How adoption has blessed your life | Delilah | The R House

Jun 3, 2012

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My How Adoption has Blessed Your Life series shares good news happening in the adoption world from all sides of the adoption triad ?or just offers a paragraph or two on how the love of adoption is blessing individuals and families.?If you?d like to participate, just?send me an email. Enjoy!

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Today?s Adoption Good News comes from a woman who was adopted from foster care when she was a baby and who is now a foster mama. Meet Delilah! Her family dynamic is so unique?I just love her story. Her story kind of reminds me Natalie who was also adopted and is now an adoptive mama. Such great women offering a wonderful perspective!

We adopted our two oldest boys from foster care.

The experience of working with their families during the reunification period gave me such a compassion for parents going through hardships. I saw how much love their birth families had for them even though the families were unable to provide a forever home for the boys.

Walking through the fire of foster care adoption has absolutely made me less judgmental because as I learned, you never know someone?s story. You never know what they might have gone through that brought them to this place in their lives. I hate that my boys are not allowed contact with their birth families because of some safety concerns. We have tried to teach them about their birth families through pictures and letters that I asked their first mom?s to write to them. I hope one day they can meet again.

Adopting my boys brought me full circle in life because I was adopted from foster care myself as an infant. My birth parents were very young and not equipped to care for an infant. I grew up with very limited information about my birth family. When I was 19, I tracked them down and met them. I was able to thank them for allowing me to have a life that was so rich in family and joy. Their heartbreak at losing me gave me such a wonderful childhood and I cannot possibly thank them enough. They have the opportunity now to be grandparents to my children and to watch them grow up. We have such a unique family dynamic now but it?s wonderful.

One thing adoption has taught me is that a child can never have too many people to love them.

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Did you miss?last week?s Good News? It?s a genius idea from a hopeful adoptive couple that come up with a creative way to make their adoption profile pop. So fun!

Read ALL the Good News moments.

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Video: Wedding dress challenge: Does the gown still fit?

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Pregnant women who smoke may put their kids at risk for severe ...

One of the first questions a mom-to-be is asked by her doctor is "Do you smoke?"? And while pregnant woman don't smoke in nearly the numbers they did decades ago, some still do.?? Almost 14% of American women smoke while pregnant, according to the Centers for Disease Control, causing all kinds of problems ?including low birth weight, premature birth and SIDS.? Now add something else to the list: asthma. An intriguing new study suggests?African-American and Latino children?with asthma whose moms smoke while pregnant are more likely to have severe asthma as teens, even if their moms stop smoking after they are born. Researchers at the University of?California San Francisco looked at?about 2,500?Latino and African-American?children with?asthma.?After controlling for things like?poverty?and childhood exposure to tobacco smoke,?they found?children of women who smoked while pregnant?were?50% more likely to?have asthma that was harder to control?when compared to children with asthma whose mothers didn't smoke during pregnancy.? "Kids who are 17 years old still show the effects of something they were exposed to during the first nine months of their life," says researcher Dr. Sam Oh, of the University of California San Francisco Center for Tobacco?Research and Education.? The study didn't look at Caucasian children. Close to 19% of African American, 6% of Puerto?Rican and?just?less than 4% of pregnant Mexican women smoke, according to the CDC. "Something is?happening during pregnancy that has an effect we believe leads to genetic imprinting," says Oh.? In other words, if mom smokes, her child's?DNA changes.??He adds more research needs to be done in light of the high prevalency of asthma among minorities. The study is published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology . Filed under: Asthma , Children?s Health , Parenting , Pregnancy Tagged: Jennifer Bixler ? CNN Medical Executive Producer

See the original post:?
Pregnant women who smoke may put their kids at risk for severe asthma

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Golden Isles Arts And Humanities auditioning actors for upcoming ...

Ever been on stage or wanted to give acting a try? Here?s your chance! Golden Isles Arts and Humanities?Coastal Georgia?s source for quality arts, entertainment, and educational programming?is seeking actors of all ages and types for several upcoming productions for the 2012-2013 season, as well as for an ongoing ensemble of youth performers.

?Our upcoming season is rich with opportunities for performers this year, ranging from a famous Pulitzer Prize-winning play with a large cast to a smaller contemporary drama, much like our recent acclaimed production of Collected Stories in April,? notes Heather Heath, executive director of Golden Isles Arts and Humanities. ?And we?re really excited about the launch of the Ritz Radio Theatre, which will present old-time radio dramas both live at the Ritz and broadcast over local radio. Our radio-theatre production of The Maltese Falcon for The Big Read this past February was such a hit, we?ve been getting many requests for more shows in this format. This is a great chance for talented people to be in lively, fun, nostalgic shows that our audiences really love.?

The new Young Actors Company provides opportunities throughout the year for actors aged 13 to 18 to develop their craft and perform in various productions, not only at the Ritz but in a touring production of A Christmas Carol this coming December. They will also get the chance to appear in the winning plays of the annual Young Playwrights Awards, co-sponsored by the Price-Blackburn Foundation, and in short films created in the Basics of Filmmaking camp offered by Golden Isles Arts and Humanities this summer.

Actors are also being sought for the following productions:
?Ritz Radio Theatre: Roles for men and women 18 and up
Late September 2012 ? Casablanca?December 2012 ? It?s A Wonderful Life
?A large-cast production of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play for The Big Read (February 2013)?Roles for men and women 16 and up ?A few roles for students 10-12 years old
?A contemporary play April 2013?Small cast, men/women ages 20 and up

Auditions will be held for 13-to-18 year-olds (for both youth ensemble and mainstage shows) on Saturday, June 9, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. Auditioners for that day only should prepare a monologue of no more than 90 seconds and be ready to participate in a brief acting workshop. Ages 18 and up will audition on Tuesday, June 12, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. (It?s not necessary to prepare a monologue for that session.) All ages have an additional chance to try out on Saturday, June 16, beginning at 11:00 a.m. All auditions will be held at the Historic Ritz Theatre, 1530 Newcastle St., in Downtown Brunswick. Callbacks will be scheduled during the remainder of the month of June on different dates for the three productions.

Those interested in participating should RSVP to info@goldenislesarts.org or call 912-262-6934. If you are interested but cannot attend on any of the above dates, please use those contacts to schedule a different time. In addition to actors, Golden Isles Arts and Humanities is seeking people who are interested in backstage work on the upcoming shows, including props, costumes, stage management, set design and construction, marketing, etc. Please contact the same number or email address.

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Wall St opens flat on economy worries

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Veteran snake-handling pastor dies after bite

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) ? A West Virginia preacher who followed his father into the rare practice of handling snakes to prove faith in God died after being bitten during an outdoor service involving the reptiles.

Mark Randall "Mack" Wolford, 44 ? whose own father died in 1983 after suffering a fatal bite ? had been bitten before and survived. But he died earlier this week after witnesses say a timber rattler bit him on the thigh. Wolford's sister and a freelance photographer told media outlets it happened during a Sunday service at Panther State Forest.

Lauren Pond, a freelance photojournalist from Washington, D.C., didn't immediately return messages Thursday but told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph she was among 25 people at the service. She saw Wolford bitten but said congregants were unfazed.

"I don't think anyone necessarily expected it," she told the newspaper, "but they've dealt with it before so it's not such a huge shock, maybe."

Bluefield Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Becky Ritter said Thursday that Wolford was a patient and died Monday, but that federal privacy laws prevented her from releasing additional information.

Officials at the Cravens-Shires Funeral Home also declined to answer questions, saying the family had asked that the cause of death be withheld. Several relatives did not answer email and telephone messages.

The state medical examiner's office referred questions to the state Department of Health and Human Resources, which didn't immediately respond.

Born in Pike County, Ky., Wolford had lived in the Bramwell area for the past five years and was a pastor at Apostolic House of the Lord Jesus in Matoaka. Unlike many Pentecostal preachers, he embraced publicity, welcoming journalists and photographers, and even taking some on snake hunts as he tried to revive interest in his religion.

Ralph Hood, a religion professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, saw Wolford bitten by a copperhead about six years ago.

Wolford and others prefer to be called "serpent handlers" as a reflection of Scripture, and Hood said his friend would want people to remember him as "a Christian who was living his beliefs and being obedient."

"Serpent-handling was only a small part of that," he said. "He was trying to revitalize a strong tradition that doesn't make a distinction between beliefs and practices."

"A common misunderstanding is that handlers believe they can't get bit or it won't kill them," Hood added. "What they'll tell you is, 'No one will get out of this alive.' They'll also tell you it's not a question of how you live; it's a question of how you die. ... This is how he would have wanted to die."

Wolford and his followers have a literal belief in Mark 16:17-18.

"And these signs will follow those who believe," the verses say. "In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."

"I know it's real; it is the power of God," Wolford told The Washington Post Magazine last year. If he hadn't started handling snakes after returning to his church, he said, "it'd be the same as denying the power and saying it was not real."

Although most Appalachian states have outlawed snake handling, it remains legal but rare in West Virginia.

Wolford acknowledged that last year, telling the magazine his mother was the only relative who still followed the tradition. Her husband died of a rattlesnake bite at age 39 in 1983.

Cody Ford, interim executive director of the West Virginia Council of Churches, represents 15 mainstream denominations and has little interaction with independent churches. But he said serpent-handling is "absolutely not" common in West Virginia, and churches that do it are hard to find.

"To the ordinary person sitting in the pews in any one of our churches, the snake-handling concept would be as strange and foreign as it would be to the most erudite reader of the New York Times," Ford said.

But Hood said the serpent-handling tradition remains scattered throughout the region, from Alabama to Ohio to New York. Its popularity waxes and wanes with the passing of generations, and it is currently seeing a resurgence of sorts.

"It tends to be transmitted through families, and as these young kids mature, the tradition grows and becomes strong again," he said. "And that's what's happening again now."

Associated Press

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News Summary: Commodities fall on Europe's woes

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