I am in a place that the Lord has made. Sitting in a chair on my balcony, waiting patiently for a meteorite shower to commence, I spy the single light on top of the mountain in front of me. I am in Whistler, Canada, known in the summertime for its world class mountain biking and in the winter for its sought-after ski slopes. Having visited over 10 countries, this mountain town less than a day’s drive from home remains one of my very favorite places in the world. Life here seems idyllic, especially for the many mountain sport enthusiasts who inhabit this place. For me, Whistler is also special as I come here to enjoy nature, relax and recharge. The vibe in town is friendly, adventurous and open, plus God’s creation is always in full song. Just being here puts me at ease.

Over the years I have paddled the rivers, walked amongst the tree tops and dangled in the gondolas, but this is the first year that as I have walked out of the grocery store I have noticed collection bins for the local food bank (which is not to say they were not there before.) Earlier in the week my mom told me about a sign she saw at the library, so, my ELCA World Hunger brain intrigued, I Googled the local food bank as well as the local library to learn about the community’s social service programs. A local non-profit society provides over 20 programs from the food bank to a thrift center…pretty cool! As far as the collection bins I saw, while the local groceries are collecting donations, the library is also creatively involved. A periodic program called Food for Fines allows library fines to be paid in non-perishable food donations which go to the local food bank. (One food item equals up to $2.00 in fine repayment.) In a town masked by adventure, fun and extraordinary mountain homes, hunger still exists. For me, it makes this place that much more real, and serves as a reminder that hunger and poverty are all around.

~Lana Lile

About three months ago, as I finished up my senior year of college and neared graduation, I was feeling the crazy stress, excitement, uncertainty, and busyness that accompany the end of the school year. I was also feeling them to a higher degree, I think, because it would be my final end-of-the-school-year experience (as far as I knew…but that’s another story!)

Anyway, in part because of the stress and busyness that accompanied that time, but also for many other reasons, I decided that I wanted to cultivate the habit of Sabbath rest. Beginning with the first week of the summer, I committed to taking one day a week as a true Sabbath. For me that meant taking a break from chores, shopping, exercising and anything else that I considered work, and most importantly, taking a complete Sabbath from technology for the day.

I shared my intentions with my family and close friends, which led to some great discussions about what it means to observe the Sabbath, what spending time with God looks like for us, and what things in our lives we felt were life-taking versus life-giving. I took up the practice with wonderful support from them, and great excitement on my part.

It went really well! For a while. I truly thought that I was beginning a no-turning-back lifestyle change. I figured once I starting working Sabbath rest into the rhythm of my life, and experiencing the wonderful benefits of rest, reordering my priorities, and letting my life be shaped by intentional time with God, I wouldn’t be able to give it up. But the summer has a busyness all its own. It’s one of a different character than the school year, but a busyness all the same. It became easier and easier for me to water down my Sabbath commitment (oh, I’ll only check my email once, or, I’ll just have to skip Sabbath this Sunday) as the summer progressed.

One of the things that excites and inspires me about being here at ELCA World Hunger is that there is so much good work going on, and so much good work to do. It’s energizing and fills me with hope. Learning more about  the root causes of hunger and poverty and starting to engage in work to fight hunger and poverty makes me want to learn more, do more, and work harder. It’s awesome.

Naturally my full-time internship has contributed to the busyness of my summer. But I’m not placing blame or pointing to one source for the watering down of my Sabbath commitment, or saying that my goal of observing the Sabbath this summer has been a complete failure — I have absolutely felt sustained and nourished and see small, cool shifts in my thinking and my habits. The point of this blog is to create some public accountability as I reaffirm my commitment and begin again to intentionally and truly cultivate that restful rhythm one day of every week.

It’s also to explore the idea of resting in God, trusting and placing faith in God’s action, and surrendering fear, anxiety and control in the midst of our work against hunger and poverty. So I see this as a jumping off point. I’m going to keep thinking about this, and welcome your thoughts and experiences, too! I’ll check in with you all about how my Sabbath-keeping is going in a few weeks, and how it’s affecting my continued commitment to fight hunger and poverty.

Julie

        One exciting and educational part of my internship at ELCA World Hunger involves reading other blogs and seeing what is going on in the world. One blog I have been reading is GiveWell, a nonprofit organization that evaluates charities and their effectiveness. They evaluate not only financial aspects of charities, but also the effect these charities have on the people they are serving. This blog, along with others, has made me think about good intentions when it comes to giving, and whether or not having good intentions is all it takes to alleviate hunger and poverty.

            You may have heard of 1 Million Shirts, an organization that has received a lot of attention lately in the aid-blogosphere lately. This organization aimed to send a million t-shirts to people in Africa who live in poverty. This seems like a project that is loaded with good intentions, as donating clothing to someone can provide someone with a basic need. However, the aid community responded adamantly that this was not an effective way to give. One point brought up by many was that most people in Africa do indeed have access to shirts. Another point was that by providing shirts, we hurt the textile industries in Africa, which in turn hurts people’s livelihoods. This is an example of how good intentions do not always lead to a good outcome.

            When I studied abroad in India last fall, we talked a lot about aid and development and got to see it in action. Sometimes we saw great successes. Other times, we saw good intentions gone awry. We saw projects imposed on the impoverished that although they seemed like a good idea, either did not benefit the people or actually harmed them. Because I have seen development projects’ good intentions not leaving a positive impact, one of my favorite aspects of ELCA World Hunger is its model of accompaniment. ELCA World Hunger’s development work is done through existing relationships with people across the globe, and thus, World Hunger dollars go toward what the people want and need instead of being decided for them from thousands of miles away. The good intentions of ELCA World Hunger’s supporters do not go to waste; they go to good.

            Good intentions are important. Without them, so many projects that do good in the world would cease to exist. However, simply having good intentions is not enough to ameliorate hunger and poverty. Good intentions must be coupled with an understanding of the issues, along with relationships with the people that good intentions are aimed for.

Allie Stehlin

I have recently taken up barefoot running. I realize that this may sound silly, but I actually do run on the road in my bare feet…and it is amazing! Throughout my youth and into college I played multiple sports, the majority of which required lots of running. The truth is, however, I do not really like to run. I like to dribble, attack, shoot, fake out, ace, volley and get dizzy from cartwheels, running is simply a by-product. There is just one problem with that, now that I am out of school sports running is the simplest and cheapest way to get my cardio exercise while also enjoying the outdoors. So between pilates classes I have done my best to gut out a few miles. Recently, I began to hear more and more about the barefoot running movement, and after an informative YouTube video and an encouraging brother prodding me on, I gave it a shot. Glorious! While I am only about a month in and I do not go every day, I have easily worked myself up to over 2 miles. When I am done my knees do not hurt, my breath is not heavy and I often barely break a sweat. In fact, I want to go again. So I ask myself, “Why? What’s different?” Here’s my personal opinion for my personal situation: it feels natural. Essentially, that is the simplest answer ever, and it makes me feel somewhat silly to think I would be doing something that did not feel natural in the first place. When I think more about natural things, I skip easily to food.

I was watching a TED talk a couple of days ago about the relationship that cities and their citizens have to the food that they consume. Also to how suburban living impacts food and where it comes from. The woman giving the talk mentioned how people rarely smell their fruit at the market anymore to see if it would be good to eat. I know that I certainly do not, but I think I should start. Why? Well, because it feels natural. Much like running barefoot changes my posture and foot strike in such a way that my body reacts to running as a more natural movement, smelling my fruit and being aware of its origins feels more natural as well. I know that I need to improve my relationship to my food. I want to be sure that what I put into my body feels like it belongs there, just like my feet belong on the ground.

~ Lana Lile

This week I have the awesome privilege of hanging out with about 80 kids at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Bethlehem Lutheran is using the ELCA World Hunger curriculum Taking Root: Hunger Causes, Hunger Hopes for its Vacation Bible School this summer.

I have lots of great memories from attending and helping out with VBS at the church I grew up in. The days were fun and full of energy, songs, Bible stories, crafts, games, and above all learning about God. This week has been no different. What’s even more exciting to me about VBS this week, however, is that while we’re learning about God we’re also learning about hunger and poverty, and how God calls us to envision and work for a world without hunger.

Anyone who’s ever been to a Vacation Bible School knows it gets pretty loud. We shout “Praise God!” and “Amen!” all throughout the day. Another of our cheers goes like this: “God is TAKING ROOT in our lives! We’re GIVING ROOT in the world!”

Every morning during our large group opening I get to talk about our Giving Root stewardship response. Each day we learn about a different development project around the world supported by ELCA World Hunger. Giving Root introduces the kids at VBS to different activities that help combat hunger and poverty, shows how these things happen because people in the Lutheran Church care and help, and invites them to give an offering to ELCA World Hunger.

Here are a few of my favorite moments from the week so far:

• Helping the kids to step in paint and make “Hunger Footprints” on the sidewalk, illustrating how many people in the world are hungry.

• Listening to a first grader’s definition of being humble: “Not always thinking about yourself, but thinking about other people and what they need.”

• Passing around the fun new God’s Global Barnyard coin boxes to collect our offering for ELCA World Hunger.

• Watching skits put on by the fun characters “Mr. and Mrs. Seed.” The kids love their creative costumes that look a little bit different every day, showing how they sprout and grow as they learn more about hunger this week!

• Picking vegetables in the church’s community garden to give to a food pantry.

I’m excited for the last two days of VBS here in St. Cloud, and for all the other churches that will have the chance to use Taking Root for VBS!

Julie

With the XVIII International AIDS Conference coming to a close last month in Vienna, I decided to do a little research about why it is important for ELCA World Hunger to address diseases such as HIV/AIDS in its anti-hunger work. One study released during this conference led me to a lot of answers.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the findings of a study that explores the link between HIV and poverty in the United States. Researchers chose to focus on 23 major cities in the U.S., and left out people already at a high risk of HIV infection in order to get a better picture of how poverty and HIV are linked. What did they find? Those living in poverty have a higher risk of having HIV. The findings from this CDC study, according to a Wall Street Journal article, is “the strongest evidence yet of a link between poverty and HIV infection.”

The findings showed that for high-poverty urban areas in the United States, 2.1% of the population is infected with HIV. This may seem like a relatively small number, but this figure is 20 times as high as the rate of infection among low-risk populations in the overall population of the U.S. The reason for the increased rate of infection in highly impoverished areas is that those with low socio-economic statuses have less access to medical care. Without medical care, many people are unaware that they themselves are infected and are more likely to pass on the infection to others (Winslow, Ron, and Betsy McKay. “Study Looks at HIV and Poverty.” Wall Street Journal. 19 July 2010).

This study highlights why adressing diseases such as HIV/AIDS are important to the work of ELCA World Hunger. Hunger and disease have a cyclical relationship with each other. Hunger and poverty can lead to disease. Without adequate food and nutrition, our bodies are more vulnerable to disease and even when medicines are available, they become less effective. Without a living wage, resources to prevent and fight diseases are out of reach. Disease can also lead to hunger and poverty. If you are sick, you may be unable to work and take in an income. You may not be able to grow and provide food for yourself and your family. The cycle continues. By addressing hunger and poverty the root causes of disease can be addressed, and by addressing disease the root causes of hunger and poverty can be addressed.

ELCA World Hunger is doing important work around the issues of disease and poverty. For more information on the work of ELCA World Hunger with HIV and AIDS and Malaria, check out this website.  Also, if you wish to educate your congregation, campus or community about the connections between hunger and disease, check out this Hunger Education Toolkit .

-Allie Stehlin