{"id":594,"date":"2006-12-12T22:57:17","date_gmt":"2006-12-12T22:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2006\/12\/excerpts-from-r.html"},"modified":"2006-12-12T22:57:17","modified_gmt":"2006-12-12T22:57:17","slug":"excerpts-from-r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/12\/excerpts-from-r.html","title":{"rendered":"Excerpts from Red Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"

The book on Africa and the HIV\/AIDS crisis is due at the end of this month and will release in September ’07. Whew! I’m tired just thinking about it! At this point, the working title is Red Letters: Responding to the Words of Jesus. Would love your thoughts about this.<\/p>\n

I wanted to share a story with you from the book about a little African girl named, "Adanna." She will also be the main character in the fiction book entitled, "Scared." I’d like to introduce you to her:<\/p>\n

"Adanna\u2019s name is a beautiful
\nAfrican word meaning \u2018father\u2019s daughter.\u2019 But she won\u2019t live until the next
\nharvest season unless something drastic happens. In her country, there are no jobs to be
\nfound, there is no money, and the only thing that is certain is the death
\nsurrounding her.<\/p>\n

The life span for people in her country
\nof Zimbabwe has been cut by 25 years. The life expectancy is only 33 years old. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>She has watched her mother, her father and her sister waste away because of AIDS. At
\nonly 10 years old, Adanna is now in charge of her family. She is the head
\nof the household.\n<\/p>\n

Her parents left no way for her to
\ncare for herself and the rest of the family. She has exhausted every favor from her neighbors, every form of assistance
\nfrom surviving relatives, and sold her last possession for food. Even after all of that, she and
\nher brother and sister woke up this morning, starving again. <\/p>\n

There is only one way for them to
\nsurvive. Adanna has heard about a group of local men who will trade food for
\nsex. Dare she even consider such a thing? Her entire life she has dreamed of a
\nfamily and of children. She has saved herself and protected her purity because
\nshe wants the one man she marries to be the only lover she has ever known.
\nThat\u2019s what her mother taught her was more important than anything. But if she
\ndoesn\u2019t eat soon, there will never be a chance to realize either of those
\ndreams. What good will her dreams be if
\nshe is dead? What should she do?"<\/p>\n

More tomorrow….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book on Africa and the HIV\/AIDS crisis is due at the end of this month and will release in September ’07. Whew! I’m tired just thinking about it! At this point, the working title is Red Letters: Responding to the Words of Jesus. Would love your thoughts about this. 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A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}