Orphans

I was once a child, a child apart of no home, an orphan, a child with no knowledge of biological family. And I am the child of God. 

Just thinking about those two perspectives… Not knowing your biological parents hurts, it leaves an emptiness to you, questions left unanswered. I'm usually told, 'be grateful you have a family', 'God is our father' and these are true there's no doubt and I believe in it. Ironically, the people who have told me these things have known their biological family. There's something to human nature that longs and desires to know your biological history, your past generations, your genealogy. It's usually not on my mind because I have a great family and great parents with a great God. But signing and filling out medical forms, when it says family history, I have to say 'unknown'. It's kind of tough because, unless God does a miracle (which He definitely could) I will always have to say that when filling out forms or whatever. There are also those moments when people talk about China or talk about their experiences, it gets a little heavy. A friend of mine went to my birthtown and when he came back and talked about it, I wanted to ask him so many questions I knew he couldn't answer. I wanted to try and find my identity with them. 

In Ephesians it talks about God being our father and how He has adopted us into his family. What's great about being adopted is that, we have a human experience of that, and have a sense to God's adoption for us. Being able to say that is a great honor, not too many people can attest to that as they haven't had the experiences of an adopted child. However, oddly enough, when we would tell people about us being adopted, they would ask, 'oh how is that?', some people our age have said 'isn't it tough?' And yah, there are those rough times (as mentioned above) but they are outweighed by the blessings from being adopted. 

I feel that God doesn't want us to ponder on our personal pasts, especially for us who know nothing about it, but to embrace what we've been given. We have been blessed to be in a great home, overlooked by great parents. And nobodies perfect so there are the issues, aside the point, adoption here on earth is a glimsp of the ultimate adoption. 

God Bless

Immigration

Being an immigrant, a TCK (Third World Kid), and an MK (Missionary Kid) I have a bunch of stories and many different perspectives on well known stories of my family. Never thought it this way, but I am an immigrant and this is a huge issue in the political world today, as the US presidential candidates for 2016 are addressing. Why is this such a huge issue? From my observation, this hasn't been much of an issue in the US in the past. It's an issue now, because I think ISIS is one of the main fears on America's hearts. But on a more personal level, reflecting back, David Martin Ruiz was an immigrant (I think) and he killed my brother. This hasn't changed my views on immigrants, because the ideal isn't realistic. America would ideally love to keep all of their citizens safe, reality is, they can't. Also, isn't America's statement "In God we trust", why aren't they trusting God now? God wants us to bring others in our home, the outcasts, the rejected and the lost. So are we going to ignore that? 

Here's a verse that clearly states what we need to do:

“‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God."

Do we ignore this?