tschram

It’s no secret the last couple of years have tested Kansans as the COVID-19 pandemic ripped through our communities. But, it’s also no secret that we Kansans are resilient and it’s fitting our state’s motto is Ad Astra Per Aspera — to the stars through difficulty.

In my last article I introduced Step four: “Do not judge/ Strip away labels and stereotypes. The example was the type cast that Colonel Buckner, an authority, had regarding abolitionists as law breakers. Mrs. Haviland was considered suspicious for delivering a trunk of blankets, warm clothes, and other monetary assistance and aid for Calvin Fairbanks in a Kentucky jail because he was an abolitionist who broke the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and attempted to assist a slave to freedom. Laura’s wise countenance and responses never gave the jailer, Buckner, credence to pursue an arrest of her. On the opposite spectrum, Buckner was labeled an upright, religious leader for teaching Sunday School at his Methodist Church, yet when quibbling with Laura, he was speechless when she quoted the Scriptures in the defense of God’s good creation of all human beings, regardless of race or creed, as equal and worthy of redemption through Christ’s sacrifice. Stereotypes and labels can certainly be misleading and fool us.

Early in our years of ministering, and moving from place to place, my husband and I got a phone call from my aunt. We were in the middle of making plans to move to DeSoto, Kansas. My aunt called to tell me that she had a friend who had given up twins for adoption years ago and, because the state of Kansas adoption records were now open, did I want the contact info, to get mine. You see, when I was 16 years old, engaged to be married, and the only father I had known all my life was in a hospital 800 miles from our home preparing for open heart surgery the next day, I found out I was adopted.