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Infertility is also an opportunity

Re Empty Arms: Journeying with Infertility (July). It was inspiring to read good stories about how people have faced infertility, and about the many and varied ways that families continue to be put together. It was encouraging to see redemption at work in the midst of the pain often associated with infertility.

As one who has journeyed and continues to journey with infertility, I found myself wondering if we sometimes present the inability to biologically reproduce as primarily an obstacle to be overcome rather than an opportunity. We hear of grief and pain overcome, of gradually coming to terms with unanswered questions, of longings unfulfilled. Often, it seems, infertility is conceived to be a mainly negative thing.

But this is not everyone’s story. For whatever reason, grief and pain played a very minimal role in our journey, and we moved quite quickly to seeing infertility, not as an ability that we lacked, or something that wasn’t working properly, or a loss to grieve, but as an opportunity to pursue adoption.

I’m not suggesting that our response to infertility is or was especially virtuous or insightful or anything like that. Far from it. In many ways, our lack of grief about our infertility was a source of genuine puzzlement and surprise to us. In no way do I wish to suggest that pain and grief around infertility are illegitimate or not worth discussing. But, I do think that as we continue to talk about infertility, it is important to hear about the issue from a variety of perspectives.

God can and does help couples through the pain and the sense of loss that very often accompany infertility. God can and does use infertility to excite and inspire and open doors that previously wouldn’t have been considered. In both cases, and at all points between them, God is at work: teaching, guiding, and restoring. And, happily, often both truths can be a part of the same story.

Ryan Dueck
Nanaimo, B.C.

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Don’t forget MDS

I was disappointed to see that MDS (Mennonite Disaster Service) was not included in your issue’s guide to acronyms used in the MB world (Homepage, September).

As a point of reference, from Jan. 1, 1990, to Sept. 14, 2010, 257 U.S. MBs and 523 Canadian MBs have served either a service term at a project site, or served on a unit or region committee.

I am sure there was just not room for all of the organizations and other items needing explanation as acronyms, but I also certainly do not want MDS to be missed, either. We value our hard-working MB volunteers!

Scott Sundberg
Director of communications
Mennonite Disaster Service

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Interesting but hard to read

Thank you for the time and effort you put into planning, printing, and publishing the Herald every month. It is interesting reading, but the print is so small that I have difficulty reading it. Would you consider going back to bigger print? I’m sure many other readers would appreciate that!

Nettie Schulz
Killarney, Man.

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