Most anyone who grows up in the mid-west knows the saying, “knee high by the 4th of July.” It describes the average size of corn this time of year. The saying came to mind last weekend as I looked at my family’s backyard garden. We aren’t growing any corn, but our other plants are looking lively. They’re not full grown and ready to harvest yet, but it won’t be too much longer. Of  course it’s the same for all gardeners in this general latitude. And everyone knows what that means: zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes available for the taking in workplace kitchenettes, in church fellowship halls, from next door neighbors. So why is it that some are hungry at this time of year, when so many others have food to give away?

I recently spoke with Carol at an organization that’s trying to change that: AmpleHarvest. They are a national not-for-profit whose purpose is to connect gardeners who have excess produce with food pantries that can take it. Their website, AmpleHarvest.org, allows gardeners to search by location for nearby food pantries that accept fresh food. When I talked to Carol, she explained that they currently have almost 4000 food pantries registered… but there are some 30,000 in the U.S. So she asked if we could help with a couple of things:

1) If you are involved with a food pantry, ask them to register. It’s free, and all the panty has to do is fill out a short form on their website. The pantry can specify things like what types of produce they can accept, and what times of day or week they can take it. Since many of them don’t have refrigeration, this is important; they can’t store fresh food very long and may need people to pick it up fairly soon after they receive it.

2) If you are a gardener (or know someone who is), tell them about AmpleHarvest. Gardeners can go to the AmpleHarvest.org, enter their location, and see if there are any nearby pantries that will accept their surplus. (And the more pantries that register, the more luck gardeners will have using the site; see request 1.)

These seem like really simple yet helpful requests, so I pass them on to you. Please help! If you want to go a step further, the AmpleHarvest website has additional resources like fliers you can post at your local garden store. Together we can help ensure the bountiful harvest of summer and fall is eaten and not wasted.

-Nancy Michaelis

We all dream about it; at least I do anyway—a cause that brings the church together working as part of a whole to make the world a better a place. We dream about all members of the body of Christ serving God by serving others and seeing their faith rooted in that service. It is what the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America dreams about and acts out too.
We are on the precipice of living out that dream in a new way. In August at the Churchwide Assembly there will be a vote to move forward with the ELCA Malaria Campaign. With that vote every member of the ELCA, via their representatives, will be voting to be part of this campaign that will impact the world in a big way. The ELCA has a long heritage of combating malaria via companion churches in Africa and this $15 million campaign is a continuation of that heritage alongside the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Goal six specifically names malaria, along with Tuberculosis and HIV and AIDS, as a disease that needs to be contained. Therefore the ELCA Malaria campaign is part of a global movement that will reduce the number of deaths related to Malaria worldwide.
Recently at the churchwide offices in Chicago, members of the Malaria Campaign and other World Hunger staff picked the brains of various members of the ELCA who are knowledgeable about malaria and about ways to best spread the word about the campaign. During the Malaria Think Tank’s three days of intense discussion, the Malaria Campaign staff was blessed with fruitful and invaluable dialogue that will help the ELCA in all its expressions take on this endeavor.
The greatest hope from this meeting was that members of the ELCA will use this campaign as a way to go deeper in our faith and in our service to God and to our brothers and sisters around the world. Malaria is a complicated disease to wrap our minds around. It is easy to focus our entire understanding of malaria around bed nets. That’s what most people associate malaria relief with. While providing nets is part of the solution it will not, by itself, save lives. As ELCA members and synods go deeper in their understanding of Malaria and the mission of the Malaria Campaign they will see the bigger picture of malaria within the complex web of poverty. While this particular campaign will end in 2015, our struggle against hunger and poverty will not end. We will need more time and energy grounded in thoughtful discussion, education and prayer if we are to address in any meaningful way global poverty.
So let’s hear your opinions! What do you know about malaria and the ways to help fight it? What are your hopes and dreams for this campaign? How will you or your church or your synod be a public witness in your area? How will you take part in the Malaria Campaign? I can’t wait to hear from you!

God Bless! Karen

At the beginning of the fund-raising effort, mosquitoes "swarm" the sanctuary at Zion Lutheran Church, Marinette, WI.

800,000 people die every year of malaria. That’s more than 2,000 a day.

I’m proud to that our church– ELCA members, congregations and synods– is working together to overcome this devastating disease, and I wanted to share a story of one of the congregations that has done a great job raising awareness and raising funds for the ELCA Malaria Campaign.

Zion Lutheran Church in Marinette, WI started with some modest goals: to educate their congregation about the global realities of malaria and how they could help, and to raise $2,000 for ELCA Malaria Campaign projects in Africa.

Zion’s pastor, Keith Kolstad, had previously taken a sabbatical to Tanzania, where he experienced first-hand the devastating effects of malaria. One of the pastors he worked with, the chaplain at the cathedral in Dar Es Salaam, lost his 18-month-old daughter to malaria while Pr. Kolstad was there. Fueled by the certainty that even one such death is too many, the congregation at Zion got to work.

The congregation’s $2,000 goal was represented by two thousand mosquito symbols that were hung from the sanctuary ceiling.  The plan was to “rid” the building of one mosquito for each dollar that members and friends of Zion Lutheran Church contributed to the ELCA Malaria Campaign.

Well, the mosquitoes at Zion Lutheran Church have been eradicated, and then some.  Zion’s members responded to a critical need by giving $17,296.85… more than 8 times their goal! I’m inspired by the creativity and generosity of Zion’s members. I hope you will be, too.

~Jessica Nipp, ELCA Malaria Campaign

Perhaps the title is a shocking statement to some. However, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has agreed and is taking action to fight this pandemic both in this country and around the world. AIDS has killed over 25 million people leaving millions of children orphaned. Those affected include members of the ELCA and our brothers and sisters around the world. When one member of the body of Christ suffers we all suffer. Therefore the body of Christ has AIDS.
However, while this may bring about gloomy images, the ELCA HIV/AIDS strategy advocates the concept of living positively with HIV. This video explains further the strategy of the ELCA and how congregations in the United States can stand up and advocate for those living positively with HIV.

Monday, June 27th was National HIV Testing Day. During this past weekend I participated in a free HIV testing and I encourage you and your congregation to do the same and stand as an example of the power of God’s love in the world. Make an announcement during worship or talk to the pastor of your congregation. We are called by the Spirit to be with those living positively with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and the world. Search your local area for free screening locations. The screenings do not take long and many provide rapid tests that show results in 20 minutes!
In case you were wondering what you are in for if you choose to get tested: Most locations use EIA testing which draws blood from the vein or uses other fluids like saliva or urine. The rapid tests either take blood from a vein or finger prick, or a swabbing from the mouth. It is very simple! I took the oral swabbing exam and it was painless and easy!
Many people and congregations may worry what others will think and say if they hear so-and-so’s church got tested for AIDS. However, as you will see in the video previously mentioned, the community response was in fact very positive. As Christians we need to boldly proclaim the Gospel so we can be a light in the darkness. Please share your thoughts about this article. Also if you choose to get tested, which I hope you will, please share your experience afterward. To learn more about the ELCA’s HIV and AIDS Strategy check out this link. Thanks so much for reading!

God Bless,

Karen

Last week I had the good fortune to attend the Bread for the World National Gathering in Washington, D.C. If you’ve never gone, I highly recommend it. Generally speaking, you spend a few days learning about hunger issues and current, related legislation, and then you spend a day visiting your elected officials on Capitol Hill. It was a wonderful event, the content of which was inspiring, thought-provoking, troubling, challenging, and hopeful. 

But tucked into the thoughtfully-planned agenda, I glimpsed a telltale problem. It was not a problem with the event itself, but rather something less tangible…

Two incidents drew my attention to the problem. In the first, a group of maybe 25 or 30 people were going around a circle introducing themselves. As you might expect, many who attended the Gathering represented church groups, worked in food pantries, or had other non-profit work backgrounds. Then we reached a man who gave his name and said, “I’m from the dark side. I’m an engineer in the private sector.”

What does it mean when a person feels compelled to introduce himself as being from “the dark side” simply because he works for a corporation?

The second incident that gave me pause was at dinner Monday night. Sitting next to me was a scientist who works for a not-for-profit on improving the nutritional quality of seed, fertilizers, and food storage. She explained that her organization works with the private sector to get these higher-nutrient inputs into the food system. Then our keynote speaker took the stage: Mark Bittman, the New York Times food columnist. He spoke with passion about the problems with industrial food production systems and the way they harm our health. At the end, the woman next to me turned to me and said angrily, “He’s not a nutritionist or an agronomist, and he just dismissed everything we do.”

These incidents got my attention because here were two people committed to fighting hunger, attending an anti-hunger event, and both felt marginalized because they are associated with for-profit industries. And therein lies the problem. How many caring, interested, capable people never get involved because they feel insulted or excluded by a culture that vilifies the private sector? 

It’s a human tendency to simplify and generalize  complex issues to make them more manageable. But as we engage in this work, it’s important to remember that things are rarely black and white. We only make ending hunger harder if we don’t welcome diversity and seriously consider how people and institutions with a variety of viewpoints, motivators, and gifts can help.

-Nancy Michaelis

How much time would you spend to effectively help end world hunger and poverty? How much time do you think we as Christians are called by God to commit? How much educational time do you think it even takes before proper action can be taken? Hours? Weeks? Months? Years? A life-time? Christians span the gambit of this commitment from briefly handing money to an un-researched charity to committing their lives to understanding and ending world hunger and all of its intricacies.
For the past two weeks I have been reading The Bottom Billion by the director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, Paul Collier. I am not suggesting that I am now an expert on all things world hunger and poverty related after two short weeks. However, this book, along with working for ELCA World Hunger have made me realize it takes a lot more than just giving to charities to end the suffering of millions of people around the world. Collier advocates that we must also look at trade policies, security strategies, changes in our laws and new international charters. For the average Christian this means spending time researching these topics to get a basic understanding of each. That is definitely where I am at!
So my question to all of you readers out there is this: How much time and energy do you feel God is calling Christians to commit? The second greatest commandment from Jesus is to love our neighbors. I think we can all agree that knowingly letting nearly 1 billion people struggle to fill basic needs such as food, water, shelter and health care while so many of us take for granted all the blessings God has given us is not too loving. What about all the passages in the Bible that call us to serve the least, the lost and the forgotten? Clearly these elements are crucial to living out a Christ-like life. But what form do you see that taking in your life as a believer?
I am not suggesting that everyone has to drop what they are doing and devote their life to serving these issues. I believe that God calls all of us to a different vocation. However, I do think that the gifts God gives us and the blessings that come from our vocations are also meant to serve those suffering from poverty.
Maybe you are at a place where you feel that you are serving out your call to serve people in poverty. I would LOVE to hear about what you are doing and where your passions are! Or maybe you have realized that you might not be fulfilling your call as fully as you could be. I would LOVE to hear from you, too! What are your concerns and ambitions?
A very important part of filling the call to effectively care for our neighbors is to educate ourselves about issues pertaining to poverty and hunger. ELCA World Hunger provides a helpful suggested reading list that I hope to take a bite out of this summer here along with other useful resources for hunger education. While The Bottom Billion might not be the best book to start your hunger education with, it is one I highly suggest at some point. Its foundation is quantitative research but it is an entertaining read full of useful information. Hope to hear from you!
God Bless!
Karen

Never mind “City of the big shoulders.” Chicago is the City of the Big Garbage Cans. Behind my old four-occupant, two-unit apartment building stood four 96-gallon supercart containers: two black ones for garbage, and two blue ones for recycling. Together, these monstrosities could have held 384 gallons of garbage and recycling, and the City of Chicago was prepared to empty all of them every single week!

In spite of our big garbage cans, I’m starting to see a shift in the way the world thinks about garbage. Outside of Chicago, garbage can sizes are shrinking as cities offer larger containers for recycling and yard waste/compost material. Collection calendars are shrinking, too. Skagit County tackles the waste-generating, big-container-frequent-pickup mindset by offering weekly, twice-monthly, or monthly collection. Every two weeks I set out a few ounces of plastic packaging and bottle caps in a 32-gallon can. Monthly pickup—or no pickup at all—is in my future.

Garbage is disappearing. It’s becoming a resource. “There is no garbage, only fuel we haven’t converted yet,” says one energy expert. In Denmark, garbage burned in very clean incinerators is an alternative energy source. In Washington and other states, methane from landfills is captured and converted into electricity.

“Urban mining” is gaining traction. Mining companies in Japan and China (and soon, the U.S.) are extracting rare-earth elements and minerals from cellphones, computers, and other electronics in landfills. Peninsula Plastics & Recycling in Turlock, California is remolding millions of pounds of plastic bottles into packaging for fruit, cookies, and cupcakes. Oft-cited on the internet is this nugget: Americans throw away enough aluminum every three months to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.  If that’s true (I can’t find the source of that statement), mining landfilled aluminum can’t be far behind.

Then there’s my favorite: the Zero Waste trend. It’s partly an industry push to redesign products to eliminate wasteful packaging like plastic clamshells, and partly an individual quest to keep garbage at bay by buying in bulk, reusing containers, and otherwise avoiding packaging. The Zero Waste mantra? “Refuse, refuse, refuse” and “Don’t buy it!”  These folks are upgrading the old three Rs into five—Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Rot (compost) and then Recycle—and launching a great new word: minsumerism.

Here are two Zero Waste slide shows to watch: this one about a California family that produces almost no garbage, and this one about the village of Kamikatsu, Japan, on track to become first place in the world to produce Zero Waste.

This is one race to the bottom—the bottom of my garbage can—that I’m really going to enjoy!

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

How often do you think about where your food comes from? When you are sitting down for a meal, do you imagine the farms where your food grew and the farmers who planted and harvested what sits on your plate? Do you ever think about these things?! If you do think about these things what do you imagine?

I recently watched a documentary titled “King Corn” about two friends who purchased an acre of corn to learn about the questionable farming and eating habits within the American food system. They discovered that the reality of the source of our foods, specifically corn, is vastly different from what we might image. An average corn farmer owns thousands of acres of industrialized corn that is not edible until processed. The irony is that the farmer cannot even feed him or herself while most of the corn that is grown in the United States is used to feed cattle, or is used to make sweeteners or unhealthy foods.

The documentary has me questioning why we do not put much thought into where our food comes from or how it is grown. As Christians we are entrusted by God to care for creation. The first step to caring for creation is caring about creation. Yes, many of us live in urban or rural areas where we do not come into visual contact with farms on a regular basis. But that does not mean we should not care.

Once we start caring about creation, we can start caring for it. As Christians we should try to cultivate an attitude of respect and reverence for creation and a duty to ensure that those attitudes are upheld in the ways we grow, produce and transport our food. However, if we are not even aware of the sources of our produce than we can never fulfill our call as Christians to do these things.

The ELCA has deep agricultural roots and has a history of working for policies that support farmers, promote local food systems and advocates for ethical eating habits of its members. To learn more about the work ELCA is doing in relation to the U.S. Farm Bill please download this brochure. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves about these issues and then advocate for policies that ensure the sanctity of creation. I encourage you all to watch the interesting and entertaining documentary “King Corn” and tell me what you think! I would love to hear from you about how you feel it related to your faith! (It is available on instant play on Netflix!) I can’t wait to hear from you!

God Bless,

Karen

I have been thinking a lot about the food production and distribution systems in the United States, and was so happy to read Anne’s recent post on our national food culture here.  It’s always comforting to know that others are wrestling with similar issues and ideas — after all, isn’t that one of the reasons we have this blog?

One of the aspects of food production I reflect on is how disconnected we are from the “roots” of our food, and how we can best rebuilt that connection and help those suffering from hunger and poverty.  Both my husband and I come from a long line of small town/suburban backyard gardeners (and some farmers), and I honestly never thought too much about this as being “different”.  When we settled down and bought our first house in a Chicago neighborhood, we were on auto-pilot as we planted a garden and started a compost bin.  We had a tiny yard, but enough room for a few tomato and pepper plants.  Many of our neighbors did too.

As more of our friends also bought first homes and settled in, I began to notice that not everyone planted a garden.  Call me non-observant or naive, but I hadn’t really noticed this before.  Hmmmm.  One of my suburban-raised friends confessed that although she does feed her kids fresh vegetables, she hadn’t grown up eating them and certainly not growing them.  The affordability of purchasing fresh vegetables is a topic for another blog post, but this was not the issue for my friend.

Growing vegetables can be very cost-effective, and doesn’t require vast parcels of land.  One way that domestic hunger can be relieved is through more home gardening — both through donations of fresh produce to food pantries, and through knowledge transfer from experienced gardeners to others — some of whom may be suffering from hunger and poverty.

I recently found this fascinating article “For God So Loved the Dirt . . . by Norman Wirzba in the April 2011 issue of Sojourners Magazine that I wanted to share (you’ll first need to complete the Sojourners online registration process, but it will be worth it).  The author discusses the theology of “God’s garden” as described in various passages in the Bible and how it contrasts with a resource utilization/consumer view of the Earth.  I love the imagery of God as a farmer in overalls, digging in the dirt — does God have dirty fingernails like I sometimes do?

Wirzba’s assertion that local economies enable us to see how our actions may help or harm others is really interesting.  I don’t believe that most people intend to hurt other people, but it’s hard to gauge your impact on someone you never see.  In our global economy, I don’t have to look my farmer in the eye — even if my purchasing decisions might be harming his/her family.  I’m not suggesting that local food is the only “answer”, just that it forces us to really see the other person.

The author concludes with a vision of religious institutions moving away from seeing the Earth as a megastore where you might find a good deal, and instead building the connections between God’s garden and his/her people by transforming parking lots and lawns into gardens.  Although he doesn’t explicitly discuss it, I imagine the author may agree that donating some of that produce to a local food pantry might be nice too.

Looking through the archives, I found that I blogged about this last year here, and that some congregations are already started to dig up their lawns and grow food.  I really like the concept of faith congregations building community around gardening — sharing food, building bridges, and teaching each other.  Are there more congregations doing this since last year?  I hope so.  Could this idea work in your congregation?  Does this article challenge some of your assumptions?  I look forward to your thoughts.

Erin Cummisford

HIV virus

Are you old enough to remember when AIDS was “discovered?” How did it affect you at the time? What were you thinking about it in those early years when contracting HIV/AIDS was a guaranteed death sentence?

Or are you young enough that AIDS has always been part of the world? It’s something to avoid if at all possible, but should you become infected, you’ve always known that in wealthy countries like the U.S there are treatments. It is a manageable disease.

If you’ve been watching the news, you may know that June 5th marked 30 years since the first report about the illness was published. At that point, no one knew what it was, and it didn’t yet have the names HIV or AIDS. Medical knowledge has come a tremendous distance in that time. According to this article in the Washington Post, instead of receiving a death sentence, a 20-year old diagnosed today can expect to live to be 70 with proper treatment. And, as I learned from a radio interview with the CEO of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, those who are HIV-positive and take appropriate medications and precautions have only a 4% chance of transmitting the disease.

Yet significant challenges remain, scientific, social, and logistical. Scientifically, the drugs can have tough side affects, and there’s still no cure. Socially, the stigma of being HIV-positive or living with AIDS  is still significant. It prevents people from getting tested and seeking treatment. And that’s a crime when proper treatment not only saves the individual, but also cuts transmission by 96%! That’s so close to stopping it! Logistically, education, treatment, and support are unattainable or simply unavailable in many parts of the world.

Like most serious diseases, people suffering from untreated HIV/AIDS are much more likely to also suffer from hunger or poverty.  Ending the disease – or at least ensuring people everywhere get proper treatment – would help a lot in reducing hunger. It helps both those inflicted with the disease, and it help their children. So take action this month. June 27 is National HIV Testing Day. Get the test yourself, both to know your status and to show others it’s okay to get tested. Make a donation to the ELCA HIV/AIDS Campaign. Your money is used both domestically and internationally to provide such things as HIV/AIDS education, access to tests and treatment, and support of AIDS orphans. And spread the word that we all have a part to play in ending HIV/AIDS. If you’re not sure how to get started, resources to help are available here. There are lots of ways to help; please get involved.

-Nancy Michaelis