2. BABY GABRIEL IS BORN AND 'ON THE PATH TO RECEIVE LIFE-SAVING CARE'
from: LiveAction
SYNOPSIS: Surrogate mother McKenna West has given birth to a baby boy named Gabriel, after courageously refusing the contracting parents' demands to abort him due to a treatable heart condition known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). To ensure the baby's survival, West relocated to Texas to access specialized medical care, a decision that led to a legal battle after the contracting parents sought to force a delivery in California.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened by securing an emergency court order that guarantees Baby Gabriel receives life-saving medical treatment, preventing any obstruction of his care. The court order mandates that medical treatment cannot be delayed or withheld and requires immediate notification if there is any attempt to discharge or transfer the child while the case is pending. While a temporary restraining order currently prevents West from seeing or holding her child, reports confirm that Gabriel is doing well and is on the established path to receive necessary life-saving surgeries.
Please read also "Killing for Convenience" and pray for the couple who contracted with McKenna West for her to gestate a baby for them, then they tried to have the unborn baby boy killed because he had a heart defect.
3. THE UNHOLY CONCEPTION IN STALIN'S EMBRACE WILL FOREVER WEIGH ON THE ROC AND ITS BRANCHES AROUND THE WORLD
from: RISU
SYNOPSIS: Archimandrite Nykanor (Mishkov), a prominent Bulgarian cleric, maintains a steadfast pro-Ukrainian stance, explaining that the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is inextricably linked to Stalinist ideologies and the pursuit of state-controlled "Russian world" interests. Fr. Nykanor criticizes the current leadership of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC), specifically Patriarch Daniil, for their refusal to condemn Russian aggression and their internal efforts to silence clergy who express solidarity with Ukraine. He highlights how the Union of Orthodox Journalists (UOJ) serves as a sophisticated propaganda tool for the FSB/GRU to manipulate international perception and undermine support for Ukraine under the guise of religious freedom.
Nykanor asserts that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP) faces an existential crisis due to its canonical ties to Moscow, advocating for reconciliation and potential unification with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) as the only viable path forward. The Bulgarian cleric expresses concerns regarding the geopolitical involvement of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Patriarch Theophilos III, suggesting they may be acting as an alternative power center to challenge the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Reflecting on his experiences, Fr. Nykanor emphasizes that the Russian invasion has forced a necessary reckoning for world Orthodoxy, urging religious leaders to prioritize Gospel principles over nationalist myths and political subservience.
Thank the Lord for the courage of Bulagrian Archimandrite Nykanor taking a pro-Ukrainian stance against the Russian Orthodox Church's support of Moscow's 2022 full-scale Ukraine invasion and the ongoing war there.
4. DO STEP-PARENTS MATTER?
from: Them Before Us
SYNOPSIS: (NOTE: before you pre-judge and fire off a comment, please READ THE FULL ARTICLE at the "Them Before Us" link above.) The child comes first! Nick Spencer, founder of Them Before Us (TBU), explains that children have a fundamental right to their biological mother and father, stating that every child is conceived by one man and one woman. The group distinguishes between adoption and remarriage, which they view as adults stepping in to provide stability for children after a pre-existing tragedy; compared to surrogacy or donor conception, which they define as adults intentionally, to satisfy their own desires, causing via IVF a child’s loss of biological connection.
Nick Spencer testified before the Lima, Ohio city council that while adoptive and step-families are worthy of recognition, industries like commercial surrogacy bypass necessary child-welfare protections, such as home studies and background checks, that are standard in adoption. The organization maintains that biological relationship provides a protective benefit to children, explaining that society ignores this reality to the detriment of the child's safety and well-being. By placing these controversial billboards, Them Before Us seeks to challenge cultural and legal trends that prioritize the desires of adults over the fundamental needs of children to know their biological parents. Additionally, IVF kills ("discards" is the eupemism for it) 50 to 60 unborn babies on average for every 1 baby born via IVF: unborn babies are not garbage!
Pray for the thorough vetting of prospective parents via IVF, and for an end to commercial IVF merely for profit, adults' pleasure, or a "golden ticket" for rich foreigners to gain U.S. citizenship by hiring a U.S. surrogate mother.
5. NONPROFIT HELPS ADULTS WITH DISABILITIES GAIN JOB SKILLS AS REPAIR TECHNICIANS
from: Disability Scoop
SYNOPSIS: The Jonathan’s Landing Foundation launched the Techtonic initiative in Winter Park, Florida, to train neurodivergent adults as certified IT repair technicians. The program addresses high unemployment rates among people with autism by providing hands-on experience, industry-recognized credentials, and a structured, supportive work environment.
Founder Jason Eichenholz created the initiative to help adults with disabilities gain independence, with future plans to develop a larger facility and nearby housing. Despite initial state funding of $1.75 million, the nonprofit faces growth challenges after Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed a request for an additional $750,000 in funding. Mentor and apprentice Isaac Edwards highlights the program's success, noting that the initiative provides meaningful career paths rather than just talk.
Praise the Lord for Jason Eichenholz creating the Tectonic Initiative in Florida to train people with autism as certified IT repair technicians, providing them meaningful career paths.
6. NEARLY HALF OF DEMENTIA CASES MAY BE LINKED TO RISKS YOU CAN CHANGE
from: Science Daily
SYNOPSIS: A study from Lund University indicates that nearly half of dementia cases may be linked to modifiable lifestyle risks, such as smoking, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Researchers, including Sebastian Palmqvist and Isabelle Glans, found that these common risk factors are strongly associated with damage to the brain's white matter, a key precursor to vascular dementia.
The four-year study tracked 500 participants to observe how both modifiable and non-modifiable factors influence brain changes associated with both vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease. While vascular-related risks often drive white matter damage, preliminary findings also linked diabetes to higher amyloid ß levels and lower BMI to faster tau protein accumulation. Adopting healthier habits is recommended to improve vascular and metabolic health, which may help delay the onset of dementia by reducing the combined impact of multiple harmful brain changes.
Thank the Lord for this research at Lund University that pinpoints common risk factors such as smoking, being overweight, and high blood pressure, strongly associated with both vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
7. EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM AND DISABILITY: A CRITICAL GUIDE
from: Disabled World
SYNOPSIS: Effective altruism began with a deceptively simple question - if we are going to give, why not give where it does the most good - and grew within two decades into a global network of researchers, pledgers and grantmakers moving hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Its methods are rigorous, its results in global health are substantial, and its central insight about the vast spread between mediocre and excellent charity is difficult to argue with.
The pursuit of "Effective Altruisn" began with Peter Singer's 1972 essay on famine relief supplies effective altruism with its founding moral argument. Yet the same machinery that makes the movement powerful, the reduction of unlike efforts to a single comparable number, has drawn sustained fire from disability scholars and advocates who argue that the numbers quietly encode assumptions about whose lives count and how much. This research paper sets out what effective altruism actually claims, how its measurement tools work, where they converge with disability interests, and where the collision is real rather than rhetorical.
Pray for Christians to be more discerning about where they send their charitable donations, so that it does the most good.
THE RIGHT TO BELIEVE
The motto in our newsletter's heading, "The right to believe and the right to life are inseparable: Right belief in a loving God enables us to love our neighbor!" doesn't make whatever we want to believe right. Rather, it shifts the responsibility for choosing the right beliefs from the state to the church, the family, and the individual.
We need to understand where the right to believe – freedom of religion – sprang from. For thousands of years, it was determined by the tribe or the king or emperor. But with the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, it shifted from being just an external commandment to worship Yahweh, the Jewish nation's God, or the gods of the Gentile nations and peoples. Christianity insisted (and still insists) on the right and duty of each family and each person to search and strive for sincere faith in the true God.
In the article "Reclaiming the Real Definition of Religious Freedom" we learn that modern political discourse often weaponizes religious freedom as a cover for partisan agendas and culture wars rather than upholding genuine constitutional rights. The article criticizes the current administration and some Christian leaders for supporting policies that prioritize religious exemptions while simultaneously undermining the rights of minorities, immigrants, and people of color.
The article notes that these political efforts often violate the constitutional separation of church and state by allowing federally funded agencies to discriminate based on religion and identity. The author calls upon Christians to reject "false framing" and instead advocate for a version of religious liberty that aligns with Christian teachings on universal human dignity. Readers are encouraged to take actionable steps, such as lobbying representatives, challenging discriminatory government policies, and working toward a return to historical Christian sexual ethics.
Freedom of conscience and the free exercise of religion means that the state must not coerce its citizents to love our neighbors – the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. But when the state takes over this role by providing financial support for those most in need of loving attention by taxing us, we no longer have the freedom to do so or not to do so: we have lost the free exercise of religion.
And in fact, when the state takes over this role, it most often insists that it must be kept separate from any particular religion or beliefs: thus, it coerces the disbelief in any religion. This is the dilemma of a secular society in which religious belief has been robbed of the right to express that belief in action! And the "loving attention" part of it turns into bureaucratic rules of entitlement: do you check all the right boxes on the form?
As the heading on our "DAILY PRAYERS" web page shows, there must be a "Why?" to our prayer life. If it's merely to perform a religious duty, it becomes an empty charade, window dressing to convince ourselves that we're on right terms with God. But we must demonstrate our love for God by loving our neighbors, and especially those most in need of loving attention – the poor, the disabled, and the elderly (often the same). That's why "Build the ARC!" comes right after the "Why?" in our "Daily Prayers" heading. Go to our "Morning Prayers" web page to see how to join our "live" Daily Prayers at 7 a.m. every day – and do the "Why!"
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(Click the pic!) Why are U.S. middle-class incomes falling? Why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Simple! Because the poor get tricked into giving their money to the rich! How? Through long-term and usurious interest rates.