i had a great talk with a good friend (we've been friends since grade 6!) the other day. She called to wish me a happy birthday... (& can i believe we're 30??!!).
As our conversations usually do (even tho conversations are rare, they're always edifying) ~ the talk turned to our passions. Today she sent me a link to a unicef website ~ actually, here's a cut and paste from her email:

"Today I watched a documentary on child pornography and was motivated to look up Canada's laws. In the process I came across the Unicef site with a downloadable version of the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). I thought it might make a good resource for your site."

So, unicef is totally about the rights of exploited & underpriviledged children, right? So, why does even the name give me the heebie jeebies? i did a little looking ~ i knew what i was looking for ~ the planned parenthood link, but it's even more than that. i found a website (here, i'll quote)

"LifeSiteNews.com - Widely circulated daily news reports on important developments in Canada, the United States and around the world, with a special focus on United Nations matters. Its purpose is to provide balance and more accurate coverage on culture, life and family matters than is usually given by other media. Available by free daily email subscription and on LifeSite."

Anyway, there's a link on my website... i signed up for their daily newsletter. i hope it's good. Ted Gerk's newsletter Pro-Life E-News [tgerk@shaw.ca] is *also* really good. It makes it so much easier to be informed & thus easier to be vocal & have an impact.

K, now here's me... feeling bad that it seems like all i'm doing is saying: don't support the 46 health care charities that support stem cell research... don't support unicef, don't immunize... etc... & this is NOT what i'm trying to be about... it just seems that the enemy wants us to call what's evil good, & what's good evil. There are so many good organizations out there who are not tainted ~ i would just encourage people (including me) to dig a little deeper & try to find ways of helping the poor & opressed without supporting agencies that are entangled in a culture of death. i find that i'm constantly having to rethink my priorities & i'm constantly feeling challenged to ~ as my mom would say ~ "think things through to their logical conclusion"... *sigh*

Jesus, help me to see clearer. Help me to keep my compassion without sacrificing truth. amen.
paige

Thursday, July 13th 2006 ~ My last day in my 20's ~
Breakfast: Toast, avocado, coffee
Lunch: Mr. Noodles (Cai cooked) toast (Sloan cooked) OJ (Peyton cooked!)
Supper: pb&j sandwich (hey, Neil's out of town)

i read: The Tale of Despereaux (half last night, half today)
3 chapters of Anne of the Island to the big girls (Cai read 1)
Lots of email
Some psalms & the story of the persistent widow (Luke 18)
(This week i read "underground to Canada" & "Voyage of Hope ~ the saga of the brideships"

What's on my mind: Becky M., heaven, babies, children, missing Cai and Sloan when they go to fiddle camp this week... having too much company, are we gonna move again? Can i pull this off? Be a real homeschooling mom?

Played and sang today: "my cry" ~ by me
"blessed be your name, in the land that is plentiful"...
"stuck in a moment" U2

~ missed Neil... who will be home sometime after midnight ~

i wore: a sundress ~ plaid ~ from Old Navy
hair: in barrettes

I HOPE MY 30's BRING..... (by their close...)
#one... glory to God... He is my hope & salvation... i hope my 30's bring a closer walk...

*more homeschooling
* happiness & love in my marriage...
*clarity
*less selfishness
*one daughter into womanhood! (Cai will be 20!)
*two daughters finished highschool! (Sloan will be 18)
*my tiny Mollen into double digits! (She'll be 12)
*Peyton will be sixteen!
*Charter will probably be bigger than me (at 14).
*Oh, God, i'm scared to hope, but i yearn for my 30's to bring me another child.
*i want to be a better mom.

IN MY 20's I LEARNED.....
*How to die to self
*How to be a mom
*How to be a wife
*How to cook, clean, organize, do laundry & run a household.
*How to grieve... how it really feels ~ to grieve...
*How to give birth, & breastfeed... & breastfeed... & breastfeed
*How to "run" a homeschool!
*How to pack up & move a whole household... again, and again, and again...
*How important God's Grace is...
*How unimportant most fights are.
*How much i *love* being a wife & momma~
*How to dress like a grown-up... (sort of)
*i *love* Neil.
*How to put together a website.
*That i don't know much... but i want to... & i'm willing to do something about it.
*Your children can surpass your wildest hopes and expectations...

IN MY 30's I WANT TO LEARN....
*How to impact this world & take back ground our parents lost... for the sake of my children who will battle this darkness after i'm gone.
*How to FIGHT against what i know to be wrong ~
*and how to EMBRACE love... above all to love, Love like Jesus, "do unto others"...
*How to homeschool successfully through highschool.
*i want to know more about the environment & good nutrition & exercise... to pass on good habits to my littles.
*How to teach my girls all i learned in my 20's (!) (maybe not all, but LOTS)
*Miracles happen, hearts soften...
*Neil loves me...
*How to let my babies go...
*How will we do this dating thing??
*More about prayer and fasting...
*How to find a schedule that i can actually do.
*How to get up earlier in the morning.

i can't believe my sweet little macho man is turning F O U R tomorrow. i *do* love being a mom. Seems i'm blinking and they're growing ~ life is changing ~ . i'm not ready to be finished having babies. i keep trying to put into words what is in my heart. i love my 5 children i have with me now ~ but there is still a longing. i still feel open, and ready, and waiting... This sucks waiting for him to be ready. i've been ready - since Molls was born. & now she's 25 mos old. & i'm turning t h i r t y . Maybe i will have my wee one when i'm 31. Maybe God is softning Neil's heart right now - maybe maybe maybe... i would breastfeed, cloth diaper, home labour ~ (wouldn't dream of asking for a homebirth). i know where the cradle would go. God has been good. He has carried me. He has watered my love and kept the weeds from choking out all love. He has sustained me. He has sheltered me & kept me. That is what i will take from these years of being "qf" without Neil. The 'lifter of my head' .
This is so hard for both Neil and i. i never would have seen this coming when we got married. The best part of this struggle is seeing how *little* other things matter in comparison.
Oh, God, help me - help me to be the wife you want me to be! i'm so weak. i'm so unable. i'm so unsure of how to proceed. i want You, Father.
i pray for my family. Help us. Be the fire and the cloud to us. Hear us, see us and have compassion on us. Bless Neil. Heal our hurts. Protect us from the enemy who seeks to kill and destroy our marriage, our home and our hearts. Keep us first for You, and second for each other. Protect our little ones - help us to love, value, cherich and raise our children in a way that will bring you glory.

After i had been at the hospital overnight. (i was so tired that when i bonked my head on that stupid tv, i almost cried) ~ That was the time they decided to grill me on our decision not to immunize my children. i decided to take the clearest route and tell him that for me it was an ethical decision ~ to which he replied that ethics can mean different things ~ (no great surprise to me... i know that for some people it's unethical that they use chicken embryos for vaccines). I told him that no, it was the aborted fetal tissue where i drew the line and that was unacceptable to me.. He then told me how he's seen children as sick as charter, the next week all (he's pantomiming their physical disability) twisted and unresponsive with not much hope of rehabilitation. He also told me that he's not sure about fetal tissue being used, but that i should make sure that my sources are accurate. i told him that i was sure, and that i was not going to make my decision based solely on fear (which is what i felt like he was trying to make me do). Here is a link to one of my sources if anyone is interested. There is more information in the links section of sojourners.
http://www.sojourners.ca/Default.aspx?tabid=350
All that said, it *is* a personal decision. While i believe that we should all be putting pressure on the health system to make more 'ethical' vaccines available in Canada, if some choose to immunize with what *is* availabe, that's a decision made, i'm sure, with fear and trembling & i can respect that even people who are prolife differ on where the responsiblity lies.
Here is the summary of the Vatican statement:
"To summarize, it must be confirmed that there is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems. As regards the vaccines without an alternative, the need to contest so that others may be prepared must be reaffirmed, as should be the lawfulness of using the former in the meantime insomuch as is necessary in order to avoid a serious risk not only for one's own children but also, and perhaps more specifically, for the health conditions of the population as a whole -- especially for pregnant women The lawfulness of the use of these vaccines should not be misinterpreted as a declaration of the lawfulness of their production, marketing and use, but is to be understood as being a passive material cooperation and, in its mildest and remotest sense, also active, morally justified as an "extrema ratio" due to the necessity to provide for the good of one's children and of the people who come in contact with the children -- pregnant women. Such cooperation occurs in a context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience or otherwise, to put the health of their children and of the population as a whole at risk. This is an unjust alternative choice, which must be eliminated as soon as possible."

This weekend our world stood still. Charter had an asthma attack that landed him in the hospital overnight. Here's the email i sent to my sisters.


"We had a terrifying weekend... The pre story is that Charter had a cough and was kind of tired all day on Saturday... It started to get worse around 5pm, and by 6pm he was working hard to breathe, that's when Neil and I decided we should get him to a walk in clinic. (we should have probably called 911) .
We phoned ben and karen (friends of ours) to see if they knew of a walk in that would be open and they gave us a couple of names, so we bundled Charter and Mollen into the vehicle and went. (neils' friend Trevor and his wife Glenda were here for a visit and we left the girls with them). He was breathing funny, but would respond and was too lethargic to walk to the vehicle. By the time we drove to both clinics and found out both were closed, we didn't know what to do. Charter sounded horrible and we didn't know where the closest emerg was. My cell phone rings, and it's ben. He phoned all the clinics and knew they'd be closed, and found the closest one that would be open, so got us the phone number and address. We went there and charter by this time was hardly responding and couldn't string words together. We got inside and he said he was going to puke, so i took him to the bathroom and he was passing out as i was holding him over the toilet. His little body was puking, but he wasn't even awake. The doctor called him in right away and told us he was suffocating and to take him to emerg of the rocky view hospital just down the road & they would fax his info. We got there, and he was still not really responding and his blood oxygen was really low. They gave him back to back doses of ventalin and there was no change. They took chest x-rays and couldn't see much other than a bit of streaking... the doc thought it was atypical pneumonia, but wanted him admitted in a paediatric unit, so Neil took Mollen home and i went in the ambulance with Charter to another hospital to be admitted. They kept him on oxygen all night and more doses of ventalin. This morning they decided he has atypical pneumonia *and* asthma. His breathing finally slowed (not normal, but not so scary) at about 4am. We left the hospital at around 3:30 sunday afternoon. Charter seems fine ~ a little tired and out of breath. i am a bit emotional, but fine too:) "



So, i'm looking at all this information the hospital gave us about asthma, and i'm looking at the contacts and thinking... the lung association... They're one of the 46 health care charities that support embryonic stem cell research... It's heart-wrenching. They're doing a work to help children like my son ~ who was gasping for air and fading before my eyes ~ and yet this same organization is lobbying the government supporting something that is moraly and ethically abhorrent. People ~ good people ~ are donating, thinking they are helping do good work, and their offerings are going to support a frankenstein, babies for parts ideology that they would never support if it wasn't disguised as the 'canadian lung association' at the door. We need to be so careful where we put our money. People look at you sideways when you say "no" to:

Acoustic Neuroma Association of Canada
Allergy/Asthma Information Association
Alzheimer Society of Canada
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Society of Canada (ALS Canada)
Asthma Society of Canada
Canadian AIDS Society
Canadian Breast Cancer Network
Canadian Cancer Society
Canadian Celiac Association
Canadian Child Care Federation
Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Canadian Diabetes Association
Canadian Down Syndrome Society
Canadian Hemochromatosis Society
Canadian Hemophilia Society
Canadian Institute of Child Health
Canadian Lung Association
Canadian Marfan Association
Canadian Mental Health Association
Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders (CORD)
Canadian Palliative Care Association
Canadian Porphyria Foundation Inc.
Canadian Public Health Association
Childhood Cancer Foundation – Candlelighters Canada
Easter Seals/March of Dimes National Council
Epilepsy Canada
Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada
Hepatitis C Society of Canada
Huntington Society of Canada
Kidney Foundation of Canada (The)
Lupus Canada
Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada
Muscular Dystrophy Association of Canada
National M.E./F.M. Action Network
National Network for Mental Health
Osteoporosis Society of Canada
Parkinson Society Canada
Psoriasis Society of Canada
The Canadian Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths
Sleep/Wake Disorders Canada
Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus Association of Canada
The Arthritis Society
Thalassemia Foundation of Canada
Thalidomide Victims Association of Canada
Thyroid Foundation of Canada
Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada
YMCA Canada

but we can't be willing participants in this culture of death. If we can take a stand now, and say "no, my life, my child's life, my parent's life, is not worth the cost involved in the murder and canibalization of tiny, created in the image of God human beings" ~ we will be taking a stand for the future of our children's souls ~ which in my opinion, is so much more important than finding a cure for asthma.

paige