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The Finding |
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by Melissa Roe
Among our daughter's adoption files, there is a curious
paper known as a finding ad. The Chinese Welfare
Institute runs the ad in a local paper following
abandonment. The dear dark faces of several baby girls
fill the page along with the dates of their "finding."
I marvel at the very word naming this lightweight copy
of newsprint that could just as easily have been a piece
of junk mail on a Wuzhou City porch step. The fact that
it is a finding ad instead of an abandonment notice
speaks to me of an optimism that we all would do well to
observe. The focus is on the finding; in a nearly
celebratory manner the ad is placed to alert family
members in the event that they happened to have
misplaced a baby at the side of the road or in the
market.
Two years ago we traveled to the Zhuang Autonomous
Region of Guangxi, China where we claimed our
daughter...
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Mind Matters |
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"Your eyes are of little use if your mind is closed"
(Arab Proverb).
"A good reader is a confused reader; a good listener is
a confused listener" (Mark Talbot).
Only about one out of a hundred "missionary decisions"
results in actual career mission service.
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Deputation |
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Deputation is "an unknown period of time for
calling, writing, and visiting an unknown number of
pastors one does not know, driving on unfamiliar roads
in unbelievable conditions at unearthly hours, staying
with people you have never met, and eating food you do
not recognize, in order to convince unfamiliar churches
to support a missionary they do not know to go to a
field where he has not been, to do a work he has not
done in a language he does not know, with funds he does
not have."
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