A Morning Prayer

We've been back from Belize for half a week now. It was a wonderful experience. Thankyou for all those who supported us. If you still want to you can still send money to help us cause we still need to raise funds for it.

One morning I woke up at 5am to help our wonderful Belizian and Guatemalan cooks make breakfast. We finished pretty quickly so I just sat on the steps of our building and watched the sun come up. The mission house we stayed at was up in the hilly regions of Belize and had a beautiful view out over the trees.



I looked at this sunrise while sipping instant coffee (hey, you're thankful for any coffee at 5 in the morning). I wrote this prayer that I decided to share just to give you an idea of the thoughts in my head.

Please Lord
Let me never become complacent.
Take me and shake my world up. Stretch and challenge me to see more of you, to root out all my sin.
Let grace rule over my life and let your mark of freedom be imprinted on all I do.
Let me not be bound by selfishness, by cultural prejudice.
Let me be broken.
Let crazy adventures come.
Take me to new places and new things but break my heart for the people I leave behind.
Let me never have an easy time leaving but let grace go with me to sooth and comfort.
Let no person be my guide but let Jesus take that position.
Let me fail in my weakness so that I'm reminded to pick up my strength in you.
Let me grasp possessions loosely and be willing to let them slip through my fingers.
Let me remember the worlds hurts and suffering but not be so overwhelmed that I have no joy.
Let me always be reminded of what you did when you died, proclaimed me righteous and set me free.
Let the hope and joy from that fill up my life.
Let me seek after truth and never stop.
Let me draw near to you and I'm told you'll draw near to me.
When I go through the Valley of Baca let me make it a place of streams.
Let me go from strength to strength (Ps. 84).

Malnutrition and World Hunger

"Choosing a simplified, modest lifestyle does not mean we are choosing boredom, monotone or continual penny-pinching. It does mean choosing creativity over extravagant waste and generosity over covetousness." -Christine Pohl (Friendship at the Margins)

An example of what we learn in our Nutrition class.

Hunger: an uneasy pain caused by lack of food; the want or scarcity of food in a country

Malnutrition: a lack of some or all of the nutritional element needed for human health

There are 925 million hungry people in the world. (We do not know how large the number is of people that are malnourished)
One in seven people do not get enough food to be healthy.
One in four children in developing countries are underweight

Hunger causes lack of energy, slowing down physical and mental activities. A hungry mind cannot concentrate.
Hunger weakens the immune system causing sickness.
Hunger is the number one health risk in the world. (stats taken from www.wfp.org)
Does the world produce enough food to feed everyone?

YES. World agriculture produces enough food to provide at least 2,700 calories per person per day. The problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase enough food.

Hunger is caused by
1. Poverty-unequal income distribution and lack of resources
2. Harmful economic systems- control over resources is based on military, political and economic power that typically ends up in the hands of minority groups who live well, while those at the bottom barely survive.
3. Hunger and poverty are a vicious circle. Hunger causes poverty because it reduces the productivity of people. People become sick and are not able to work, or are malnourished leading to lower energy levels and mental impairment.
4. Climate changes- increasing drought, flood and changing climate patterns (stats taken from www.worldhunger.org)

Obesity is a type of malnutrition
In the USA:
One-third of adults are obese.
About 12.5 million (17%) of children ages 2-19 are obese.
In the Southern states and Appalacia area obesity is the most prevalent.

Health problems closely related to obesity are:
Heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers, high blood pressure, stroke, respiratory problems, infertility or difficult with pregnancy, and others.

The medical costs of obesity (including preventive, diagnostic, and treatment costs as well as income lost because of decreased productivity) were $147 BILLION in 2008. (Stats taken from www.cdc.gov)

What do we do with this?

Live modestly.
Eat only what you need.
North Americans consume way more calories, protein, sugars and processed food than they need.
Take care of your bodies because Jesus Christ calls you to a healthy, whole, fulfilled lifestyle.
Many will say that what we eat in America doesn't affect those in other countries. They have problems that are beyond our control; political, environmental. In a way this may be true but

"Life is like a huge spider web so that if you touch it anywhere you set the whole thing trembling"-Fredrick Buccher (The Hungering Dark)

One person makes a difference; one family choosing modesty and rejecting gluttony, not just in food but in what money is spent on and what time is filled up with. (More-with-Less)

Are you a glutton?

I know I have been.
If that is you...you can change. Jesus Christ gives freedom and wisdom to make choices that are going to bring you health and wholeness in all areas of your life.

Simplicity and peace lay at your fingertips.

P. S.
I bought this journal right before I went to HEART to remind myself to accept the blessings that God gives me; accept them gratefully, with graceful arms wide open, ready for anything.

The Wilderness

To transition from "Phase I" (no electricity or contact with the outside world) to "Phase II" (being able to leave the village, use electricity and the internet, but still not in our cabins), we went on a Wilderness Trip. We canoed 20 miles total, a leisurely trip and camped out on the side of the river overnight. A good lesson that we heard in one of our classes was that as a missionary you have to have fun. Take time to enjoy life otherwise you'll get burnt out, and then you won't even be able to do the job that God has given you.

Carnage

"Hunger, exploitation or need may be part of someone's experience, but it does not define them." -Christine Pohl

I think it was the third week we were here. We had an exhausting week due to three classes a day while continuing all our regular chores and responsibilities. To end the week off we got up early on Saturday morning and went out to the butchering station. There we slaughtered and cleaned about 250 Tilapia. I'd never cleaned a fish before and its was surprisingly fun. We were all so tired and worn out but we worked together for four hours cleaning those fish. Sometimes we just have to do what needs to be done regardless of if we feel like doing it. The fish were ready so we had to do the job.

"Carnage"

"Innards"

What is Your Treasure?

"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." -Matthew 6:21




Tomorrow we leave for Belize. We go to learn, not to teach. We're excited and I'm sure we'll come back changed and full of ideas for God's glory.

The Routine

"I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me." -Psalm 3:5

Each morning we wake and are ready to work at 7am. We are divided into groups of 5 people who have different tasks. Every week our tasks change. One group feeds and takes care of our animals. We have goats, chickens, ducks, and rabbits. The first week we were here five baby goats were born and one small goat who had been sick died.



Here's a momma goat and her newborn baby.



Me and a baby.


One of the interns, Josh, showed us how to skin a goat. And one of the guys is in the process of making a drum out of the goat skin.





One of the groups takes care of the garden and fish. We have community gardens, three massive fish tanks, a green house and now an urban garden that need to be tended.

Entrance to the gardens


Community gardens


Fish tanks


One of the groups makes the breakfast meal overseen by our kitchen manager, Sarah.

The last group does what we call "Appropriate Technology" which involved jobs like building fences and fixing roads.

After labs from 7-8 we eat breakfast. After breakfast we do chores depending on which group we're in we clean bathrooms, showers, dishes, the classroom and take out recycling and compost. At 10am we typically have a 2 hr class. Lunch is at noon followed by free time until another class from 2-4. At 4:30 we have labs again for an hour. Finally we eat dinner. After dinner we have free time. Normally we have Animal Husbandry from 6:30-8:30pm on Wednesdays.

The work we do is not usually too difficult. The most physically taxing thing I've done so far is plant a soybean field. My group planted it in the second week we were here and we were physically tired. Getting up at 7 and going straight to work is against many of our normal routines, but it stretches us and teach us the value of hard work.

I Was Hungry

I was hungry,
and you formed a humanities group and discussed my hunger.
Thank you.

I was imprisoned,
and you crept off quietly to your chapel in the suburbs and prayed for my release.

I was naked,
and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick,
and you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless,
and you preached to me of the shelter of the love of God.

I was lonely,
and you left me alone to pray for me.

You seem so holy, so close to God
But I am still very hungry
and lonely
and cold.

-George McLeod

Our Lives

"Voluntary ignorance is as dangerous as it is easy" -Chris Heuertz

Something that has crossed my mind in the past month:

We have a choice; to learn or to ignore, to think for ourselves with creativity or let our cultures determine us, to let injustice and immorality seep into our lives or to stand up for those who are innocent and deal justly with people near and far from us. I wonder what we are letting slip by us as we choose to ignore people and situations around us. I pray for open eyes and heart to see what matters in this world.

Living a voluntarily "deprived" lifestyle; a commitment to simplicity, conservation, resourcefulness and moderation has impacted me through and through. I will divulge more on this later. But first let me introduce our lives to you.

We live in the subtropics. In rustic cabins, wood with screens. No door knobs. This is our cabin.





It's name is Amani, which means "Peace". All the cabins are named "Peace" in a different language. What a beautiful testament to a life lived next to Jesus Christ. Peaceful, just right. We have no AC or electricity in our cabins. We've learned to live with the uncomfortable heat and will learn to live in the uncomfortable cold as well.

These are our outhouses. They get cleaned at least once a day.







This is our dining room where we eat together as a community. For first month we were not allowed to use the lights inside. We have a gas stove inside but we also have a "primitive" cooking area out back where we cooked many of our meals over a fire during the first month.



Our meals for the month of September were mostly international and meant to stretch us. We ate smaller portions than we were used to, not snacking in between meals and were exposed to tastes that were foreign to us. The guys often went to bed hungry. Breakfasts were often meals that would be more appropriate for lunch in America, such as Hatian spaghetti. This is a Kenyan dish, sweet potato porridge.

A Heart Experience

Here I am, in Florida. It's amazing how following God takes you to places you'd never have the courage to go yourself and paths you'd never have the strength to hewn out before you. Tawa and I are at HEART Institute in Lake Wales, Florida getting a minor in International Community Development. I'm writing this for those CIU students who are interested, to let them know this is a jewel of a program, which shouldn't slip through the cracks. And for all those who like to see and hear about the lives of their friends through the internet, its for you too.