By Allison Beebe

ELCA World Hunger recently held an event outside of Atlanta, Georgia on the topic of HIV & AIDS. Those in attendance were a blend of professionals in the field, people with personal testimonials related to HIV & AIDS, and interested members of the faith community. We looked at HIV & AIDS from our vantage point in the U.S., and also from an international perspective. It was an event which encouraged open dialogue and informed action.

I have had a heightened interest in HIV & AIDS after spending some time in East Africa. While in college, I studied and volunteered in Kenya through a program called “Minnesota Studies in International Development.” This particular study abroad program focused on public health as it relates to international development.

This experience brought me to an organization called “Solidarity with Women in Distress” or SOLWODI. This organization provides vocational training, access to basic health care and counseling to women who find themselves in difficult situations. Specifically, SOLWODI serves women who have been coerced into commercial sex work. Prevalence rates of HIV & AIDS are high within this demographic. With families to support and no jobs to be found in their community, women have sold their bodies in a desperate attempt to earn some income. Many of the women who frequented SOLWODI were people living with HIV or AIDS. They came for health screenings or vocational training, but stayed for the encouraging community where they wouldn’t be judged for their actions. While I admittedly arrived at SOLWODI with my own set of stigmas and assumptions, I left knowing that these were women with hearts of gold in desperate situations. They inspired me to find ways that I could be involved with the HIV & AIDS community in my home context.

The time spent in Atlanta reminded me of my cherished Kenyan friends. This was a chance to stand in solidarity with them, and rally around the same cause though we are in different places. When one member of the body of Christ suffers, we all suffer.  With that logic, when one member of the body of Christ stands up against injustice, we can all stand together.

One of the things I took away from the event was that hunger and HIV & AIDS are very closely connected. Some reasons are obvious – people who are not eating a nutritious diet are not as healthy, and therefore have a more difficult time fighting off disease. Some reasons related to my SOLWODI sisters – people who are hungry will do anything to earn money for a good meal. This can lead to prostitution, where HIV & AIDS is more likely to be transmitted. Some reasons are consequential – once a person contracts HIV, they must purchase medicine, which may prevent them from purchasing adequate food. As the list goes on, it becomes clear that hunger is a thread which is woven into the HIV & AIDS story.

It is my hope that people left Atlanta knowing that ELCA World Hunger is a place where they can be engaged to support work related to HIV & AIDS. When we fight against hunger, we fight against many more issues of injustice, not the least of which is HIV & AIDS.

Allison Beebe, Assistant for Constituent Relations ELCA World Hunger

In recent days, my colleagues have been restless and anxious about doing more to share the story and seek financial support for the “hunger” related emergency in Eastern Africa, particularly in Kenya and Ethiopia where abnormally low rainfall in the last two years has created serious drought and famine that will affect approximately 10,000,000 people.  The situation in Kenya is further impacted by a population explosion of people arriving daily into the refugee camps from Somalia and Sudan.  (See ELCA news release).

The ELCA Disaster Response has been involved in this region during the last year by providing funding to The Lutheran World Federation to assist in the operations of the Dadaab refugee camp in Eastern Kenya.  Ideally this camp supports a community of 90,000, but at the present has had to expand to accept approximately 380,000.  Additionally, the ELCA Disaster Response can be so effective in dire times because of the base of relationships that already exist in these countries through the history of ELCA World Hunger funding and program support.   

When disasters occur, my colleagues at the ELCA Churchwide Office respond like a machine out of shared compassion and concern.  A new fund may be opened to specifically define how gifts will be used.  Press releases, congregational bulletin inserts, and gift forms are created to describe the emergency conditions and how the ELCA is involved or affected in the community that is suffering.  These messages encourage action through prayers of support and making gifts to provide relief and recovery.  Situation reports are then posted on the web site to provide updates on the critical details of the response and related progress in the communities being served.

What can we do to help?

• There is nothing more powerful than prayer.  Pray for those who may be hungry and thirsty as a result of the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa.
• Make a gift to support the ELCA’s ongoing response to one or more of our related funds such as the Horn of Africa Drought Relief, ELCA International Disaster Response and/or ELCA World Hunger. 
• Follow these programs through the situation reports and information posted on the ELCA Disaster Response and ELCA World Hunger web sites.

Thank you for your awareness of and participation in these efforts.

In peace, Sharon Magnuson, ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal

I’ve been watching the news of the Mississippi river flooding with interest. In any immediate way, it has nothing to do with me. I’m hundreds of miles away, going about my days. But at the same time, the news coverage gives me pause beyond the horrible fascination of watching a disaster.

Disasters are impressively good at causing or exacerbating hunger. The immediate causes are obvious: if your house is under water, where do go? Where will you get food if roads, grocery stores, and restaurants are under water, too? How do you get potable water if the water treatment facilities aren’t functioning? This is all well known. Infrastructure destruction gets lots of attention because it’s so dramatic; it makes for good TV. But as I watch, I can’t help but recognize how little separates me from hunger. We in the U.S. rely on our infrastructure so completely, yet on a daily basis, I rarely acknowledge it. It’s just there, reliable and ubiquitous. Until it isn’t.

The longer-term impacts are equally problematic, and usually so quiet. I can almost guarantee I won’t hear anything about this flood by September, but it will still be a current event in the sense that its effects will not have ended. Besides people’s homes, how many businesses have been flooded? How long will it take them to reopen, as insurance claims are filed and renovating or rebuilding is done? How long will people be out of their jobs as they wait for companies to reopen? Even worse, how many businesses will not survive an extended closing? And how many didn’t have insurance to start with, taking the risk of establishing a business (or home!) in an uninsurable floodplain location? Some won’t even try to start again. What are the tax implications to already strapped states if a swath of their industrial base isn’t functioning or even goes away? How many years does that impact last, and how does it affect the public as governments make budget decisions? There are so many ways a disaster changes the economic situation, and therefore the hunger and poverty situation.

Then there are the direct and long-term environmental impacts to hunger as a result of flooded farmland. Some of this country’s most fertile land is currently covered in water – just in time for the spring planting. As the flood waters drain, in some places topsoil will be washed away. In others, soil will be contaminated by whatever the river picked up along the way. Will there be long-term consequences to field productivity and, consequently, food supplies? Productive, arable land is obviously an important factor in hunger (especially as the global population increases; see David’s last post), and one we don’t think too much about in this very fertile country.

So many things that impact hunger from one seemingly localized and distant flood (albeit a big one)! One thing disasters make clear: fighting hunger is so much more than giving people food.

-Nancy Michaelis

Throwing my two cents into the David-Erin-Bob/Uncle Billy discussion, I’d like to post these musings:

When we buy a car, we carefully research everything except our basic assumption: that we need one. Is there another way to move around the world that might be less damaging, like keeping the car we have and biking more and taking public transit, or sharing a car with a neighbor, or carpooling, or walking?

Of course, as “consumers” we are rewarded for making our personal buying decisions our most pressing concerns. How about we just stop calling ourselves consumers? Let’s not even be Christian consumers. Let’s be Christian citizens. Christian community members. Anything that helps lift the spell that traps us in “take-make-waste” so we can start discerning needs from wants, asking where our stuff comes from and who or what was harmed in its production, and understanding how our greed is connected to—or may even cause—other people’s need.

This is where charity becomes justice. That old saying about giving a man a fish? Sure, teach a man to fish—but don’t forget to ask who owns the pond. The world is full of competent people who know how to fish and farm but can’t access land or water—or whose land and water has been fouled by a multinational factory farm, mining operation, or Coca-Cola plant whose products are shipped to … Christian consumers.

The due diligence we need to be doing about hunger is about our own system. I say, start asking why. Why do I need this? Why was this product produced so cheaply? What hidden environmental or social costs are being paid by the people who made it? How’s their garden?  Unlike buying a car, the goal of questions like these isn’t to make us feel good about our own purchases. These questions lead us from consumerism to collective advocacy, because when a small why is amplified by other individuals, groups, or law-making bodies, it can change a system.

The bottom line why for Christians is: Why does so much of our “good life” come at the cost of other people’s welfare? Our system blinds us to these consequences. It’s time to ask our way out of this trance, to let the power of why open our eyes and start drawing the lines to world hunger that begin in our own backyards.

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

This is the third in a series of posts highlighting hunger-related activities happening at ELCA Outdoor Ministry locations with the help of Education/Advocacy grants from ELCA World Hunger. Today’s post comes from El Camino Pines in Frazier Park, California.

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The game begins. The clock starts counting down. 120…119…118. We only have two minutes! I grab a ball and throw it across at the other team. I’m dodging items as if my life depended on it. I never thought a simple game of dodge ball could be so intense. I’m dodging, ducking, and jumping all over the place. In an open room, there is nowhere to hide. If I catch the ball, the person who threw it is out. But if I am hit I am out, and I am asked to leave the court. Sounds simple. But then more is added to it. We have stuffed mosquitoes flying around the room. If a mosquito hits me, I am told that I can continue to play, but I must play sitting. This rule seems a little odd, but I continue to play. 10… I notice that there aren’t many people left in the game. 9… All the sudden I feel like I am a deer in headlights. 8… I run and jump as if this is the last seconds of my life 7… I pick up a mosquito and aim for my opponent’s ankles. 6… I missed. 5… I look up. 4… 3… 2… 1. I was hit.

But it’s not the fact that I was hit that is really disappointing me. It’s that that one hit represents malaria infection rates. I had become a statistic. We play two more times, both of which we were able to heal ourselves with slips of papers that represent money or medicine. Once, my team had an abundance of money and medicine, and the other game, we did not. This showed us how much something like money and medicine can make a difference. It’s something that I don’t think about often. But I am blessed to live a life where I know that if I get sick, that I have the resources to take care of myself, and I don’t have to worry too much. This game helped to show me that not everyone is that fortunate.

After playing dodge ball, we processed the game, and learned a lot about the Lutheran Malaria Initiative. Some facts were shocking, such as that a child dies from malaria every 45 seconds. But other facts were helpful! Knowing that there are very simple steps that can be taken to help control malaria is a very positive thing. And even though I am young, we talked about ways that I can make a difference! Here at camp, we make many friendship bracelets. We usually make them for the friends we make at camp, and we trade them away as a reminder of our week here. But camp is doing this really cool thing where we can make friendship bracelets to help with malaria in Africa! The program is called Knots for Nets. What we can do is make friendship bracelets, take them to our friends, families, neighbors, and congregations, and ask them for a $10 dollar donation towards Knots for Nets in exchange for a friendship bracelet! The $10 will go towards buying a bed net for our friends in Africa, so that they can sleep at night, without having to worry about being bit by a malaria infested mosquito. And in return, they will have a bracelet as a continual reminder of the Lutheran Malaria Initiative. I’ve already started working on my bracelets! Have you?

For more information: www.knotsfornets.net

Sierra Ronning
El Camino Pines

Editor’s Note: The Lutheran Malaria Initiative is a 5-year campaign within ELCA World Hunger. It’s goals are to expand the work of the church in addressing malaria, to provide an opportunity for current ELCA World Hunger supporters to deepen their engagement, and to invite new people and congregtation into the work of ELCA World Hunger.

Blueberries ripening in my front yard.

A few days ago I was standing in my kitchen looking for a snack. Having just gotten back from vacation, there were no fruits or vegetables to be found and I was craving their nutrition. My first reaction was disappointment and my second was the need to add my favorite fruits to the grocery list. Bummed, I found another snack and moved on.

About a half hour later I was reminded to check on the blueberry bushes outside to see whether or not the birds had gotten underneath the netting. Blueberry bushes!!! Just 20 feet from where I stood, craving fresh fruits, are two blueberry bushes full of wonderful, colorful, scrumptious fresh fruit. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. It gets better…

While I was outside checking on the blueberries I noticed that an apple had fallen from one of our apple trees. Although it is a bit early in their season I picked another low slung, reddening apple to check its tartness and enjoy a burst of homegrown fruit. As I picked the apple I realized that it had been awhile since I had pulled nutrition from the earth myself, and realized just how far I had gotten from my food. I had one of those “aha!” moments that happen from time to time as I ate the juicy apple and contemplated not having to go to the grocery store to buy fruit, but instead eating from the earth in my own front yard. Apple trees take time to prune, initial purchase money to buy, other necessary care depending on the year and often much of the low fruit is lost to the neighborhood deer, but I also had a sense of God providing as I picked that apple.

Never have I felt further away from my food than in that moment. The act of picking fruit, however, reminded me of how Creation works to nourish us if we respect and care for its processes.

~Lana Lile

I recently watched the documentary Food Inc. and it blew my mind. This documentary goes deep into the United States food industry to show viewers where our food actually comes from. This movie aimed to show how the way food is grown and produced is hidden from consumers, and the realities of the origins of everything we eat shocked me.

One point the documentary argues was that our food comes from what we picture in our mind to be a typical American farm. The film states that much of our food does come from farms, but large corporations often own the animals on those farms, and thus have the power to control how our meat is grown and produced. The result of this is overpopulated farms, with animals living in unhealthy conditions (both for them and for us once we eat them!). Cows are fed corn when they are meant to eat grass, leading to a build up of E. coli in their system, which then is cleaned with ammonia. Chickens are grown in a manner that leaves them too large to walk. Also, many people who work in food producing factories are mistreated and underpaid, and the farmers who grow the food often end up with debt from standards that the corporations force them to uphold. Food Inc. argues that this system is harmful to our animals, our health, and the people who work hard to put food on our tables.

Another important topic the documentary discussed was the government’s relationship with the food industry. The government heavily subsidizes corn, wheat and soy, which can be harmful to our health, especially for those in poverty. Food Inc. points out that we can buy a double cheeseburger for 99 cents, but we cannot buy broccoli for this price. They argue that the reason for this is that calories in the double cheeseburger are cheaper due to heavy government subsidies.

The documentary goes in depth on many other issues related to the food industry, and toward the middle of the film I began to wonder if there was anything in the refrigerator that I would be able to make myself for dinner! Thankfully, they showed success stories of farmers and producers who grew their products organically and safely and still were profitable. They stressed the importance of buying foods grown locally to reduce your carbon footprint. They also discussed past successes in the food industry, such as the push from consumers that led Wal-Mart to stop selling milk products with rBST. They are confident that if consumers treat their dollars as votes, we will be able to tell the food industry what we expect from our food, and the system then will change to benefit our environment, our animals, our workers, and our health.

Food Inc. is an eye-opening documentary that depicts one point of view of the food industry, and I would recommend it to anyone. I learned a lot and now think about food in a different way. While it does give some suggestions about how you can have a positive impact on the food industry, I was still left with questions about how I should act on this issue, so if you watch it I suggest going to their Web site for more ideas. Also check out their blog.

So, I leave you all with some questions. Have you thought much about how your consumption affects your health, other human beings, animals and the earth? Has it changed how you eat? Do you have suggestions for those who wish to take action on these issues? I would love to hear ideas from all of you.

-Allie Stehlin

~ Lana

Sources:

• FAO – www.fao.org
• WHO – www.who.int; www.wssinfo.org
• USDA – www.usda.gov
• World Food Program – www.wfp.org

The hungry.  Hungry people. 

If you examine the structure of either of these references, you’ll notice that the primary emphasis is on the condition of being hungry.  In the case of the hungry, the word “people” isn’t even in the realm of consciousness.  “The hungry” serves as a defense mechanism, a way to categorize something that is undesirable and put it on a shelf at a safe distance so that we don’t have to feel a personal connection.  “The hungry” are simply out there…somewhere.  Nameless, faceless, and seemingly not even human or at least not deserving enough of a human reference. 

Photo by Paul Jeffrey/ACT International

Hungry people.  On the scale of objectification, this is better.  At least we are talking about people here, though again the emphasis is not on people but rather the condition of being hungry.  People comes last, and so psychologically our emphasis is still on fixing a condition rather than serving someone just like us—same age, same gender, same station in life relatively speaking—who happened to be born in a community or country where there are extremely limited resources. 

Let’s see if we can do better.  Okay, here’s one more attempt: 

People who are hungry.  Simply put, people come first.  We’re not trying to help feed a nameless breed of beings known as “the hungry” (akin to “the infected”).  We’re not trying to serve our neighbors, the “hungry people”—still defined by their condition rather than their self-identity as human beings.  Rather, we are ministering to people—people who happen to be hungry but are people first nonetheless.  They are Kennedy Symphorian, a skinny 15-year-old boy I met years ago in Tanzania who had HIV and whose non-traditional family eeked out a meager living and survived on assistance from an organization that received support from ELCA World Hunger dollars.  They are the children begging for handouts on the streets of Nicaragua, some of whom work the streets alone during the day while their parent(s) crowd into a tightly packed school bus and ride off to work in a sweatshop.  They are nameless strangers we meet on our streets who browse trash cans for food scraps, approach our rolled-up windows at a stoplight (maybe we look at them, maybe not), sleep on a doorstep in 15-degree weather.  They are us only with fewer resources and a harder way, trying to survive. 

We cannot afford to talk about people in any way less than the dignified manner all souls should be afforded.  We are all people first and foremost.  We are Christians, Muslims, writers, janitors, men, women, fast-food workers, nurses, crossing guards, students, tailors…we are who we are, defined by our humanity and our relationship to God. 

Let’s put people first instead of resorting to comfortable, overused phrases that define people by their condition.  Maybe next time you encounter “the other”—that perfect stranger who asks you for money because she probably really needs it—you’ll ask her name and be able to talk about the time you met Rhonda rather than “some homeless woman.”

At David Creech’s suggestion, many of us ELCA World Hunger staff have gone vegetarian for Lent. (He explains why in previous posts, like yesterday’s.) Admittedly, I’m on the “vegetarian lite” plan – only abstaining from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. But even so, and even only a week into it, the experience has been educational for me.

I’ve never attempted to be vegetarian, but nor am I especially carnivorous. In fact, I find nothing appetizing about a steak or a roast; big slabs of meat kind of gross me out. At the same time, I really like most vegetables. I eat vegetarian meals regularly, though not exclusively, simply out of preference. So I didn’t think skipping meat two days a week would be particularly difficult – or even different – and I liked the reasons for doing it. I agreed to participate without hesitation.

And this is where the role of meat in my life and culture began asserting itself. I myself had no hesitation about an experiment in vegetarianism. Not so my family. I am the primary meal-maker in the house, and there was swift resistance to the idea of several weeks of a vegetarian menu. Not keen on preparing different food for myself and them, we agreed on the two-day-a-week plan. Lesson one: there is social pressure for me to eat meat, even in my own home. Or maybe especially there, since unlike a restaurant, we don’t each get exactly what we want every meal. My choices are tied to the choices of others.

I’m also learning that meat can be difficult to avoid. Compared to much of the world, meat here is cheap and plentiful, and therefore ubiquitous. It is on offer everywhere I go, and often, it’s no more expensive than non-meat choices. Last Wednesday, I consciously looked for vegetarian choices on a menu and discovered that there weren’t many. Lesson two: meaty meals can be easier to obtain than vegetarian ones. There’s a cultural expectation and incentive to eat meat every day.

Then there’s the challenge of remembering what day it is. It was sheer luck that I didn’t eat meat yesterday. At lunchtime, I opened the refrigerator and saw some leftover soup. I considered it, but decided that a leftover beet burger sounded better, so I had that instead. It wasn’t until I started thinking about dinner that I realized it was Wednesday and I almost ate Southwestern Chicken soup for lunch. Lesson three: when you live surrounded by a wide variety of plentiful food, it’s easy to be careless about what you eat.

All of this awareness in only a week! It’ll be interesting to see what else we learn – both individually and as a group – by the time Easter rolls around.