Month: March 2010

Latinas Listen Up

tlc4women3 Comments
http://www.gafblibrary.org/ Periodicals.html

I got these statistics from Latina Magazine but you need only to look in our backyard to see that they are being generous when it comes to our city.

51% of Latinas get pregnant at least once before turning 20. It’s twice the national average.

8.26% – Latinas have the highest teen pregnancy rate in America compared to 2.67% of whites.

One-third of 9 to 15 year old Latinas cited pregnancy or marriage as the reason they dropped out of school.

22% of Latino kids ages 16-24 were not in school in 2005 and it’s double the percentage of African Americans at 10.4%. That equals 1.4 million kids.

36.5% of recent immigrants skip school to go to work.

38% of Latinos ages 16-19 work.

34.4% of Latinos who dropped out in 2006 said they dropped out to work.

49% of Latino kids attend the poorest schools and 56% attend the largest schools. These schools offer very little in the way of advanced courses, which makes it hard to get entrance into universities.

45% of schools serving Latino kids have advanced courses and 74% of girls want them.

So what’s up? From my vantage point as a 45 year-old Latina, I see a few problems. One is that there is an inferiority complex in Latino culture and I am not sure where it comes from. We are a proud people so that may be an issue when it comes to getting some information. Ignorance is why people don’t achieve bigger things; they just don’t seek out a better way. Maybe they feel that a menial job is good enough but according to Latina the average high school drop out makes $22,000 a year. That’s below the poverty rate and hardly enough to support a family. Get a married couple making an average of $44,000 combined and while it may look a little more decent in household income that leaves the dilemma of who is at home watching the kids? While other immigrant families come here and within a generation has turned their circumstances around Latinos still have not done so.

The second is expectation. While I see very strict upbringing with a strong emphasis in education in an Asian home or a Middle Eastern home, I do not see that in a Latino home today and have never seen an importance put on education in the average Latino home. Our response to our children’s behavior is to look dumbfounded and throw our hands up in the air. We don’t expect a great deal out of kids. We criticize White America as being too permissive but in some cases we are worse. The emphasis on education simply has to change if we are going to work to change statistics. There has to be an expectation set in your child from the day you bring them home from the hospital. The expectation needs to be not IF you go to college but WHERE will you go. Not IF you will make something of yourself but that you WILL make something of yourself. Not everyone is college bound but every able body person in the world needs a job! Welfare creates slaves and a narrow-mindset. We must overcome obstacles and move forward.

For some Latina girls it’s a mixed message. Go to college, is what the education systems tells us, and make something of yourself but don’t leave your culture and marry outside of your ethnicity is what our culture says. The problem with that is that boys drop out of high school in bigger numbers and the number of men doesn’t even come close to the number of women graduating from college in any ethnicity. So the message is get an education but don’t come back too smart that you won’t be able to find a nice Latino man to marry.

In short, what we need are mentors. We need solid Latinos who will give back to those youth who just lack supervision for the most part. We need to set the example and show them that there is a better way. Yes, it takes time, I mentored a youth who struggled with home strife and gang affiliation and it meant going to speak to her school counselor each week with phone calls to the school in between our meetings. We did get this youth graduated from high school and off to a technical college. It must become the normal thing to graduate from high school and from college. It must be that the first generation of immigrants set the groundwork for success for all future generations and every generation that follows must do better than the last. Our faith as followers of Christ is to follow the example of Jesus. Jesus said that we would do the things he did and greater still. That means, we train up the next generation we are in charge of to do all that we do, and greater still. We have got to look beyond our circumstances and quit looking for government bailout. We can do it by changing our mind and changing our world.

Refusing To Wear Masks

tlc4women1 Comment
http://www.glamurno.com/ professional_photos/ page/52

2 Corinthians 4:1. Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times. 2. We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God. 3. If our Message is obscure to anyone, it’s not because we’re holding back in any way. No, it’s because these other people are looking or going the wrong way and refuse to give it serious attention. 4. All they have eyes for is the fashionable god of darkness. They think he can give them what they want, and that they won’t have to bother believing a Truth they can’t see. They’re stone-blind to the dayspring brightness of the Message that shines with Christ, who gives us the best picture of God we’ll ever get.
5. Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. 6. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful. 7. If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. 8. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, 9. but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. 10. What they did to Jesus, they do to us – trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us – he lives! 11. Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. 12. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best! 13. We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life. Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe. 14. And what we believe is that the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly raise us up with you, alive. 15. Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise! 16. So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. 17. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. 18. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever. -“The Message”

Fruit

tlc4women3 Comments
http://www.flickr.com/ photos/ 39694152@N02/ 3747408430/

Gal 5:22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23. gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. NIV

Gal 5:22. But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,23. not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. “The Message”

Gal 5:22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23. gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. NKJ

Gal 5:22. But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23. gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law. NLT

I looked up this passage in various versions to see if I had it right. In all the versions there is no reference to “fruits of the spirit”. Yet, time after time we as followers of Christ are taught to think that the Holy Spirit brings fruits (plural) and he doesn’t, he brings FRUIT-ONE FRUIT.

You see, it would be strange if God compares us to trees which bear multiple fruit since other living trees He created don’t bear a variety of things. An apple tree bears apples. To go even further with this thought process an apple tree doesn’t even bear a variety of apples. A Gala apple comes from a specific tree.

So we are to bear a fruit. When you bite into this fruit, or when a person sees our life it should have aspects of all the flavors, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. To be missing an ingredient throws the flavor off. We’ve all met and have been that follower that is just not right. It neither taste complete or looks complete. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be well-rounded in the flavors. If I’m impatient then it throws off my gentleness and possibly my faithfulness. If my love of something is excessive then it throws off my peace and self-control and what happens to my joy?

Better yet, let’s examine ourselves to make sure we are bearing Holy Spirit fruit. If kindness is lacking then it means that in that area of my life I have not allowed the Holy Spirit to really do his job in that area of my life. It means that in that department I have released my life to God. If I can’t be faithful then it means I still think I know best. So no matter how many of the other flavors I have going on, my fruit is still not mature, ripe for the picking or tasting as it should.

I live in orange country. If an orange is ripe and ready, farmers pick it and send it to market to be bought by consumers who love the taste of a sweet citrus fruit. If an orange on that same tree mind you, is a little smallish, greener or never quite got to where it was supposed to be, it is picked and sent to a factory to be made into orange juice. Each fruit on that tree got the same shot at growth. Some matured and some didn’t. So what fruit are you bearing? Are there any ingredients that aren’t being added in the correct measure?