Prayer

The children stare at me with big eyes. Their dark skin is stretched taught over bones sticking out at each joint. “We are hungry”…they plead with me. I can’t describe my feeling of helplessness or despair as I look in to their eyes and realize I have nothing to give them. My heart breaks while my mind searches for a solution; a glimmer of hope- anything to improve the situation.

Then I wake up and realize where I am. These dreams or daydreams seem to persist. 

It has been a question in my mind for a while as to whether I could ever return to my former or a “normal” way of thinking about life after living in among an impoverished people. I’ve also spent a lot of time wondering if I want my thinking to go back to what it was before, or just embrace the new things I’ve learned from poverty. On one hand, it plagues almost everything I do; in decision making, judgments in my mind…. and it often leads to guilt or disgust with myself or with the world around me. On the other hand, it makes me intensely grateful for little things that I never took to much notice of prior to that experience.

I feel like the experience of living in exacerbated poverty is one that is impossible to be accurately communicated through words; it must be experienced for oneself. It involves touching and feeling, embracing the rawness and intense emptiness, tasting and learning things we never expected to learn. Though not an easy endeavor, it is one that for almost anyone who attempts it, it will be incredibly life-changing.

I knew before I decided to come back to the States, that the contrast of being among a people who have so little and a people who have too much would be a disparity my soul would struggle to find peace with. The place this seems most often encountered is with the excess of food.

While most people would consider it a wonderful blessing is having a table full of food (and don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for food and painfully aware of the blessing of having enough food to eat), When I am seated at a table as such, something in me writhes in agony for the privileges that I have here in comparison with the wide chasm of deficiency people experience around the world, specifically those whom I have lived with and grown to love.

 Though I have not found a specific term or definition, I believe my experience in working in so much poverty led me to acquire something of an eating disorder. I have spent time searching and asking to see if this is something that has been clinically diagnosed or labeled as a actual condition- and I’ve come up with almost nothing. It involves the inability to eat any more than just enough, the inability to waste anything; as if somehow with the hopes that my choice to take less and not waste will make someone who is starving, have enough. It’s a strange thought process, which often leaves me wondering if I am going insane or if somehow, I wasn’t blessed with the ability to let go of what the rest of the world saw and moved on from. They moved on, unscathed, while I sit in distress, wanting to do so much and yet feeling so helpless and miserable at my inability to make the distribution of commodities like food more evenly distributed throughout the world.

How in the world does everyone respond to this? Is it possible that I will continue to wrestle with this for the rest of my days on this earth? It seems to me that while there is much that I think I should to let go of, I can’t and somehow and at many points realize that I don’t want to. I can’t seem to find a balance between these two worlds and two lifestyles.  I don’t write these things in search of pity or sympathy. I feel like I’m the last person who deserves that when I am not even the one who is physically starving. In a way, I starve for a solution; for something to ease the suffering. I want a solution for selfish reasons, perhaps, because I want my guilt relieved. More than that I yearn for an answer to the problem of chronic hunger and food insecurity around the world. Obviously, no effort has been completely successful, since it remains a problem on the forefront of the struggles for so many.

My job here in Muncie, involves giving nutrition counseling to the segment of the population which is considered to be “low income”. My patients often fit the stereotypes for this category: obese, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetic, unemployed, depressed, and in general, unmotivated. I feel like such a judgmental, wretched person in noticing trends like this, but I can’t get away from the fact that it is my clientele.  I am employed to use my knowledge and skills to help them improve their health and lifestyle but I find myself so often lacking compassion and feeling the urge to somehow communicate it to people that they have no concept of how good they really have it. I imagine in some ways this job shows God’s creativity and sense of humor, that He would take me from a place of working with people who have nothing and very little chance of having enough, to people who have too much. I can’t imagine any starker contrast in my field, or any wider of a spectrum.

Oh Father, your heart breaks for all people to know you- the rich and poor alike. Forgive me for my harsh thoughts towards people, for my lack of love and understanding. Show me how in the world your glory can be displayed through this. Surely there is a reason why you let our eyes see what they see. Let this wrestling and agony with lack and excess somehow lead me to a greater understanding of your grace towards us. Show me what to do with these feelings- how you want to be glorified in this. Show me what I need to let go of and what you want me to hold on to, for your Name’s sake. Don’t let me move on without learning what you would have me learn through this. You are a holy God who desires the best possible for those who put their trust in you.

World Food Aid

One of the passions of my heart is in the issue of food aid. I have experienced the negative effects of food aid in a very real way...this TIME article was very informative on the issue of food aid:

Food Aid: Hungry For Change

FACING THE FUTURE: Medina Genedo with her daughter Hamdiya Aman. Hamdiya is 2 years old, but poor nutrition has hindered her growth. Half of all Ethiopian children suffer from malnutrition

Photograph for TIME by Colin Campbell

 

Once in a while, we kids growing up in a Washington suburb would try to save the world. Our idealism often took the form of a "can drive" in which we would rescue dusty tins from the back of kitchen cupboards to feed the hungry. I don't recall where the cans went exactly, but world starvation had a very specific face for us: a wide-eyed, big-bellied, fly-covered Ethiopian. Even in our American bubble, we knew that the 1984-85 famine had killed some 1 million Ethiopians. We would do our part by sending them cans of cream of mushroom soup, gefilte fish and Hormel Chili. I never once wondered whether the average Ethiopian owned a can opener.

The Ethiopians waiting for their food rations in the Meskan District of the arid Great Rift Valley look just as I'd imagined: wide-eyed and covered in flies. Many of the children are big-bellied from malnutrition. But the sustenance they receive from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which coordinates roughly half of global food aid, are not cans of Campbell's soup but E.U.- and U.S.- donated sacks of grain and tubs of refined vegetable oil. The two are mixed together to form a nutritious blend designed to bolster childrens' diets in a country where half the children are malnourished. Medina Genedo's daughter is 2 years old but looks half that age, a listless lump taking shallow breaths under her mother's shawl. Two people have already died of hunger in the past few months in Genedo's village, whose crops are often destroyed by baboons. "I want to thank America for this food," she says, holding rations emblazoned with the stars and stripes. "Without it, I worry my daughter will not survive."

Food aid feels good. My classmates understood its visceral satisfaction, as do farmers in Iowa whose corn is used to nourish starving Africans. Last year, WFP coordinated emergency food aid for 73 million people worldwide, with the U.S. contributing 60% of that total. Yet this donated bounty may not be the panacea we imagine. A January report by the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) put the question bluntly: Can food aid do more harm than good? "There's no question that food aid saves millions of lives," says FAO senior economist and report editor Terri Raney. "But we're concerned that it's being asked to do too much, too inefficiently, and that by over-relying on food aid we ignore other solutions that could be more effective."

Nearly a quarter-century after the famine that prompted Live Aid, Ethiopia is still a desperately hungry place. It receives more food aid than any other nation save Sudan. "Other countries like India have graduated from food dependency and are now food donors, so it's fair to ask why Ethiopia is still so food dependent," says Paulette Jones, spokesperson for WFP in Ethiopia. "But when you see a hungry child, it's very hard to say, no, we're not going to give any more."

Still, in a country like Ethiopia, where corruption and tribal tensions are rife, how much food aid actually reaches the neediest? International agencies and donor governments try to monitor the thousands of tons of grain flowing in, and millions of Ethiopians survive thanks to foreign charity. But last year, usaid, the American government arm that coordinates emergency food aid, had just 23 staff members monitoring $1.7 billion in food programs across 55 countries. "I've been to places where starving villagers say they have never received food aid, but then you go to the village chief's house and you see bags of foreign grain stacked up," says the director of a Western aid agency operating in Ethiopia. "In too many cases, we're allowing food aid to strengthen a corrupt politician's power."

Even more troubling is how much money is wasted getting provisions to people like Genedo and her daughter. One-third of food-aid budgets, or roughly $600 million, never reaches the intended recipients and is instead swallowed up by costs in donor countries, according to the oecd. That's because only 15% of donated food is sourced locally, even though plentiful grains may be harvested just over the mountain from famine-stricken areas. Almost all U.S. food aid, by law, must be grown and processed at home. U.S. agribusiness, which receives subsidies for growing such crops, and the U.S. shipping industry profit from the arrangement. But transporting California rice to a rice-growing country like Cambodia makes little sense. When the food finally arrives — often too late to feed those most vulnerable — the influx of foreign products can wreak havoc on the local market, depressing prices just when farmers need income to feed themselves. As an alternative, economists like Nobel laureate Amartya Sen suggest rich countries send cash, which in many cases may flow into needy economies more quickly and efficiently than food aid.

Some donor nations have changed course. Canada now focuses either on funding locally grown crops or arranging direct cash transfers to vulnerable populations. The European Union has also shifted to regional sourcing; less than 10% of its food-aid budget is now reserved for food grown back home.

But since most food aid is donated by the U.S., the system won't change until Washington does. Congress is currently considering allowing up to 25% of the U.S. food-aid budget to be used on local products. But similar reform efforts have failed in the past. In April, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a scathing report on how America underachieves in its attempts to feed the world, noting that the amount of U.S. food aid actually reaching beneficiaries has declined by 43% over the last five years because of escalating transport and administrative costs. "It's all well and good for the American public to feel good about their corn feeding starving people," says Edward Clay, senior research associate with the Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think tank. "But do American taxpayers realize that their money is being used to fund a hugely inefficient enterprise?"

On a broader level, emphasizing food-based charity diverts resources away from equally important issues. "With climate change, the periods between droughts in Africa are getting shorter and shorter," says Beatrice Karanja, who works with Oxfam in Nairobi. "As important as emergency food aid is, we need to focus more on solving the root causes of these problems."

Nevertheless, the first instinct of most governments is still to send bags of grain rather than pursuing longer-term solutions like building roads linking local farming communities with drought-suffering regions. Ethiopia, for example, is one of the largest corn growers in Africa, but poor transportation networks prevent most farmers from selling their crops outside their villages. And workers there fret that a predicted drought this year could trigger another famine. "My daughter has enough food for three months, and I am so grateful," says Genedo, as she lugs her 25-kg sack of grain back home. "But what do I do after that?"

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1628191_1626317_1631905,00.html

 

of late...as it were

I had the privilege this past week of visiting my wonderful sister who is now employed at a Naval base on Andros Island in the Bahamas. What a blessing it was to get to be with her and see what her life is like down there...not to mention the endless, deserted beaches with aqua waves rolling on them.

My sister Shanti is an exceptional person. She is also an incredibly gifted teacher. The kids that she teaches will look back on their time with her and remember it as a time when someone noticed them as a person, accepted them and wanted them to be the best that they possibly could. She has more patience than most people I know, and somehow manages to help kids feel like they are worthwhile, even while she is disciplining them. I respect her ability to teach highly- I would recommend her to any school.

Pennsylvania is beautiful in the fall.

The weekend before last, Daryl and I took a trip to PA for me to meet his family. They proved to be the sweetest, most loving and welcoming people- I felt so at home with them....I told Daryl later that if he changed his mind about wanting to be with me, that i'd still like to keep his family. 

Crazy how life is...how God directs our steps and sets us on a course to something far superior to what we could have dreamed. This past year has been one of some incredible blessings......blessings that came in the form of me not having my way, but God having his way. In Februrary, I was so disappointed that i didn't get in to grad school- the thing i thought was the most perfect match for me. Then I was sure that God took away my dream of grad school and replaced it with a job working in Nepal. When that appeared to not be an immediate option, especially since the visa fell through, I felt so lost, but at the same time so sure that God was directing me to the best that he has for me. Then, somehow, God led me to come back to the US for a while...which was about the last thing i wanted to do, except for wanting to see family and freinds.

So after seemingly crashing all my dreams...the Lord has made a dream come true in bringing and amazing man in to my life. I wish i could somehow describe in words just how incredible this relationship has been. But what i do know, is that it is possible for God to use crazy circumstances to draw us in to His perfect plan...and that He truly does know the desires of our hearts.