Rev. Dennis Andrews

Many years ago, a friend and his wife learned they would not be able to have their own natural-born children. They decided to adopt. It took the patience of a judge for them to move through the process, but they finally succeeded.

They imagined an infant from the beginning. An infant, they thought, would be perfect and know them as parents from the outset.

What they received were not one, but two young boys. These boys were anything but infants and anything but perfect. They had been abused by their drug-addicted parents. The boys arrived with mental, psychological and emotional baggage.

But my friend and his wife were steadfast in their parental duties, long-suffering in their love for these two boys through formative years of school expulsions, arrests, juvenile detention and one heart-wrenching problem after another.

My friend once told me, “As hard as it has been, our faith has grown alongside these boys. The experience may have given us insight as to how God feels watching us grow!”

Adoption meant these boys received far more than a new last name and safe place to stay. They were adopted into a family. They were forgiven even when they didn’t deserve it. They were loved. They survived.

Did you ever wonder what would have become of baby Moses had he not been adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter or what would have happened to Hadassah, the beautiful young woman who became Queen Esther, had she not been adopted by good ole Uncle Mordecai?

Moses likely would have been drowned with the other male babies. Hadassah probably would have been killed with the rest of her people. The course of human history and the development of Judeo Christian faith traditions would at the very least be different were it not for God’s plans for adoption.

What are God’s plans for adoption today?

There are thousands of children in South Florida in need of physical adoption. If you are able, then I encourage you to consider adoption. But the truth is, we all have need of adoption, just an adoption of a different, more permanent kind.

The Apostle Paul says it this way: “Even before God made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ….”

[Ephesians 1:4-5, NLT]

Our most important adoption is made possible by the cross, not by the courts. There is no lengthy legal process. We consent to our adoption when we accept Christ as Lord.

No perfection required. None of us remain innocent as a newborn child. We all have baggage. None of us are always loveable and we may not deserve forgiveness, but we can all have it through Christ.

Pray God continues to be steadfast and longsuffering with the open loving arms of adoption, patiently watching us grow and accepting us into the family.

Ever think about adoption? I hope so, because the most consequential adoption you will ever think about is your own …

Reverend Dr. Dennis Andrews is a former Indiana Sheriff and Mayor and a graduate of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He is a member of the Tropical Presbytery of Florida (Presbyterian Church USA) and installed pastor of Community Presbyterian Church (Steeple on the Beach) of Deerfield Beach located five blocks south of Hillsboro on AIA.

By Dave Montalbano

AdventuresOfCinemaDave.com

Ten years ago, Sam Raimi wrote and directed Spider- Man, with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, which became the No. 1 Box Office Champion for 2002.

Five years ago, the same team produced Spider-Man 3, which disappointed many.

So there was little enthusiasm when Columbia Pictures announced The Amazing Spider- Man, a reboot of the comic book myth.

While we could have avoided another origin story involving the shooting of Uncle Ben (this time, Martin Sheen), The Amazing Spider- Man does work as a comic book recreation with a vivid color palette. Director Marc Webb’s palette is film noir, much influenced by the Dark Knight Returns and Sin City short story collections.

In the pre-credit sequence, we learn a little why a young Peter Parker came under the care of Uncle Ben and Aunt May (Sally Field). In High School, Peter (Andrew Garfield) falls under the spell of Gwen Stacy (Emma “The Help” Stone), the daughter of tough Police Commissioner Stacy (Denis Leary).

Gwen works for Dr. Connors (Rhys Ifans), an amputee with a connection to the disappearance of Peter Parker’s parents. As Peter investigates this link, he is bitten by a spider and undergoes a transformation. In his zeal to re-grow his amputated arm, Dr. Connors injects himself with an untested serum and terrorizes Manhattan as the notorious Lizard.

While most of the action scenes occur at night, Director Webb manages to create vivid battles between Spider- Man and the Lizard. It is special effects whiz bang, but manages to capture the smart aleck wit of Stan Lee’s original creation. (Lee’s cameo brought forth a round of applause at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Discovery IMAX Theater).

With last weekend’s record-breaking box office gross, Columbia Pictures has announced that The Amazing Spider-Man is the first of a planned trilogy that should conclude during the 2016 Presidential election season.

The Amazing Spider-Man is a complete story within itself, a visual treat and very entertaining. The opening narrative grabs you from the very beginning. What more can you ask from a big budget summer blockbuster?

There will be one face missing at the FAU Football Opener on August 31 – for the first time since 2003.

Craig Angelos won’t be in attendance when the Owls face Wagner College. He was fired as Athletic Director on March 21, 2012 from his position where he earned $192,000. The main reason he was let go was utilizing his fundraising. There was a lack of money.

Add that to the fact that FAU failed to sell out its Oct 15 opener at the new stadium, in addition to fewer than 4,000 showing up at the final football game of a 1-11 season, and it’s safe to say that Angelos will watch future Owls games on TV.

On July 2, the Owls decided to go to Big Ten Country to hire Angelos’ replacement. Now, the challenge of fundraising falls in the hands of 37-year old Patrick Chun. He has spent the past 15-years in numerous roles with the Ohio State Buckeyes.

He worked in endowment building, strategic planning, management and leadership.

Ohio State University (OSU) provides services for more than 1,000 student athletes, 36 intercollegiate athletic programs, 100 coaches and more than 330 full-time athletic department staff in 15 facilities.

The Ohio State athletics operating budget is in excess of $126 million.

Chun’s colleagues gave him strong endorsements.

Among those who voiced positive reviews: OSU Associate Vice President/ Athletic Director Gene Smith; Clark Kellogg, who is CBS Sports College Basketball lead analyst/ vice president of Indiana Pacers; football coach Urban Meyer; basketball coach Thad Matta; former football coach Jim Tressel, who is the current Vice President of Strategic Engagement at the University of Akron; Dutch Baughman, executive director of Division IA Athletic Directors Association and Joseph R Castiglione, vice president of Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Oklahoma.

During the past year, the FAU Athletic Program has experienced numerous changes. In May, Women’s Basketball hired Kellie Lewis- Jay, 36, who spent five years at the University of Nebraska, where she coordinated the Cornhuskers recruiting efforts. Lewis-Jay becomes the fourth head coach in FAU’s 28-year existence.

Current Football Coach Carl Pelini was an assistant coach for Nebraska last year, so the road from Lincoln to Boca Raton has filled two coaching vacancies, plus it could lead to games in the field with FAU facing Nebraska in women’s hoops along with football. FAU is scheduled to travel to Nebraska on August 30, 2014 to face the Cornhuskers.

Don’t be surprised to see FAU face the Ohio State Buckeyes in the future with the automatic connection between Chun and the Buckeyes.

Scott Morganroth can be reached at www.scottsports33.com.

There has been a wonderful movie in a few theatres in the area recently called “The Intouchables.” This was not “The Untouchables.” It had nothing to do with Elliot Ness or the old gangs that he cracked down on, and, it had nothing to do with India’s the “Untouchables,” those on the bottom of the social caste system there.

Then again, maybe it did. You see, the movie was about a man who was paralyzed below the neck, and, let’s face it, all too often, if someone is paralyzed, or ill, or way up in years, or, dare I say, “different,” many people are afraid, not just to touch them, but to have any contact with them at all.

“The Intouchables” was based on a true story about a very special relationship that develops between this man and the one he opts to take on as his private duty aide. His choice might surprise you, but the relationship that develops between them is something that never ceases to amaze me.

So often I am called in to try to get someone to see the importance of their getting a private duty aide; and, so often, the person I am talking to tells me a horror story about this or that friend or neighbor who hired someone who was awful, someone who was constantly on the phone building up an absurd long-distance bill and not paying attention to the person they were supposed to care for, someone who kept going out to get an item from the store, not to be seen or heard from again for hours at a time, someone who was mean and nasty, someone who lashed out and yelled at the very person they were supposed to be taking care of.

We’ve all heard such stories. People are quick to share such experiences with us. But, I get to see the other side of the coin. So often, just like in the movie, I have seen a love and compassion develop between a person and their caregiver… an unbreakable bond.

And, when such a bond exists, I have seen the caregiver yelled at in the midst of bad times, lashed out at in the midst of pain and frustration. But the angelic caregiver is able to miraculously see that the anger, the shouting and the screaming is not really directed at them; it is really about the situation the one under their charge is going through, as they often feel like the main character in “The Intouchables,” trapped in their own bodies, unable to lift a finger for themselves.

It was just a couple of weeks ago that we read the Biblical story of Moses being told by G-d to speak to a rock and that, when he would speak to it, water would miraculously flow and everyone would have their thirst quenched.

Sadly, Moses did not follow the directions quite as precisely as he should have. Instead of speaking to the rock, he lashes out at it. He hits it, not just once, but twice. Water still flows, but Moses had lost his patience in dealing with complaints. He lost his cool.

This loss of control over his anger keeps him from entering the Promised Land. You see, he did not have to lash out at the rock. He did not have to hit it to get water to flow and quench everyone’s thirst. All he had to do was speak to the rock.

Paul Simon wrote, “I am a Rock, I am an Island.” Sometimes, the people we work with or for seem to be just that. They seem to be a rock. Try speaking to the rock because Simon’s lyrics were wrong. Sometimes a rock does indeed feel pain.

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and serves in this capacity in a number of healthcare settings in the area, including Advocate Home Care Services and L’Chayim Jewish Hospice in Partnership with Catholic Hospice of Broward County.

By Gary Curreri

Pompano Beach’s Allison Cuneen has been attending Simply Soccer summer camps in Pompano Beach for the past three years. The 10-year-old has parlayed the learning experience into a spot on a traveling soccer team for Team Boca.

“It’s the best camp around,” said Cuneen, who has a sister, Kayla, 12, and twin brother, Bryce, who also play travel soccer and have also been fixtures at the local camp.

“If you want to learn how to play or advance your skills, this is the camp to go to. You won’t get let down.”

“I like a (shooting) game they play called ‘power and finesse,’” Cuneen added. “It is also nice that you get to cool down at the pool after lunch before you play again.”

Simply Soccer has two additional summer camps remaining in the city of Pompano. Dates are July 23-27 and August 13-17.

Registration is being held at the Pompano Beach Civic Center. The soccer camp is for boys and girls, ages 5-14, of all skill levels, who are taught a variety of soccer skills from dribbling to shooting.

There are three sessions each day (for the Pompano camp) ranging from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. ($100 weekly); extended hours camp is available from 8 a.m. -4 p.m. for $125 each week, a Tiny Tot program is offered for kids ages 5 and 6 from 9 a.m.-noon for $55 weekly.

Campers must bring a soccer ball, swimsuit, shin guards, water bottle and lunch. For more information, call the city of Pompano Parks and Recreation Department at 954-786-4119 or 954-786-4111.

Ely reaches quarters

Ely High School’s boys “A” team reached the quarterfinals of therecentMiamiDolphinsAcademy 7-on-7 High School Football Tournament.

Cardinal Newman defeated Ely, 35-28, in the quarterfinals at Sun Life Stadium and lost to the eventual champion, Booker T. Washington, who will represent South Florida and the Dolphins at this year’s national championships July 12-15 in Indianapolis, IN. There were teams from 50 schools in the tournament.

Local golfers fare well in opening tourney

Local golfers got off to a good start in the Junior Golf Association of Broward County’s summer opening event at the Inverrary Golf Club recently.

Pompano Beach’s Wyatt Rubin won the Boys “B” Division as he carded a nine-hole score of 4-over par, 40.

Two other golfers took second place in their respective divisions as Lighthouse Point’s Alex Lutz shot an even par-72 to finish one shot behind Todd-Tyler Williams of Southwest Ranches in the Championship Division, while Isak Nilsson of Pompano Beach took second in the Boys Junior Flight. He was one shot behindtheeffortofDavie’sAiden Alvarez, who carded an 18-hole score of 79.

Pompano Beach’s Dylan Glatt was third in the Boys C Division with a 44.

By Dave Montalbano

AdventuresOfCinemaDave.com

Aung San Suu Kyi with Jim McNalis

It was announced this week that Marvel’s The Avengers has become the 3rd highest grossing motion picture of all time, behind Avatar and Titanic. With The Amazing Spider-Man opening this holiday weekend at the Museum of Discovery IMAX Theater, costumed superheroes have consumed the international box office.

Speaking of heroism, The Lady will make its South Florida premier this weekend at the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival’s Cinema Paradiso. This long-awaited biography acknowledges the heroism of Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Noble Peace Prize winner who had been under house arrest for two decades in Myanmar, formerly known as the country of Burma.

Best known for portraying karate sidekicks to Jackie Chan, Jet Li and James Bond, Michelle Yeoh will portray The Lady. With Rebecca Frayn’s screenplay in hand, Yeoh presented the project to Luc Besson, a French director best known for action flicks like The Fifth Element, The Professional and La Femme Nikita.

Besson said, “One day Michelle came to see me for help. She told me she had a compelling screenplay about Aung San Suu Kyi and was looking for a producer, and that it would be great if I were free to direct it. At first, I told her I wasn’t available. But then I read the script and I was blown away!”

Despite the gulf between eastern and western cultures, Besson revealed his need to tell the story about The Lady.

He said, “I was very moved by the story of this woman about whom I realized I knew almost nothing, except for the tip of the iceberg I’d read in the papers.” While The Lady was in production, government relaxed restrictions upon Suu Kyi. She is currently on an international tour in Europe and was honored by former President George Bush last May in Washington D.C.

The first screening of The Lady will be Friday evening at 6 p.m.  It will be followed by a Q&A by artist and activist Jim McNalis, who created a sculpture of the Nobel Prize winner and was able to meet her. He will be discussing that meeting last December. (Next, McNalis will be leaving on a lecture tour in North Carolina). For more information, call 954-525-FILM or visit www.fliff.com.

Michelle Yeoh plays “The Lady”

Jim McNalis created a sculpture of Aung San Suu Kyi

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

People who really know me laugh when I say, and believe me, I say it often, “I have to clean my desk.” They’ve been hearing that for years – nay – decades. The thing of it is … I HAVE cleaned my desk. But, unless I do it on an hourly basis, it runs away from me.

In most respects, I am a person with a stable personality, very few hang-ups, fairly even-tempered and extremely good at multitasking. But – about my desk, I am, if you’ll pardon the redundancy, a dysfunctional basket case, with a serious condition, that admittedly seeps into other parts of my life, called “fear of throwing things away,” or in psychobabble talk, “Disposophobia.”

The surface of my built-in desk runs the length of my office room. It is about 20 ft. long by about 30 in. deep and faces a window. Nice, huh? If you close your eyes and picture it naked, that is, empty, clean, devoid of any surface paraphernalia, you can imagine yourself lying on it, head to toe with perhaps two other people, uncomfortably hard as that might be. Sometimes, I do that – imagine it naked, that is, and I yearn to take my arm, crook it at the elbow, and swish it clean.

But of course, I dare not. It is bulging with the usual office requisites, fax machine, in-box, (OMG – currently about 8 in. high) computer, telephone, two small calculators, copier printer- scanner-all-in-one, boom box with assorted CDs (and, I tell you ashamedly, a container holding myriad cassettes – remember them?), five filled-to-the-brim file holders, three pencil-pen holders (I collect [steal?] pens) and books, books, books. Underneath all of this are eight built-in huge drawers of files and 10 smaller drawers of “junk,” over which, attached to the walls on either side of the window, are six huge cabinets with more books and 2-and 3-in. loose leaf binders, one for every year since 1985 containing my writings. If they interviewed me for C-Span, it would take hours to explain. (you know, it’s cathartic to catalogue this. I never did it before – but, now I’m wondering, why would you care? Forget it, I’m on a roll!)

If you’re too young to remember the Collyer brothers of Manhattan, you might want to Google them just for the fun of it. I just did. They were discovered dead in their Harlem apartment, in 1947, asphyxiated, sort of, by the more than 100 TONS of assorted junk they had accumulated over many years. I felt good reading about them because, honestly, I don’t come anywhere near them in that department, although, at the rate I am going …

So, I was going to “clean it up” today. Yes, today was the day. And, instead, look what I am doing. And, soon, it will be time to prepare dinner, write a book review, return about eight telephone calls I’d been accruing – and … maybe tomorrow. Ya think?

I came across these facts awhile back and thought I would share them with you since it is the time of year that we celebrate our independence.

Did you know?

As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S. Supreme Court, you can see, near the top of the building, a row of the world’s law givers, and, each one is facing one in the middle, who is facing forward with a full frontal view.

It is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments!

As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door. As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten Commandments! There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C. James Madison, the fourth president, known as “The Father of Our Constitution” made the following statement: “We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

Patrick Henry, that patriot and Founding Father of our country, said: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777. Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of the established orthodox churches in the colonies. Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their authority and, instead of interpreting the law, would begin making law, which is an oligarchy, the rule of few over many. The very first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, said, “Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers.”

How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have done for 235 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?

We are “One nation under God.” It is said that 86 percent of Americans believe in God. Therefore, it is very hard to understand why there is such a mess about having the Ten Commandments on display or “In God We Trust” on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don’t we just tell the other 14 percent to Sit Down and Be Quiet! Oh, that’s right, if I tell someone who does not agree with me to be quiet, they will say I have no tolerance. Seems a bit confusing and very hypocritical if you ask me, but that is just my opinion. Everyone is entitled to have their opinion on any matter, but, facts are facts. The facts are that our wonderful country was founded on God and godly principles and that will always be true.

Please don’t forget to pray for our soldiers, whoare still fighting for our freedom, to come home safe and soon.

Tony Guadagnino is Pastor at Christian Love Fellowship Church

By Gary Curreri

Pompano Beach’s Briley Pizzelanti hopes her Italian heritage will lead her to an Olympic medal someday in figure skating.

The 16-year-old Pizzelanti, who recently completed her sophomore year at Boca Prep International School, has a goal of getting her Italian citizenship, getting on the Italian national team and doing some competitions for them in the junior division.

“Hopefully, I will do really well for them and then maybe compete for them at the senior level and then go to Worlds in the junior and the senior division,” said Pizzelanti, who won the Junior Ladies Freestyle (Unrestricted) Division at the Sunshine State Games Figure Skating competition at the Saveology.com Iceplex in Coral Springs.

“I’d like to make the Olympics someday,” Pizzelanti said. “I love skating so much. It is such a big part of my life and, to be able to go out and skate for my country, would be amazing.”

Pizzelanti said her school schedule (10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) enables her to skate more.

“It helps a lot,” Pizzelanti said. “I am able to skate for two hours in the morning and then an hour in the afternoon. I am also able to do dryland training.

“I love everything about skating. I love being able to train really, really hard all year and then be able to go out and show everyone what I have been practicing and how hard I have been practicing all year.”

Pizzelanti, who has been skating since she was 4, struggled in the warm-ups and was noticeably upset prior to her routine. She was able to put it all behind her and skate a clean program.

“I have been working a lot on that the last couple of years,” Pizzelanti said. “My mom has also coached me on that. She says whenever you have mistakes in the warmup, the competition is a totally different event and you can’t go by what you did in the warm-up.”

There were nearly 400 skaters from around the state – the largest competition ever in the Games. “The numbers of skaters from Florida and the southeast who competed last year at the regionals was extremely large,” said Betty Stark, who has served as sports director for figure skating at the Games for the past 26 years. “I think that has helped the sport gain exposure.”

“It has highlighted the sport and now people are saying those kids from Florida are good,” Stark added. “The coaches are doing a great job and the level of skating over the years has really improved.”

By Dave Montalbano

AdventuresOfCinemaDave.com

As the locally-produced Rock of Ages floats into Summertime box office oblivion, it seems as if you have to be a team of superheroes (Marvel’s The Avengers) or animated characters (Madagascar 3, Brave) to have any box office traction this summer.

Released three weeks ago, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted finds our heroes, Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) enjoying the easy life living in Africa.

Yet, the four friends miss their zoo in Manhattan. Consulting with the penguins, the four heroes revamp their makeshift aeroplane and decide to cross the Atlantic.

Of course, things go wrong and the four friends crash land in a Monte Carlo Casino. The intrepid Captain Chantel Du Bois (Frances McDormand) gives chase … and chase … and chase … until the film’s conclusion.

The visuals are fantastic and Chris Rock’s one-liners are being quoted on the street. Children will be engaged for the hour and a half, but adults will be checking their watches.

Brave is Disney/Pixar’s 13th release. Given this partnership’s box office returns and Oscars on the shelf, one feels a sense of diminishing returns with Brave.

Set in mythical Scotland, Princess Merida (Kelly MacDonald) is an un-ladylike tomboy, much to the displeasure of the queen (Emma Thompson). Seeking to enhance the bonds between the three regimes, t h e k i n g ( B i l l y C o n n o l y ) o f f e r s h i s daughter’s hand in marriage. The clichés kick in and with a spoonful of supernatural occurrences, it makes for an entertaining afternoon for mothers and daughters.