Spring is in the air and there are two great stories to celebrate.

NPR did a great piece about Colbert Williams.  At the age of 16, his teacher became his guardian and Williams himself became a father.  It’s a story that continues to give because Williams also has become a foster parent to three other boys.  It’s a quietly inspiring story of sacrificial fatherhood.

On becoming a father, Williams said,

I guess as a 16-year-old who came from a situation where there wasn’t a father, you know, my confidence level was probably as low as it possibly could get because I realized that I was going to be responsible for some person.  So I was scared.”

Focus on the Family is also celebrating the part we played in helping to place half of Colorado’s children eligible for adoption in forever families.  When our Wait No More adoption initiave began in 2008, there were nearly 800 kids eligible for adoption.  And now, only 365 children remain in foster care, waiting for adoptive homes.  Kelly Rosati, senior director of the ministry’s Sanctity of Human Life division, told the Denver Post,

We’re not giving up or stopping until every waiting child in Colorado has the family it deserves.

Another Post interview gives Christians insight into the hearts of the children waiting for a home of their own:

Tiffany Beal, now a 20-year-old college senior in Colorado Springs, was in foster care for about three years before her adoption at age 11. She urges people to go out on a limb and adopt — because it’s the best thing they can do for a child.

“The most amazing part of being adopted was that no matter what, I always had a home. I had someone to call Mom and Dad,” Beal said. “Even at 3, my little brother knew he wasn’t home in foster care. He kept asking me, ‘When are we going to go home?’ “

It’s why we’re here.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14516591#ixzz0hK2S2Fa7

Future generations are front and center this week in Washington D.C. Conservatives look hopefully to the future and to the millennial generation at this week’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and XPAC (Xtreme Political Active Conservatives) events.

In a Focus Action Update from the event, Kevin McCullough predicted yesterday that the Millennials—the most pro-life generation to date—will reverse Roe v. Wade.  In the same interview, Stephen Baldwin said that XPAC is about “empowering the young—even the unborn.”  It’s inspiring to think of one generation restoring the gift of life to the generation following them.

In contrast to this hopefulness, Catholic Charities with its 80 years of service to children in the District, has been run out of town.  The decision by the D.C. City Council to legalize same-sex marriage also rendered faith organizations that place children in mother-father homes according to the beliefs of the church, unfit to provide foster and adoption placement services.  Specifically, this will be a loss to the 43 children and 35 foster families who were in the Catholic Charities caseload. Read it here.

Polls indicate that a majority of the millennial generation currently supports redefining marriage to include same-sex couples.  But as these same millennials mature politically, I think their eyes will be opened to the injustice to children and to people of faith when marriage is redefined, and their response will be inspiring.

Be a part of the change at www.risingvoice.com.

Just so you know, the health care debate isn’t dead.  We still need you to make your voice heard on health care — even if you’ve already done so.

The President is holding a bipartisan meeting on Feb. 25th to try to hammer out a new version of the health care bill.   (Although it looks like he might have a bill crafted by the time the summit begins).

What that means is now is the time to remind your lawmakers where you stand on health care, particularly on the funding of abortions with federal dollars.  The Massachusetts election may have slowed down the Democrats from pushing their current health care version forward, but it hasn’t stopped them altogether.

So make sure your two U.S. senators and representative know that whatever bill they come up with, at a minimum, needs to keep your money from being used to pay for abortions.

Don’t know who your 2 U.S. senators and representative are? It’s easy to find them on our website by typing in you zip code here. You can even find the closest district office to you, in case you want to make an in-person visit!

At last! We’ve discovered the secret behind the vast conspiracy to keep facts out of schools about the Founding Fathers and their beliefs in the benefits of faith, freedom and free enterprise: We now have proof that students who lack knowledge about these basic facts are more likely to form left-wing viewpoints!    

 Just kidding. Well, sort of.

“College Makes Students More Liberal, but Not Smarter About Civics,” reports a headline in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The article cited results of a study released this Wednesday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Among other things, the study explains that someone who graduates from college is more likely to “favor same-sex marriage and favor abortion on demand” than someone who shares similar background characteristics, but who doesn’t graduate from college.

However, gaining “civic knowledge—as opposed to merely graduating from college—increases a person’s beliefs in American ideas and free institutions.” Among other things, a person with greater civic knowledge is more likely to understand the benefits of “free enterprise” and the relevance of the Ten Commandments.

Interestingly—on the very same day of this report—data was also released from the Pew Research Center detailing information on the Millennial generation ( people born after 1980). “In their social and political views, young adults are clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life …” summarized the Pew report.  (Young adults are defined as ages 18-29).

They are also more  accepting of “bigger” government. And “less than half of adults under age 30 say that religion is very important in their lives.”  

These revelations should give us all pause—and make us consider the long-term cost of steeping an entire generation of students in the philosophy that they are nothing more than an accident of nature, that they have no higher destiny than to give into their most basic instincts and that there is nothing special about living in America, nothing costly about the freedom we enjoy.

Negative influences from pop culture are easy to spot so when entertainment offers up a healthy message, that’s an exception worth noting. 

A recent example is the country music song, “The Call,” by Matt Kennon.  Regardless of your opinion of country music, ballads like Kennon’s (based in part on his own life experience)  use lyric and melody to constructively draw us into a larger story and a bigger purpose.  In this instance, it’s the impact each of us can have in encouraging others to embrace the value of life – their own or someone else’s.

You may remember a time in your life when the right word or encouragement changed your attitude, or even life direction.  I certainly recall when that’s happened to me, as well as who made “the call” that enhanced my life. Most often, human life is best defended by reaching out with love and concern.  Kennon’s “The Call” demonstrates the opportunity we have to love, and in the process change the direction of another’s life in a life-affirming way.

Focus on the Family would like to thank you for your tremendous support, and invites you to share their message of “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life ”.  Do you like free prizes? Would you like the chance to win a FREE trip to Colorado Springs to have lunch with Jim Daly himself?

Sign up for our online contest today and share this link with your friends!  http://www.focusonthefamily.com/supporters

Gary Schneeberger, Focus on the Family VP, Ministry Communication, talks to Stuart Shepard about the Tebow Super Bowl ad, and some of the feedback the organization is receiving.

Watch it here: http://www.citizenlink.org/focusactionupdate/A000011988.cfm

Astounding statements out of Investor’s Business Daily that sum up where we are with the embryonic stem cell debate: 

Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research [in California], there have been no cures, no therapies and little progress.

No cures.  No therapies.  Quite a statement.  And very unfortunate for California taxpayers who were sold a $3 BILLION bill of goods when they voted for Prop 71 back in 2004. 

We’ve been hearing for years that the only thing embryonic stem cell research needs for success is time and money.  Well, now California has given us the answer to the formula: 

Time (5 years) + money ($3 billion) = No success.  No cures.  No therapies.

 But at least we now know what does work: 

 The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state agency created to, as some have put it, restore science to its rightful place, is diverting funds from ESCR to research that has produced actual therapies and treatments: adult stem cell research. It not only has treated real people with real results; it also does not come with the moral baggage ESCR does.

 Let’s focus on research that’s actually helping patients without destroying young human life.

So says Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary. And the fact that the last-minute, so-called “pro-life” amendment (that supposedly eased Ben Nelson’s qualms about public funding of abortion) was negotiated by Senators Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray would have sent shivers of fear through any ordinary pro-lifer. Somehow Ben missed all of that.

But Ed Morrissey at Hot Air asks a question that even a fifth-grader would correctly answer every time: “If the government forces us to pay into a fund, and then controls the distribution of those funds, are those funds not ‘public’?”

Too bad it wasn’t a fifth-grader who Reid needed at 1 a.m Monday for his 60th vote.

This bold stand on life, marriage and liberty continues to attract signatures. Here is the website. I encourage you to take a look at it.

And here’s Jim Daly, our president and CEO discussing the document and his reasons for participating as an original signer. Here’s a taste:

I think for many reasons it’s resonating with a lot of people around the country – Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant believers and even non-believers. We’ve heard from some people that would oppose us on the idea of God, but at the same time they agree with the principles of religious freedom. And I think that is attracting a lot of signers from a lot of different faiths and people of no faith – because they see the importance of religious freedom.

 Life, marriage, and religious liberty are key areas of agreement which bind and unify many Americans across a wide spectrum of beliefs and personal political preferences. 

Get the word out about the Manhattan Declaration. It will make people sit up and take notice when it gets to a million signers, don’t you think?