Daily Archives: October 17, 2014

Building Bridges

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IMG_1687I just found one of those yellow proof of vaccination cards. I was born in 1960 and in 1979 I was injected with vaccinations purported to prevent Yellow Fever and Small Pox prior to a trip to South Africa with my family. We went for six months to live in the modern bustling city of Cape Town, and I am sure there had not been a case of either disease for more than 50 years, if ever.

Cape Town is not now and probably never has been a Yellow Fever area of concern. Small Pox vaccines were halted completely by the CDC in January 1980, one month after I was injected.

With unquestioning faith in the CDC’s travel recommendations, and complete ignorance of any possible concern regarding the ingredients in the injections, I stuck out my arm and received the two shots and got a yellow international certificate recording this transaction.

I probably accepted vaccinations even more readily than the general population (if that were possible) because my father was employed by the CDC as a medical doctor specializing in research in peri-natal virology. We even went to the CDC headquarters on Clifton Road in Atlanta, Georgia to get the shots before our trip!! Of course I had shots in school, so it was no big deal. We get shots, we’re Americans, that’s what we do.

After over 30 years of researching the impact of vaccines on health, it has been a huge struggle for me to actually go public in saying I believe all vaccines have a greater potential for harm than for benefit, both to the individual and to society.

The early virologists didn’t fully understand the immune system. The measurements they relied on, called titers, served to them as indicators of “immunization” or supposed ‘protection’. Yet recent sciences clearly demonstrates that titer levels in blood serum do not tell the whole story of immunity. Information accumulated in the last ten years about the immune system and the gut microbiome gives a completely new understanding of human immune function and our ability to fight bacteria and viruses. Additionally, the early vaccine researchers did not adequately understand the massive damage that vaccines could cause to the brain and immune system. In some cases, this can result in chronic lifelong disabilities due to the biochemical assault on the body. Adding vaccine upon vaccine over the years without ever exploring the combined impact, has had tragic consequences to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.

This has been a huge struggle for me to come to terms with. I want to believe the CDC knew what they were doing and that they were concerned about the health of the individual as well as the health of the public. I have been forced to conclude that the CDC has become so strongly influenced by the manufacturers of vaccines to the point that they can no longer objectively look at the science, or in fact, devise any true scientific studies. Their policies reflect a marketing agenda which is prioritized above a concern for health. Their careers, and the careers of the doctors who follow their recommendations, depend on perpetuating the myths they have long believed.

My journey to TRUTH, or awakening, has had a lot of consequences and I reflect on it often. Like many others, I have become passionate about helping prevent further damage to babies. I’ve been voluntarily helping mothers breastfeed their babies for over 20 years, but I now want to help mothers realize that the vaccines they are allowing to be given to their Ignorancebabies are probably the main cause of latching problems at birth and have the potential to cause many other serious side effects to all babies. I want them to know that the potential of damage from vaccines given in pregnancy is HIGH and the safety testing nonexistent. I want to help parents come to understand what I know to be true. I realize this won’t be an easy trip for them either. When we learn that a public health agency does not value our health and does not follow true science, we feel betrayed. Some people prefer to live in the status quo rather than acknowledge the extent of betrayal that has been going on.

Sharing information on vaccinations can be a dangerous pursuit because there are many strong forces trying to continue marketing and distributing vaccines to those who are unaware. They also seek to silence and discredit those trying to spread truth. There is a lot of money at stake.

I have come up with a list of ideas that I hope will be helpful to bring truth to more people. This is not an exhaustive list and I’ve gleaned most of it from watching other activists in progress. I’d love to refine and add to this list as I receive more ideas.

1. Your Personal Struggle Trumps Advice & Opinions. Share your struggle. People relate more to a struggle than they will to advice or opinions. Try to remember how you first felt when you encountered the reality of the dangers of vaccines, BEFORE you try to push all the facts you’ve discovered. Respect where people are at. Generally, people don’t want to know our opinions and they don’t want to be told what to do.

2. Empathize with feelings. Acknowledge the fear, confusion, and betrayal people are feeling. Parents are trying to make the best decisions for their children. New parents are preyed upon. Many good people are giving them REALLY BAD advice. Don’t get angry with them! Find a way to understand their inner turmoil. Listen and reflect their feelings.

Opinions like armpits

3. Be kind to everyone. This is really hard to do especially if you think about extending kindness to those purveyors of misinformation or those directly profiting from the vaccine industry. But, when we slander them, we don’t actually make them look bad, it is a bad reflection on ourselves. We need to find a way to expose the truth without character assaults – however tempting it may seem. When we viciously attack others we lower our own credibility.

4. Work together. There are so many voices in this debate. We need to find those who are effectively sharing truth and work with them. We need to encourage them and extend our support for what they are doing. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) with Barbara Loe Fisher is one of the oldest organizations to educate parents. The Thinking Moms Revolution (TMR) is very active in sharing blogs and the reality of life with vaccine-injured children. There are MANY other great people devoted to this cause, including doctors, film makers, healers, parents and grandparents. The list is long, but when we find each other, come together, and share our experience, we will be stronger.

5. Target for effectiveness. Young doctors, medical students, nursing students, pastors, pregnant families, not yet pregnant twenty somethings, highschool and college students. Target key influencers. Share information a little at a time. Let’s figure out where we will get the most for our efforts. Look for interest and find fertile ground.

6. Take care of yourself – recharge. Most of us know that we need to take care of our body, mind and spirit. We need to eat clean, exercise regularly and de-stress. We need to forgive ourselves and others. Carrying the weight of our mission can impact our emotions and stress. We need to have a method to reduce stress to keep our immune system strong. Understanding ourselves and practicing healthy disciplines needs to be prioritized so we can stay strong.

7. Take care of your family. Family comes before causes. Your family has a limit of how much passion and information they are able to listen to! Take time to ask them questions and enter their world – even if it seems “trivial” in light of the serious mission you are on!

8. Remember the underprivileged. What about those who will never have access to the research? How can we warn the vast number of more disadvantaged people? This is very near and dear to my heart. I don’t have the answer to this question. It is great that the number of non-vaccinating parents is growing and that highly educated parents have the ability to research and make an informed choice, but how do we get this information out to a wider audience to make a big impact?

_DSC1724I’m certainly not perfect at executing this list – it’s a reminder for me just as much as anyone. I love babies. I love seeing healthy robust babies with an uncompromised immune system enjoying vibrant health. That is my passion.

Has my list sparked any ideas for you? How can we work together to continue to tear down this house of cards?

Thanksgiving 2015Author: Becky Hastings, wife, mother, grandmother, passionate truth seeker, Christ follower, breastfeeding and health advocate.

I’d love your ideas and insight to add to my list! Please share in the comments below. I blog at https://journeyboost.com and share information on my Journeyboost.com Facebook Page. Please like it!

30 ways in 30 Days, Exploring Vaccines: Day 3 has been an incredible project for me. Not big, but significant. I pray it will impact many thousands of lives for good.

Struggle for Wisdom

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Light bulbI have been struggling to acquire wisdom for over 34 years.

For the first 20 years of my life my focus was on pleasure rather than wisdom. I could care less about wisdom. I made decisions based on my whims, my feelings, or guidance or pressure from others. If a wise person gave me guidance, I made better decisions, but if I was guided by pressure from equally pleasure-focused peers, my decisions were far from wise.

It is sometimes difficult to find wisdom in the avalanche of information in which we live. There are opposing voices with very persuasive arguments. Navigating towards truth and understanding it in order to make wise application to the current reality we face, is challenging.

Many forces are at work to get us on board to their agenda. Some of them aren’t bad. Some just want our money. Others seek to gain our money on an ongoing basis for the rest of our lives. Some lead to devastation and destruction.

We all have limited time on earth and limited resources to accomplish anything. But we do have choices. Unlike my early life, I now intentionally seek to make WISE choices.

34 years ago the entire trajectory of my life changed causing me to seek wisdom for the first time. Since that time, while I have not always made wise decisions, I continually seek to implement wisdom in every area of life and to learn from every mistake.

Surrendered34 years ago I embraced Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and experienced the forgiveness of my sins, failures, and less-than-wise pursuits. I understood my need to completely surrender to my Creative Designer, Jesus, because I had made quite a mess of my life up to that point and had no idea how to proceed. Since Jesus designed my body, soul, and spirit, I surrendered to His control and sought to understand exactly the way I was designed, so that I could cooperate, not fight against, the purpose for which I was made.

In speaking to the dominant religious leaders of his time, Matthew records Jesus’ rebuke to them because of their response to the prophet, John the Baptist:

“…you refused to believe him and repent of your sins.”

I believe refusal and rejection continues to be mankind’s biggest problem. We refuse to believe the prophets and messengers sent by God, of whom Jesus is preeminent, and we refuse to acknowledge and repent of our sin.

This is the hardest thing in the world to do: Admit you are wrong. Sometimes we know we are wrong but do not want to admit it. Other times we are wrong, but we fail to perceive that we are wrong. Another word for this is deception.

We are masters at justifying our actions, explaining how we are actually victims, or performing other mental gymnastics to convince ourselves and others that we are NOT WRONG. We like to be right.

Profound MeaningBut until we admit we are wrong, and wrong at a foundational level, we can never receive all that God wants us to have.

It wasn’t all that hard for me to see how wrong my life was after my pleasure-seeking quest, but it was hard to admit it and surrender to Jesus.

Realising that Jesus had wisdom that would actually make my life more meaningful and bring fulfilment, far beyond the pleasure I had been chasing, has been the most profound discovery of my life.

Letting the light of Jesus into my life has guided me to greater wisdom in every single area of life. I’m certainly not perfect, but I am growing and learning every day. The more I release my own ideas and seek the wisdom of all the writings we have in the form of the Bible, the clearer my perspective becomes on all aspects of life today. I continue to gain practical wisdom in all situations through my relationship with Jesus Christ.

My prayer is that others may come to know the wisdom available through Jesus. It involves a step of releasing and letting go, in order to accept what He wants to give you.

Day 26 of Encouraging people to Seek Jesus: 30 ways in 30 days

_DSC7099Becky Hastings, wife, mother, grandmother, passionate follower of Jesus Christ and truth seeker. Facing a world quite different from the one in which I grew up, I seek to research and understand the true route to health, freedom and joyful family living! If you have been helped in any way through my musings, please give glory to God. If you find anything disappointing or offensive or just have a question, please leave a comment below.