Did you realize that The Super Bowl is a primary target for sex traffickers? That’s true especially this year, when the Super Bowl will be held in Dallas, relatively close to the U.S./Mexico border. Texas is, sadly, #1 in the U.S. for the number of kidnapped and sex trafficked children.

How Can You Help Combat the Problem of Sex Trafficking?

Dillon Burroughs has an awesome post on Beliefnet about how all of us can help combat this problem of social justice. Check it out at blog.beliefnet.com/activistfaith/2011/01/sex-dont-buy-it.html.   

Those of you in intercultural marriages know that effective communication, love and respect are crucial elements to a successful marriage partnership. Chuck Martin, our pastor at First Baptist Church of Frisco, has been preaching a fantastic series called Faith @ Home in which he gives parents excellent tips on improving their relationships with each other and with their children. This past Sunday, each of us received a copy of “The 21 Rules of This House” by Gregg Harris. These guidelines are so powerful that I wanted to share them with everyone! Here they are:

The 21 Rules of This House

1. We obey God.

2. We love, honor and pray for one another.

3. We tell the truth.

4. We consider one another’s interests ahead of our own.

5. We speak quietly and respectfully with one another.

6. We do not hurt one another with unkind words or deeds.

7. When someone needs correction, we correct him in love.  

8. When someone is sorry, we forgive him.

9. When someone is sad, we comfort him.

10. When someone is happy, we rejoice with him.

11. When we have something nice to share, we share it.

12. When we have work to do, we do it without complaining.

13. We take good care of everything that God has given us.

14. We do not create unneccesary work for others.

15. When we open something, we close it.

16. When we take something out, we put it away.

17. When we turn something on, we turn it off.

18. When we make a mess, we clean it up.

19. When we do not know what to do, we ask.

20. When we go out, we act just as if we were in this house.

21. When we disobey or forget any of the 21 Rules of This House, we accept the discipline and instruction of the Lord.   

Do You Need a Professional Writer or Editor for Your Book? 

Exciting News: my editing/book doctoring business has really taken off over the past few years. Now I am typically balancing a couple of book editing or development projects at a given time (plus writing and marketing my own books)! I just received a new contract from a ministry for a book project that I am very excited about. Each relationship that I am able to build enriches my life and teaches me so much, and every project provides its own fun and inspiring elements as well as its own challenges. I really enjoy this ministry. If you have a project and are looking for an editor/developmental writer to help you get it published, definitely let me know! You can e-mail me at marla_alupoaicei@yahoo.com. Thanks! 

I’m thrilled at how God is expanding my writing and my ministry horizons this year. I just started doing SEO writing for a company called My Web Writers. We help companies increase their business opportunities, profits, client base and Web exposure through search engine optimization. It’s an exciting and cool thing to learn to do. Check it out at mywebwriters.com.

Blogging on bible.org 

I’ve also been blogging on bible.org for the past couple of years. Their Tapestry site for women has some fantastic, thought-provoking articles on cutting-edge topics related to the Christian life, theology, wife-hood (just coined that one!) and motherhood. It’s an excellent resource. View it at blogs.bible.org/tapestry. Let me know what you think!

After losing his beloved son in a mountaineering accident, author Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote, “There’s a hole in the world now… A center, like no other, of memory and hope and knowledge and affection which once inhabited this earth is now gone. Only a gap remains. A perspective in this world unique in this world which once moved about in this world has been rubbed out… There’s nobody who saw just what he saw, knows what he knew, remembers what he remembered, loves what he loved… Questions I have can never now get answers. The world is emptier.” –Lament for a Son
 
I understand what it means to feel like there’s a hole in the world. On June 10, 2010, my grandmother, Guyneth Walker, went to be with the Lord. But her gentle ways and loving spirit will live on in the hearts of all who knew her. Her birthday is December 2. She would have been 94 this year.
Grandma lived in harmony with people and nature like no one I’ve ever known. She accepted the fact that, on the farm, sometimes Mother Nature cooperated with what people wanted and needed, and sometimes it didn’t. She learned dependence on the land without despairing when hail came or the weather was too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. As a child, I walked with her through her huge garden as she reached down to touch the delicate faces of blue bachelor buttons. She selected a lovely purple hollyhock bloom and bud and fastened them together to make me a hollyhock doll. Then we walked down a row of tomatoes. Suddenly, Grandma snatched a huge green tomato worm, flung it to the ground and stomped on it. Then she calmly continued down the row to look at the green beans and potatoes as if nothing had ever happened.
Grandma’s home was simple, yet it was my favorite place to be in all the world. The author of one of my favorite books, A Life that Says Welcome, says this: “The husband is the head of the home, but the wife is the heart of the home.” Grandma reflected the truth of this statement as her home reflected her warm nature and her loving, sacrificial spirit. Her husband, Jesse Walker (my grandfather) passed away many years ago, while my mom was in college. Grandma never remarried. So she really had to become both the head and the heart of her home.  
Grandma remembered people and events and enjoyed recounting them to us. And she wrote down everything. When we sorted through her possessions, we found boxes full of carefully preserved keepsakes and clothing, including the gorgeous dresses and other items of clothing that she had made.
What a legacy she left for us with her writing, as toward the end of her life she tended to forget the details of recent events. But amazingly, she could clearly recall minute details of events that had happened when she was young. She loved talking with her sister Ruth about events that had occurred during her childhood.  
After her death, my uncles and my mother began sorting through her belongings. Every box revealed carefully preserved and documented memories, from pristine 1920s postcards bearing antiquated greetings like “Happy Christmastide” to her mother’s silk wedding dress with its exquisite embroidery. Grandma had pinned hand-written notes to almost every item explaining who had made it, where it had come from, who had given it to her as a gift, special occasions when she had worn it, and more.
Now, our history has become HER STORY. I realize that just as one person’s life can dramatically influence the growth, development and love of a family, that person also changes the landscape of a town and changes the world in the process. Grandma’s testimony is a simple and quiet life, well-lived. She loved well. My aunt Jana noted that one of the things she appreciated most about my grandma is that she had a contented spirit?truly a rare gift in this day and age.
Grief teaches us about life, and about ourselves, and about others, and about God. It reveals to us the astonishing capacity that we have for love. It shows us how we are limited and flawed, cloaked in humanity. Yet it also reveals our remarkable capacity to love beyond ourselves, to love in a way that astonishes and transforms us and everyone around us, to love in a way that reveals that we are made in God’s image because that love is beyond the limits of our human selves. It’s incandescent, like the fields by Grandma’s house glowing with thousands of lightning bugs on a summer evening.
My husband flew in from Dallas on the night before Grandma’s funeral. He described his astonishment at the most beautiful sunset he’d ever seen, with bright colors splashed against the sky juxtaposed with  a bank of dark rain clouds against the horizon. He said that as they prepared to land, the sun went down and he saw miles and miles of fields lit up by millions of fireflies, as though the entire sleeping landscape was enveloped in a soft blanket of light.
Grandma’s home was modest, her furnishings simple, and her “estate” was not grandiose by any means. She had some beautiful things, most of which were beautiful to us because of the decades of memories that they brought back. And the day after she had passed away, as we began looking through her belongings with tears and shared memories, I realized that even if she had owned lavish possessions or had millions of dollars to leave each of us as an inheritance, we gladly would have given it all back just to spend one more minute with her.
Thanks, Grandma. May your legacy live on through each of us.

Thank you!

Brenna talks about how we can learn to work smarter, not harder, and how to organize our priorities, our homes and our families in order to better support God’s call and His purposes for our lives. I was challenged and encouraged by what she shared. In chapter 9, she notes that many of our decisions are based on fear rather than faith. For example, we don’t want our children to fall behind others athletically, so we overextend ourselves in order to put them into 2 or 3 sports even though that stresses us out. Instead, we should ask ourselves these questions before committing to any activity:

1. Does what I’m doing support my purpose?

2. Does this even warrant my time and energy?

I’m now reading the “Clutter Busting” section, and I am really loving that. Now, on to bust my clutter… But that’s definitely easier said than done with a 16-month-old son and a two-month-old daughter. Can anyone relate? 

I also love the Marriage Missions website. It contains lots of fantastic articles for intercultural couples. Check out this one: marriagemissions.com/intercultural-marriages-assumptionsmy-way-the-right-way/

Also check out this intriguing site and interview: matadornetwork.com/abroad/on-blogs-of-the-world-intercultural-marriage-and-travel-writing-an-interview-with-liz-chatburn-of-pocket-cultures/

I’ve been contacted recently by several media folks requesting statistics, information and personal stories related to intercultural marriage. How exciting! Looks like people are catching on to the crucial need for resources on this topic. Let me know if I can be of help to you by providing articles, resources, recommendations or advice on this topic. You can also glean lots from my book, titled Your Intercultural Marriage: A Guide to a Healthy, Happy Relationship from Moody Publishers. It’s available on Amazon and at bookstores. Thanks!  

michaelhyatt.com/do-you-make-these-10-mistakes-when-you-blog.html

God spoke to my heart through that quotation, reminding me that love is a choice. Isn’t it sad that we fall in love and believe that our significant other is pretty much perfect in every way, and then as time passes, we tend to dwell on the things about him or her that we don’t like?

I’m also impressed by the double entendre in this quote. Not only are we called to love our choice (as in the PERSON that we chose), but we are also called to love our choice (as in the fact that WE chose that person and it’s up to us to live with the consequences). Every day, we must make it a point to focus on our spouse’s best qualities and help him or her to become who he/she is meant to be in Christ.

Yesterday I was thinking that it would be cool to list 31 things I love about my husband, in celebration of Halloween. So here goes:

1) I know he loves me.

2) He buys me roses.

3) He loves the Lord.

4) He’s very intelligent.

5) He is well spoken and gifted with languages.

6) He has adapted extremely well to life in America.

7) He understands my near-addiction to McDonald’s Coke.

8) He is a fantastic dad.

9) He is not a violent person (both of us have been impacted by domestic violence, so this means a lot to me).

10) He loves good food.

11) He is amazing to travel with and can decode any type of map.

12) He works very hard at his job and is dependable.

13) He likes to spend lots of time with his family.

14) He is a good friend.

15) He is sensitive and caring.

16) He loves music.

17) He likes to exercise (sometimes, anyway!)

18) He loves to read and discuss books with me.

19) He’s hot (why did I not mention that before?????)

20) He can carry on an interesting and intelligent conversation on any topic – so useful at parties.

21) He doesn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or anything like that.

22) He cares about my safety and that of the children.

23) He does tons of research before buying anything to be sure we get the best value.

24) He is tall, dark and handsome.

25) He enjoys going to church and connecting with friends.

26) He makes sacrifices for me and the kids.

27) He left his home country and family in order to marry me and move to the States!

28) He is a true international, a citizen of the world.

29) He is very devoted to our marriage.

30) He has a gentle spirit.

31) He has compassion for people and roots for the underdog. That will be helpful when the Rangers play the Giants tonight!