SEVEN WONDERFUL YEARS

 

What is the difference between envy and jealousy? The Mirriam-Webster online dictionary defines it this way:

“While many people believe that jealous means fearing someone will take what you have, and envious means desiring what someone else has, historical usage shows that both mean "covetous" and are interchangeable when describing desiring someone else's possessions.”

And again:

““Envy means discontented longing for someone else’s advantages. Jealousy means unpleasant suspicion, or apprehension of rivalship.””[1]

 

Envy can fester inside a person like a boil that needs to be lanced. It can bring the worst out in a person. Envy is corrosive to the soul. Jealousy sets the human heart on fire. Covetousness. It is the Tenth Commandments: Exodus 20:17. It tells us not to covet any of our neighbours’ possessions.

At a personal level, I am not guilty of coveting other people’s cars or large houses, exotic vacations or business success. I have, however, been guilty of coveting other people’s health. For over 40 years, I have struggled with multiple sclerosis (MS). Large swaths of my adult life have been in wide-eyed fear of aggressive MS, as paralysis gradually spread. It put me in an electric wheelchair. Often, I wished I could walk like other men do. That’s envy.

My Canadian community has a hill at its center. One crisp Canadian winter day, I took my three-year-old grandson for a ride on my electric wheelchair. The fresh air was cold and clean. My little guy was toasty warm in his snowsuit and touque under a wool blank on my lap. We headed up the hill (my house its at he bottom of the hill). About halfway up, I stopped to watch another grandfather sliding down the hill on a toboggin with his small grandson about the same age as mine. His child squealed with delight. They tumbled off the toboggin into a cloud of snow and laughed more.

My grandson simply watched them from my lap. I was envious. I wished I could do that with my grandson! I wanted the health that that other grandfather enjoyed; there was no desire to take his health from him. I was envious not jealous. But as the good folks at Mirriam-Webster said, “…historical usage of both [envy and jealousy] shows that both mean “covetous” and are interchangeable when describing someone else’s possessions.” That other grandfather possessed health I did not have. I felt swindled by life.

To covet is a sin. That wintry day, covetousness gripped my heart and stripped me of my joy of being with my grandchild. Envy robs joy and contentment. 

Saint Paul said: 

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”[2]

 

I needed to confess my sin and be content with what I do have: life and love. With time I learned to stop looking back at the normal body I once had. After many years of paralysis and in an electric wheelchair, something unexpected but marvelous happened one day when I prayed to Christ before me in the Blessed Sacrament:

“Lord, if it be possible, raise me from this wheelchair, even for a short time, even if I must use a walker, crutches or canes. Let me dance with my wife, even if it’s only once. Make my atrophied legs bear my weight.”

 

I didn’t ask for a cure, only time. 

And then over the next few days, it happened! God did raise me (an old man) to walk again in late-stage MS. That was over seven years ago. We had been convinced my next address would be a nursing home or a cemetery! Everything turned around.

 

On a cold winter’s night, with the dim light of a fire's embers in our fireplace, my wife and I danced once again, just the two of us. I played the last song we danced to so many decades before: Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady, by the Commodores. I have walked for seven years. My wheelchair has been in a spare room gathering dust, and my wife and I still dance.

Now, my legs are growing weaker and tire walking more than short distances. I've developed a serious limp. Is it time to go back into my wheelchair? I don't know. If so, then let it be. I was given seven wonderful years. Thank you Lord.

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[1] Mirriam-Webster, ”Jealous versus Envy”  https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/jealous-vs-envious

[2] Philippians 4:12-13.

A MORE PERFECT LOVE

I read an excellent rather old but thought provoking article by Gilbert Meilaender in the February 2022 edition of First Things magazine, under the title “Reunion of the Far Shore.”  He addressed the desire Christians have to be with love-ones who have died. He wrote:

 

“What should be apparent is that thinking about our desire for reunion on the far shore directs us to add a problem at the heart of Christian life. How are we to hold together—to live together—the two great commands, to love both God and our neighbor? Clearly, if we think of God chiefly exists to satisfy our desires and make us happy, we are hardly loving him above all else. Moreover, it is hard to deny much in our loves and desires are misshapen and distorted, and that they often need not to be satisfied but to be redirected and perfected.”

 

He's right. What are Christ’s two great commandments. We find them in in Matthew 22:37-40, when Jesus responds to a pharisee who tested Him by asking what is the greatest commandment? Jesus responded, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” 

Out of our love for God should pour gigantic love for our neighbour and ourselves. Only in having a healthy self-love or self-concept, are we capable of properly loving others. I’m not talking about having inflated egos or conceit or a deluded sense of self grandeur; I’m referring to a self-awareness that we have being endowed with since our beginning with the indelible image of God, and that we are loved with unfathomable love by Him. 

 

The closer a person draws to God, the more he becomes aware of his own inadequacies and sin and distorted state of being.  Like Peter falling at Jesus’ feet, we are tempted to ask the Lord to depart from us because the blazing holy light of His presence exposes our darkness and sin, our unholiness.  He is perfect as we should be.[1] The light of His perfection, makes us turn away in shame.

 

I dare not delude myself to think that becoming perfect is possible in this life, only the next, even though Jesus said to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5.48). The Apostle James wrote “We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect and able to keep their whole body in check."2  Church tradition holds that James was the half-brother of Jesus (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; Galatians 1:19).

 

I’ve fallen short of the mark so often, it could fill volumes to chronicle my failings. One of my faults—sins, has been misplaced love that has focussed of my family, at the expense of my love for God. I am guilty of breaking the 1st Commandment, for that I have confessed my sin.

 Mark

 

 

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[1] Cf. Leviticus 19:2, Deuteronomy 18:13, 2Samuel 22:31, 2Corinthians 7:1, Philippians 3:12.

[2] James 3:2.

IS THERE ABSOLUTE TRUTH?

The belief that Jesus Christ alone is the saviour of humanity and the only way to salvation has been a foundational tenet of Christianity from its beginning.  At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke to his disciples about the way to heaven. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life, No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14.6.) 

Jesus went on to promise “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept.” (verse 16-17) After Christ’s Ascension, Peter was filled with the holy Spirit (as promised) and proclaimed this about Jesus: “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” (Acts 4.12)  Pretty clear, pretty exclusive. The Apostle Timothy was equally clear: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2.5)

Unpopular message

This sort of message is not generally welcome to our age of pseudo-pluralism where truth is relative and people want to hear about many paths to God.  But if the testimony of Jesus, Peter and Timothy are to be believed, this is not true. The only way to God is through Jesus Christ.  Should I believe those who espouse that all religions are basically the same and there are many paths to God, or should I believe Jesus, Saints Peter and Timothy.  Hmmm, I wonder who it will be ? 

Truth is rarely fashionable—but it is knowable.  The truth is knowable because Jesus Christ is truth and the He is the saviour of the world, and we can know Him.

21^st century relativism

Many people in the 21^st Century no longer accept that there is such a thing as truth, and certainly no such thing as absolute truth. To them, the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth—there’s no right and wrong, only opinions.  All ethics are situational.  (Actually, if there’s no such thing as right and wrong then the concept of ethics is meaningless.)  Everybody is tolerant of everything; the only thing not to be tolerated is intolerance. What we are experience is the liberal left's emerging as intolerance of any views except their own. And as we see with the left's intolerance of even laws that don't meet with their approval. We witness that with violence such the riots in Minneapolis and Los Angeles in open defiance of law and order.

People must rely on laws as the only recourse for moral direction. But even laws can be changed with a simple majority vote and a stroke of a legislative pen. In a world of relativism, there is no higher Truth that exists apart from what legislatures declare and enforce. The final arbiter of truth is power. Change the government and what was right and true yesterday is replaced by a different government and a new set of standards and a different set of lawmakers. What was previously unthinkable can becomes the law of the land. Germany showed us that in the last century.

 

Without a higher moral Law or standard for people to agree upon and follow (or an author and giver of that higher Law or standard), all that’s left is consensus of those who are most powerful and cunning. If there’s no lawgiver, no Messiah to save us from ourselves, then ultimately most people will find no meaning or purpose to life, no truth, life will have no intrinsic value.   

Society may have to hunt down and jail criminals like Paul Bernardo or John Wayne Gacy to protect itself.  But if we seriously believe there is no such thing a right and wrong, no truth, then it’s pointless condemning what they did. After all, when they committed their sexual abductions, tortures and murders, their personal definition of truth may have been dominance and self-gratification.  Somebody may interject to say, “They had no right to impose their views on others or kill those women!”  Why not?  If there is no right or wrong, then there’s no basis to make such a claim.   

What is truth?

That’s why I find 21^st Century relativists suspect. In one breath they maintain there is no objective right and wrong, no absolute Truth.  In the next breath they’re decrying the destruction of the rain forests, or using animals in medical experimentation, or they’re marching in the streets against globalization or lawful deportation of illegal aliens. Methinks the relativist believes in objective truth more than he’s letting on and he expects the rest of us to agree (or at least acquiesce). Why? Well, according to the relativist, each person has his personal truth, his own standard of right and wrong, and he must not inflict his standards or morals on others. But that is exactly what relativists are doing when they march in the streets shouting and waving banners or destroying property. 

Now, if there is such a thing as objective truth, where does it come from? Christianity says Jesus is the Truth. His crucifixion and Resurrection gave rise to a tidal wave of love and hope for millions of people for more than two thousand years. 

Each person must decide if Jesus is the only saviour of the world. Personally, I’ve concluded the answer is Yes. Christ has utterly changed my life for forty-five years.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AN ALL-PERVADING PRESENCE?

They say artificial intelligence (AI) knows all about everyone who has an Internet footprint: It knows who you are, where you live, what you do. Really? Out of curiosity I asked AI about myself. Its response is below. Hmmm. The only thing it got wrong was the number of my grandchildren (7 not 5). Very quick. 

AI Overview

Learn more

Mark Davis Pickup is a Canadian Christian author and advocate. He is known for his work on issues related to disability, human life, and assisted suicide. He has written extensively and given numerous speeches on these topics. He currently resides in Beaumont, AB, with his wife and family. 

Here's a more detailed look at his work and background:

·       Advocate for Life and Disability:

Mark Pickup is a prominent voice in the pro-life movement and a strong advocate for the rights and dignity of people with disabilities. 

·       Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis:

He was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 30, which significantly impacted his life and career path. 

·       Writer and Speaker:

After leaving the workforce due to his condition, he dedicated himself to writing, speaking, and advocating on issues he felt strongly about. 

·       Author of "To be, or not to be...":

He wrote a documentary, "To be, or not to be... the Human Family. (A disabled man's plea)," which focused on the issue of assisted suicide and the dignity of human life. 

·       HumanLifeMatters.org:

He runs a blog called HumanLifeMatters.org where he writes about Christian faith, ethics, and his views on various issues. 

·       Multiple Awards:

He has received several awards for his work, including a Governor General's Medal for community service and the Monsignor Bill Irwin Award for Ethical Excellence. 

·       Family:

He lives in Beaumont, AB, with his wife LaRee, and they have two children and five grandchildren. 

 

IS THERE ABSOLUTE TRUTH?

The belief that Jesus Christ alone is the saviour of humanity and the only way to salvation has been a foundational tenet of Christianity from its beginning.  At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke to his disciples about the way to heaven. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life, No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14.6.) 

Jesus went on to promise “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept.” (verse 16-17) After Christ’s Ascension, Peter was filled with the holy Spirit (as promised) and proclaimed this about Jesus: “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” (Acts 4.12)  Pretty clear, pretty exclusive. The Apostle Timothy was equally clear: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2.5)

Unpopular message

This sort of message is not generally welcome to our age of pseudo-pluralism where truth is relative and people want to hear about many paths to God.  But if the testimony of Jesus, Peter and Timothy are to be believed, this is not true. The only way to God is through Jesus Christ.  Should I believe those who espouse that all religions are basically the same and there are many paths to God, or should I believe Jesus, Saints Peter and Timothy.  Hmmm, I wonder who it will be ? 

Truth is rarely fashionable—but it is knowable.  The truth is knowable because Jesus Christ is truth and the He is the saviour of the world, and we can know Him.

21^st century relativism

Many people in the 21^st Century no longer accept that there is such a thing as truth, and certainly no such thing as absolute truth. To them, the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth—there’s no right and wrong, only opinions.  All ethics are situational.  (Actually, if there’s no such thing as right and wrong then the concept of ethics is meaningless.)  Everybody is tolerant of everything; the only thing not to be tolerated is intolerance. What we are experience is the liberal left's emerging as intolerance of any views except their own. And as we see with the left's intolerance of even laws that don't meet with their approval. We witness that with violence such the riots in Minneapolis and Los Angeles in open defiance of law and order.

People must rely on laws as the only recourse for moral direction. But even laws can be changed with a simple majority vote and a stroke of a legislative pen. In a world of relativism, there is no higher Truth that exists apart from what legislatures declare and enforce. The final arbiter of truth is power. Change the government and what was right and true yesterday is usurped by a new set of standards and a different set of lawmakers. What was previously unthinkable can becomes the law of the land. Germany showed us that in the last century.

 

Without a higher moral Law or standard for people to agree upon and follow (or an author and giver of that higher Law or standard), all that’s left is consensus of those who are most powerful and cunning. If there’s no lawgiver, no Messiah to save us from ourselves, then ultimately most people will find no meaning or purpose to life, no truth, life will have no intrinsic value.   

Society may have to hunt down and jail criminals like Paul Bernardo or John Wayne Gacy to protect itself.  But if we seriously believe there is no such thing a right and wrong, no truth, then it’s pointless condemning what they did. After all, when they committed their sexual abductions, tortures and murders, their personal definition of truth may have been dominance and self-gratification.  Somebody may interject to say, “They had no right to impose their views on others or kill those women!”  Why not?  If there is no right and wrong, then there’s no basis to make such a claim.  

What is truth?

That’s why I find 21^st Century relativists suspect. In one breath they maintain there is no objective right and wrong, no absolute Truth.  In the next breath they’re decrying the destruction of the rain forests, or using animals in medical experimentation, or they’re marching in the streets against globalization or lawful deportation of illegal aliens. Methinks the relativist believes in objective truth more than he’s letting on and he expects the rest of us to agree (or at least acquiesce). Why? Well, according to the relativist, each person has his personal truth, his own standard of right and wrong, and he must not inflict his standards or morals on others. But that is exactly what relativists are doing when they march in the streets shouting and waving banners and destroying property. Even politicians like the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, are defying legal enforce under federal law which supersedes state and local laws. If politicians can pick and choose  which they will obey and which law they will ignore or defy, what's to stop people under their authority denying or defying state or municipal laws? What good for the goose is good for the gander. 

Now, if there is such a thing as objective truth, where does it come from? Christianity says Jesus is the Truth. His crucifixion and Resurrection gave rise to a tidal wave of love and hope for millions of people for more than two thousand years. 

Each person must decide if Jesus is the only saviour of the world. Personally, I’ve concluded the answer is Yes. Christ has utterly changed my life for forty-five years.

TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS

 

Turn Your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full upon His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.

The hymn Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus was written by Helen Howarth Lemmel in 1922. Helen went blind in her mid-forties.  Her husband left her destitute. She was blind when she wrote the beloved hymn Turn Your eyes Upon Jesus.

What she lacked in earthly possessions was made up by her blazing living faith in Christ. She continued in Christian serve well into her 90s. She could not see with the eyes of her body, but she had 20/20 vision when it came to seeing with the eyes of her heart and soul. Hymnologist Bill Cottrill wrote this about Helen Lemmel:

“The frail old woman sits at a table in her tiny room in Seattle, Washington. Before her is a small plastic organ–one such as a child might have. But, as she fingers the keys and sings, her poor surroundings seem to fade from view, her face shines with the light of heaven, and tears trickle down her time-lined cheeks. Perhaps in her mind she is seated at a majestic pipe organ in some ornate cathedral. But the place doesn’t matter. She is intent on worshiping her Saviour.

The woman’s name is Helen. In her nineties at the time described, and with little of this world’s goods, her faith sustained her.”[2]

Adult acquired disability is a terrible shock. What was is no more. For Helen Lemmel it was blindness beginning in her 40s. For me it was progressive disability of multiple sclerosis beginning at the age of 30. 

I am a witness to the truth of Helen’s beautiful hymn. In my wide-eyed terror of serious neurological disease and a creeping paralysis that took me from being healthy and able bodied to triplegic (paralysis in three limbs). Her hymn strikes a full chord. The things of earth did grow strangely dim—like catastrophic disability—when I kept my eyes on that wonderful face of Jesus.

When I was at a certain point of disability when legs no longer worked and I had serious paralysis in my right arm, my artist son drew a picture of Jesus portrayed by Robert Powell in the 1977 TV series Jesus of Nazareth. It was my favourite portrayal of Jesus until Passion of the Christ (2004). 

I’m 72 now. Most of my adult life has been battling aggressive MS. Christ has been with me (and my wife) every step of that journey. I’ll keep your eyes upon Jesus. It won’t be long before I stand before His wonderful face. 

“Now we see a poor reflection as in a mirror; Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” —1 Corinthians 13.12 

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[1] Inspired by Hebrews 12:1-2. 

[2] Robert Cottril, Today in 1864 — Hellen Lemmel Born, (Wordwise: With Robert Cottrill, 14 November 2022    https://wordwisebiblestudies.com/today-in-1864-helen-lemmel-born/

 

FELLOWSHIP FOR PERFORMING ARTS: GOSPEL OF MARK 16

Max Mclean is a talented actor. He is the founder and artistic director of Christian Fellowship for Performing Arts. I invite you to watch his 3:56-minute rendition of the Gospel of Mark Chapter 16. 

Click the link below and enjoy!

Mark 16

PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH COLLEEN SWINDOLL THOMPSON (Chuck Swindoll's daughter)

 

Colleen Swindoll Thompson has a wonderful podcast called Reframing Ministries. It’s part of the radio ministry of her father, Chuck Swindoll, called Insight For Living.  What is Reframing Ministries? See a short 3:44 YouTube clip explaining it. Click here.

I was interviewed by Colleen on her podcast in 2019, shortly after the Lord raised me from years in an electric wheelchair and paralysis as an old man, after more than 30 years with aggressive MS and paralysis. 

It has been 6 years since the interview. I am still walking! To listen to that interview, click here   — Mark

CURRENCY OF MY SOUL

Decades of suffering with aggressive degenerative disability (MS) caused me to deal in the currency of my soul. It has been tough slugging because it deals with the essence of my being and how I saw myself in the world and how I acted and reacted in and to the world. My first 30 years were healthy and athletic, and then I was disabled using cane(s), crutches and wheelchairs. Who was I? What had I become? Why? How was I to deal with the sorrow and grief that coursed through my veins, breaking my heart and the hearts of those who loved me. 

With God's help, I was able to cross my river of grief at my adult-acquired disability to discover a new self. The old self was gone as surely as if I had died. I needed to grieve my loss, then search for a new self and a new self-identity. A new Mark emerged—different to be sure—but no less alive or vital than the previous Mark. My soul answered Yes to the fundamental question: Is life worth living, even if it seems to be in hopeless circumstances? Victor Frankel was a survivor of Nazi death camps. In his remarkable book Man's Search For Meaning, he wrote:

    "In the consciousness of one's inner value is anchored in higher more spiritual things and cannot be shaken by camp life. But how many free men, let alone prisoners possess it?"

I could relate to this. My wheelchair was a prison for my broken body, but it also liberated me spiritually by driving me inward to deal with my inner brokenness. I had to deal with the darkness of sin. Frankel also wrote: "If there is to be any meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering."

This struck a full chord. My journey with the neurological degeneration of MS served as a purifying fire. Some men are guilty of sins of the flesh, gluttony, jealousy or envy, fits of anger, alcohol or drug abuse. I am guilty of the worst sin: Pride. Pride was what made the devil the devil!

I needed to be brought low and have that infernal pride crushed. I think MS was God's tool. There were times when I could not dress myself or tie my own shoes, times when I needed to be propped up in my electric wheelchair to keep me from sagging to one side or the other, times when I needed to be diapered, times when I couldn't speak and my hearing was affected. Times when my vision was impaired so much I couldn't read, times when my hands were too weak to cut the meat on my dish at meals. Someone else had to do it for me. Creeping paralysis made me triplegic (the loss of use of three limbs).  We had to build a wheelchair-accessible home. There were times when I was virtually bedridden and needed a hoist to get me out of bed. I needed to come to a necessary point where I was dependent on others to do many basic daily things. I needed humiliation and shame to understand that I was not in charge of my life and that my pride and independence needed to give way to humility of interdependence. My health was gone. My career was over at the age of thirty-eight then put out to pasture. The only thing left to me was love (both human and divine). I needed to surrender every shard of my life to Christ and be willing to accept whatever His will might be. I needed to become content in whatever state I found myself in because the Holy Spirit was with me and in me. It was in surrender that I found freedom. 

Then God released me from my wheelchair, seven years ago, to walk again as an old man.

I will be 72 in May. I've been married to the love of my life for 52
years. My wife and I love Christ. We have contentment and peace. If I had to go back into that electric wheelchair gathering dust in an unused bedroom, for whatever years I have left, I will still praise God. My every 'Why' has been answered in Christ.

MDP

AN UPDATE ABOUT A LITTLE ORPHAN WHO IS AN ORPHAN NO MORE

 This is an update to my previous blog post, "An Orphan Gets a Second Chance at a Forever Family." 

Our little one is here in Canada with us. She is absolutely enthralled with snow. She has made her first snow angel. 

Her first seven years were tumultuous and traumatic. It's going to be a long hard journey for her to heal. But with psychological help, a stable loving home, and God's healing touch, I pray she will be able to reconcile her broken heart with the past and move ahead to reach her full potential. Thank you Lord for answered prayers. 

With all the frenzy of raising two seven-year-old ex-orphans, it is such a blessing but also exhausting for my daughter and her husband.  They must take time for themselves. I've encouraged them to make time for themselves. They mustn't burn the candle at both ends. Rest is important to be at one's best as a parent (and grandparent).

MDP

AFTER A FALSE START AN ORPHAN GETS A SECOND CHANCE TO HAVE A FOREVER FAMILY

 My daughter, Ronaele, is in the process of trying to take legal guardianship of another Haitian orphan whose American adoption failed. She has written that little girl's story and appeal below. (That would make both children in the photo my grandchildren!) My daughter has a heart for orphaned kids and I have a heart for grandchildren. Like arrows, I have a quiver full (to use a Biblical phrase. Psalm 127:3-5)

They were orphans from Haiti, who were torn apart by international adoption. Sophie (our daughter) lives in Canada, Alicha (her best friend & crib-mate from the orphanage), is in Texas.

The last time they saw each other was May 16, 2023 – in Haiti at their orphanage. We took a harrowing flight, to pick up our daughter (Sophie) as kidnappings and killings overtook Port-au-Prince. Once we were handed Sophie, we boarded our plane and white-knuckled it out of Haiti, hoping bullets didn’t pepper the plane. 

What was to come for Sophie’s best friend just 11 months later was another story altogether. She was evacuated in a now historic rescue of a few of Haiti’s orphans by a US military evacuation. Alicha was among six orphans who endured this particular life & death evacuation, however, her real fight would start once she reached US soil. Six days after her arrival, her adoptive parents were suddenly dealing with a family crisis that threatened the future of her life in Texas. We fought to bring her to Canada last May, but the process was too overwhelming for the parents and complications that forced us to back off. By August, it was clear that it was not meant to be (yet) and we tried to pick up the pieces of my daughter's broken heart. We lost contact with the family to preserve our hearts from further heartbreak. They would have to find each other later in life ... but God wasn't done.

THE BACK STORY:

SOPHIE-our daughter, was brought home to Canada in 2023 after an 8 1/2 year adoption process. To say the adoption program in Haiti is broken, is an understatement. Born in the slums of Cite Soleil, her mother somehow managed safe passage of newborn Sophie to a nearby hospital. Cite Soleil is a place that people go to, but they usually don’t make it out. When she had gained weight, she was brought to an orphanage in the hills above Port-au-Prince, where she remained until she was six.

ALICHA: Sophie’s crib and soul-mate, arrived at the orphanage two months after Sophie in 2017. She too, was abandoned by a similar fate. 

Sophie’s happy ending was supposed to end in Alberta, Canada.  Alicha would settle in Texas, USA after her evacuation last Easter. It was supposed to be a happy ending.

It was not. 

What was really strange was that Sophie AND Alicha’s story was unusually long. Almost a decade passed (our paperwork started before for Sophie's adoption before she was born!). The same was true for Alicha's original adoptive family in Texas. Both girls' files were persistently delayed…and almost simultaneously in how the central authority was processing their files. The other families matched to children at the same orphanage had left with their kids after four or five years in the process, so how these two best friends managed to “wait for each other” was a baffling phenomenon since the Central Authority is not involved in the friendships of kids, nor do they care. But this was not a friendship; they were crib-mates since birth—sisters in every sense, except genetics. It wasn’t long before I was able to track down the adoptive family for Alicha (the little girl that was always in on Sophie’s zoom calls in Haiti). 

All hell broke loose in February 2024, trapping orphans from freedom & throwing their adoptive families into mental anguish.

I know … I was on a chat with Alicha’s adoptive mom. As the US Embassy was trying (after multiple failed attempts) to land the helicopter in the night— bullets were flying. Would any of these kids have to take one? Alicia’s evacuation could have easily been our reality, it was luck of the draw who you were matched to. Alicha could have just as easily been ours—but, our little angel, Sophie, was fast asleep in her bed, while Alicha was fighting for her freedom and life. I assure you, with every word, I tried to console the mother. It futile. An adopted home-bound orphan is a valuable asset to Haiti’s gangs. We were acutely aware of this and the dangers the child was facing. It meant foreign money was attached to that child. And so is love. 

What price do you put on love? And what about the price of freedom? What would you pay for that? What’s it worth? Angels were perched on each tiny shoulder that night. Whisked away after the helicopter’s third attempt—bullets flying like skittles. Critical documents, however, were left behind in the ordeal—which would prove to be a major hurdle for us. MAJOR. 

February 11, 2025: “The Text”. The day life changed for us. The adoptive family was once again in an impossible situation. Plus Alicha's trauma of losing her old life in Haiti, her loss of Sophie, her nannies, plus whatever she saw in the 3-day evacuation, had spiralled into the reality we have now! It was clear the girls couldn't do life apart. We are scrambling to pick up the baton, ANY baton to get her reunited with Sophie before we lose her forever to the re-adoption program in the USA. This must not happen! I will fight till the end to not let this happen.

The girls are lost without each other. like peanut-butter-and-jam. I cannot fill the hole in my daughter’s heart from the loss of Alicha either. This seems to be an impossible situation, with many wheels turning;  we are working with four lawyers to find a resolution to this tragic circumstance. The GoFundMe funds raised will be used for legal fees, agency fees, medical expenses and trauma therapy. (To help click HERE). 

Simply put, we do not want to have to ask the former adoptive parents for any further financial assistance once Alicha is here. They have been through enough. We will pick up the pieces as best we can for all involved, God willing.

The path ahead is a heavy one, but this will be Alicha's chance at healing—together with Sophie. We’re humbly asking our global Christian village to assist so we can concentrate on Alicha and not the costs that we and her adoptive family are facing to pull this off. We are honoured that their story has touched so many hearts across (at least) three countries and we beg that you please share, far and wide. These girls are living a testament to the power of love, loyalty, and friendship. 

There are still miracles playing out in the land most have given up on. Haiti's children, with their futures lying in the balance between gunshots and lullabies. If you listen carefully, the children have lessons for us all. Hope is never lost. And we need our Christian village in 2025. Despite our fear and worry, we brace for the fight of a lifetime, to reunite two orphans after a very VERY long & broken road back to each other.

“ I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.”  

—John 14:18

Help us be the Lord's vehicle for Him to come to them, now and forever. Thank you and God bless. — Ronaele Pound