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
Focus on the Family’s marriage simulcast event is this weekend. You can still attend at one of the event sites across the country.
Featured speakers include Gary Thomas, Dr. Gary Chapman, Les and Leslie Parrott, Francis Chan, Kirk and Chelsea Cameron and Stephen Kendrick.
There was a great response to last year’s inaugural event with thousands in attendance across the U.S. Find a host site near you.
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
In a recent gambling-news article, Tribal leaders called Barney Frank’s online gambling bill, H.R. 2267 , “…the greatest threat to Indian gaming in 20 years.”
Tribal leaders clearly feel threatened by the possibility of more competition. “… the threat of Congressional legislation that will transfer billions of dollars from Indian Reservations to foreign offshore internet casinos,” said Daniel Tucker, leader in the California Nations Indian Gaming Association and chairman of the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation.
Tribal opposition to Frank’s bill is expected to escalate in coming weeks and months, as is the opposition from pro-family groups. Frank’s bill would pipe thousands of online, virtual casinos into approximately 91 million U.S. homes via the Internet.
About 230 million men, women and children access the Internet for business, school and information. Many feel that Frank’s sponsorship of policy legalizing online gambling is irresponsible legislation that is being pushed by foreign, online gambling interests and their U.S.-based front-group, Poker Player’s Alliance.
If you want to learn more about this issue, visit our Internet Gambling Take Action site.
Mother Jones, the most widely-circulated liberal magazine in the country, interviews Focus on the Family’s Esther Fleece and Gary Schneeberger about the organization’s outreach to the Millennial generation.
As someone who Tweets for the Lord, 27-year-old Esther Fleece has her work cut out for her. In September, the evangelical powerhouse Focus on the Family hired Fleece as an emissary to people between 18 and 29, a generation that between now and 2018 will grow by 4.5 million eligible voters each year. As a group, these “millennials” already dwarf the politically powerful senior population, but they make up only a small and ever-shrinking sliver of the conservative Christian movement, which in turn accounts for 35 percent of the GOP vote. Fleece’s job is to bring them into the tent.
It’s a pretty fair piece considering the divergent views between Focus and Mother Jones. Read the article here.
Peggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ about institutions—the government, journalism, Wall Street, education and the church, and about how they seem to have “forgotten their mission”. She says it like this:
Maybe the most worrying trend the past 10 years can be found in this phrase: “They forgot the mission.” So many great American institutions—institutions that every day help hold us together—acted as if they had forgotten their mission, forgotten what they were about, what their role and purpose was, what they existed to do. You, as you read, can probably think of an institution that has forgotten its reason for being. Maybe it’s the one you’re part of.
The social institution of marriage wasn’t listed, but it could easily be added to the list. Marriage is diminished in American culture in part because we seem to have forgotten the mission.
As strange as it might seem to the romanticized notions of Americans—marriage didn’t come about as the epic event for predestined soulmates. At its core, marriage is much more practical. It channels sexual fidelity and financial resources toward caring for the next generation. This is best for a child, her parents, and the community in which the family lives.
In 2010 Focus Action will continue one of the original missions of Focus on the Family since 1977: for every child, a married mom and dad.
Women are bearing the disproportionate burden of negative consequences from the “casual-sex” revolution, but a feminist group at Harvard, ironically, is upset about an increasingly popular movement that empowers both women and men to say “No” to sex. Makes you scratch your head, doesn’t it?
Consider that two of every five babies (40%) are born to unwed mothers who will likely not finish college and have to raise a child alone – at or near poverty. Meanwhile, Biological “Dad” jumps into the sack with the next girl and the pattern continues. Another young lady’s potential is stunted and one more child goes fatherless.
Just one dorm room over, Dan Disease is sharing HPV, Chlamydia, Syphilis and possible exposure to HIV with Emily, his sixth sexual conquest this year. “Hooking up,” it’s what every sexually liberated man and woman wants, right? I’m still scratching my head.
Hmm … but could the “free-sex” model be an ill-constructed failure? Research is showing that “hook-ups” don’t satisfy and there’s more to sex than, well, just having more sex. The human brain is actually wired to have one mate for life, according to the most recent research.
Sex is more than a physical act – it’s intellectual, ethical, social, emotional and spiritual as well. Although the brain rewards humans for having sex (dopamine reward), brain chemicals are “values neutral,” in that they cannot distinguish between good, bad, healthy or unhealthy behaviors.
Freedom is as much the ability to choose something as it is to choose NOT to do something. If life had a rewind button, more than a few sexually active, unmarried women would choose NOT to repeat careless decisions regarding sex.
On Friday’s Focus on the Family Action broadcast, Dr. James Dobson alerted listeners about recent actions taken by Congress and our President that could affect families and children for years to come.
He was joined by three members of our public policy team—myself as the education analyst; Tom Minnery, our Vice President; and Carrie Earll, the director of the Issues-Analysis team. Here’s a quick run down:
We began the broadcast by discussing our alarm over the appointment of “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings, including his commitment to pushing homosexual advocacy into schools down to the kindergarten level.
Also topping the list of concerns was President Obama’s pledge to work to overturn a federal law protecting traditional, man-woman marriage (the Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA).
When Tom Minnery pointed out that the President’s pledge actually contradicts traditional-marriage measures passed in at least 45 states, Dr. Dobson expressed his distress: “Can you imagine, now, that the President of the United States stands up there and essentially contradicts and defies the will of the American people in 45 states? What gall!”
Also discussed was the “hate crimes” legislation, recently passed by the U.S. Congress. Carrie Earll expressed her concern about the “aiding and abetting” section that’s attached to the bill, which could eventually be used to attack pastors who dare to preach about homosexuality.
To listen to the whole broadcast, click here.
