Sunday Sabbath August 30 2015  HELP US TO FIGHT!

How very sheltered we are here in America.  Do we really know what is going on outside our borders, much less, inside our borders?  Speaking of myself, there is so much more that I don’t know, than what I do know.

Dave and I had an interesting day today.  We volunteered to help out Intervarsity Fellowship, which is a group that has a presence on the University of Wisconsin’s campus.  It is a God based group that helps incoming students become acclimated to college life.  It’s beliefs are Christian oriented and the workers work with new students to lend support for settling in, especially with foreign students, and to witness to them about the love of God when the time is appropriate.  They offer field trips to build relationships and need volunteers to help.  What Dave and I  did today was to be driver and reader for a tour of Madison.  I was the driver and Dave was the reader.  We had a capacity to take two people.  There were several carloads of people who met at a host home after the tour in order to allow the volunteers to become better acquainted with each other and the students.

Dave and I were assigned a mother and and her 11 year old son.  They both have Chinese names which I cannot pronounce.  The mom and son choose to go by “American Names”, Nancy and Stephen.  Nancy is a college professor in China and teaches the Chinese language.  She is here as a professor to teach Chinese to University of Wisconsin Students.  She will be here two years.  Her husband is also a professor and did not have permission to come with her.  The Chinese must pay for their own college education and they have very tough tests to see who is allowed into the best colleges so they acquire the best positions.  The government runs the universities and the professors are all paid by the government.  Nancy said neither she, nor her husband, are paid very much.  She turned to me and smiled and told me they didn’t have much money but they had a loving family and were very happy.  She thought that she was fortunate because they have love together.

I asked Nancy if she had any other children.  She said, no, she was not allowed to have more children.  I asked her what happened if she became pregnant.  Then something will happen to me she told me.  Like what, I asked?  I maybe lose my job, was her reply.  I asked her if she was serious and she affirmed that she was.  If you have a sibling you can only have one child.  If she and her husband had no siblings then they would be allowed to have two children.  Her son will be allowed two children.

When the above conversation transpired we were walking in Olbrich Gardens, in the tranquil beauty of a quiet Sunday afternoon, thousands of miles away from China.  I looked around me and observed several Olbrich Garden  guests laughing, having fun, not an apparent care in the world, and totally taking for granted the freedom in which they live.  Here in America we have become so accepting of our freedom that many don’t even see how it is being chipped away, and if we do know, many don’t seem to care or take time to understand how our country could become if the government takes more and more of our freedoms.  Freedom of speech is being chipped away, the Ten Commandments being erased from public buildings, limiting prayer in certain places, and so many other freedoms receeding.  I turned to look at Nancy and her son and realized again, just how precious our freedom really is.  Nancy confided that she wished she was allowed to have more children because she so very much wanted a larger family.  I guess the threat of losing your income hangs heavy over one’s deciding factors.  Both she and her husband being professors, they would likely both be stripped of their professor status. As we walked she turned to me and quietly said that she could see that I had a very loving relationship with my husband too.  I told her, yes that was true.  I walked away from that conversation realizing how very fortunate I truly am for both, living in one of the last countries to have a semblance of freedom, and for having a loving husband.  It is the loving relationship that makes me the richest, but I am ever so grateful for the freedoms we have left.

Look at the people around you, your children, your extended family, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews and try to imagine life without them.  If you are an only child (which China had mandated for many years past) you have no aunts or uncles or cousins or brothers or sisters or nieces or nephews.  You simply have your parents, and grandparents as long as they are living.  When your parents are gone there is no family left on earth that knew and loved you as a baby and child.  Except for your only child, you will grow old alone without any extended family support system. In China you are allotted one begotten child to love and one spouse to love and that is your entire family.  China only recently allowed more births.  One reason was because sons are the  most sought after.  Eventually there were fewer females that were allowed to survive.  Many of the abandoned girl babies were adopted by foreign families and when the boys grew to be men, there were simply not enough females for them to marry.  So policy changes were made.

Putting our conversations aside, I do want to say we had a wonderful afternoon.  We had a map to follow, words to read describing the sites, and places to stop and take pictures.  At the close of the day there was a reception with snacks and time available to become better acquainted.  I would do it again!  I told Dave last night that I believed we would be assigned students from China.  I just knew in my heart that it would be so because I have such a deep love for the Chinese people.  Our friend Betts instilled that in us by introducing us to some of her friends with whom we became well acquainted.  I do hope Nancy will be receptive to my overtures to become better acquainted.

We made a quick stop at the grocery store because my friend is coming by tomorrow and I invited her to stay for lunch.  Remember, my refrigerator was empty and I didn’t even have what it took to make another salad for us tomorrow.  And while I am thinking about it, I must go get a jar of soup out of the freezer to thaw out.  I’ll be right back…

Okay, that’s done.  I took out a jar of Stone Soup from October 2014.  It will defrost on the counter tonight and I will refrigerate it when I leave the house at 7:30 a.m.  for a Doctor appointment.  I have a busy morning and not much time to prepare for the lunch, so soup and salad it will be.

We had a guest speaker this morning at our church.  His sermon is one of the most important sermons that anyone will ever need to hear (of course that is just my opinion).  It is about the Blood of Jesus and what it means.  If at all possible please google City Church Madison WI and listen to Sunday August 30 a.m. service.  This is a sermon that makes a lot of sense out of many scriptures that we have probably just glossed over in the past as we read our Bibles through in one year.  This will be my wisdom this night!  “Listen to this sermon as it is very powerful and easy to understand”.

HELP US TO FIGHT

By Kathleen Martens

August 30, 2015

Dear God,

Thank you for the freedom

That comes from you.

It’s because of your blood

That we are made new.

Let us never take for granted

That a life was given,

So that we experience

An eternal living.

Washed white as snow

By the blood of the lamb,

Who IS THE SON OF GOD!

Which is not a scam.

And Lord we give thanks

For the freedoms of life

That we still have in America

Amidst all the strife.

Keep our eyes open

To the chipping away,

And help us to fight

For our freedoms to stay.

Well, it is after 10:00 and my proof reader is in bed.  So I will close and say good night.

“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

HEBREWS 13:20-21