{"id":158738,"date":"2016-12-24T10:06:17","date_gmt":"2016-12-24T15:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=158738"},"modified":"2016-12-21T19:02:42","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T00:02:42","slug":"children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/speaklife.org.uk\/hecamedown\/\">Speak Life<\/a>, a Christian organization in the United Kingdom, has released a video and script of a Christmas pageant performed by children with Down syndrome. The video features the mother of a young girl with Down syndrome who talks about how her faith helped change the way she saw her daughter and the possibilities for her life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He Came Down&#8221; shows\u00a0the children dressed in their costumes as Mary, Joseph, shepherds, a donkey, and even a baby with Down syndrome as Jesus. There is also a narrator with Down syndrome who tells the story. Moments from the play are intertwined in the video with the mother sharing her experience.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ArticleAd1\"><!-- \/1011927\/LAN_300_by_250_top_article --><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1473179053567-0\" class=\"ArticleAd1a\"><script>\ngoogletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1473179053567-0'); });\n<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;I know it&#8217;s no one&#8217;s fault. It&#8217;s no one&#8217;s fault someone is born with a disability,&#8221; she says. &#8220;But you still feel like, &#8216;but why did this happen to us?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The video shows the mother and her husband driving daughter Leeva to the pageant and we watch as the children take their places, each one of them showing their excitement and joy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was overwhelmed with grief at the loss,&#8221; the mother remembers about learning of her daughter&#8217;s diagnosis. &#8220;I thought my beautiful\u00a0baby has got Down syndrome and it&#8217;s such a disaster. God didn&#8217;t give me a straightforward answer of why this happened. It just took time for me to realize that God&#8217;s answer wasn&#8217;t so much what was wrong with Leeva\u00a0as much as there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bAhzI6bI5WI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The narrator of the play, a young woman with Down syndrome reads a line from the pageant that can touch the heart of any mother or father who has ever struggled with &#8220;why me?&#8221; and &#8220;why my child?&#8221; \u00a0We often have a different plan than God does, and Mary did too.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mary was speechless. She didn&#8217;t know how these things could have happened but still she bowed,&#8221; says the young woman.<\/p>\n<p>The mother goes on to talk about how she often thinks of Mary and of how she went through with God&#8217;s plan &#8211; the plan that wasn&#8217;t hers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s humble. She&#8217;s calm. She&#8217;s reassured by the fact that everything is going to be okay,&#8221; she explains.<\/p>\n<p>She goes on to say that she now understands that God was with her the entire time, that he suffered with her, but that he gave her &#8220;the most beautiful child&#8221; and she didn&#8217;t need to grieve or feel sorry for her daughter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought she would lack. She&#8217;s not lacking,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p>The children in the video show the no matter what we think of people with disabilities &#8211; whether we pity them or feel that their lives aren&#8217;t fulfilling &#8211; their lives are worthy of living. God created them with purpose and promises, just as he did everyone else. Each person deserves a chance at life, no matter who holds preconceived notions, judgments or fears about them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speak Life, a Christian organization in the United Kingdom, has released a video and script of a Christmas pageant performed by children with Down syndrome. The video features the mother of a young girl with Down syndrome who talks about how her faith helped change the way she saw her daughter and the possibilities for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":158887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[9455],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;It took time for me to realize God&#039;s answer wasn&#039;t so much what was wrong with Leeva as much as there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;It took time for me to realize God&#039;s answer wasn&#039;t so much what was wrong with Leeva as much as there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-24T15:06:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-12-22T00:02:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/he-came-down.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"912\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\"},\"headline\":\"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-24T15:06:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-22T00:02:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/\"},\"wordCount\":495,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Human Interest\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/\",\"name\":\"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-24T15:06:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-22T00:02:42+00:00\",\"description\":\"\\\"It took time for me to realize God's answer wasn't so much what was wrong with Leeva as much as there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.\\\"\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Live Action News\",\"description\":\"Covering Human Rights, Abortion, &amp; Pro-Life Issues\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Live Action\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png\",\"width\":701,\"height\":710,\"caption\":\"Live Action\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/liveaction\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/liveactionorg\/\",\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/LiveActionFilms\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/LiveActionFilms\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\",\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nancy Flanders\"},\"description\":\"Nancy Flanders is Associate Editor for Live Action News. She has 25 years of experience writing and editing. For more than a decade, she has focused her work on pro-life issues through human interest stories and political issues regarding abortion and physician-assisted death as well as research articles and op-eds dismantling the lies of the pro-abortion, pro-death agenda. Her work has appeared in Catholic Digest, Pregnancy Help News, and a variety of other publications.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/author\/nancy\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning","description":"\"It took time for me to realize God's answer wasn't so much what was wrong with Leeva as much as there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning","og_description":"\"It took time for me to realize God's answer wasn't so much what was wrong with Leeva as much as there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/","og_site_name":"Live Action News","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction","article_published_time":"2016-12-24T15:06:17+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-12-22T00:02:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":912,"height":450,"url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/he-came-down.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nancy Flanders","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@liveaction","twitter_site":"@liveaction","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nancy Flanders","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/"},"author":{"name":"Nancy Flanders","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef"},"headline":"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning","datePublished":"2016-12-24T15:06:17+00:00","dateModified":"2016-12-22T00:02:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/"},"wordCount":495,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Human Interest"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/","name":"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-12-24T15:06:17+00:00","dateModified":"2016-12-22T00:02:42+00:00","description":"\"It took time for me to realize God's answer wasn't so much what was wrong with Leeva as much as there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.\"","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-syndrome-bring-nativity-life-show-lives-meaning\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Children with Down syndrome bring Nativity to life, show all lives have meaning"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/","name":"Live Action News","description":"Covering Human Rights, Abortion, &amp; Pro-Life Issues","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization","name":"Live Action","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png","width":701,"height":710,"caption":"Live Action"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction","https:\/\/twitter.com\/liveaction","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/liveactionorg\/","https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/LiveActionFilms\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/LiveActionFilms"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef","name":"Nancy Flanders","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Nancy Flanders"},"description":"Nancy Flanders is Associate Editor for Live Action News. She has 25 years of experience writing and editing. For more than a decade, she has focused her work on pro-life issues through human interest stories and political issues regarding abortion and physician-assisted death as well as research articles and op-eds dismantling the lies of the pro-abortion, pro-death agenda. Her work has appeared in Catholic Digest, Pregnancy Help News, and a variety of other publications.","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/author\/nancy\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158738"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158888,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158738\/revisions\/158888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}