World Hunger Week

I came across this article thanks to CNN's website today, and thought I would post the main text of it because it is so important. It also references Haiti, a country my childhood church has significant ties to, and that I someday very much would like to visit.

AS CHILDREN STARVE, WORLD STRUGGLES FOR SOLUTION
By John Blake
CNN

(CNN) -- Some mothers choose what their children will eat. Others choose which children will eat and which will die.

A Haitian boy begs for food. One child dies from hunger every six seconds, an aid agency says.



Those mothers forced to make the grim life-or-death choices are the impoverished women Patricia Wolff, executive director of Meds & Food for Kids, encounters during her frequent trips to Haiti.

Wolff says Haitians are so desperate for food that many mothers wait to name their newborns because so many infants die of malnourishment. Other Haitian mothers keep their children alive by parceling out food to them, but some make an excruciating choice when their food rationing fails, she says.



"It's horrible. They have to choose among their children," says Wolff, whose nonprofit group was formed to fight childhood malnutrition. "They try to keep them alive by feeding them, but sometimes they make the decision that this one has to go."

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. declared in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech that "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies." Four decades later, King's wish remains unfulfilled. The global food market's shelves are getting bare, hunger activists say -- and it will get worse.

Food riots erupted across the globe this year in countries such as Egypt and India. Food pantries in the United States also warned that they were running out of food because of unprecedented demand. The news from the World Food Programme is even grimmer: A child dies of hunger every six seconds, and hunger now kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

The end of food?

Wolff thinks hunger can be conquered. Her group produces "Medika Mamba," energy dense, peanut butter food that's designed to ensure Haitian children survive childhood. Medika Mamba is easy to make, store, preserve and distribute, she says.

"It just takes the will to do it," she says of eliminating hunger. "Look at what we did for Wall Street. We didn't have enough money for infrastructure, schools, but all of a sudden, we had all of this money for Wall Street."

Raj Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System," says the right to food should be seen as a human right. But, he says, powerful corporate food distributors control too much of the world's food supply to ensure a robust global food supply.

Patel says "2008 was a record year in terms of harvest. There's more food per person in 2008 than there's ever been in history. The problem is not food, but how we distribute it."

Other causes for the rise in global hunger have been documented. They include:

• Surging oil costs have made it more expensive to harvest, fertilize, store and deliver food.

• The rise in droughts and hurricanes worldwide has wiped out crops and made farming more difficult.

• The world is running out of the raw materials -- water, oil, good farmland -- needed to keep the food system intact.

"A lot of people have begun to understand at various levels that the food system, as it is, can't go on," says Paul Roberts, author of "The End of Food."

Every time an American bites down on a steak or hamburger, they're contributing to global hunger, Roberts says. As other countries become more affluent, they're copying our meat-heavy diet. The problem: It takes so much grain and other resources to produce meat, he says.

"If the rest of the world were to eat like we do, the planet would collapse," Roberts says. "There's been this unspoken assumption that the rest of the world won't eat meat like we do. That doesn't go over well in countries like China."

Fixing our food system would be similar to weaning ourselves of our addiction to oil, Roberts says. It's going to require innovation, heavy business involvement and changes in public policy.

People are going to have to find ways to grow food with less fertilizer and water, and use less energy to store and transport food, he says.

Much of this innovation will have to be driven not just by activist and aid workers, but by savvy business people, he says.

"It's going to have to be profitable or the market won't be interested in it," Roberts says. "And if the market isn't interested in it, it's not going to happen."

In the meantime, Wolff offers some of her own solutions. She says the practice of big foreign aid agencies shipping in food to poor countries like Haiti needs to be modified. Food has become too expensive to produce, ship and store, she says.

"You can't count on big aid agencies showing up to save everybody," she says. "Not everybody can do it, and when they do it, it's not soon enough and not long enough."

She suggests that more groups teach local farmers in poor places how to produce their own crops. In Haiti, for example, her group employs 22 Haitians who make Medika Mamba and teaches other farmers how to grow crops for the mixture.

"Instead of throwing fish in the crowd, we should be teaching people how to fish," she says.

Until that day takes place, Wolff, who is a pediatrician in St. Louis, Missouri, will continue to make her trips to Haiti, where mothers are forced to make their grim choices.

"It's the most difficult thing I've ever done," she says. "You realize how absolutely blessed you are by the fate of your soul coming down the chute in the United States of America," she says. "You wonder: Why did this happen to me and not to them?' ''

Seattle buses

So, today marked my 13th straight working day taking the bus to and from my job at a downtown accounting firm in Seattle. My bus ride is easy (20 minutes, no transfers), and the buses come pretty promptly and often. Its actually been one of the more enjoyable parts of my day, as I get 40 minutes each day to people watch, observe, sit quietly, eavesdrop, etc.



That said, today it finally dawned on me that the bus is awkward. Kind of like elevator awkward, except much longer lasting. I climbed on the 4:02 pm bus from downtown, and it was one of those really long 3 sets of wheels ones. I sat in the center (where the middle turns - i am not so seasoned a rider that I don't still think this is pretty cool!), and 3 people sat down soon afterward in the cool turning-center-thingy with me. We were facing each other, and about close enough that if you put a card table down between us we easily could have played hearts (or Cribbominoes).



Well, none of them made eye contact! They pretended each of the rest of us wasn't there! Then I began to look around, and listen, and notice that the bus was silent, and most people had a blank stare on their face, or else were sleeping or reading, or what have you. We are all crammed into a small space, many of us touching, and no contact. Is this how we were designed? I don't think so! I think we are supposed to be relational, and interact as human beings. THe people on the bus today looked dead. I seriously only caught one person's eye on a bus with probably 100 people (and I was trying HARD!).

I will say that a man named Jose (the one who did make eye contact) defied the mold. He was intrigued by my curiosity and open staring (or something), and he crossed the imaginary card table space to sit next to me when my seat partner (who absolutely refused to look my way) got up and left. He sat down and introduced himself in broken English. He's from El Salvador, and could only speak a few sentences to me (unfortunately, I don't speak Spanish though I'm becoming more interested each day.) How is it that this man, for whom communication is so difficult in our country, had the energy and interest in speaking with a fellow rider what little he could, when so many of my compatriots who were born speaking my language did not even care to smile?

How does this happen? What in our society causes that many people, on a day in and day out basis, to try their hardest to pretend they are alone on a bus so clearly filled with people? Are we so maxed out by our jobs, our families, our busy lives, that to strike up a conversation with someone else, or even to offer a friendly smile as they sit down next to you closer than you'd ever sit next to a relative in the comfort of your own living room, requires too much effort?

Anyway, those were my musings today. The rest of this month (which marks a job switch, so I'm not sure how much bus riding I'll be doing after it), I may just make it my goal to talk to one person (or at least catch their eye long enough to smile!) each ride. That would be a potential 20 people I could encourage, smile at, or get to know a little who likely live and/or work in my neighborhood. I'll keep you posted, and try to stay out of trouble! :)

A day for the history books...

Well, probably every one who blogs is blogging about this topic, so I certainly don't feel original or creative in writing about the election, but it is so stinkin' blog worthy!

I voted a week and a half ago (kind of anti-climactic in hindsight) and was glad for the opportunity, but didn't think a whole lot of it. Today, as I heard people on the bus claim they wouldn't go to work tomorrow if Obama did not win they'd be so depressed, I secretly scoffed at their fervor. I mean, come on: really, what is going to be so different tomorrow than today? Nothing. Even one year from now, will those people's lives be radically different? Even a little different because of who our president will be? Not likely...

So, I got home, and (still eager to see that Obama won) checked it out online to find that in fact he had! I was excited, but come on: moderately so, right? And who doesn't feel just the slightest bit bad for McCain, who poured his heart and soul into his campaign and who really did have a lot of good qualities, and who honestly believes he could bring important change and good things to the office just like Obama does?

Well, I couldn't bring myself to watch McCain's concession speech, its too sad, but I could watch Obama's. And I cried! For real! Who cries at these things, when they feel the way I did on the bus? I realized that the emotion gripping me as they played the big music and panned the crowd of 10s of thousands, was not for the change to come, but for the change that is. Look at us! We were still passing civil rights laws while the generations voting were alive and well. We have come so far in so little time, to be able to elect a non-white, non-full-European-background person to the presidency. And its not even a close race!!

As Obama said, all around the world people are watching. My friend Brienne in the Peace Corp in Tanzania said that the Tanzanians are partying because Obama won! What!? How crazy! But the world can see in our president a more accurate depiction of our country. We are not all white, or black, or hispanic, or any other race, but a true melting pot. We are learning how to meld all that together to be one unified country, and we made a statement today. Yes, Obama will bring change, I believe good change, but he represents to me that we are already changed, and indeed are willing to change as a country. That is what is so hopeful. That IS worth crying over.

A Sweet Sunday...

Today, Susan and I decided we would try out a new church in our very diverse and vibrant neighborhood of Seattle. We headed out to the local Lutheran church, only to find a wonderful congregation of roughly 70 people who meet together every week. The gospel choir made me cry, as I saw the face of Unity staring back at me. These people just got it. Their choir was made up of about 8-9 people of several cultural backgrounds: African American, Filipino, Caucasian, etc. They sang "Just as I am" with such raw belief and the knowledge that all of them, just as they are, are loved by God radically, no matter race, culture, language, etc. After working so hard to promote the message of unity and peace in the world-wide church over the past year on New Dawn, this was like a sweet gift of a morning to see it personified by a small church body in a very diverse neighborhood.

After church got out (2 hours later - they didn't exactly follow the 1 hour rule most Lutheran churches abide by so strictly), and we'd participated in social hour at the specific request of the pastor, we went for a run through the neighborhood. The leaves are SO pretty, and we took a new route that looped us through some beautiful park before depositing us at the bottom of a classic HUGE Seattle hill (which we conquered, thank you very much!)

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering the Fremont market (I bought some recycled yarn to knit with once I finish the scarf I'm currently working on. Projected completion date: October 2011. Clearly I have a lot of vision without a lot of skills in this new hobby), and then we shopped at the Asian market in our neighborhood to pick up a few key things. I found Jackfruit and SkyFlakes - two favorites from the Philippines and was in heaven! Susan indulged my excitement and even purchased my SkyFlakes for me as my treat. :)

We made dinner and listened to music, I got to catch up on the phone with an old friend, and I realized I can get used to this "living in the moment" thing. Today was pretty amazing if I think over all the cool moments we had.

Now

So, I've been reading Brennan Manning's Ruthless Trust and very much experiencing growing pains while I do. He writes such using simple concepts my mind can easily wrap itself around, yet my actions and my heart are not too good at following his oh so amazing logic. I am currently attempting more avidly than I may ever have before to be present in the moment I am in, and not look ahead at what is to come or back at what was. This is especially difficult coming off a year that was more amazing than any before it. How can I trust that things will get even better? I simply must. And part of that is living today, not yesterday. So, here is one of my favorite quotes from the book...

"There is only now. Thus Jesus counsels, 'Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will wear.' Instead, Jesus says, 'Look at the birds'. After instructing us not to have a hissy fit about what may or may not happen tomorrow, he adds a bit of dark humor: 'Today's trouble is enough for today.'

"One of the fringe benefits of being Now/here is freedom from concern about our spiritual condition. Being in the now removes us from endless and fruitless self-analysis. Moreover, in the absence of self-observation, guilt and shame mysteriously disappear. Removed from the sphere of our feelings, thoughts, and analyses, we are free to hear the music of what is happening. Lost in Now/here, we are found in the infinity of the eternal Now."

I love this thought, and have discovered how important it is. He goes on to say that this does not preclude ever planning or reflecting on life, which is responsible behavior, but never at the expense of escaping from Now/here. Whenever I catch myself gripped with fear of what the future may or may not hold, or with regret of what I wish had happened in the past, I have begun to focus on whatever is in front of me. Maybe it is the beautiful fall leaves, maybe it is a delicious bite of food I'm blessed to have, maybe it is a very dear friend who will cry my tears with me, maybe it is the symphony of rain and wind playing through the trees on Seattle's streets, and maybe it is simply my Father trying to tell me again and again that no matter what I might be going through, I am loved. I AM loved. Now.

Oregon Coast Weekend

So, I spent the weekend at the Oregon coast with 17 high school kids and a few great friends on retreat! We tootled around Seaside, played with the sand, sang and played guitar under the stars with the moonlit waves before us, and spent lots of small group time talking through the hurt and pain each of us carries hidden beneath the surface. It was a great weekend, some great ministry happened, and by the end I was wondering why our theme had to be "Life hurts, God heals" and not something lighter, because the burdens these teenagers face are much heavier than anything I've ever personally experienced. But, in all honesty, I was so glad God had me there this weekend.

Here are some fun pix. Seven or so of us did our best to disguise ourselves Sunday afternoon and hid around downtown Seaside while the rest of the group scavenged for us! It was pretty hilarious!



In other news, your friend Jenny now has a job! I'm employed, even if its only an internship and currently only a one month commitment on the company's part - I did say I wanted temporary, so there's no complaining, especially given the state of the economy today. Also, I'm starting to fill our seminary applications. Whoa. That's intense. My dear friend Chris Lyons was a great mentor to me yesterday, though, and really gave me some good things to think about regarding seminaries and denominations. I am so thankful to have such dear people in my life helping me find the right direction, when I feel there are so many possible directions to take.

Moving slowly

So, life is moving along rather slowly as I still don't have a job, and spend most of my days in an easy but not-too-difficult routine of waking up and reading the news online in front of a bowl of Special K, and then usually play (and win) a few rounds of Word Twist before bringing up the Colbert Report from the previous night to watch online while cleaning up the kitchen.

I often go for a walk, find a coffee shop, or make a cup of Americano and then read the Bible, some books on pastoring and seminary, or continue my knitting until Sus gets home and we go for a run around our neighborhood. The evenings are more fun and we either meet up with people, have people over, or spend them cooking and talking and drinking wine. While I am more than ready to be employed and not have to fill my days so lazily, this time of rest has been incredibly blessed. God is teaching me and moving me to dream big about the future, not to hold back by what seems like a safe or secure idea, but to trust Him no matter what and think about what He might desire for me.

Don't worry, a job IS in the works, I've been also researching seminaries, catching up with old friends, and doing various other important things with my time, but learning how to rest, not to find worth in doing but in simply loving, being loved and living, how to trust... that is a valuable and priceless lesson I have the great opportunity to learn during these weeks. I'm reading Brennan Manning's Ruthless Trust right now, and his first chapter on how to trust says we need to live gratefully. Being thankful for anything and everything we have, knowing there is a loving God watching over us, who has numbered the hairs on our head and who knows what we need before we ask - this is part of trusting Him to provide good things, even if they don't seem good at the time.

So I am intent on being grateful, even when the unemployed single life seems burdensome, because I know God is good and I trust Him even today.

Its Fall!

I love this time of year. The wind is up today and the leaves are beginning to turn, its chilly and I'm wearing a coat that is probably a little overly warm for the weather just because I'm excited to need one at all. After spending much of the last year in summery weather, I am so excited to get to spend the fall in Seattle. This is bad, but I'm already looking forward to holiday drinks at Starbucks and wearing scarfs.



In honor of the change in weather, I even picked up a new habit: knitting! Ok, I'm SUPER slow, and concentrating so hard on such small things as needles kind of makes me nauseous, so don't be too impressed yet. I think I've knitted about 9 rows of a scarf that is all fall colors, though, and feeling pretty smug about my new "skill".



These are a few pics of the beauty of the season (from Camp Timberlee in Michigan when we were there last fall). Make sure you breathe it in and enjoy!

Middle

The following are some slightly modified lyrics (to flow a little better for the reader) to a song by Casting Crowns called "Somewhere in the Middle". As many sleepless nights have found me asking the big questions about life and fighting between what is easy and what is right, this song sort of pegs me exactly. I'm not who I used to be or who i want to be and should there even be a middle ground? Anyway, I wanted to post the lyrics here. They are pretty thoughtful, and full of the dichotomies I seem to be currently struggling against.

Somewhere between the hot and the cold, between the new and the old, between who I am and who I used to be...

Somewhere between the wrong and the right, between the darkness and the light, between who I was and who You're making me, somewhere in the middle you'll find me.

Just how close can I get, Lord, to surrendering, without losing all control?

Fearless warriors in a picket fence, reckless abandon wrapped in common sense, deep water faith in the shallow end and we are caught in the middle.
With eyes wide open to the differences between the God we want and the God who is: will we trade our dreams for His or are we caught in the middle?

Somewhere between my heart and my hands, between my faith and my plans, between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves...

Somewhere between a whisper and a roar, between the altar and the door, between contented peace and always wanting more, somewhere in the middle You'll find me.

Just how close can I get, Lord, to surrendering, without losing all control?

Lord, I feel You in this place and I know You're by my side, loving me even on these nights when I'm caught in the middle.

A long hiatus...

I have no idea who still will even read this, after such a long break from posting, but as I think and pray about the next steps in my life, I decided blogging might be a fun way to keep people updated and simultaneously think "aloud" and process.

So, a little catch up. A month ago (tomorrow) I officially ended all commitments with Youth Encounter, after a year of traveling. After we left the Philippines, we went onto Taiwan and spent three very involved weeks working with schools and churches in and around the city of Chiayi. I will include some of the most meaningful pix at the end of this post so that you can see a little taste of where we were. After our 3 weeks in Taiwan, we were on a plane back to the States. The time went so fast, yet I was somewhat surprisingly ready to be home and excited to see family. Saying goodbye to the Philippines was harder than saying goodbye to Southeast Asia in general.

Our summer was spent working at a camp called "Lake Wapogasset Lutheran Bible Camp, Inc." in Amery, Wisconsin (a small farming community). It was stretching and difficult and amazing all at the same time to be at camp. I missed my New Dawn teammates and the closeness we'd shared over the previous 8 months as we were thrust into a much larger community. On the other hand, I embraced the new friends and immensely enjoyed my role as a "team leader" of college-aged counselors at the camp. Investing in people was my main focus, and I found my niche. I loved it, as hard as the transition was being back in the States and trying to re-adjust to life here.

We had a brief final visit to Hong Kong in the middle of July to put on an English Bible Camp for 70 youth in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hong Kong (ELCHK). It was a wonderful experience to travel back to Asia and meet up with friends, as well as to be have concentrated time with New Dawn for those precious days. What a cool opportunity to be a counselor in a cabin with high-school aged youth from Hong Kong - I learned so much from them about their culture, and what its like to grow up in a predominantly non-Christian environment. I appreciated their perspective, and wished we could have stayed longer.

So, that pretty much brings me to the end of the summer. My family came out for the homecoming concert, and I bawled as my team and I sang together for the last time, realizing that making music together was one of the most precious and unique opportunities we'd had, that I so often took for granted. I will never forget the joy of getting to sing and play with Luke, Carly, Dave and Joshua.

Now, I'm back on the West Coast, and trying to tread carefully, intentionally. I don't want to do anything because its easy or safe anymore. I want to live with integrity as the person I have become through all my experiences, especially those the last year brought to me. While accounting is something I can easily and successfully do, I have little assurance that that is the vocation God is calling me to in order to best love His world with my gifts. This blog, from here on out, will be even more appropriately about my "new dawn" as I start from ground zero once again, trying to discern where I am called, and what I want my life to be about.

Here are some pix from my remaining time overseas. They are some of my favorites, and only a very, very small sampling of the thousands I have filed away to remind me of this fascinating dream year.


Me trying to be cool with some friends in Batangas.

Mt. Pulag congregation group photo!

Living statues in Taiwan outside a Masul temple we visited.

My cabin in Hong Kong this summer - what amazing girls!

Chatting with the Chiayi girls

Spending a day holding babies in a Manila orphanage. Close to heaven.

One of our young Filipino friends trying his hand at the djembe.

Two darling girls in San Roque, Mindanao

Singing our hearts out in a Chiayi classroom.

We hiked to the top of the Philippines' 2nd tallest mountain: Mt. Pulag. That's a new dawn behind us, which we awoke at 2:30 in the morning to catch. Incredible.