Pastor Didier was at our church Sunday, preaching in the morning and sharing his testimony in the evening, and it was a great blessing and great challenge to us as families and as disciples of Jesus in our use of food and time (he uses the word "Christian" for professing Christian, which He distinguishes from "disciple," a true follower and learner of Jesus). You can also hear him sing towards the beginning of the message and the end, and his testimony from Sunday night will be posted soon.
www.sermonaudio.com/gcbc
The Loucks and Wilmarths were there 2nd service, so I counted at our church service 6 Congolese (Didier, Matteus, Brandon and Kara Wilmarth, Jamie and Jordan Loucks) and 6 other Americans that have been to Congo (Jaime and I, Gabe and Josie Wilmarth, Stuart Loucks, and Ray Hill). There were other adoptive families there that day, and many who God has adopted into His family by grace through faith in Jesus, God's multi-ethnic family that is sometimes previewed and pictured on earth in the human family and church family. Alleluia.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Glory to God For Our Adoption Journey - Pics and Audio of Presentation
How do you try and pull together Layton history in Congo beginning over 110 years ago and condense all that God has done in the lastest Layton family in our adoption journey since 2010? I did my best for a special presentation at our church a couple days ago, where I shared a testimonial of our God who is able to work together good from grief, from California to Congo, and how God has been glorified in doing far beyond what we could ask or think. Didier was over at our house for lunch and as I showed him this presentation on our laptop and as he saw Matteus again joyfully interacting with his new family, Didier was visibly moved and said more than once that seeing this is what gives him greatest joy in ministry and motivates him to want to do all he can to allow this to happen in the lives of as many as he can.
Here is the audio and some of the slides/pics in PDF:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?sermonID=1121111925592
http://www.goldcountrybaptist.org/site/outlines.asp?sec_id=1477&secure=&dlyear=0&dlcat=0
To God be the glory.
Here is the audio and some of the slides/pics in PDF:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?sermonID=1121111925592
http://www.goldcountrybaptist.org/site/outlines.asp?sec_id=1477&secure=&dlyear=0&dlcat=0
To God be the glory.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Next 2 Weekends and Didier Speaking at GCBC
Some of the readers of this blog (some of whom are in different churches) have asked to be kept in the loop on when I will be sharing more about my Congo trip with more pictures and videos, and I plan to do that this Sunday night at 6:00 p.m. at Gold Country Baptist Church (www.goldcountrybaptist.org ) with some Scriptural reflections also on the spiritual adoption journey God undertook for all his children and other things He has taught me through this time.
Also next Sunday, November 27, 2011, Didier will be preaching at the same church in the morning services 8:15 and 11:00 a.m. and sharing in the evening service at 6:00 p.m. as well. 3800 North Shingle Road, Shingle Springs, CA.
Visitors are welcome.
Also next Sunday, November 27, 2011, Didier will be preaching at the same church in the morning services 8:15 and 11:00 a.m. and sharing in the evening service at 6:00 p.m. as well. 3800 North Shingle Road, Shingle Springs, CA.
Visitors are welcome.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
A Get-Together before the New Jerusalem
On the last day before the Wilmarths and I were to leave Congo in September, Kara was singing to her friends in the back of Didier's car. Didier explained she was using the tune of a song from church but she was singing words he had never heard before, but he thinks she made up. The words were (in her language) something like "Some of us are going, some are staying here, but one day we'll all be together in the New Jerusalem." Not bad for a 2-year old!
Kara had seen her friends Jordan and Jaime leave the orphanage the last time a white person was there, and she knew she and her twin brother Brandon were about to do the same while others would remain at the orphanage, including the little guy Matteus who was also there as she sang (pictured in the middle of Kara and Brandon below).
Last weekend saw Kara's sweet song realized (or previewed) in ways beyond what she may have realized at the time she sang it in the presence of her parents, Didier, myself, and Matteus. On Saturday all those same people were reunited, not in New Jerusalem, but in the new home of the Loucks, with her Congo friends Jordan and Jaime and the little guy Matteus above, and new siblings. There were a bunch of adults there but here's just the kids (Laytons, Loucks, Wilmarths - Matteus on far left)
Once again, my twin brother Didier is wearing the same shirt as me (I didn't even know he had the same shirt till I showed up wearing it that night!) In case you can't tell who's who because of the same shirt, Didier is on the left.
I mentioned the song Kara sang that last day in Congo in one of my Sunday morning messages and played the clip of it on a Sunday evening after I had returned in September. After that message a sweet lady in our church wrote me a note: "When you told the story of the 2-year-old girl at the orphanage realizing that some of them would go and some would stay, I remembered this song from former years ;)
Then she enclosed a copy from an old hymnal of this gospel song "In The New Jerusalem" written exactly 100 years ago by C. B Widmeyer:
We shall meet and greet our loved ones, And our Christ we then shall crown,
In the new Jerusalem.
Refrain: There'll be singing, there'll be shouting When the saints come marching home,
InJerusalem , in Jerusalem
Waving palms with loud hosannas As the King shall take His throne,
In the new Jerusalem.
Though the way is sometimes lonely, He will hold me with His hand,
Through the testings and the trials I must go.
But I'll trust and gladly follow, For sometime I'll understand,
In the new Jerusalem (Refrain)
When the last goodbye is spoken And the tear stains wiped away,
And our eyes shall catch a glimpse of glory fair,
Then with bounding hearts we'll meet Him Who hath washed our sins away,
In the new Jerusalem (Refrain)
We will sing and shout forever, And we'll grow in perfect love,
In the new Jerusalem (Refrain)
If you're an adopted child of God, you have a much greater and more glorious gathering to look forward to in the New Jerusalem with God's multi-ethnic family (Revelation 21-22). But I was thankful for a small-scale picture or preview God gave us this past Saturday with human families of Chinese, Belgian, African, and European-American elements that God has woven together. Alleluia.
Kara had seen her friends Jordan and Jaime leave the orphanage the last time a white person was there, and she knew she and her twin brother Brandon were about to do the same while others would remain at the orphanage, including the little guy Matteus who was also there as she sang (pictured in the middle of Kara and Brandon below).
Last weekend saw Kara's sweet song realized (or previewed) in ways beyond what she may have realized at the time she sang it in the presence of her parents, Didier, myself, and Matteus. On Saturday all those same people were reunited, not in New Jerusalem, but in the new home of the Loucks, with her Congo friends Jordan and Jaime and the little guy Matteus above, and new siblings. There were a bunch of adults there but here's just the kids (Laytons, Loucks, Wilmarths - Matteus on far left)
Once again, my twin brother Didier is wearing the same shirt as me (I didn't even know he had the same shirt till I showed up wearing it that night!) In case you can't tell who's who because of the same shirt, Didier is on the left.
I mentioned the song Kara sang that last day in Congo in one of my Sunday morning messages and played the clip of it on a Sunday evening after I had returned in September. After that message a sweet lady in our church wrote me a note: "When you told the story of the 2-year-old girl at the orphanage realizing that some of them would go and some would stay, I remembered this song from former years ;)
Then she enclosed a copy from an old hymnal of this gospel song "In The New Jerusalem" written exactly 100 years ago by C. B Widmeyer:
When the toils of life are over, And we lay our armor down,
And we bid farewell to earth with all its cares, We shall meet and greet our loved ones, And our Christ we then shall crown,
In the new Jerusalem.
Refrain: There'll be singing, there'll be shouting When the saints come marching home,
In
Waving palms with loud hosannas As the King shall take His throne,
In the new Jerusalem.
Though the way is sometimes lonely, He will hold me with His hand,
Through the testings and the trials I must go.
But I'll trust and gladly follow, For sometime I'll understand,
In the new Jerusalem (Refrain)
When the last goodbye is spoken And the tear stains wiped away,
And our eyes shall catch a glimpse of glory fair,
Then with bounding hearts we'll meet Him Who hath washed our sins away,
In the new Jerusalem (Refrain)
When we join the ransomed army In the summer land above,
And the face of our dear Savior we behold, We will sing and shout forever, And we'll grow in perfect love,
In the new Jerusalem (Refrain)
If you're an adopted child of God, you have a much greater and more glorious gathering to look forward to in the New Jerusalem with God's multi-ethnic family (Revelation 21-22). But I was thankful for a small-scale picture or preview God gave us this past Saturday with human families of Chinese, Belgian, African, and European-American elements that God has woven together. Alleluia.
 |
| From left to right: Wilmarths, Jim Hagen, Didier, Laytons, Paul Anthes, Bob Wheatley holding Jamie Louck, then rest of Loucks family, including Grandpa Loucks. Jim, Paul, and Bob are the Compassion for Congo ministry team that has helped make all this possible |
Sunday, November 13, 2011
It's a Small World ... and a Big God After All
Jim Hagen was a member of Gold Country Baptist Church (GCBC) here in the small town of Shingle Springs, CA, before he retired and moved to Idaho. Several years ago when he was in Congo on a trip (he also has a family connection there), he met a seminary student named Didier ... and a wonderful relationship developed between Didier and his adopted "Papa Jim."
A young boy named Joel came into Didier's care in the ensuing years and Jim knew of a family in his church in Idaho who wanted to privately adopt. I think it was in 2007 that the Cowley family in Jim's church in Idaho was able to adopt this boy from Didier's home.
In the summer of 2010, Jim Hagen and Didier visited California, and let our church know Didier would be able to share in our morning service if we desired. This is what Jaime wrote on our blog:
It was riveting!
It was life-changing.
A young boy named Joel came into Didier's care in the ensuing years and Jim knew of a family in his church in Idaho who wanted to privately adopt. I think it was in 2007 that the Cowley family in Jim's church in Idaho was able to adopt this boy from Didier's home.
In the summer of 2010, Jim Hagen and Didier visited California, and let our church know Didier would be able to share in our morning service if we desired. This is what Jaime wrote on our blog:
"Last June 2010 a native pastor from Congo (aka DRC) came to share with our church ...
He was hard to understand.
He spoke for only 15 minutes. It was riveting!
It was life-changing.
He spoke of the despair and devastation in his country ... Babies are discarded ... Life is bare and hard. But this mans hope is not in this world. His hope is in the Lord. He lives each day for the hope of glory!
His name is Didier Mukotshi. He is a pastor of 2 churches, father of 6, and has opened his heart to orphans. When he came to visit our church he asked for help with the well because it was necessary to have it to open the orphanage (by January 1, 2011).
I knew I could take a baby from the other side of the world, give love, home, family, care... the Gospel. I knew this was not beyond our physical and emotional capabilities. But I did not know how.
We started the process of a "Independent International Adoption." It took tons of time, research, reading, questioning... to understand what that is and how we were going to do it. [A big part of this was phone and email conversations between Jaime and Amy Cowley in Idaho, as talking with someone who had actually completed an adoption through Didier and this country was vital for us having the comfort level to proceed] There were only about 10 adoptions in the DRC in 2009. Total.
Our goal was to have the American homestudy process done by January 1, 2011, so we could take the first baby available. We did! We had all the piles of paper and requirements ready. We had prayed about age, sex, number of children to take... We felt a boy, under two would be best for our family."
Back to November 2011. Another family that used to be a part of GCBC, the Price family, moved to Idaho a couple years ago. Jaime told them about Didier speaking at their church this past Sunday and the Price family visited and took these pictures with him.
What's interesting is that Mike, the boy's math teacher, is married to Amy Cowley below - they are the couple who first adopted through Didier and in some sense helped start the whole process that has brought other children adopted through Didier to our community in CA, including the Price's former pastor's family, the Laytons! Here is the Cowley family with Didier, and Joel has become quite a handsome young man.
Some might say "it's a small world after all." I would say "He's a big God after all."
God's Providence moves in mysterious ways. Consider some of the providential connections:
- If Jim hadn't been a trusted member of GCBC we probably wouldn't have brought a complete stranger named Didier to come to speak to our church in June 2010
- If we hadn't met Didier and had this providential connection with a trustworthy pastor from Congo opening an orphanage at the same time God was moving in our hearts toward adoption, we undoubtedly would not have ever pursued adoption from Congo, much less a risky private adoption
- If it weren't for our church helping Didier's property get a well so they could open their orphanage in the time frame they did ...
-if it weren't for Jim's church in Idaho having a family who had already adopted through Didier Jaime could talk to (Amy) ...
-if it weren't for us meeting with Jim Hagen to discuss our adoption and inviting our friends the Wilmarths and Loucks who also wanted to adopt and were right behind us in the process ...
-if I hadn't gone to Congo in August with the Wilmarths (I was initially considering not going) and let Didier know we would still like to adopt a little boy if one became available ...
-if it weren't for some of the providential connections with people in Congo we were able to establish or strengthen on that first trip ...
-if God hadn't providentially guided us to Matteus on September 6, 2011 ...
-if God hadn't given me personal contacts with key people in Congo who knew my situation and loss with my first son and wanted to help me in extraordinary ways to adopt the second time in a miraculous timeline ...
-if it weren't for Jim's church in Idaho having a family who had already adopted through Didier Jaime could talk to (Amy) ...
-if it weren't for us meeting with Jim Hagen to discuss our adoption and inviting our friends the Wilmarths and Loucks who also wanted to adopt and were right behind us in the process ...
-if I hadn't gone to Congo in August with the Wilmarths (I was initially considering not going) and let Didier know we would still like to adopt a little boy if one became available ...
-if it weren't for some of the providential connections with people in Congo we were able to establish or strengthen on that first trip ...
-if God hadn't providentially guided us to Matteus on September 6, 2011 ...
-if God hadn't given me personal contacts with key people in Congo who knew my situation and loss with my first son and wanted to help me in extraordinary ways to adopt the second time in a miraculous timeline ...
We could multiply all kinds of "if's" ... but as I looked at 5 Congolese kids last night who were all playing together at the Louck's home (Matteus Layton, Brandon and Kara Wilmarth, Jamie and Jordan Loucks), I could only marvel at the Providence of God who not only predestines our spiritual adoption (Ephesians 1:5) but also orchestrates all things according to His sovereign will (v. 11). It's hard to imagine not seeing the joy that these little ones have brought to our families from the series of events above, and it makes me marvel at the God who has adopted me and works all things together for good for His children.
He's a big God after all.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Didier at the Layton house
Exactly 2 months ago today, I told a 1-year-old "I will not leave you as an orphan, I will come to you" (John 14:18, which Didier helped me say in Swahili, "meta kuya tain" or something like that). That day I boarded a plane in Congo to return to the U.S. after my first trip praying God would allow me to come back and to return with the little fella in my arms. Exactly 2 weeks ago today, that prayer was answered when after 18 long hours, a 747 touched down in Washington D.C. with a very tired dad and his very wiggly and whiny son!
Didier, Matteus, and I arrived on U.S. soil together 2 weeks ago today then parted planes as he headed to Idaho and the 2 Laytons headed to California (you can read Phil's and Matteus' separate perspectives of their journey on earlier blogs). Today the 3 were reunited along with the Layton family in our home and Jim Hagen and Ray and Judy Hill, who are hosting them, and Mary Barb, who helps with our kids on Wednesdays. It was a full house and full of joy as we recounted the blessings and how much Matteus has changed since he first came to the orphange 2 months ago (and even since Didier saw him last) and how well he's doing as well as the Wilmarth twins they saw yesterday.
Yesterday's blog title about Adam and Matteus could also be the title of the relationship Didier and I have in Christ: 2 brothers, 2 colors, 1 race, 1 family. If you haven't already, you'll have to read that one to see what I mean, but we're almost twins wearing these matching shirts from Congo below - in case you can't tell I'm the one on the right.
As Didier walked into our house Matteus seemed a little confused, and was surprisingly quiet despite being around the Swahili-speaking Papa Didier who he loved and loved his moto-car in Congo. But once he figured out Didier wasn't going to take him away but was just here for dinner, he was running and laughing and goofing around (Matteus that is). And when Ray and Judy gave him a present including a toy truck that carries several moto-cars and drives itself and makes all kinds of fun noises when you push buttons, he was as happy as a 1-year-old can possibly be. Mom and Dad are debating taking the batteries out later as it has no volume moderation ;)
For dinner, Didier bought okra, his favorite Congolese food, and taught Jaime how to cook it (Didier was once a chef for a few years).
Jaime cooked chicken adobo (a Filipino chicken over rice with vinegar / soy sauce, very tasty) so it was quite the international meal. Topped off with ice cream and brownies, first time for Matteus but he knew what to do with it and did so gladly!
It was a great day and way to celebrate the 2-week anniversary of our son's homecoming with the whole family and our beloved brother Didier who helped bring him to us, and we were honored to host this family member in our home. Didier is not only my brother, as far as I'm concerned, he is practically my twin.
Didier, Matteus, and I arrived on U.S. soil together 2 weeks ago today then parted planes as he headed to Idaho and the 2 Laytons headed to California (you can read Phil's and Matteus' separate perspectives of their journey on earlier blogs). Today the 3 were reunited along with the Layton family in our home and Jim Hagen and Ray and Judy Hill, who are hosting them, and Mary Barb, who helps with our kids on Wednesdays. It was a full house and full of joy as we recounted the blessings and how much Matteus has changed since he first came to the orphange 2 months ago (and even since Didier saw him last) and how well he's doing as well as the Wilmarth twins they saw yesterday.
Yesterday's blog title about Adam and Matteus could also be the title of the relationship Didier and I have in Christ: 2 brothers, 2 colors, 1 race, 1 family. If you haven't already, you'll have to read that one to see what I mean, but we're almost twins wearing these matching shirts from Congo below - in case you can't tell I'm the one on the right.
As Didier walked into our house Matteus seemed a little confused, and was surprisingly quiet despite being around the Swahili-speaking Papa Didier who he loved and loved his moto-car in Congo. But once he figured out Didier wasn't going to take him away but was just here for dinner, he was running and laughing and goofing around (Matteus that is). And when Ray and Judy gave him a present including a toy truck that carries several moto-cars and drives itself and makes all kinds of fun noises when you push buttons, he was as happy as a 1-year-old can possibly be. Mom and Dad are debating taking the batteries out later as it has no volume moderation ;)
For dinner, Didier bought okra, his favorite Congolese food, and taught Jaime how to cook it (Didier was once a chef for a few years).
Jaime cooked chicken adobo (a Filipino chicken over rice with vinegar / soy sauce, very tasty) so it was quite the international meal. Topped off with ice cream and brownies, first time for Matteus but he knew what to do with it and did so gladly!
It was a great day and way to celebrate the 2-week anniversary of our son's homecoming with the whole family and our beloved brother Didier who helped bring him to us, and we were honored to host this family member in our home. Didier is not only my brother, as far as I'm concerned, he is practically my twin.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
2 brothers, 2 colors, 1 race, 1 family
As these brothers play, they have no idea that many in the world consider them from different races. The truth is, they're not from different races. They're from the same race. If you were at our church last Sunday (and were paying attention) you already know what I'm talking about.
Even within biological families, children are not always the same "color," and it's the same within the greater human family in greater measure because of God-given and God-intended diversity. In South America and India for example, it's not uncommon for parents of middle-brown shades to have children of multiple shades, different colored hair and eyes.
Strikingly different-colored children are possible not even in the same family but in the same uterus! Below are some twins (not identical, obviously) one who takes after part-Nigerian mom, the other looks much more like the caucasian English father.
Below is another set of British twins and their mum Kerry: Layton on the left (great name by the way!) and Kaydon on the right.
One couple even had "black-white" twins twice! Didier told me in Congo there was a couple who also had 2 kids, one very dark skinned, the other very light skinned.
Are their children different "races"? Not anymore than my sons Matteus and Adam are. There is no such thing as different races, scientifically or scripturally, a fact that much of the scientific community has recognized in the last 10-20 years, but a fact not as much of the general public or Christian world has recognized.
Scientists used to believe skin color had to do with "race." They now tell us we're actually all the same color, just different amounts of it in our skin (melanin is brown and different shades are just a part of genetic combinations, we're all just different shades of brown). Many scientists also now tell us that we're actually all in the same race, and that old idea of multiple "races" of humanity was bad science.
In an article in the Journal of Counseling and Development [1998, Vol. 76, p. 277–285], researchers argued that the term “race” is basically so meaningless that it should be discarded. More recently, those working on mapping the human genome announced “that they had put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome, and the researchers had unanimously declared, there is only one race—the human race.” N. Angier, "Do races differ? Not really, DNA shows," New York Times web, Aug. 22, 2000
This past Sunday at church, the message I preached was "There's Only One Race, One Way of Grace, and One Family of Faith" based on Ephesians 2-3 and Genesis 1-11 (for the audio or text notes with documentation of this, click below link):
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=11711030415
I discussed why we should use terminology from God's unchanging Word rather than our changing world's terminologies and theories. Below is some of the research I shared in that message with our church family about the human family, and you can find the rest on the link above:
The word "race" historically was used for humanity to emphasize the unity of mankind, however it eventually was used to refer to nations (ex: Jewish race, Irish race, English race, but not in the sense people use it today for broad categories of physical appearance). The word and concept of race appears to have "evolved" at the same time some were teaching that all things evolved, and a theory of evolution arose that there multiple races of humanity.
This is why Christians into the 1800s, even in the American South who owned slaves, still rejected as a heresy human poly-genesis (the theory of multiple races of people with multiple origins). This is traced in a fascinating book put out by Cambridge Press, Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000. He writes of the 17th to 19th centuries: ‘unity of the human race was fundamental to Christian theology. If mankind did not spring from a single racial origin then theologians were confronted with a scenario that undermined the very essence of the Christian story…Which posed the greater threat to Southern conservatives, the abolitionist denunciation of slavery or [the polygenist’s multiple races theories of man’s origins]? Perceptive Southerners recognized that polygenist racialism … was an even greater threat to their worldview that abolitionism or abolitionist readings of scripture. Ironically, some of the most noted and forthright defenders of monogenesis [one race and origin of man] in the nineteenth century were based in the South … [but he adds] some nineteenth-century ethnologists, oblivious of the ultimate consequences of this dangerous chain of argument, began to offer racial explanations for the world’s … diversity.’ Kidd’s book uses science to demolish “races” theory that he ties to rise of evolution.
The secular scholarly standard Oxford English Dictionary (20 vol. big set, definitive history of words) defines race: ‘group of persons, animals, or plants, connected by common descent or origin …In early use always the human race, the race of men or mankind…’
A 2004 smaller update to that authoritative massive multi-volume dictionary adds: ‘In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-century anthropologists and physiologists has led to the use of the word race itself becoming problematic. Although still used in general contexts, it is now often replaced by other words which are less emotionally charged, such as people(s) or community.’
Most people are not aware that Charles Darwin’s book The Origin of the Species was subtitled The Preservation of Favoured Races. He was using that term “races” the way it had been used before his time of different creatures, but in his book The Descent of Man, he re-defined and applied the idea to humans as different sub-species, creatures, or “races.” In that book he said that while some of the faculties of women are evolved or advanced, “some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization.” In another place in that book he said: “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.”
Those words were fulfilled in the not very distant future, a man 70 years later saw this idea as the duty of the “Aryan race,” wrongly believing he was an essentially different race than others, Hitler. A book Evolution and Ethics, written by Arthur Keith shortly after World War II: ‘The German Fuhrer…has consistently sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution’
Ken Ham, who was in town yesterday, speaks closer to home how his own homeland, Australia, when they found black Aborigines on Tasmania, newspapers declared they found “Missing Links with Mankind” (New York Tribune, 1924). Ham writes of these native Australian people, ‘biologists from England and Germany began to hunt them down as research specimens … Hunters were given instruction on how to skin them and prepare their skulls as specimens for museums around the world – all in the name of evolution. Some were taken live; some were killed …’
Closer to home for me as I adopted a son from Congo and my great grandpa was a missionary in Congo who risked his life to bring the gospel to that country in the early 1900s: Others came to that same country the same years, stole a Congolese man to the U.S. in 1904, making him part of a live monkey-evolution exhibit in a NY zoo!
Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas combined with bad people have bad consequences. I think it’s a bad idea to even use the term "races" when the very idea was unscientifically developed by people who believed that the white race was the original race that the other races with darker skin degenerated or devolved from. That was the view of Blumenbach, who died in 1840, the leading racial theorist of Europe who pioneered and popularized the idea of many races.
The history of the modern idea of “races” historically can be linked to Darwinism and racism, and even with Christians, much division. Steven Jay Gould, leading 20th century evolutionist from Harvard admitted: ‘Biological arguments for racism may have been common before [Darwin’s writings], but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.’ That’s not some Bible-thumping fanatic Baptist pastor (like me), that’s one of the most famous evolutionists who lived in my lifetime saying that.
But let’s get back to the Bible. The ESV Study Bible in an article on race explains very well that there is one race, ‘descended from Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:26–28), and Eve is “the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20), that is, of all living human beings. This means that all human beings share equally in the exalted status of being made “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27) … Acts 17:26 [says] God “made from one man every nation of mankind …” biblical record clearly indicates there is only one fundamental race of human beings, all descended from a single set of parents.
… Recent genetic studies from the Human Genome Project give interesting confirmation … [its scientists concluded consistent with Scripture that the human genome indicates we are all ‘one race’] DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity.’ Why then do people with different racial characteristics [as the world calls them] originate from different regions of the world?
The human race, starting with Adam and Eve, has always included not only genetic variations of eye color, height, and facial appearance, but also of skin and hair color now associated with different racial groups. At some early point when people began migrating to various parts of the earth, some variations within the one human gene pool became geographically isolated from other variations [Gen. 11 gives a good explanation, the language barrier isolated them from others so that distinctive traits developed, which can be demonstrated genetically], so that people living in what is now northern Europe came to look more like each other and different from people living in what is now Africa, or Asia, or North America.’
A geneticist and scientist at Yale did a study awhile back that said it can be shown genealogically how every person living today can be traced to the same set of ancestors as few as 5-7,000 years ago (any guesses who that might be? Hint, Genesis 1-2)
That idea of multiple races with multiple origins is old bad science. In a work from Oxford with a chapter entitled “Science and the Myth of Biological Race,” it says: ‘Essentially all anthropologists have given up the attempt to identify races of human beings.’
Another writer sums up the scientific research this way: “A wide range of evidence drawn from the biological and medical sciences directly contradicts the layperson’s assumption [about] external indicators of race … Just as the study of DNA demolishes any notion of a particular black ‘African’ race, so too this field lays down a decisive challenge to the scientific legitimacy of race in general … [biologist Alain Corcos calls ‘races’] ‘figments of our imagination’ … a bogus scientific category … misleading facts of physical difference into racial ideologies, stereotypes, folklore.’
My two sons may have differing amounts of melanin in their skin, but they're from the same race and the same human family. I pray one day they'll be in the same spiritual family, by grace through faith in Christ, the One who redeems from every tribe and tongue and nation, so they can experience a unity that is even deeper than biology, a unity based on the blood of Christ our Elder Brother (Hebrews 2:11-17). Alleluia. Amen.
Even within biological families, children are not always the same "color," and it's the same within the greater human family in greater measure because of God-given and God-intended diversity. In South America and India for example, it's not uncommon for parents of middle-brown shades to have children of multiple shades, different colored hair and eyes.
Strikingly different-colored children are possible not even in the same family but in the same uterus! Below are some twins (not identical, obviously) one who takes after part-Nigerian mom, the other looks much more like the caucasian English father.
Below is another set of British twins and their mum Kerry: Layton on the left (great name by the way!) and Kaydon on the right.
One couple even had "black-white" twins twice! Didier told me in Congo there was a couple who also had 2 kids, one very dark skinned, the other very light skinned.
Are their children different "races"? Not anymore than my sons Matteus and Adam are. There is no such thing as different races, scientifically or scripturally, a fact that much of the scientific community has recognized in the last 10-20 years, but a fact not as much of the general public or Christian world has recognized.
Scientists used to believe skin color had to do with "race." They now tell us we're actually all the same color, just different amounts of it in our skin (melanin is brown and different shades are just a part of genetic combinations, we're all just different shades of brown). Many scientists also now tell us that we're actually all in the same race, and that old idea of multiple "races" of humanity was bad science.
A scientist at the Advancement of Science Convention in Atlanta
Reporting on research conducted on the concept of race, ABC News stated, “More and more scientists find that the differences that set us apart are cultural, not racial. Some even say that the word race should be abandoned because it’s meaningless ... we accept the idea of race because it’s a convenient way of putting people into broad categories ... And racial prejudice remains common throughout the world.” -- "We’re all the same," ABC News, September 10, 1998, www.abcnews.com/sections/science/ DyeHard/dye72.html
In an article in the Journal of Counseling and Development [1998, Vol. 76, p. 277–285], researchers argued that the term “race” is basically so meaningless that it should be discarded. More recently, those working on mapping the human genome announced “that they had put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome, and the researchers had unanimously declared, there is only one race—the human race.” N. Angier, "Do races differ? Not really, DNA shows," New York Times web, Aug. 22, 2000
'The truth, though, is that these so-called “racial characteristics” are only minor variations among people groups ... these so-called “racial” characteristics that people think are major differences (skin color, eye shape, etc.) “account for only 0.012 percent of human biological variation.” Dr. Harold Page Freeman, chief executive, president, and director of surgery at North General Hospital in Manhattan, reiterates, “If you ask what percentage of your genes is reflected in your external appearance, the basis by which we talk about race, the answer seems to be in the range of 0.01 percent.” In other words, the so-called “racial” differences are absolutely trivial— overall, there is more variation within any group than there is between one group and another. If a white person is looking for a tissue match for an organ transplant, for instance, the best match may come from a black person, and vice versa. ABC News claims, “What the facts show is that there are differences among us, but they stem from culture, not race.”
This past Sunday at church, the message I preached was "There's Only One Race, One Way of Grace, and One Family of Faith" based on Ephesians 2-3 and Genesis 1-11 (for the audio or text notes with documentation of this, click below link):
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=11711030415
I discussed why we should use terminology from God's unchanging Word rather than our changing world's terminologies and theories. Below is some of the research I shared in that message with our church family about the human family, and you can find the rest on the link above:
The word "race" historically was used for humanity to emphasize the unity of mankind, however it eventually was used to refer to nations (ex: Jewish race, Irish race, English race, but not in the sense people use it today for broad categories of physical appearance). The word and concept of race appears to have "evolved" at the same time some were teaching that all things evolved, and a theory of evolution arose that there multiple races of humanity.
Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language 1828 defined race as: ‘The lineage of a family, or continued series of descendants from a parent who is called the stock. A race is the series of descendants indefinitely. Thus all mankind are called the race of Adam…’
This is why Christians into the 1800s, even in the American South who owned slaves, still rejected as a heresy human poly-genesis (the theory of multiple races of people with multiple origins). This is traced in a fascinating book put out by Cambridge Press, Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000. He writes of the 17th to 19th centuries: ‘unity of the human race was fundamental to Christian theology. If mankind did not spring from a single racial origin then theologians were confronted with a scenario that undermined the very essence of the Christian story…Which posed the greater threat to Southern conservatives, the abolitionist denunciation of slavery or [the polygenist’s multiple races theories of man’s origins]? Perceptive Southerners recognized that polygenist racialism … was an even greater threat to their worldview that abolitionism or abolitionist readings of scripture. Ironically, some of the most noted and forthright defenders of monogenesis [one race and origin of man] in the nineteenth century were based in the South … [but he adds] some nineteenth-century ethnologists, oblivious of the ultimate consequences of this dangerous chain of argument, began to offer racial explanations for the world’s … diversity.’ Kidd’s book uses science to demolish “races” theory that he ties to rise of evolution.
The secular scholarly standard Oxford English Dictionary (20 vol. big set, definitive history of words) defines race: ‘group of persons, animals, or plants, connected by common descent or origin …In early use always the human race, the race of men or mankind…’
A 2004 smaller update to that authoritative massive multi-volume dictionary adds: ‘In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-century anthropologists and physiologists has led to the use of the word race itself becoming problematic. Although still used in general contexts, it is now often replaced by other words which are less emotionally charged, such as people(s) or community.’
Most people are not aware that Charles Darwin’s book The Origin of the Species was subtitled The Preservation of Favoured Races. He was using that term “races” the way it had been used before his time of different creatures, but in his book The Descent of Man, he re-defined and applied the idea to humans as different sub-species, creatures, or “races.” In that book he said that while some of the faculties of women are evolved or advanced, “some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization.” In another place in that book he said: “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.”
Those words were fulfilled in the not very distant future, a man 70 years later saw this idea as the duty of the “Aryan race,” wrongly believing he was an essentially different race than others, Hitler. A book Evolution and Ethics, written by Arthur Keith shortly after World War II: ‘The German Fuhrer…has consistently sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution’
Ken Ham, who was in town yesterday, speaks closer to home how his own homeland, Australia, when they found black Aborigines on Tasmania, newspapers declared they found “Missing Links with Mankind” (New York Tribune, 1924). Ham writes of these native Australian people, ‘biologists from England and Germany began to hunt them down as research specimens … Hunters were given instruction on how to skin them and prepare their skulls as specimens for museums around the world – all in the name of evolution. Some were taken live; some were killed …’
Closer to home for me as I adopted a son from Congo and my great grandpa was a missionary in Congo who risked his life to bring the gospel to that country in the early 1900s: Others came to that same country the same years, stole a Congolese man to the U.S. in 1904, making him part of a live monkey-evolution exhibit in a NY zoo!
Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas combined with bad people have bad consequences. I think it’s a bad idea to even use the term "races" when the very idea was unscientifically developed by people who believed that the white race was the original race that the other races with darker skin degenerated or devolved from. That was the view of Blumenbach, who died in 1840, the leading racial theorist of Europe who pioneered and popularized the idea of many races.
The history of the modern idea of “races” historically can be linked to Darwinism and racism, and even with Christians, much division. Steven Jay Gould, leading 20th century evolutionist from Harvard admitted: ‘Biological arguments for racism may have been common before [Darwin’s writings], but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.’ That’s not some Bible-thumping fanatic Baptist pastor (like me), that’s one of the most famous evolutionists who lived in my lifetime saying that.
But let’s get back to the Bible. The ESV Study Bible in an article on race explains very well that there is one race, ‘descended from Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:26–28), and Eve is “the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20), that is, of all living human beings. This means that all human beings share equally in the exalted status of being made “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27) … Acts 17:26 [says] God “made from one man every nation of mankind …” biblical record clearly indicates there is only one fundamental race of human beings, all descended from a single set of parents.
… Recent genetic studies from the Human Genome Project give interesting confirmation … [its scientists concluded consistent with Scripture that the human genome indicates we are all ‘one race’] DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity.’ Why then do people with different racial characteristics [as the world calls them] originate from different regions of the world?
The human race, starting with Adam and Eve, has always included not only genetic variations of eye color, height, and facial appearance, but also of skin and hair color now associated with different racial groups. At some early point when people began migrating to various parts of the earth, some variations within the one human gene pool became geographically isolated from other variations [Gen. 11 gives a good explanation, the language barrier isolated them from others so that distinctive traits developed, which can be demonstrated genetically], so that people living in what is now northern Europe came to look more like each other and different from people living in what is now Africa, or Asia, or North America.’
A geneticist and scientist at Yale did a study awhile back that said it can be shown genealogically how every person living today can be traced to the same set of ancestors as few as 5-7,000 years ago (any guesses who that might be? Hint, Genesis 1-2)
That idea of multiple races with multiple origins is old bad science. In a work from Oxford with a chapter entitled “Science and the Myth of Biological Race,” it says: ‘Essentially all anthropologists have given up the attempt to identify races of human beings.’
Another writer sums up the scientific research this way: “A wide range of evidence drawn from the biological and medical sciences directly contradicts the layperson’s assumption [about] external indicators of race … Just as the study of DNA demolishes any notion of a particular black ‘African’ race, so too this field lays down a decisive challenge to the scientific legitimacy of race in general … [biologist Alain Corcos calls ‘races’] ‘figments of our imagination’ … a bogus scientific category … misleading facts of physical difference into racial ideologies, stereotypes, folklore.’
My two sons may have differing amounts of melanin in their skin, but they're from the same race and the same human family. I pray one day they'll be in the same spiritual family, by grace through faith in Christ, the One who redeems from every tribe and tongue and nation, so they can experience a unity that is even deeper than biology, a unity based on the blood of Christ our Elder Brother (Hebrews 2:11-17). Alleluia. Amen.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Jesus Loves Me This I Know
We've been singing this lately in several of our family devotion times after dinner.
Yesterday he started singing on his own.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Through the Eyes of a Tiny Traveler, Part 2
Here is the 2nd half from yesterday's blog of the 2nd day of our travel one week ago:
It seems like we've been on this avion way too long since it left the ground in the place they call Ethiopia. I keep asking my Papa Wangu if we are there yet, but he doesn't answer me and sometimes when I look at him his eyes are closed. There are some interesting lights and noises on the ceiling of the avion and when I push buttons it makes other noises and a light come on, but Papa Wangu tells me not to push that one. It is strange that I hear talking coming out of the ceiling sometimes that doesn't make sense and actually is harder to understand that Papa Wangu's talk. Right before our avion started to go fast and go high, there were ladies holding up strap things, but no one was paying attention to them, and some of them had their eyes closed. I know what that is like.
It's hard enough to sit on Papa's lap in the long church services, but this seems like many church services but without the singing. I keep telling Papa Wangu what I want but he doesn't understand and that doesn't make me happy. One time I told him I needed to go kukoyala (I think he calls it "pee-pee" or some strange word) and when he took me to the bathroom I am not sure what he was doing because he made me stand on the changing table and take off my diaper while he got a new diaper ready. I wasn't sure why he had me facing him instead of the toilet but maybe this is how they do it on the avion, so I started going kukoyala. Papa Wangu didn't seem to like it getting on him. I'm still not sure what he expected me to do when my pants were down and I had told him I needed to go kukoyala? These lighter-skinned people don't seem to know very much.
On this avion Papa Didier is not next to me, he's in a different part of the plane and has his eyse closed. Instead of Papa Didier there is a strange man sitting next to Papa Wangu and me, sitting just a few inches away. This man smells and doesn't seem very friendly and I asked him to move over so I could stretch out my legs, but this man doesn't understand me either, even though his skin is dark like mine. Other people on this plane who look at me don't seem very friendly either, especially when I'm crying. I'm tired of being on this avion and I keep telling Papa Wangu I'm ready to get off and ride on a moto-car instead but he is being mean by not letting me. Maybe if I cry as loud as possible they'll let me off? I think I'll keep trying that for awhile. If that doesn't work, next time they bring one of those trays with food, I think I'm going to kick it and make everything spill, maybe that will convince him to let me get off this avion? That food isn't good like Mama Annie makes it anyways.
After a long time that seemed like 10 church services, I could see things outside my window that didn't look like white puffy things. Papa Wangu said something about America and this time it looked like he had tears in his eyes. Maybe he wants some of Mama Annie's bisquits, too? Those make me feel better when I'm crying. I've been holding on to part of one of her bisquits for most of this flight. It makes me feel better to know some food I like I am saving for later, as I'm never sure if or when these tall people will give me something to eat, so I like to hold onto food.
When we landed in this place called America we had to wait in a really long line. But Papa Wangu gave me something sweet and hard on the end of a stick that I got to hold and suck, and that was nice. I was so tired I dropped it and some of it broke and I was very angry but Papa Wangu picked it up and gave it back to me. Then we walked past all this glass to a place where all the bags are on this thing and are moving by themselves?! Papa grabbed some of them and let me ride with them on a little moto-cart thing that he pushes with the bags. Papa also took me to this metal thing in the wall where you push something and then cold water comes out that you can drink or splash with your hands. I've never seen anything like it before. There must be a bucket behind the wall where the water is?
When we left that great big room there were these doors but before Papa could open them with their hands, they opened by themselves?! Later I got to practice walking to one of these doors and it seems to know how to open at just the right time when someone is walking to it! I didn't know a door could be so smart - I think this is the favorite part of the trip, it makes me laugh.
Another strange things was walking into doors that opened and then once inside you push a button and when the doors opened everything looked different? We also walked on stairs that moved up and down by themselves? Then we rode on some special kind of moto-car that is the size of a building where Papa held onto a bar. Then we rode on a long moto-car with a bunch of other moto-cars connected to it that I think Papa called a "tram" - it went really fast and was really fun.
Papa called some people on the phone and made say "hi momma" (I'm not sure if it's Mama Annie or Mama Angelique or the Mama with light skin and blond hair I met in my country). He tells me I am going to see her soon. We got on another avion but this time Papa doesn't have my bag or snacks or games. These people on this avion are actually nice for a change but I'm still not happy. I cry as loud as I can and Papa gets up and walks with me on his shoulder for a long time (he's been doing this a lot on the avions, not understanding I just want off). I must have fallen asleep because I woke up and they were handing out bags with crackers that look like animals. These are very fun to play with and then to drop in a cup of water.
Finally after one more avion and what seemed like many more church services, we got to another big building and took another tram. At the end was the Mama with the light skin and several children. They all wanted to hug me and hold up those little things that make a flash and they say "smile." Papa had been telling me I would get to ride in Mama's moto-car and I did. I was so excited to finally be in her moto-car that Papa told me so much about but I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I wanted as I soon fell asleep. When I woke up it was light out and I was in a very strange place but they quickly gave me a banana and some food and a red moto-car. The kids are speaking in weird voices and getting very close to my face and I'm not sure what to think of all this. There are many things I have seen here I hadn't seen before that are hard to explain but maybe Papa Wangu can show you some of them later on that little box thing that makes flashes. For now Mama has made me some food so ... bon appetit!
It seems like we've been on this avion way too long since it left the ground in the place they call Ethiopia. I keep asking my Papa Wangu if we are there yet, but he doesn't answer me and sometimes when I look at him his eyes are closed. There are some interesting lights and noises on the ceiling of the avion and when I push buttons it makes other noises and a light come on, but Papa Wangu tells me not to push that one. It is strange that I hear talking coming out of the ceiling sometimes that doesn't make sense and actually is harder to understand that Papa Wangu's talk. Right before our avion started to go fast and go high, there were ladies holding up strap things, but no one was paying attention to them, and some of them had their eyes closed. I know what that is like.
It's hard enough to sit on Papa's lap in the long church services, but this seems like many church services but without the singing. I keep telling Papa Wangu what I want but he doesn't understand and that doesn't make me happy. One time I told him I needed to go kukoyala (I think he calls it "pee-pee" or some strange word) and when he took me to the bathroom I am not sure what he was doing because he made me stand on the changing table and take off my diaper while he got a new diaper ready. I wasn't sure why he had me facing him instead of the toilet but maybe this is how they do it on the avion, so I started going kukoyala. Papa Wangu didn't seem to like it getting on him. I'm still not sure what he expected me to do when my pants were down and I had told him I needed to go kukoyala? These lighter-skinned people don't seem to know very much.
On this avion Papa Didier is not next to me, he's in a different part of the plane and has his eyse closed. Instead of Papa Didier there is a strange man sitting next to Papa Wangu and me, sitting just a few inches away. This man smells and doesn't seem very friendly and I asked him to move over so I could stretch out my legs, but this man doesn't understand me either, even though his skin is dark like mine. Other people on this plane who look at me don't seem very friendly either, especially when I'm crying. I'm tired of being on this avion and I keep telling Papa Wangu I'm ready to get off and ride on a moto-car instead but he is being mean by not letting me. Maybe if I cry as loud as possible they'll let me off? I think I'll keep trying that for awhile. If that doesn't work, next time they bring one of those trays with food, I think I'm going to kick it and make everything spill, maybe that will convince him to let me get off this avion? That food isn't good like Mama Annie makes it anyways.
After a long time that seemed like 10 church services, I could see things outside my window that didn't look like white puffy things. Papa Wangu said something about America and this time it looked like he had tears in his eyes. Maybe he wants some of Mama Annie's bisquits, too? Those make me feel better when I'm crying. I've been holding on to part of one of her bisquits for most of this flight. It makes me feel better to know some food I like I am saving for later, as I'm never sure if or when these tall people will give me something to eat, so I like to hold onto food.
When we landed in this place called America we had to wait in a really long line. But Papa Wangu gave me something sweet and hard on the end of a stick that I got to hold and suck, and that was nice. I was so tired I dropped it and some of it broke and I was very angry but Papa Wangu picked it up and gave it back to me. Then we walked past all this glass to a place where all the bags are on this thing and are moving by themselves?! Papa grabbed some of them and let me ride with them on a little moto-cart thing that he pushes with the bags. Papa also took me to this metal thing in the wall where you push something and then cold water comes out that you can drink or splash with your hands. I've never seen anything like it before. There must be a bucket behind the wall where the water is?
When we left that great big room there were these doors but before Papa could open them with their hands, they opened by themselves?! Later I got to practice walking to one of these doors and it seems to know how to open at just the right time when someone is walking to it! I didn't know a door could be so smart - I think this is the favorite part of the trip, it makes me laugh.
Another strange things was walking into doors that opened and then once inside you push a button and when the doors opened everything looked different? We also walked on stairs that moved up and down by themselves? Then we rode on some special kind of moto-car that is the size of a building where Papa held onto a bar. Then we rode on a long moto-car with a bunch of other moto-cars connected to it that I think Papa called a "tram" - it went really fast and was really fun.
Papa called some people on the phone and made say "hi momma" (I'm not sure if it's Mama Annie or Mama Angelique or the Mama with light skin and blond hair I met in my country). He tells me I am going to see her soon. We got on another avion but this time Papa doesn't have my bag or snacks or games. These people on this avion are actually nice for a change but I'm still not happy. I cry as loud as I can and Papa gets up and walks with me on his shoulder for a long time (he's been doing this a lot on the avions, not understanding I just want off). I must have fallen asleep because I woke up and they were handing out bags with crackers that look like animals. These are very fun to play with and then to drop in a cup of water.
Finally after one more avion and what seemed like many more church services, we got to another big building and took another tram. At the end was the Mama with the light skin and several children. They all wanted to hug me and hold up those little things that make a flash and they say "smile." Papa had been telling me I would get to ride in Mama's moto-car and I did. I was so excited to finally be in her moto-car that Papa told me so much about but I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I wanted as I soon fell asleep. When I woke up it was light out and I was in a very strange place but they quickly gave me a banana and some food and a red moto-car. The kids are speaking in weird voices and getting very close to my face and I'm not sure what to think of all this. There are many things I have seen here I hadn't seen before that are hard to explain but maybe Papa Wangu can show you some of them later on that little box thing that makes flashes. For now Mama has made me some food so ... bon appetit!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Last Week Through the Eyes of a Tiny Traveler, Part 1
If my littlest son could write (and if we could translate his Swahili into English) I wonder what he would blog if he could? His eyes are so observant and mind is so sharp that I wouldn't be surprised if he remembers some of this in the future, but here is one father's attempt to capture some of the possible thoughts of a 20-month-old mind from exactly a week ago today:
Today is the big day that Papa Didier tells me he and Papa Wangu (my daddy) and I are going to get on a very big avion (Papa Wangu calls it 'airplane'). It's not as fun as a moto-car but at least I get to ride a moto-car there. The avion does have lots of wheels and I get to see some moto-cars out the window before it starts going real fast and going real high, and you do get some drinks on the avion that are sweeter than what Mama Angelique or Papa Wangu usually lets me have. So as long as I don't have to be on this avion too long, I guess I can be happy.
Papa Didier has been telling me for awhile we were going to ride on a very big avion and go on a very long journey to see my new family in a new place. I don't quite understand what he's saying or why I am going into a new family or where that is or what that means, but having Papa Didier with us on this avion is good because he talks to me better than Papa Wangu and understands what I'm saying better and this helps me feel safe. I'm not quite sure why the taller lighter skinned people don't know very much language and say and do weird things ... they don't seem very smart, but maybe some day they'll learn more. After spending 3 and 1/2 weeks with Papa Wangu with only a few times where I was away from him, he is starting to do a little better, so there is hope at least for this one.
A couple weeks ago I was very frustrated with him and having a hard time when he took me away from my friends and Papa Didier and his family to stay in a small room for many days and to walk around a strange and scary city where no one could understand me or what I wanted. Even the darker-skinned people didn't speak Swahili in that place they call "Kinshasa."
But Papa eventually brought me back to my friends and what I was used to and people who could speak, and I think this Papa is ok even though he's not very smart to talk to. It was then that I began to trust him more and call him Papa Wangu and I like it when he kisses me on the lips and tickles me (nobody every did that for me before). There have been a lot of changes the last 3 and 1/2 weeks but the one thing that hasn't changed is Papa Wangu has been with me every day. I have a different feeling inside than I've had before - I'm still a little scared and frustrated, but not as much as before.
I never knew a Papa before I met Papa Didier and Papa Wangu just a few weeks ago. I had never ridden in a moto-car before that day, and the best thing about this whole process is I have gotten to ride in a moto-car almost every day since meeting them! It's nice to have these nice men around, but the nicest part I think is being in moto-cars with them. Some of the things I said in those first few days that Papa Didier thought was very funny:
- I asked him in our language "So, where are you from?" (I'm not sure why these people think it's so funny when I say things usually only tall people say even though I'm very short)
- The first night there they had me sleep on a strange wooden thing with a pad for the first time, that was off the ground. I couldn't get down off it by myself, so in the morning I shouted, "This is very high. Is there anybody here who can help me get down from this?" (again I'm not sure why they think it's so funny that someone my size can speak in sentences like that)
- Also they had put this weird thing on me on my bottom that wrapped around to the front that got in the way of going kuyamba (what the light skinned people call "number 2" - where I grew up you just go outside and go). So I had to ask that first day "can someone please take off this thing that's wrapped around me so I can go kuyamba"? (I didn't think it was a funny thing to say, I thought it was funny they put that on me)
- One day I came outside Papa Didier's house and saw my favorite thing wasn't there. I said, "Oh no, where's my moto-car?" (I also thought that was a reasonable question and am not sure why he laughed so hard).
Finally the first big avion landed. I was so excited to see a moto-car out the window that I shouted out as loud as I could, "oh, look there's a big moto-car." Many people on the avion were smiling, I guess they were glad to see an avion too. When we got off the avion, we road on a moto-bus which was very fun and so I think I can forgive Papa Wangu for making me sit for so long. I heard one of the ladies on the bus tell Papa Wangu he really should have had me wearing warmer clothes. All the good moms in my country wrap babies in very warm blankets even when it's very hot (I used to get sweaty a lot from it).
Papa Didier tells me we're in Ethiopia. The place where you wait for avions in this country is a lot bigger and nicer than where we came from. I've never seen things like here before. Finally Papa Wangu let me out of the black thing with straps that holds me close to his belly, so I was able to run around at last. I saw some other kids like me here with lighter-skinned parents like my Papa Wangu, and it was fun to finally stand and run around and play "peekabo" and "I see you" (some Papa Wangu words and games).
I don't like to sit on that avion on Papa's lap for a long time when there's no space to move and other people are sitting so close. But I like how Papa gives me little bisquits from Mama Annie when I cry. My goal is to not sleep at all on the avion if I can, even though I'm tired. I think I can stay awake the whole time, and no matter how much Papa wants me to go to sleep I'm not gonna let him. He's always trying to get to sleep at times when I don't want to and I'm not gonna take it this time. Hopefully there's not too much more avion to go. Well, we're getting on another even bigger avion now, so I have to go ... I'll try and write more later.
Today is the big day that Papa Didier tells me he and Papa Wangu (my daddy) and I are going to get on a very big avion (Papa Wangu calls it 'airplane'). It's not as fun as a moto-car but at least I get to ride a moto-car there. The avion does have lots of wheels and I get to see some moto-cars out the window before it starts going real fast and going real high, and you do get some drinks on the avion that are sweeter than what Mama Angelique or Papa Wangu usually lets me have. So as long as I don't have to be on this avion too long, I guess I can be happy.
Papa Didier has been telling me for awhile we were going to ride on a very big avion and go on a very long journey to see my new family in a new place. I don't quite understand what he's saying or why I am going into a new family or where that is or what that means, but having Papa Didier with us on this avion is good because he talks to me better than Papa Wangu and understands what I'm saying better and this helps me feel safe. I'm not quite sure why the taller lighter skinned people don't know very much language and say and do weird things ... they don't seem very smart, but maybe some day they'll learn more. After spending 3 and 1/2 weeks with Papa Wangu with only a few times where I was away from him, he is starting to do a little better, so there is hope at least for this one.
A couple weeks ago I was very frustrated with him and having a hard time when he took me away from my friends and Papa Didier and his family to stay in a small room for many days and to walk around a strange and scary city where no one could understand me or what I wanted. Even the darker-skinned people didn't speak Swahili in that place they call "Kinshasa."
But Papa eventually brought me back to my friends and what I was used to and people who could speak, and I think this Papa is ok even though he's not very smart to talk to. It was then that I began to trust him more and call him Papa Wangu and I like it when he kisses me on the lips and tickles me (nobody every did that for me before). There have been a lot of changes the last 3 and 1/2 weeks but the one thing that hasn't changed is Papa Wangu has been with me every day. I have a different feeling inside than I've had before - I'm still a little scared and frustrated, but not as much as before.
I never knew a Papa before I met Papa Didier and Papa Wangu just a few weeks ago. I had never ridden in a moto-car before that day, and the best thing about this whole process is I have gotten to ride in a moto-car almost every day since meeting them! It's nice to have these nice men around, but the nicest part I think is being in moto-cars with them. Some of the things I said in those first few days that Papa Didier thought was very funny:
- I asked him in our language "So, where are you from?" (I'm not sure why these people think it's so funny when I say things usually only tall people say even though I'm very short)
- The first night there they had me sleep on a strange wooden thing with a pad for the first time, that was off the ground. I couldn't get down off it by myself, so in the morning I shouted, "This is very high. Is there anybody here who can help me get down from this?" (again I'm not sure why they think it's so funny that someone my size can speak in sentences like that)
- Also they had put this weird thing on me on my bottom that wrapped around to the front that got in the way of going kuyamba (what the light skinned people call "number 2" - where I grew up you just go outside and go). So I had to ask that first day "can someone please take off this thing that's wrapped around me so I can go kuyamba"? (I didn't think it was a funny thing to say, I thought it was funny they put that on me)
- One day I came outside Papa Didier's house and saw my favorite thing wasn't there. I said, "Oh no, where's my moto-car?" (I also thought that was a reasonable question and am not sure why he laughed so hard).
Finally the first big avion landed. I was so excited to see a moto-car out the window that I shouted out as loud as I could, "oh, look there's a big moto-car." Many people on the avion were smiling, I guess they were glad to see an avion too. When we got off the avion, we road on a moto-bus which was very fun and so I think I can forgive Papa Wangu for making me sit for so long. I heard one of the ladies on the bus tell Papa Wangu he really should have had me wearing warmer clothes. All the good moms in my country wrap babies in very warm blankets even when it's very hot (I used to get sweaty a lot from it).
Papa Didier tells me we're in Ethiopia. The place where you wait for avions in this country is a lot bigger and nicer than where we came from. I've never seen things like here before. Finally Papa Wangu let me out of the black thing with straps that holds me close to his belly, so I was able to run around at last. I saw some other kids like me here with lighter-skinned parents like my Papa Wangu, and it was fun to finally stand and run around and play "peekabo" and "I see you" (some Papa Wangu words and games).
I don't like to sit on that avion on Papa's lap for a long time when there's no space to move and other people are sitting so close. But I like how Papa gives me little bisquits from Mama Annie when I cry. My goal is to not sleep at all on the avion if I can, even though I'm tired. I think I can stay awake the whole time, and no matter how much Papa wants me to go to sleep I'm not gonna let him. He's always trying to get to sleep at times when I don't want to and I'm not gonna take it this time. Hopefully there's not too much more avion to go. Well, we're getting on another even bigger avion now, so I have to go ... I'll try and write more later.
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