In the power and Name of JESUS, I also stand up for the multitude of orphans in the world…  GOD is the FATHER to the fatherless…  HE desires that we be a voice for them, provide for them, adopt them, and/or visit them…  I will stand firm in faith continually interceding on behalf of all orphans in the world and for brothers and sisters in Christ to get involved in their care ongoing…

James 1:27 (NIV)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Since GOD shows us clearly here in HIS WORD, every church founded on the LORD and Savior JESUS Christ should involve themselves as a congregation to support and provide for orphans needs worldwide and for the foster children in our country -many of which are awaiting adoption…

1 Timothy 6:17-19 (NIV)

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

Those of you that are rich, I encourage you to put your hope in GOD…  You have the awesome opportunity to care for and provide more for orphans in meeting their needs…  

• do good
• be rich in good deeds
• be generous and willing to share

GOD promises you that if you store treasure above in Heaven, it will be a firm foundation and that you will take hold of the life that is truly life…

The treasure are the orphans themselves that you will choose to provide for…  You will benefit greatly for obeying…

I will share further about my heart concerning the recent events of African American lives taken by force that have died by making known my childhood and adult experiences of friendships made with others of different races and backgrounds along my journey and some steps one can take to unify with our African American brothers and sisters. 

I do believe there are many in law enforcement who serve to lay down their lives to protect humanity. However, there are also those who are extreme in their tactics using excessive force.  Many law enforcement units need to have reformed training in how they can de-escalate situations/persons as well as ways to handle those being arrested without leading to major injury and/or death.

I’m a male Caucasian who grew up with the privilege of being around different races as a young child in 1st grade onward.  When my family moved after my kindergarten year to a new neighborhood in Rockford,  Illinois, an Indian family from India lived across from us and I went to school with their daughter Shruti.  Down the street on the corner lived a Chinese family and I went to school with their daughter Diana. A street further down from them and perpendicular to it lived my friends Chris and Mike Thomas who are African American.  I would visit all their houses often.  I went to a private school for one year and I was friends with another African American student named Darius Washington.

My dad was one of 4-6 students at an all Caucasian school who were chosen to attend an all African American school when desegregation began in the state of Washington.  He said he got along with the African American students because he was good at sports and was able to fit in that way.  Sports does have a way of unifying various races together if one lets it happen accordingly.  Maybe that is part of the reason why I had an affinity for African American athletes.  I grew up watching sports because of my dad’s devoted interest in them.  In basketball, I rooted for the Chicago Bulls and I liked Orlando Woolridge and Artis Gilmore.  Then I was able to enjoy Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen when they came along.  I rooted for the Los Angeles Lakers also with Magic, Kareem, Worthy, and my favorite player Michael Cooper.  In baseball, I watched the Cubs and liked Andre Dawson and Lee Smith.  I watched the White Sox and liked Chet Lemon and Harold Baines.  I watched the Milwaukee Brewers and liked Cecil Cooper and Ben Oglivie.  I liked to watch Ricky Henderson of the Oakland A’s and New York Yankees because he could run fast and steal bases.  I was the fastest student in 2nd grade and the P.E. teacher had me race against the fastest 3rd grade African American student named Charletta.  I was short and she was tall.  Her long stride beat me to the finish line as I ran just behind her heels.  In football, I cheered on the Bears and liked watching Walter Payton, Richard Dent, Mike Singletary, Otis Wilson, Vince Evans, and Willie Gault.  I liked Harold Carmichael of the Eagles, Eric Dickerson of the Rams, Kellen Winslow of the Chargers, as well as John Stallworth and Lynn Swann of the Steelers.  When you’re young, you don’t think much about racism if you grow up being friends with and cheering on the players who are African American…

I moved away from my childhood stomping grounds to live in a suburb outside Chicago for one year and it was the start of a downward spiral into depression and being mostly withdrawn other than with playing basketball.  Our family moved again to Flower Mound, Texas which is North of Dallas. I had a few friends in my new neighborhood. One of them was Peter Gonzalez who is Puerto Rican.  After 4 years there, I moved again to Wentzville, Missouri which is North of St. Louis.  I made friends through playing basketball at the high school.  My friends made while there are Damon Love, Kelly Love, Emmitt Blaylock, Lamar Harvey, and Lamont Smith who are African American.  I was the minority wherever we went, but they accepted me and didn’t ever reject me.  My best friend I made in high school, named Christian, is from Chile, South America.  GOD used Renata Mosely, an African American girl, to bring a positive change in my life bringing me out of my depression for a time just by her simply talking to me openly and honestly.  I made another friend with an exchange student from Spain who played basketball too named Raul.  GOD has allowed me to be molded and shaped by many people from varying backgrounds and ethnicities.  I am the better for it!!…

I became a substitute teacher while attending St. Charles Community College and grew in my ability to interact with young people of various abilities, interests, and backgrounds.  I teamed up with Joey Middleton who I met in college, an African American, to play in a 3 on 3 basketball tournament that we won outright. After graduating with an Associates degree, I attended Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.  One of my most influential professors who is African American (taught a special education course), gave the assignment to get out of our comfort zone and meet with someone on a weekly basis who each one of us determined to be different from and have never had interactions with in past experiences.  My reasoning and perception was challenged for I’ve known people and got along with others of different races, so who could I meet with I thought?  It didn’t take long until I found that person.  Rosie was 27 and had cerebral palsy.  She had been taking 1 class a semester since she was 19 with her Mom supporting her with taking notes for her as she slowly plotted along to earn a degree.  She represented at the time -“out of my comfort zone.”  I grew to love her by spending time with her and listening to her.  She had a wonderful perspective on life as well as favorite interests in food and music etc.  She became an inspiration making a huge impact on my life positively and my special friend…  I would have never been enriched so wonderfully if I hadn’t been given the assignment…

If you are struggling with what to do about racism in our country, a step to take is getting out of your comfort zone to meet with, talk with, and listen to another in order to know someone better.  You may just find out you are able to care for and love them as a person, as a friend -a fellow human being that inspires you…

After graduating, I continued to substitute teach.  I also worked as a waiter in an Orient Chinese restaurant and grew to love the Asian owners.  The cook staff were Mexican and I got to practice speaking Spanish after having 3 years of Spanish class in high school and 2 years in college. Then I went on week long mission trips to Mexico for 3 summers , shared my testimony, and was part of the vacation Bible school with the children where I got to practice my Spanish.  GOD wants for all the world to come to know JESUS HIS Son and be saved…

I met my wife working at an emergency shelter for abused and neglected children. We prayed for the kids and GOD would take away their nightmares and HE showed them HE was real in being present for them and not against them.  After getting married, we realized we both had a heart to adopt a Spanish family of 5 while working there previously.  They were eventually adopted together by another couple.  We grew to love all the kids that came through there who were of different races and backgrounds.  Love sees beyond the color of skin and chooses to encourage and build them up not tear them down.

When I became a teacher and coach, the middle school I first taught in had a large African American population east of Austin, Texas.  I taught to encourage and inspire all my students no matter their ability, color of skin, or attitude.  My colleague and Athletic Director, Jimmy Shelby, who is African American and a former running back of Texas A&M took me under his wing and taught me how to be a better coach. 

When I moved to Southwest Florida to take care of my Grandpa who had Parkinson’s disease, I taught in an inner city school in Ft. Myers which has a predominantly African American population once again.  I continued to teach to encourage, motivate, and inspire which can help anyone succeed and/or feel valuable, loved, and respected.  When I moved to teach at the elementary level, I was hired at another inner city school with a high migrant/Hispanic culture.  I got to teach students English, to gain confidence, and to grow to learn new skills.  Our family became friends with Tess Vega, a Filipino, who I met working at an after school program. We were friends with Tito and Myrna who are also Filipino we met at church.  I also tutored Zubair’s 3 children who are from Pakistan while there.

When we moved to my wife’s hometown, I got to meet Twylana Harrison, a best friend of hers, who is African American.  Her twin boys happen to have the same first names of 2 of my sons.  We love her and her family very much…  Her family is part of our family…

Currently, I teach in a small town in West Texas with a high percentage of migrant and Hispanic students. I get to practice my Spanish quite a bit and love the children and their families here.  I’ve been a special ed. teacher for 19 years and love my students who happen to be Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Haitian, Guatemalan, and Honduran to name a few. All races will be represented in Heaven, so let’s be encouraged to confess sin if there’s racism in our hearts, repent from it, and begin to love our fellow human beings…  This is GOD’s will for us, to love one another, in Christ JESUS…

Positive Life Reaffirming Steps to Take:

• Confess sin of racism, turn away from it in repentance, and ask GOD to change your heart to love others of different races especially African American
• Get out of your comfort zone and interact positively with other races
• As a pastor, lead your church to interact with and do outreaches with African American and Hispanic churches 
• As a congregation, minister to the poor in inner cities and even small towns that represent all races providing for immediate and long term needs
• GOD commands that we love one another…  Our brothers and sisters make up the most diverse group of people living all around the world and it is wise to get to know them, listen to them, learn from them, get inspired by them, and become friends with them…

JESUS is Our Example

Read the following account of how JESUS, being a Jew, greets kindly, talks with, listens to, and accepts a Samaritan woman…  In the culture of the day, Jewish people did not interact with Samaritans.  There was racial division and JESUS bridges the gap with a conversation, with listening, with acceptance, with offering provision spiritually of Living Water meeting her deepest need with forgiveness, and sharing life changing words in being more than a friend in giving of HIMSELF to her…

John 4:1-30 (NIV)

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— ² although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[a])

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

²⁷ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

GOD further instructs us in HIS WORD in how to respond to those around us:

Zechariah 7:9-10 (NIV)

“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’

I conclude with this:  Be the change GOD wants to see and more than that what HE wants you to see…  Becoming more like JESUS and who GOD wants us to be will go the extra mile to cross over lines of racism to discover greater love manifested for all to know, to understand, and to experience…  It’s life giving, life valuing, and life treasuring above all and for all…  Let us get to know one another’s hearts to love one another as HE commands us to do… How is your heart?  Is it filled with hate or with love?  GOD wants you to be filled with love, overflowing in love, and to show HIS unfailing love to others…   

1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV)

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

GOD is in the transformation business if you only will admit, confess, and repent asking for HIS work to be done in your life:

Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Maybe you have fallen into a sin pattern and need GOD’s help again:

Psalm 51:9-10 (NIV)

Hide your face from my sins
    and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

If you have questions or comments, reach out to me here:  Connect

If you want to accept JESUS into your life and/or need prayer, reach out to me here:  Share Your Life

If you are interested in getting involved with K.O.R.E., reach out to me here: Get Involved

Remember, JESUS loves you…