No guarantees. Probably 7 years ago (maybe more?), I received a comment on my old Livejournal from a young Russian woman named Anna who runs a Christian website called Pravmir. (The English site is here.)I helped her edit a few English translations of articles for the site before I ended up with a job and ran out of time; but I’ve kept track of her on Livejournal. A few months ago, her husband died suddenly, leaving her widowed in her 30’s (I think she’s my age) with a little daughter named Natasha. She has been a beautiful example of faith in the midst of all of this and wrote a beautiful piece called “No Guarantees” today. You can find it (in Russian) here. If you open it in Chrome, the browser will translate it for you.
Posts to come: Birch Box. I registered for a Birch Box and received it on Tuesday. I’ll try a couple of the products out this weekend and let you know how it goes. 🙂
Forty to Forever. From my Facebook wall:
OK… I’m the social media person for the Forty to Forever fundraiser and we’re trying to raise money for families adopting kids internationally who have special needs. We need two things:
1.) We desperately need churches who are willing to sponsor families with prayer and also with funding to a degree. This doesn’t have to be costly and there is information on the website about what to do. If you ladies could talk to you church councils/pro-life groups/ missions people/women’s ministries/whoever, I’d greatly appreciate it. If you can’t find the answer to one of your questions, let me know and I’ll get the information for you. You can find most of what you need here.
2.) We need people who can commit to being prayer warriors and praying for us/the families/the kids one day a week during Lent. (We could also really use it right now.) It’s a fifteen minutes per week commitment and if it would help, I can send you prayers, a litany, or whatever you need in terms of help in how to pray. The page for sign-ups is here.
The website is http://www.fortytoforever.com/ and we’re also present on Facebook and Twitter.
Thanks!
Orphans. Do you see these two precious children?
Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her and they are compiling their dossier to send to her country.
Wow. A couple weeks ago, I posted a prayer request for Elizabeth of Keep on Spinning. She’s been fighting breast cancer for the last 5 years and the cancer this time is back with a vengeance. She was supposed to get chemo on Tuesday but her white cell count had tanked and made her ineligible. Instead, she showed pictures of her son Danny (who is looking GOOD despite his own medical issues) and her husband Dixon shaving her head.
OK… seriously, it’s incredibly humbling to see a woman brave enough to show her head being shaved. I mean, this is probably totally normal for her now but still… I don’t know that I would have the courage to show mine being shaved if I was in her position. Keep praying for her because she’s got a “hard row to hoe”.
Posts to write (maybe): potty-training. This isn’t a for sure yet but I might be writing on potty-training Daniel. I haven’t decided because I don’t know if I want to let some things in my life be private and if that is really one of them yet. In the meantime, I’d love tips if y’all have any.
The shutdown. Attention Congress:
YOU. SUCK. BOTH PARTIES. (Note: I’m a blue dog Democrat and I am criticizing my own party. That’s how pissed I am.)
This was 16 days and billions of dollars flushed down the toilet that did not have to happen. There are people who had to borrow money to pay their rent and mortgage, feed their kids, and keep utilities on while Congress got paid and got to keep their gym memberships. To the Congresspersons who either gave up their paycheck or is donating it: you rock and I will gladly support y’all with fundraising if I happen to find your arguments convincing. To everyone else, let me reiterate that YOU. ALL. SUCK. I will make it my mission to get your butts out of office in 2014. Count on it.
For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.
