How to Save A Life

Ethiopian Orphans from Simon Scionka on Vimeo.


It's hot.  So hot I can't bear to move for fear that I might start sweating.  The sun's beating down at about 100 degrees and the heat index has been reaching up to 110.  To add to the heat, New Orleans is privileged to be surrounded by steaming marshes, creeks, and canals whose waters evaporate into the blazing hot air causing us all to barely be able to breath.  The Mississippi River looks like something out of a horror film.  Steam and fog move mysteriously across the water like ghosts choking residents with it's thick moist consistency.
About the only thing I want to do these days is jump in a pool full of ice and enjoy the refreshing feeling of freezing to death.  If only the 1940's insulation in my walls would contain the air conditioning that has been constantly flowing out of vents in my home 24/7!  There have been many days I've thought of buying a new house with beautiful double-paned windows that actually seal when they close, updated insulation that fills the walls with protection from outside elements, and a ventilation system that keeps our attic cool.  I've thought about a covered deck out back surrounding an underground pool with chilly waters and a relaxing rock fountain.  Add to that an outdoor ice machine, cold drinks, and a pool raft, and I'd have it made.
Six months ago, I would have started saving for exactly those things.  "Why shouldn't I have what many, if not most, homes in America have?"  "It's hot, I work hard, I make money, I deserve these things."  "Life is too short to not enjoy it!"  "I'll feel less stressed and more comfortable with some place to relax."  The explanations and rationalizations I created for spending money were countless.  Afterall, they are all based in some sort of truth...a self-centered truth.
I believe it's these so called "truths" that keep many of us self-absorbed, dissatisfied, and depressed.  The "truth" is there is nothing on earth that will satisfy our deepest needs.  All efforts to de-stress, de-toxify, de-brief, de-whatever are futile if there is nothing better, nobler, wiser to replace it.  The TRUTH is, the only thing that satisfies us is knowing God and making Him known throughout the world.
In adoption, I have found that there is nothing closer to God's heart.  Just as God has adopted us as heirs of His promise, given us full rights as sons, and blessed us with a glorious inheritance, Mark and I are now in turn offering a reflection of God's adoption of us to a baby boy in Ethiopia.
I'm ashamed I ever thought of spending my money, my time, my resources on anything less than a human life.  How much we have in America!  Yet we are content to write checks to charities to avoid getting our "hands dirty."  There is no amount of money saves lives.  God saves lives.  And he uses His people to bring salvation to the "ends of the earth."  One of the ways He does that is through Christian men and women adopting children as sons and daughters who have the full rights and full inheritance of biological children.
I am beside myself when I think of the reality of circumstances in this video.  I can't go on.  I feel like crumbling to the floor in anguish.  I will never be the same.  No discomfort and no sacrifice  is too difficult if it means the rescue of these children.  "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." 2 Corinthians 4:17