing a 2005 law suit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy.
Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, access to the Internet blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night.
Tejas is the name the Spanish gave to the area that became the US state of Texas. The Spanish chose the name based on a Native American word for "friend."
Guangcheng, who became blind as a result of a childhood illness and now wears dark sunglasses, had friends help him to escape from house arrest in April 2012. He Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy in Beijing. Were they traveling in a Corolla, the best-selling car of all time produced by the Japanese company Toyota?
A deal was worked out between China and the United States; now Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who also helped the disabled win public benefits and aided farmers fighting illegal land seizures, lives in New York with his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children.
On April 9, 2013, he testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of 130,000 Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.
"Abre tu boca por el mudo en el juicio de todos los desvalidos," dice Proverbios 31:8 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960. Proverbs 31:8 Bilingual Bible New King James Version says, "Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die."
Pastor and U.S. Citizen Saeed Abedini was setting up an orphanage and Christian house churches in Iran when Iranian authorities put him under house arrest in July 2012 separating him from his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, and their two children. In September 2012 they arrested him. In January 2013 Iranian authorities sentenced him to an eight-year prison sentence for threatening Iran's national security. The US State Department, US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union have all called for Pastor Saeed Abedini's release, and over 572,000 people worldwide from over 180 countries have signed a petition lending him support. A campaign to write letters to him for his May 7th birthday and to sign the petition is being coordinated at http://www.savesaeed.org. In a February 18, 2013, letter to his wife, Pastor Abedini wrote about physical and psychological abuse inflicted on him to compel him to deny his faith in Jesus Christ. He also wrote of plans to persevere in his relationship with God and to share it with others: "There are empty containers who are thirsty for a taste of the Living Water and we can quench their thirst by giving them Jesus Christ."
Sometimes our relationships are difficult because we made wrong choices to enter certain relationships and/or wrong choices within the relationship. Other times our relationships are difficult because we are growing spiritually and are being attacked by the kingdom of darkness. No matter the reason for relationship difficulties, a beautiful hymn to sing that Abolitionist and Women's Rights Activist Sojourner Truth sang is:
"In my trials -- Lord walk with me.
In my trials -- Lord walk with me.
When my heart is almost breaking
Lord walk with me . . . "
Sometimes we can fall in love and marry a fantasy. How many people thoroughly communicate their beliefs about spirituality, sex, money and other areas of life and seek to learn these from their potential spouse and his/her family before marriage?
Many people in America have participated in sex outside of marriage. Not everyone has the same beliefs about it. Some spouses are able to receive forgiveness from God for participating in sex outside of marriage, but they don't extend that forgiveness to their spouse and distrust their spouse for some or all of their marriage. Some spouses also misinterpret uninhibited sex as a sign of sexual infidelity. Many other marital, sexual misinterpretations and mistreatment goes on.
What precisely are your expectations of marriage?
Jesus Christ says in Matthew 7:12 Complete Jewish Bible, "“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that sums up the teaching of the Torah and the Prophets."
Don't you want someone to understand and appreciate the real you? Wouldn't spouses, family and friends want likewise? Communication and compassion are critical.
While we can share a relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost with whosoever, whosoever cannot be in our circle of intimacy.
Proverbs 18:22 Amplified Bible says, "He who finds a [true] wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord." A true wife wants a true husband. A good marriage is the fellowship of two spiritually mature Christians who are continuously cooperating with God to change into His likeness.
Many people receive Christ, but refuse to grow in their relationship with Christ, themselves and other people. The Bible gives us the blueprint for living after having received a relationship with God the Father, God the Son and Messiah Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit. Joshua 1:8 Amplified Bible says, "This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success." Some people want to succeed in their relationships and other areas of life, but they are not willing to do what it takes to succeed. Love includes discipline. Brian Tracy writes in his book No Excuses! The Power of Self-Discipline 21 Ways to Achieve Lasting Happiness and Success, "One of the most important requirements for success, once you have decided what it is that you want, is the quality of willingness. Successful people are willing to pay the price, whatever it is and for as long as it takes, until they achieve the results they desire. Everyone wants to be successful . . . . But most people are not willing to pay the price. Occasionally, they may be wiling to pay part of the price, but they are not willing to pay the whole price. They always hold back. They always have some excuse or rationalization for not disciplining themselves to do everything that they need to do to achieve their goals."
Many of the qualities we seek in a spouse are desirable for friends too. He Peirong is not married to Chen Guangcheng; they are friends and human rights activists. He Peirong was not one of Chen Guangcheng's first followers, but later she became a key member of a group of activists who organize support for Guangcheng in China.
Standing up for human rights in China is a threat to one's own life and the lives of one's family and friends because China is not a free and open society. Making these decisions should not be done lightly neither should the decision to marry someone be made lightly.
Chen Guangcheng is the husband of Yuan Weijing and the father of a girl and a boy. He became internationally known for filing a 2005 law suit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy.
Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, access to the Internet blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night.
Tejas is the name the Spanish gave to the area that became the US state of Texas. The Spanish chose the name based on a Native American word for "friend."
Guangcheng, who became blind as a result of a childhood illness and now wears dark sunglasses, had friends help him to escape from house arrest in April 2012. He Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy in Beijing. Were they traveling in a Corolla, the best-selling car of all time produced by the Japanese company Toyota?
A deal was worked out between China and the United States; now Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who also helped the disabled win public benefits and aided farmers fighting illegal land seizures, lives in New York with his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children.
On April 9, 2013, he testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of 130,000 Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.
"Abre tu boca por el mudo en el juicio de todos los desvalidos," dice Proverbios 31:8 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960. Proverbs 31:8 Bilingual Bible New King James Version says, "Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die."
Pastor and U.S. Citizen Saeed Abedini was setting up an orphanage and Christian house churches in Iran when Iranian authorities put him under house arrest in July 2012 separating him from his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, and their two children. In September 2012 they arrested him. In January 2013 Iranian authorities sentenced him to an eight-year prison sentence for threatening Iran's national security. The US State Department, US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union have all called for Pastor Saeed Abedini's release, and over 572,000 people worldwide from over 180 countries have signed a petition lending him support. A campaign to write letters to him for his May 7th birthday and to sign the petition is being coordinated at http://www.savesaeed.org. In a February 18, 2013, letter to his wife, Pastor Abedini wrote about physical and psychological abuse inflicted on him to compel him to deny his faith in Jesus Christ. He also wrote of plans to persevere in his relationship with God and to share it with others: "There are empty containers who are thirsty for a taste of the Living Water and we can quench their thirst by giving them Jesus Christ."
Sometimes our relationships are difficult because we made wrong choices to enter certain relationships and/or wrong choices within the relationship. Other times our relationships are difficult because we are growing spiritually and are being attacked by the kingdom of darkness. No matter the reason for relationship difficulties, a beautiful hymn to sing that Abolitionist and Women's Rights Activist Sojourner Truth sang is:
"In my trials -- Lord walk with me.
In my trials -- Lord walk with me.
When my heart is almost breaking
Lord walk with me . . . "
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Not Famous But Fundamental To The Kingdom Of God
Not all of Jesus Christ's 12 apostles have the same level of fame. For example, Peter is more recognized than Bartholomew. Matthew 10:1-4 New Living Translation Bible says, "Jesus called his twelve disciples together and gave them authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal every kind of disease and illness. Here are the names of the twelve apostles:
first, Simon (also called Peter),
then Andrew (Peter’s brother),
James (son of Zebedee),
John (James’s brother),
Philip,
Bartholomew,
Thomas,
Matthew (the tax collector),
James (son of Alphaeus),
Thaddaeus,
Simon (the zealot),
Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him)."
Being less famous does not mean that someone is not fundamental to the Kingdom of God.
Many have heard of Civil Rights Activist Rosa Parks, known as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Few have heard of Civil Rights Activist Jo Ann Robinson. Both were essential to the Civil Rights Movement. Before Rosa Parks many black men and women had been asked to get off the bus because they were black including Jo Ann Robinson and two teenagers named Mary Louise Smith and Claudette Colvin.
It was Jo Ann Robinson and her teacher friends and fellow activists who wrote the following letter and distributed it through 52,500 leaflets in black neighborhoods igniting the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott to end racial segregation:
"This is for Monday, December 5, 1955
Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown into jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down.
It is the second time since the Claudette Colbert (sic) case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing This has to be stopped.
Negroos (sic) have rights, too, for if Negroos did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negroos, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother.
This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, oranywhere (sic) on Monday.
You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus.
You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off of all buses Monday." (Freedom Walkers The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman)
Not only did African Americans and others stay off the bus on Monday, they stayed off for more than one year, which helped the US Supreme Court and Montgomery, Alabama, government to end racial segregation on the public buses and other areas of life.
Chen Guangcheng is the husband of Yuan Weijing and the father of a girl and a boy. He became internationally known for filing a 2005 law suit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy.
Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, access to the Internet blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night.
Tejas is the name the Spanish gave to the area that became the US state of Texas. The Spanish chose the name based on a Native American word for "friend."
Guangcheng, who became blind as a result of a childhood illness and now wears dark sunglasses, had friends help him to escape from house arrest in April 2012. He Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy in Beijing. Were they traveling in a Corolla, the best-selling car of all time produced by the Japanese company Toyota?
He Peirong, a human rights advocate and blogger, is also a key member of a group of activists who organize support for Guangcheng in China.
A deal was worked out between China and the United States; now Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who also helped the disabled win public benefits and aided farmers fighting illegal land seizures, lives in New York with his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children.
On April 9, 2013, he testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of 130,000 Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.
He Peirong is in China.
How many human rights activists will seek to leave China? Eva Pils, an associate professor of law in Hong Kong told Mark McDonald of the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times in his May 7, 2012, article "In the Chen Case, Collateral Damage," that for activists to leave China is “a hugely difficult decision, even for those who have been badly tortured.”
Chen Guangcheng said, "Recently, many friends and neighbors who I have been in touch with by phone have been taken into custody by the authorities for questioning. They have been threatened and made to describe what our conversations have been about," (January 29, 2013, Reuters article entitled "Blind dissident urges global pressure on China over rights" by Paul Eckert.)
Nevertheless, some risk going into undemocractic countries and pay a high price for it. Pastor and U.S. Citizen Saeed Abedini was setting up an orphanage and Christian house churches in Iran when Iranian authorities put him under house arrest in July 2012 separating him from his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, and their two children. In September 2012 they arrested him. In January 2013 Iranian authorities sentenced him to an eight-year prison sentence for threatening Iran's national security. The U.S. State Department, US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union have all called for Pastor Saeed Abedini's release, and over 570,000 people worldwide from over 180 countries have signed a petition lending him support. A campaign to write letters to him for his May 7th birthday and to sign the petition is being coordinated at http://www.savesaeed.org. In a February 18, 2013, letter to his wife, Pastor Abedini wrote about physical and psychological abuse inflicted on him to compel him to deny his faith in Jesus Christ. He also wrote of plans to persevere in his relationship with God and to share it with others: "There are empty containers who are thirsty for a taste of the Living Water and we can quench their thirst by giving them Jesus Christ."
An African proverb from Kenya says, "On the way to one's beloved, there are no hills."
What are some hills you have climbed on the way to your beloved?
first, Simon (also called Peter),
then Andrew (Peter’s brother),
James (son of Zebedee),
John (James’s brother),
Philip,
Bartholomew,
Thomas,
Matthew (the tax collector),
James (son of Alphaeus),
Thaddaeus,
Simon (the zealot),
Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him)."
Being less famous does not mean that someone is not fundamental to the Kingdom of God.
Many have heard of Civil Rights Activist Rosa Parks, known as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Few have heard of Civil Rights Activist Jo Ann Robinson. Both were essential to the Civil Rights Movement. Before Rosa Parks many black men and women had been asked to get off the bus because they were black including Jo Ann Robinson and two teenagers named Mary Louise Smith and Claudette Colvin.
It was Jo Ann Robinson and her teacher friends and fellow activists who wrote the following letter and distributed it through 52,500 leaflets in black neighborhoods igniting the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott to end racial segregation:
"This is for Monday, December 5, 1955
Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown into jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down.
It is the second time since the Claudette Colbert (sic) case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing This has to be stopped.
Negroos (sic) have rights, too, for if Negroos did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negroos, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother.
This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, oranywhere (sic) on Monday.
You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus.
You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off of all buses Monday." (Freedom Walkers The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman)
Not only did African Americans and others stay off the bus on Monday, they stayed off for more than one year, which helped the US Supreme Court and Montgomery, Alabama, government to end racial segregation on the public buses and other areas of life.
Chen Guangcheng is the husband of Yuan Weijing and the father of a girl and a boy. He became internationally known for filing a 2005 law suit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy.
Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, access to the Internet blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night.
Tejas is the name the Spanish gave to the area that became the US state of Texas. The Spanish chose the name based on a Native American word for "friend."
Guangcheng, who became blind as a result of a childhood illness and now wears dark sunglasses, had friends help him to escape from house arrest in April 2012. He Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy in Beijing. Were they traveling in a Corolla, the best-selling car of all time produced by the Japanese company Toyota?
He Peirong, a human rights advocate and blogger, is also a key member of a group of activists who organize support for Guangcheng in China.
A deal was worked out between China and the United States; now Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who also helped the disabled win public benefits and aided farmers fighting illegal land seizures, lives in New York with his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children.
On April 9, 2013, he testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of 130,000 Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.
He Peirong is in China.
How many human rights activists will seek to leave China? Eva Pils, an associate professor of law in Hong Kong told Mark McDonald of the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times in his May 7, 2012, article "In the Chen Case, Collateral Damage," that for activists to leave China is “a hugely difficult decision, even for those who have been badly tortured.”
Chen Guangcheng said, "Recently, many friends and neighbors who I have been in touch with by phone have been taken into custody by the authorities for questioning. They have been threatened and made to describe what our conversations have been about," (January 29, 2013, Reuters article entitled "Blind dissident urges global pressure on China over rights" by Paul Eckert.)
Nevertheless, some risk going into undemocractic countries and pay a high price for it. Pastor and U.S. Citizen Saeed Abedini was setting up an orphanage and Christian house churches in Iran when Iranian authorities put him under house arrest in July 2012 separating him from his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, and their two children. In September 2012 they arrested him. In January 2013 Iranian authorities sentenced him to an eight-year prison sentence for threatening Iran's national security. The U.S. State Department, US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union have all called for Pastor Saeed Abedini's release, and over 570,000 people worldwide from over 180 countries have signed a petition lending him support. A campaign to write letters to him for his May 7th birthday and to sign the petition is being coordinated at http://www.savesaeed.org. In a February 18, 2013, letter to his wife, Pastor Abedini wrote about physical and psychological abuse inflicted on him to compel him to deny his faith in Jesus Christ. He also wrote of plans to persevere in his relationship with God and to share it with others: "There are empty containers who are thirsty for a taste of the Living Water and we can quench their thirst by giving them Jesus Christ."
An African proverb from Kenya says, "On the way to one's beloved, there are no hills."
What are some hills you have climbed on the way to your beloved?
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