Mediaboss Marketing

Afghan adoptions in limbo after government falls

After five years of mire and bureaucratic delays, Bahaudin Mujtaba had hoped to soon bring the 10-year-old Afghan boy he and his wife are adopting to their Florida home. But with the Talibans takeover of Afghanistan, their hope has dimmed (Aug. 17)

AP

Some people fear the number 13 brings bad luck thisSussex County familyembraces it as a blessing from God.

With two of their six biological children still in high school, Wade and Michelle Torppey of Wantage recently completed the adoption of seven orphaned siblings from Ukraine, increasing their parental dutiesto cover a full baker's dozen.

"If there's one thing we think we can do well, and other people have told us we do well, that would be being parents," Wade Torppey said. "I would like to think that's a gift we have that God gave us, and he's asking us to do it a little longer than we planned."

Their additional seven children, who range from6 to 17 years old,are still learning English, but adjusting well to their new life. They aremaking new friends at school, their parents, pastor and principal said.

The cross-Atlantic connection was initiated through Lafayette Federated Church, where the Torppeys have worshipped since their dating days, and Open Hearts and Homes For Children, a nonprofit that recruits families to host orphans from Ukraine and Latvia for Christmas and summer visits to the United States.

Others in the congregation had participated and eventually adopted children through the program, including their pastor, Aaron Robb, who adopted a son. Another family adopted two siblings.

But seven? To say the Torppeys stepped up "is the understatement of the year," Robb said.

"They are an absolutely incredible family and their story is just inspiring beyond anything I've heard in years," he said.

"Most people, when we say we adopted seven, they already knew we had six, so they assumeweadopted one more," Michelle Torppey said, laughing. "When they hear seven plus six, they go, 'What?' We get a lot of that."

Robb said Wade's desire to adopt followed a short volunteer mission in Haiti, where he bonded with many of the children suffering there.

"I think he was looking for a way for the whole family to take in and support and care forsome less-fortunate kids," Robb said. "If anybody can handle it, the Torppeys can."

They don't have to do it alone.

"Ourchurch family has been absolutely amazing," said Michelle, whose family has operated the Sussex Meat Packing stores in Wharton and Wantage for 40 years. "We've been overwhelmed. It'sa very humbling experience. Welike to be the people who are donating. We'renot used to being on the receiving end."

But as her pastor's wife told her, "Not everybody is willing to take them into their home, but they want to be part of it."

The Lafayette Federated congregation's support includes gift cards for their massive grocery bill and dollars to help pay for their education at Sussex Christian School and Veritas Christian Academy.

"It's a big church, and there's a lot of people we don't even know who have been donating to our cause," Michelle said.

An online fundraiser also was established to help fund the children's school tuition.

Michelle can't remember exactly how many bedrooms they started with at their farm-style home: "Five or six, I'm not sure," Michelle said. "Now we have seven or eight."

Wade, an ironworker by trade, added lofts and closets to accommodate their growth. But it still took some sacrifices by their American siblings to make enough room, including the youngest biological daughter, Zoey, 15.

"When our oldest moved out and got married, Zoey had probably had the largest bedroom," Wade said. "She gave it up for the three little boys. She is thesweetest young lady, so selfless, gave it up without thinking twice. She's in this little 8-by-8-foot loft now in a room with her sister."

Zoey's oldest brother, John, also stepped up by going online and teaching himself the Ukrainian and Russian languages their adopted siblings speak. So did the eldest of the Torppey clan, Taylor Gibson, who is married and now lives in Wisconsin, but visits often and "is just a phone call away," Michelle said.

Olena, 17, Leeza, 14, Slavik, 12, Alina, 11, Anhelina, 9, Senya, 8, and Jenya, 6, lived in a clean, comfortableorphanage in the town ofMokrats, a safe distance from the war-torn region of the embattled nation.

"Their father died in 2016 and their mother died in 2018," Michelle said. "There were 10 siblings in all. Two had already aged out of the system and one stayed with relatives."

The two youngest boys were too young to travel in the Open Hearts and Homes program, and the organization thought it would be a long shot to find a family to host the remaining five together.

When Michelle told Wayne about the family, hoping they could take a few and another Lafayette family could take the others, Wade said he didn't want to break up a family at Christmas.

"So I said let's take all five," he said. "Rightoff the bat, I knew this would be something more than just Christmas."

"I wasn't quite there yet, but I figured I could do anything for a month," Michelle said.

The monthlong visit went well, but the parting was tense at Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C.

"Our daughters were a pile of waterworks, but these [orphans] were as cold as stone," Wade said. "I don't know for sure what they were thinking, but Ithink it was like, 'What's wrong with you? You live in America. We're the ones going back to the orphanage. I should be the one crying.' "

But a loving bond was forged, leading to a longer, nine-week return visit the next summer and plans to reunite again for Christmas 2018.

"I thought about the two little brothers who were too young for the program," Wade said. "Wegave them a choice. The five could come here for Christmas, or we could go there so they could all be together. America was still new and excitingto them, but they chose to forfeit coming here. At the orphanage, they all kind of take care of each other."

Elusive diagnosis: She's fought health insurers for years. Now a NJ girl's struggles could prompt reform

By then, the Torppeys knew they wanted a permanent adoption, but a complicated bureaucracy in Ukraine and a pandemic slowed the process to a crawl.

The adoption was eventually approved and their new kidsbecameWantage residents in July.

"We knew it would be a challenge when we first met them," Wade said. "We could see some strong personalities and the kind of issues you would expect when children lose their parents."

Language continues to be a barrier, although the learning curve accelerated when they enrolled in school, the two eldest at Veritas Christian Academy for high school instruction, and the five youngest at Sussex Christian in Sparta, which has about 100 students in grades K through 8.

"If anyone asks what the primary language in the house is now, I say charades," Michelle said. "When all else fails, there's Google Translate on the phone."

'Deficient' care: Feds interview residents, staff at two NJ veterans homes where 194 died from COVID-19

The Torppeys said they see God's hands at work even in the schools. Preceding the new Torppeys at Sussex Cristian was new administrator Robert Waters, whose background just happens to include teaching ESL in the Paterson public school system.

"These five students are able to get additional supports beyond a general education," Waters said. "We have a learning center and full-time special education teacher and staff to support our general education staff."

Soccer has provided an additionalbridge to their assimilation.

"The three at the middle-school level, the No. 1 thingthat has brought them into the fold is soccer," Waters said. "They're all on the soccer team and excelling and thriving and able to make friends. They didn't know the words for pass and score, but they know how to play."

Slavik scored the first goal of the season for the boys' team.

"The Americanstudents are just in love with them," Waters said. "They are overjoyed to have them as part of our community."

Olena and Leeza also have excelled in soccer at Veritas, where they share the field with their new sisters Anna Marie, 17, and Zoey, 15. The Veritas team is coached by their older American brothers, John and Kairos.

Their parents are stretched to the limits to attend all the games, but the family does its best.

"We have a 12-passenger van that is usually full wherever we go," Michelle said. "We have one of those folding chairs that seats six, so we bring our own fan club. Wejust have a lot of fun together. "

"We certainly have no regrets," Wade said. "It's tough at times and a bit of an adjustment. But when you know their hearts ... For us, it's being obedient to God and what he's put in front of us. I just turned 60 in August. People ask when I'm going to retire, but there's no retirement. As long as I'm healthy, I'm good with that."

"The mood of the house is often chaotic, but full of love and laughter," Michelle said.

William Westhovenis a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community,please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email:wwesthoven@dailyrecord.comTwitter:@wwesthoven

More here:
'Full of love and laughter': Parents of 6 children adopt 7 orphaned siblings from Ukraine - Daily Record

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova signed two new communications to be filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The communications concern the "marches of prisoners of war" in occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the destruction of bridges by the occupiers in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"We have held the first meeting of the International Council of Experts on Crimes Committed amid Armed Conflict with the participation of its foreign members. This advisory body will make us more effective in investigating and prosecuting for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Crimea and Donbas," Venediktova posted on Facebook, Ukrinform reports.

She called it symbolic that the activity of the council "began with the signing of two new communications to be filed at the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. One of them was prepared by prosecutors of the War Department at the Prosecutor General's Office, the other by the Donetsk and Luhansk regional prosecutor's offices together with the Global Rights Compliance LLP and the Luhansk regional human rights center Alternative."

According to Venediktova, the communication, prepared by the Prosecutor General's Office, concerns the facts of public humiliation of Ukrainian prisoners of war detained by representatives of illegal armed formations of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic".

We drew the attention of the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC to three most flagrant incidents: the "POW parade" on August 24, 2014, which involved 53 detained service members; the capture of 101 members of the Donbas special battalion of the National Guard of Ukraine; the "POW parade / march" on January 22, 2015, involving 20 detained service members. Our soldiers were marched through the occupied Donetsk and filmed by Russian media. They were subjected to physical violence in order to publicly punish them and to show the media their helpless state. Prisoners of war were constantly threatened with murder, and the presence of the armed members of illegal armed formations further convinced them that the threats would be implemented."

Prosecutors believe that "these facts must be preliminarily classified as a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, namely, committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

Another communication concerns the attacks on bridges and the destruction of bridges in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts affected by the armed hostilities. These are data on 43 incidents in the period from May 2014 to January 2019. These facts can be qualified by the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC as war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute, namely: intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects during an international armed conflict or destructing enemy property during an international armed conflict.

According to Venediktova, both communications underscore that the International Criminal Court has the appropriate jurisdiction to open an investigation into the alleged war crimes.

In total, 24 communications have already been filed to the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC.

Photo credit: Prosecutor General's Office

ol

Follow this link:
Venediktova informs ICC about 'POW marches' in occupied areas of eastern Ukraine - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

The involvement of civil society in preventing and combating child sexual exploitation and abuse is crucial. The Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (Lanzarote Convention) explicitly recognises the role of civil society subjects in this regard, as well as the contribution of civil society to its effective implementation.

Cooperation with non-governmental organisations is essential to support, implement and monitor the Lanzarote Convention at the local, national and international levels. In addition, given the expertise and practical experience of civil society subjects, their participation in the Lanzarote Committee is a key advantage of the Lanzarote Convention monitoring mechanism and requires further development.

The workshop will be held on 28 October 2021 in an online format, and will benefit from the participation of Dr. George Nikolaidis, International Expert of the Council of Europe, and former Lanzarote Committee Chairperson,

The workshop will aim to:

To participate in the selection process, you must fill out before 24 October 2021the following questionnaire https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfF3yT6ppYvJg4rhzzkaACbME7yVYTtiz2eKApbZoZP0SRy1Q/viewform

The selection results will be announced by sending emails to the email addresses specified in the questionnaire.

Follow this link:
The project Combating violence against children in Ukraine announces a competitive selection of representatives of non-governmental organisations to...

(RNS) For many Americans, Pat Robertson, the Christian television pioneer and onetime presidential candidate, will always be remembered for his wacky pronouncements made at inflection points of American history.

I dont think Id be waving those flags in Gods face if I were you, he warned Orlando, Florida, city leaders in 1998 when they flew rainbow flags downtown in honor of Gay Days at Disney World. This is not a message of hate this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. Itll bring about terrorist bombs; itll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the twin towers, Robertson said he agreed with Jerry Falwell, his guest on his signature talkshow, The 700 Club, that responsibility for the attacks on the United States fell to pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, and lesbians.

In this Feb. 24, 2016, file photo, Rev. Pat Robertson listens as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. (Steve Helber/Associated Press)

Moments like these embarrassed his fellow Christians and marginalized the once-estimable political power Robertson wielded, consigning Robertson to the role of what one megachurch pastor called the crazy uncle in the evangelical attic.

But the right-wing conservative could also surprise his viewers. Once, he invited the Rev. Al Sharpton to the couch on The 700 Club to discuss climate change, agreeing that the issue is one that might bring the right and left together. In 2012, Robertson said that marijuana should be legalized.

Yet, any recollection of Robertson, who announced Friday his intention to retire as daily host of The 700 Club, must include his transformation of televangelism from hot, pulpit-pounding sermons to a cool format. With his avuncular, upbeat personality, Robertson, 91, changed the picture of what televangelism could be. His Tonight show-like The 700 Club featured conversational talk and couch interviews, interspersed with entertainment.The model was later adopted by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker on their PTL (Praise the Lord) network and Paul and Jan Crouch on their Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Over the years, five presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, appeared on the show, along with numerous world leaders and musical artists.

After, I think, 54 years of hosting the program, I thank God for everyone thats been involved and I want to thank all of you, he told viewers on Friday, adding, Its been a great run.

His son, Gordon Robertson, who will replace him on the flagship program, released a statement saying, Good and faithful doesnt even begin to describe my fathers service to CBN for 60 years. His legacy and the example of his prayer life will continue to lead The 700 Club in the years to come.

But his CBN platform was much more than good television. Founding the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1961, the first Christian network in the United States, he shepherded his flock of white evangelicals to a position of unprecedented political influence within the Republican Party.

In 1987, Robertson, a Yale-educated lawyer, a Marine officer veteran and the son of a U.S. senator from Virginia, leveraged his fame into direct political action, something earlier Christian fundamentalists had shunned. That year heformed the Christian Coalition, later joined by Ralph Reed, the telegenic political strategist. Soon, other evangelical leaders, like the Rev. Jerry Falwell, jumped on their own electoral bandwagons.

Robertsons personal political high point came in 1988, when he ran for the Republican nomination for president, finishing third in the Iowa primary, behind Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush. In the campaign he claimed, without proof, that the Soviets were hiding missiles in Cuba.

Two years later, in 1990, the Christian coalition introduced ostensibly nonpartisan Christian voter guides, also called Christian score cards, handed out at conservative churches or placed on windshields in church parking lots.

He was very smart, said Frances Fitzgerald, author of The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America. He turned his presidential campaign into this notion of organizing from the community base up. Its what people have been doing ever since. You cant always do it from a religion platform.

He also wrote 20 books and founded Regent University, located across the street from CBN studios and headquarters in Virginia Beach, and the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian activist organization led by sometime Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow.

Robertsons firm support of former President Trump may well be the last memorable moment of his on-air career. After insisting for weeks that Trump had won, only to be cheated out of office by fraud, Robertson endorsed the Jan. 6 pro-Trump gathering at the Capitol in the run-up to the rally. After it proved to be a riotous attempted insurrection, Robertson stayed off The 700 Club for a week. When he returned, he acknowledged Bidens victory.

But Robertsons staying power which necessarily included overcoming embarrassing moments is an essential part of his legacy.

When other well-known ministries fizzled for a variety of reasons, he maintained a ministry that was respected because of his moral and spiritual consistency, said the Rev. Jim Henry of Orlando, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, in an interview with RNS. He finished well. He finished strong, and I join with a host of others in saluting this man of faith.

But other prominent evangelical voices said his legacy was tainted by his more outlandish comments.

Pat Robersons ministry should not be judged by a single quote that offends, said Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. The problem is the sum of the parts. After putting televangelism on the map, Robertson devolved to an enfant terrible on progressive social movements, from the environment to womens rights and race relations. In doing so he became more of a target for humor than any preacher would want.

Some of his critics go beyond his ability to gaffe his way into the headlines. One group dubbed him the Apostle of Hate for his longtime opposition to LGBTQ rights.

Pat Robertson contributed greatly to some of the worst trends in American Christianity over the last forty years, said the Rev. David P. Gushee, distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University. These included the fusion of conservative white Protestantism with the Republican Party, the use and abuse of supernaturalist Christianity to offer spurious and unhelpful interpretations of historical events and the development of a conservative Christian media empire that made money and gained power in the process of making everyday Christians less thoughtful contributors to American life.

Lisa Sharon Harper, president and founder of Freedom Road and author of the forthcoming Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World And How to Repair It All, said Robertson had to answer for his racial message. He has been a dreamer and a builder, said Harper. Unfortunately, for people of color and for the post-colonizing majority church in the world, Robertsons dreams were awash with the protection and retention of white male domination; in church life, in public space and in pink-knuckled politics.

In the end history will likely tip its hat to Robertsons skill at drawing the attention of the country to the views of White evangelicals. What he did with that attention will be judged more harshly.

Pat Robertson had enough religious savvy to get on a national stage and enough outrageous proclamations to keep blowing up his chances for success outside his religious realm, said the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, a former megachurch pastor who now heads the Parable Foundation.From his failed attempt to become president, to claiming to divert Hurricane Gloria with prayer from his TV studio couch protecting his headquarters but causing millions of damages and eight deaths up the coast Robertson had a talent for gaining power, resulting in social good through his ministry, but also in political divisiveness and cynicism outside his spiritual audience.

Said Fitzgerald: He was pretty much always a crazy uncle, except when he was running for president.

Read the original:
Pat Robertson Turned Christian TV into Political Power & Blew it up with Wacky Prophecy - Word and Way

I want to stop here and say I believe, as does Shor, that educational polarization is serving here as a crude measure of class polarization. We tend to think of class as driven by income, but in terms of how its formed and practiced in America right now, education tracks facets that paychecks miss. A high school dropout who owns a successful pest extermination company in the Houston exurbs might have an income that looks a lot like a software engineers at Google, while an adjunct professors will look more like an apprentice plumbers. But in terms of class experience who they know, what they believe, where theyve lived, what they watch, who they marry and how they vote, act and protest the software engineer is more like the adjunct professor.

Either way, the sorting that educational polarization is picking up, inexact as the term may be, puts Democrats at a particular disadvantage in the Senate, as college-educated voters cluster in and around cities while non-college voters are heavily rural. This is why Shor believes Trump was good for the Republican Party, despite its losing the popular vote in 2016, the House in 2018 and the Senate and the presidency in 2020. Sure, maybe he underperforms the generic Republican by whatever, Shor said. But hes engineered a real and perhaps persistent bias in the Electoral College, and then when you get to the Senate, its so much worse. As he put it, Donald Trump enabled Republicans to win with a minority of the vote.

The second problem Democrats face is the sharp decline in ticket splitting a byproduct of the nationalization of politics. As recently as 2008, the correlation between how a state voted for president and how it voted in Senate elections was about 71 percent. Close, but plenty of room for candidates to outperform their party. In 2020, it was 95.6 percent.

The days when, say, North Dakotas Republicans would cheerfully vote for a Democrat for the Senate are long past. Just ask Heidi Heitkamp, the defeated North Dakota Democrat whos now lobbying her former colleagues to protect the rich from paying higher taxes on inheritances. There remain exceptions to this rule Joe Manchin being the most prominent but they loom so large in politics because they are now so rare. From 1960 to 1990, about half of senators represented a state that voted for the other partys nominee for president, the political scientist Lee Drutman noted. Today, there are six.

Put it all together, and the problem Democrats face is this: Educational polarization has made the Senate even more biased against Democrats than it was, and the decline in ticket splitting has made it harder for individual Democratic candidates to run ahead of their party.

Atop this analysis, Shor has built an increasingly influential theory of what the Democrats must do to avoid congressional calamity. The chain of logic is this: Democrats are on the edge of an electoral abyss. To avoid it, they need to win states that lean Republican. To do that, they need to internalize that they are not like and do not understand the voters they need to win over. Swing voters in these states are not liberals, are not woke and do not see the world in the way that the people who staff and donate to Democratic campaigns do.

All this comes down to a simple prescription: Democrats should do a lot of polling to figure out which of their views are popular and which are not popular, and then they should talk about the popular stuff and shut up about the unpopular stuff. Traditional diversity and inclusion is super important, but polling is one of the only tools we have to step outside of ourselves and see what the median voter actually thinks, Shor said. This theory is often short-handed as popularism. It doesnt sound as if it would be particularly controversial.

Go here to read the rest:
Opinion | David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Dont Want to Hear - The New York Times