Life: It's Not Complicated

I am feeling very Catholic today. This morning I visited the website of the "Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice", where I noticed the Presbyterian Church USA listed as a member, which piqued my interest because the last church I went to before I became Catholic was PC USA. So I clicked on the PC USA website and searched for "abortion".

Let me tell you!

I knew the denomination was liberal, but silly me, I thought that meant they ordained women and such, not that they supported abortion as a choice for those facing what they repeatedly term "problem pregnancies". I never looked into the denomination as a whole. What does your average Protestant care about church hierarchy crap? I didn't.

Here are a few disturbing excerpts from the PC USA position on abortion:

"Presbyterians have struggled with the issue of abortion for more than 30 years..."

“the artificial or induced termination of a pregnancy is a matter of careful ethical decision of the patient…and therefore should not be restricted by law…”
"We may not know exactly when human life begins..."

"to terminate a pregnancy can be a morally acceptable, though certainly not the only or required, decision. Possible justifying circumstances would include medical indications of severe physical or mental deformity"...

"Problem pregnancies are the result of, and influenced by, so many complicated and insolvable circumstances that we have neither the wisdom nor the authority to address or decide each situation."

This last one is the phrase that keeps reverberating in my head; individual women have the wisdom and authority to decide if they should or should not get an abortion, but the Church does not have the wisdom to be able to speak against abortion because it's complicated. How can the body of Christ not know if it is right or wrong to kill an innocent human being? Apparently because the PC USA body believes that what is right in one situation may not be right in another. The Holy spirit may indeed affirm that one women should have an abortion, and he may say "no" to another. In reality, Abortion is not a complicated issue, but calling it so makes people who like to avoid being judgemental feel better about giving up their moral voice. But wait, shouldn't a church, of all things, maintain a consistent moral voice? And how does a church descend to such unfamiliarity with what I will term the Christian tradition, which has always held that human life from conception forward is sacred?

The PC USA page states,"In the Reformed Tradition, we affirm that God is the only Lord of conscience-not the state or the church."

Now I certainly think the PC USA is twisting 'reformed tradition' here by using it as an excuse to bow out of advocating for the lives of the unborn, but it's revealing that they use this statement here. What is being said in this context is that the church doesn't have the authority to say what is right and wrong because only God can do that. But if God is the only 'Lord of conscience', then the Lord of conscience becomes whatever individuals decide God is, and predictably, everyone seems to get a different version of God.

This past week I've made many comments on a post my husband wrote on facebook about all things related to marriage and sexuality. I noticed that there was a common theme running through all the other (non-Catholic) commenter's thinking; that this was a matter of opinion and preference, whether or not the commenter had a loose or strict vision of where the line of sin should be drawn. I notice this all too often among secular and Protestant circles (and bad Catholic ones, too): dialogue is the highest appeal to determine truth. Nothing else can be trusted. Christians may trust God, but there is no authority of authorities to explain God, everything is a matter of personal interpretation.

I expect this in secular circles where oneself is the highest judge of morality, but I would hope better of Christians. We're supposed to have submitted our lives to Christ, and that means submitting to the Church, which is "the pillar and bulwark of the truth." (1 Tim. 3:15). (Unless, of course, you belong to a church like the PC USA, which seems a little iffy on the concept of truth).

Besides being so glad I can trust the unadulterated doctrine of the Catholic church, I've come to a conclusion through all this: I really, really don't like the way faith looks when it is disconnected from authority. Faith just lacks integrity without it. When there is no recognition that the Church has authority to interpret scripture consistent with the way it has always been interpreted and to pass on the historical faith, people seem to feel free to go around reinventing whatever facet of Christianity (or life) they see as needing improvement. That's just sad.

March for Life 2009

I'm blogging about this a little late, but I went to the March For Life in Washington DC! My husband and I decided last minute that it would be a missed opportunity not to go (the kids do well with long car rides at the moment, friends in DC could put us up, and no one had to miss work or class to go). I'm really glad we went and we will go again.

I'm posting a few tips below on doing the march with young kids, which I will post again next January before the march, because I wished that I'd been a little better informed as to how things would run the day of the march. I also had hoped to have a bunch of my own photos to post, but I didn't take very many because I was pretty much sandwiched in a sea of people all afternoon. Here are a few links to some coverage if you'd like to see photos, photos, photos. Unfortunately, the march is pretty consistently under reported in the mainstream media, but I've seen estimates that between 200,000-300,000 people attended. Wow.

Tips for taking kids to the March for Life:
1. Pack a lunch and snacks that you can eat standing up. There is no easily accessible food once you are at the mall!!
2. Bring strollers that your kids will be happy to sleep in
3. Bring something to occupy your kids while they sit in a stroller
4. Consider finding a perch and just watching the march from one of the many buildings on the mall, or joining in at the very end on your own time (unless you want to possibly spend hours waiting to start actually walking)
5. Consider arriving late. Everything we read said the march started at 12, but only the rally (a series of speakers) started at 12. We did not start "marching" until at least 2, and we did not start moving until at least 3:30. We got to the Metro at 5:00.
6. If you're taking the Metro (subway) do not plan on getting on the Metro at the station closest to the end of the march, Capitol South. The line will be insane. Plan on walking to another station.
7. Buy your return Metro tickets on the way TO the march
8. Plan on spending two nights in the DC area, one before and one after, if you have what you consider a "long" drive.

On letting the fire die

If you are pro-life minded like I am, there has been something heavy hanging in the air ever since Barack Obama became our president elect. It feels like some sort of doomsday on the abortion front is about to occur, and it's hard to go about life with this knowledge. One of the worst discoveries I've made as an adult is that the cliche 'ignorance is bliss' is 100% true. Back in 2001 I went to Calcutta, India for a few weeks on a mission trip, and seriously, I was depressed for an entire year afterward because of what I saw there. After seeing countless families stretched out on the sidewalks to sleep at night and after carrying skeletal patients at Mother Teresa's home for the dying, I felt completely disillusioned with the American lifestyle. I also felt utterly powerless. When tragedy becomes personal--when a real starving child is standing in front of you vs. staring out of a magazine photograph-- there's really two options: try to make peace with the knowledge of despair while working for change, or shove it to the back of the mind and forget about it.

After Obama was elected I felt angry, fed up, and just plain sad for a few weeks before I felt like something had to give. Overwhelmed with the intensity of my disgust for the lack of care with which far too many people treat the abortion issue, I decided to try the 'oh well, what can I do?' approach. Maybe having a rabidly pro-abortion president wouldn't be such a big deal after all. And so, I haven't read anything about Obama by choice for the past few months because it can be so disheartening. But I'm not sure it's working for me. Well, I know it's not working. I've almost stopped praying for an end to abortion and I've barely thought about getting connected to the Pittsburgh pro-lifers who I know are out there. It's tempting to become one of the persons I say I don't understand anymore; someone who is bothered by the fact that abortion is legal in all 50 states up to the moment of birth, but not bothered enough to do something about it. I know that shutting up about abortion would be a major failing because I am certain that God has called me to stand against this particular evil. It just would be so much easier not to.

I don't have many answers at this point as to how to carry on. I'm still at a loss over how to live with the knowledge that the simple task of just staying alive is such a struggle for so many people. I'd like to ask some wise folks who confront serious evil and ugliness every day how they maintain some form of happiness. Is that even possible? I have some vague ideas; massive devotion to prayer and the Eucharist top the list. Maybe that's enough. Another cliche comes to mind, 'no way through it but to do it'...I'm just hoping for a better answer down the line.

Oversight

The subject of abortion and the election has been on my mind heavily the last few weeks, so much so that it is shaking me out of my three month absence from blogging. I am a bit amazed by something: Christians who proclaim abortion to be evil but still happily and eagerly vote for a pro-abortion candidate, and in this election, one of the most pro-abortion candidates America has ever seen.

Obama is an ardent abortion rights activist, having a sterling 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-choice America. He has promised to remove ALL restrictions that interfere with a woman's access to abortion, saying "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do." The usual argument I hear justifying voting for Obama despite his vigorous pro-abortion stance goes something like "Obama, overall, will work for a more just society than McCain, so I feel morally obligated to vote for him"

To this I say "What?" Basically, the premise behind this stance is simple: the murder of over one million innocent human beings in the US annually is not enough of an issue to vote against. I wonder--if infanticide were legal in this country and Obama was promising that the first act of his presidency would be to promote infanticide by removing all bothersome restrictions on it and by providing federal funding for parents to kill their children, would people have trouble deciding if they should vote for him or not? To the folks who would answer no, of course not, then the question that begs to be asked is: Do you really think abortion is evil?

Abortion & Indian sex-selection

Excerpts from a recent NY Times article, Indian Prime Minister Denounces Abortion of Females, my own thoughts follow;

"In his first speech on the subject, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh highlighted an “alarming” decline in the number of girls for every 1,000 boys in India, slipping to 927 in 2001 from 962 in 1981, according to the latest census figures. “This indicates that growing economic prosperity and education levels have not led to a corresponding mitigation in this acute problem,” he said.

“No nation, no society, no community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it condones the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity represented by women,” Mr. Singh said, giving an inaugural speech at a national conference dedicating to “saving the girl child,” which brought together politicians, doctors and advocates."

"Over past three decades, the increasing availability of ultrasound equipment has assisted India’s cultural preference for sons and distorted the sex ratio across the nation. As the equipment has become more affordable, special ultrasound clinics have opened even in the most impoverished parts of the country."

I found this article thought-provoking. Without knowing Singh's views on abortion as a whole, I found his denunciation of the practice of aborting females interesting because there is no claim that abortion itself is wrong, only that it is wrong to discriminate between the sexes. Abortion really isn't the main issue, it's discrimination against females. The article goes on to explain that girls are often seen as a liability because when they are married, the groom is entitled to a large dowry. Also, men tend to be the ones who take care of their parents in old age.

I can see how an issue like this could put a pro-choicer in a moral quandary, especially if they have strong feminist ideology. I'm sure if I were of the feminist pro-choice mindset I would see sex-selection by parents as reprehensible, a case of patriarchal society at its worst. But if I truly believed that abortion is always a personal decision every woman should be allowed to make on a case by case basis, then why shouldn't every woman be able to decide whether or not she can afford to raise a daughter? What if she really wants a child, but knows that she will never be able to scrape together a dowry? How is this really any different from any woman deciding she can't undertake the 'burden' of raising a child, regardless of gender, because of the financial stress it would entail. Certainly countries should not pass laws banning abortions done to avoid economic distress, to do so would be an invasion of privacy. (75% of women who obtain abortions cite financial inability to care for the child as one reason).

There are so many parallels that can be drawn from this issue of discriminating against a certain type of human. 90% of the unborn diagnosed with down-syndrome are aborted in the US. This must be a sickening fact to those living with down-syndrome and to the families and friends of those with down-syndrome. I don't think it would be incredible to demand that laws be passed against discrimination towards the unborn diagnosed with genetic abnormalities or other disabilities. But to a pro-choice person, it all comes down to a personal decision that no one else has the right to intrude upon. Lovely.

Does voting pro-life matter?

I used to wonder if it really mattered if I voted pro-life or not. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and doesn't appear to be slated for overture anytime soon, so abortions will continue regardless of who is in office. I questioned whether or not legislators could really make much of a dent because abortion is held as an inalienable right for women in this country. But honestly, these were vague questions that I never really took the time to seek serious answers to and until fairly recently, I wasn't persuaded to vote for or against anyone based on their position on abortion. Recently, I finally started compiling a list of pro-life legislation enacted under President Bush, partly because I wasn't paying all that much attention to it while it was happening, and partly because I wanted to prove to myself that it does matter how I vote. This is, after all, the position my church takes and I said I agree with everything she teaches when I became Catholic. I was surprised at how extensive President Bush's record is. It would take me days to wade through, and my list would be pages and pages long were I to include every pro-life appointment, policy position and actual piece of legislation.

I think this list helps to illustrate that it does matter whether you or I vote pro-life. Other opinions aside, you have to hand it to President Bush for repeatedly staking out a strong moral position for the sanctity of life and against abortion throughout his presidency. Perhaps this type of legislation is under rated because often the people who benefit the most are too small to be interviewed, but I am grateful for the impacts of actively respecting the sanctity of all human life because I believe this has to be a good thing for all of society.

Since taking office in January 2001, President George W. Bush:

January 2001, Reinstated Mexico City Policy, limiting funding to international NGO's that support or perform abortions

April 2001, Applied Hyde funding restriction to RU-486 (abortion pill), limiting federal funding of medical abortions

May 2001, Appointed pro-life diplomat John Klink to State Department

August 2001, Limited federal funding of stem cell research to existing lines (about 60)

November, 2001 Opposed human cloning

November 2003, Signed Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, ending gruesome practice of partially delivering fetus, crushing its skull and vacuuming out brain. Ban was upheld by Supreme Court in April 2007

April 2004, Signed Unborn Victims of Violence into law (rules that when a pregnant woman is attacked and her unborn child is injured, perpetrator may be charged as harming 2 victims)

March 2005, Endorsed UN vote to urge the end of human cloning

September 2005, Appointed John G. Roberts (conservative) as Chief Justice US Supreme Court, replacing conservative William Rehnquist

January 2006, Appointed Samuel Alito as US Supreme Court Justice, filling position vacated by leftist Sandra Day O'Connor and tipping the courts' balance to conservative

September 2006, Vetoed embryonic stem cell bill, limiting federal funding on research with stem cells

May 2007, Vowed to veto any legislation that weakens federal policy abortion restrictions

What are you doing May 3rd?

There's an organization looking for one million people to pray the Rosary with the intention of an end to abortion on May 3rd, 2008. You can pray the rosary individually wherever you are from 9-10 am Eastern time, and registering only requires one click of the mouse at: Saint Michael the Archangel Organization, One Million Rosaries For Unborn Babies.

Hope

It's hard to stand outside the abortion clinic praying each car that pulls in will not go through with procuring an abortion, only to repeatedly be ignored. Most people going in will not even look at the sidewalk counselors. At times I find it hard to believe that there's much purpose in the my prayers and in my presence. It feels like it should be easier to defeat evil than it is if God has given us what he says he has...his spirit and power. It's frustrating when it seems that God allows evil to happen all too often.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm praying wrong, akin to my son's feeble attempts to master sweeping. Of course, he can't handle the big, adult sized broom, and only manages to aimlessly swipe the floor every so often. That's how I feel sometimes, that I haven't figured out how to use the tool of prayer very well. It's made for a purpose and can bring about miracles, but something seems wrong when what I'm praying against happens over and over and over.

Last week I was standing outside the clinic feeling rather powerless, my anger over the situation coming to a head. I asked God why it is so difficult and rare for his kingdom to triumph on earth, at least in front of my eyes, and I started to think how limited my vision is. It struck me that I may never physically see the result of my prayers for others, but that doesn't render them ineffective. I can't know what sort of spiritual dynamic may be changing in the lives of the men and women who enter the clinic because people like myself are standing in prayer for them. They may go through with the abortion, but their hearts may be changed in some small or large way because we have asked it to be so. I felt encouraged to pray that God would raise up people from the staff and clients to speak out against abortion, if not today, then someday.

Hope is something no Christian should be in short supply of. Hope and the lack of hope is one of the main differences between the lives of believers and non-believers. Jesus is hope, the message of the gospel writers is one of hope, of pressing on towards the end goal of eternity with the creator. Without God, the best advice on life goes something like...deal with it, and always look out for number one. But oh how things change with faith in a merciful God. I have a friend facing a difficult situation who wrote in an email, "How tragic if I, an ambassador of the King of Life, a vessel of His hope, were to give up and let go of my hope so easily." She's right. I'm outside the clinic once a week asking people to take a chance on hope, to do something they have deemed much too difficult, to bear a child. It is tragic if I give in to the same despair and lack of hope--I know that God is GOD. He's always doing something, even if I am blind to it.

Not so simple

I've been reading The Hand of God by Bernard Nathanson, M.D. and came across a passage I want to pass on. Nathanson was a one of the founders of NARAL Pro-Choice America and at the time ran the world's largest abortion clinic. He has since become a national advocate of the pro-life movement, although I'm not sure how active he is currently. In the book, he deals with the ethics of using aborted fetal tissue for treating medical conditions. I'm sure we've all heard the, "well, they're already dead, so some good might as well come out of their lives" argument supporting the medical use of fetal tissue from aborted babies, but Nathanson provides an alternative perspective: (here he is talking about the hope of reducing the symptoms of Parkinson's disease by transplanting healthy fetal nerve cells into those with Parkinson's)

"...consider that the placement of fetal brain tissue into the brain of a sufferer from Parkinson's disease is not simply a matter of sticking a needle into the skull of the patient and injecting the cells. First patients suitable for the technique must be screened (the doctors, nurses, and laboratory technicians necessary for this phase of the operation are all well paid). The abortions must then be performed (five for each patient awaiting the transplant), and of course the abortion doctors, and clinic and hospital personnel are compensated for their services. The tissue must then be immediately iced by a technician standing right at the abortion table (also paid), and then the tissue must be transported to a suitable laboratory where another technician will examine all the fetal tissue under a microscope and winnow out the fetal neurons (nerve cells) appropriate for transplant (that technician is especially well paid since this is critical tedious work). The tissue is then processed and prepared for the actual transplant (another costly operation). Meanwhile the patient is also being prepared for the transplant by the doctors, nurses, nurse's aides, housekeeping personnel, social workers, and counselors to the patient and the family"...and on and on it goes.

Bottom line: there is a lot of money to be made by using fetal cells for research and treatment. New industries would spring up to accommodate demand, and certainly not out of pure altruism. Just food for thought.

How could a human individual not be a human person?

It's tempting, it really is, to think that contraceptives such as the pill and IUDs that sometimes and sometimes often, depending on the type, cause early abortions aren't really all that bad. Does it really matter if a few cells that are in the very early stages of human development might get flushed out of a woman's body every so often? But when examined, this view is not in keeping with the biology of the beginning of human life. At conception a new human being comes into existence-- 23 chromosomes from the female and 23 chromosomes from the male are united into what is a brand new human person, 46 chromosomes, with a unique DNA sequence entirely different from the mother and father. Amazing, just like that; in a moment, a new human being is alive. At conception the complete blueprint of this tiny human is already determined. The texture his or her hair will take on, the shape of his foot, the length of his eyelashes, his future tendency towards observing or exploring, screaming or smiling, it's all there. All it needs is time.

It takes about 5-10 days for a future embryo to implant in the uterus (it's not called an embryo until it implants), and I've always pictured this phase as a lone cell floating down the fallopian tube, just vegetating waiting to implant, so I was surprised to find out that as soon as conception happens, a zygote's cells begin dividing and arranging appropriately. All the while the zygote is traveling towards the uterus, this new human is growing. Once a new human is put into motion, it's all about the business of growing--there is no hanging around idly waiting to find out whether or not it can really get the show on the road, so to speak, depending on its ability to burrow into the womb for nourishment. Growth is already happening.

It's always hard for people to understand others who are not like themselves; people of different religion, race, even gender, are puzzling, and understanding the significance of a zygote or an embryo is no exception. It's especially hard to accept something that doesn't look like us as one of us. But as Pope Paul IV said, "how could a human individual not be a human person?".* From conception, a zygote is human, there is no other species it can be assigned to. Some would argue that while it is human, it is not a person and therefore is expendable, but there is no wisdom in this. There is no biological benchmark for a tiny human that clearly proclaims 'okay, NOW I'm fully a person and have rights'. All the benchmarks people have tried to come to consensus over as to when a human being constitutes a human person that should not be killed--end of the first trimester, viability, etc.--are arbitrary. It's like trying to tack up our own blueprint of development over the one God created in the beginning. We can't figure out the mind of God. We can't. But we can know that from the beginning, God has a plan for every life, and to intentionally disregard the sacredness of his plan is a grave moral error.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:13-16

*Cf. POPE PAUL VI, Discourse to participants in the Twenty-third National Congress of Italian Catholic Jurists, 9 December 1972: AAS 64 ( 1972) 777. As found in Donum Vitae

Is the Birth Control Pill an Abortifacient?

I was going to try to not write anything and just post this video, but there are a few things that should be said. Women do get pregnant on the pill with reported perfect use. Therefore, when a woman experiences breakthrough ovulation (best estimates seem to be from 5-10% of the time), an abortion is not guaranteed--but it is possible. ALL combination birth control pills (the most widely prescribed kind) work in the same way,"Combination oral contraceptives act by suppression of gonadotropins. Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical mucus (which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus) and the endometrium (which reduce the likelihood of implantation)." (Taken from the prescribing information of ortho tri-cyclen, but all combo low dose pills say the same thing under 'clinical pharmacology' in the prescribing info). It is the last mechanism that we are concerned with here.

The video was made by referring to Randy Alcorn's extensive research, "Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?" found at epm.org (use the search button, I can't link to the article itself)

Jen's story

Jen at Et Tu? has a fabulous post How I became pro-life, that I couldn't help but posting two excerpts from, but in my humble opinion, you really should read the whole thing...

"Because it was an inherent part of my worldview that everyone except people with "hang-ups" eventually has sex and sex is, under normal circumstances, only about the relationship between the two people involved, I got lured into one of the oldest, biggest, most tempting lies in human history: to dehumanize the enemy. Babies had become the enemy because of their tendencies to pop up and ruin everything; and just as societies are tempted to dehumanize the fellow human beings who are on the other side of the lines in wartime, so had I, and we as a society, dehumanized the enemy of sex."

"The way I'd always seen it, the standard position was that babies were a horrible burden, except for a couple times in life when everything is perfect enough that a couple might temporarily see new life as a good thing; the Catholic view is that the standard position is that babies are a blessing and a good thing, and while it's fine to attempt to avoid pregnancy for serious reasons, if we go so far as to adopt a "contraceptive mentality," feeling entitled to the pleasure of sex while loathing (and perhaps trying to forget all about) its life-giving properties, we not only disrespect this most sacred of acts, but we begin to see new life as the enemy."

Figuring out Vocation

I don't think I've had one day since booga bear was born that I've thought to myself 'man, I got absolutely nothing worthwhile done today'. It's a good feeling. There are always things to do when you have kids, and all those little ordinary tasks add up to security and well-being for another little human, making any day very worth-while. I've always wanted my life to have purpose, and in fact I think I've spent years worrying that it didn't have enough purpose. I feel that my life should be a worthy response to this awesome thing God has done for me, dying on the cross and calling me to Him. If Jesus sacrificed his life for me, then surely I should be sacrificing in return as my little offering of thanks.

But how, in a way that really counts? Before I became Catholic, I considered being a missionary and made some steps towards that end goal. Then I married my husband and he decided to become Catholic, and I followed suit, which changed that picture a bit. There aren't endless opportunities for married laity to be missionaries, and we have said 'absolutely not' to using contraception, so now we are in a phase of accepting children instead of limiting them in order to do 'God's work' as we probably would have had we gone overseas.

Catholics refer to one's life calling as your "vocation", and what I have come up with as my vocation is entirely unglamorous. I would never, ever have come up with it 3 or 4 years ago, which I know is a trite thing to say about vocation, but it's true. What I'm mentally calling my vocation is a 'life advocate'. There are three main areas I see to this right now. First, I want to be an advocate for life with my own body by being open to more children, and to being an at-home mom to those children. Second, I want to become more involved in the pro-life movement. Third, I want to spread the message of Natural Family Planning in marriage.

I am only at the beginning of understanding my vocation, so other layers might be added on over time, changing the components of my vocation picture. But for this phase of life I'm in now, which, using a conservative estimate will probably last 10 -15 years, I think my vocation will include these three components, or include things that closely resemble them. I've heard people say that you spend your 20's figuring out what you want to do with your life, and your 30's actually starting to do it. I'll be turning 30 this year, so I guess my narrowing of focus is partly biological (well, a lot of it is biological, considering having a child is what got me started on this path). I guess what has happened is that I don't feel overwhelmed by all the choices available to me; I don't need to throw myself at whatever good cause comes my way because I know what I want to be about...and now maybe I can get something done.

I don't want to become a task-master in this, I just want to be deliberate about trying to bring about some good in the world. I think of it as a way of praying with my feet, praying with my actions. I'm asking God to bring change through my little contributions, and I hope my contributions will work towards building his kingdom.