God told us to one - love God, two - love others. It all boils down to that. And what is the greatest example of that? He gave it too us in the form of another commandment...to take care of the widowed and orphaned. The greatest thing we can do for the Kingdom, for the world, for Christ, for ourselves, is to love. And here is the greatest example of just that seen through someone who has the means and uses it for good things.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been very blessed, both financially and through their growing family. Angelina first adopted a 7 month old baby boy named Maddox Chivan Joli-Pitt from Cambodia on March 10, 2002. She then adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia named Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt on July 6, 2005. After beginning their relationship after doing a movie together, Brad Pitt adopted Angelina's two adopted children, Maddox and Zahara. On May 27, 2006, Angelina and Brad welcomed their first biological child, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt in Swakopmund, Namibia. People Magazine paid $4.1 million for American rights of the first pictures of baby Shiloh, while Hello! Magazine paid $3.5 million for the same photo rights internationally. Jolie and Pitt donated all the profits from the photos to an undisclosed charity; they realized they didn't need the money, instead gave it away - beautiful. Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt was added to the family from Vietnam on March 15, 2007 when he was just 3 years old. On July 12, 2008, the newest members of the Joile-Pitt family were born, biological twins, a boy named Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt and a girl, Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt.
And with the twins only 3 months old, Brad and Angelina are talking about bringing another child into their family to love and care for. Because it is law that the youngest members of the fmaily must be at least 6 months old, the Jolie-Pitts have to wait until the New Year, 2009, to adopt again. But they are planning on adopting another African baby to bond with Zahara. They want to adopt from the same birthplace as Zahara, Ethiopia. The couple plan to travel there as soon as the twins are 6 months old.
I am so excited that they are growing such a beautiful family in the spotlight that they find themselves in. I love that they get it. They understand that they are so blessed, so that they have the means to bless others; and they do. They do it well. Angelina is involved in so much humanitarian work as well. With all the resources, time, money and influence that she finds in her hands, she uses it for others. Beautiful.
Angelina's eyes were first opened to the poverty of our world while working on a movie in Cambodia, a poverty stricken third world country that is covered with mines. Beginning in early 2001, she visited many refugee camps around the world to gain a better understanding of the happenings of the third world, including Afgahanistan, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia. She began to work with the UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to raise money for refugees worldwide, meanwhile, she insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits. She became a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR on August 27, 2001 and said this of her motives, "We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us." She visited internally displaced persons and refugees worldwide and when asked what she hoped to accomplish through her travels and visits, she stated, "Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon." In 2002, Jolie visited the Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian refugees in Ecuador.[46] Jolie later went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan. She also met with Angolan refugees while filming Beyond Borders in Namibia.
In 2003, Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where she traveled to western border camps, hosting Congolese refugees and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka. She later concluded a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus. Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions (2001–2002). During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003 she asked to visit Iraqi refugees in Jordan's eastern desert and later that month she went to Egypt to meet Sudanese refugees.
On her first U.N. trip within the United States, Jolie went to Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix. With the humanitarian situation in Sudan worsening, she flew to Chad in June 2004, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four months later she returned to the region, this time going directly into West Darfur. Also in 2004, Jolie met with Afghan refugees in Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays, she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut, as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.
In 2005, Jolie visited Pakistani camps containing Afghani refugees, and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; she returned to Pakistan with Brad Pitt during the Thanksgiving weekend in November to see the impact of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. In 2006, Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean, and while filming A Mighty Heart in India, Jolie met with Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi. She spent Christmas Day 2006 with Colombian refugees in San José, Costa Rica where she handed out presents. In 2007, Jolie returned to Chad for a two-day mission to assess the deteriorating security situation for refugees from Darfur; Jolie and Pitt subsequently donated $1 million to three relief organizations in Chad and Darfur.[47] Jolie also made her first visit to Syria and twice went to Iraq, where she met with Iraqi refugees as well as multi-national forces and U.S. troops. With increasing experience, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. She regularly attends World Refugee Day in Washington, D.C., and she was an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005 and 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital, where she met with members of Congress at least 20 times from 2003.[44] She explained in Forbes: As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball. In 2005, Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon, where she announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation which Jolie personally funded with a donation of $500,000 for its first two years.[49] Jolie also pushed for several bills to aid refugees and vulnerable children in the Third World.[44] In addition to her political involvement, Jolie began using her public profile to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. She filmed an MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on a trip to a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. In 2006, Jolie announced the founding of the Jolie/Pitt Foundation which made initial donations to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders of $1 million each.[50] Jolie also co-chairs the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, founded at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006, which helps fund education programs for children affected by conflict. Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In 2003, she was the first recipient of the newly created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2005, she was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA.[51] Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there. In 2007, Jolie became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she received the Freedom Award by the International Rescue Committee.
I am thankful that these people and many others such as Bono, use their positions and time and money to better our world and to simply bring awareness to the right things to normal people like us who are living our everyday lives in our own little world. It is a great thing to open people's eyes to the bigger world out there.
I say all this to remind you that we are blessed only so that we can bless others and thank God for it all.
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