One of the unique and interesting parts about the internship here at World Hunger Relief is that we have classes twice a week to complement the education we receive out in the fields. Classes cover a wide blend of topics--from theology to agriculture to animal husbandry to cross-cultural sensitivity. I've found the classes a welcome change of pace...as well as a great way to get out of the 100-degree heat!

I've been asked to teach one of the upcoming classes--"The Historical Development of World Missions". In my head, I tell myself it's because of my astute theological and intellectual training...but in reality, it's simply because we will be without an education director for a short while, so the farm just needs some folks to fill in. Either way, I'm looking forward to it.

Faith and I went to Baylor over the weekend so I could take advantage of her access to a whole floor in their main library that is devoted to the historical and cultural development of Christianity. I'm now discovering the seemingly insurmountable task of accurately teaching on over 2,000 years of history in no more than 2 hours!

That said, I've swam through the first 200 or so years after Christ's ascension. It's incredible to me how healthy and strong Christianity was during it's infancy. When you consider the fact that the relatively small group was, at times, under severe persecution, it makes their rapid growth even more remarkable. What I've found so far is that it appears that Christians appear healthiest when they aren't safe or when they've not gained the endorsement of the state. Rather, when they are under threat and of a minority, they typically thrive. Furthermore, they were able to survive under that threat as a minority because of what we read in Acts--the sharing of possessions, the looking after of widows, and the identification with the poor...groups of people who are often neglected by society as a whole.

Heck, that simple theme could take a month to discuss. Now I have to figure out how to condense it into a sentence or two!

Sunday was quite the usual day at Church for Faith and me...quite the usual in that the unusual showed up. Take for instance:

-During the middle of singing, a lady in our small group came over to us knowing that Faith and I have adopted injured or abandoned birds. She took Faith over to a spot under the bridge where some baby pigeons had fallen out of their nest. One had died, the other was still very much healthy and alive. So, as our pastor preached on the Radical Reformation, Faith sat next me and hand fed an ugly, baby, pigeon.

-In front of us was a homeless man named Donald. I've never seen him at church before, which really doesn't mean much at a place like Church Under the Bridge. It's quite possible that Donald is as active, or even more so, than we are. Anyways, Donald was a very kind man who loved his bananas. He seemed to visit the lunch table several times throughout the morning in order to load up on his stash. Meeting and talking with Donald only reinforced the fact that the homeless are all as unique as those of us not homeless. We rich folk tend to group all the homeless into one category--with words like drug addicts, crazy, veterans, etc. In reality, they only make up a fraction of the homeless...as do children, who actually make up one of the largest groups of homeless. That said, every single homeless person is alike in that they all are completely unique and human. Humanity is an attribute we often withhold from those in need.

And finally,
-In front of Donald sat a girl who was a Baylor student. (Now if there's ever a group of people who it's safe to label, it's these folks! Just kidding Faith...and Kurt...and all my other Bear friends/family.) Anyways, this girl had a sorority shirt on that read,

Barbie wears the cutest clothes
Barbie drives the finest cars
Barbie dates the hottest guys
Barbie must be an A-D-Pi!

In addition to the little saying, each line had the appropriate (or inappropriate, I guess would be safer to say) illustration to go along with it. At first, I simply rolled my eyes at yet another example of idiocy among Greek life at major universities. But then I forced myself to remember that Baylor wasn't just any other university, or at least isn't supposed to be. It's one of the largest Christian universities in the world. It's got a bright, young seminary and a well-established school for social work. So what's going on?!?! How did such an institution allow the social order of fraternities and sororities, which commonly promote exclusivity, materialism, promiscuity, and, at times, alcoholism?

I found myself getting angry at my neighbor from Baylor just a few feet from me. But then I realized that I had grouped, labeled, and packaged her in mere seconds without even meeting her. An injustice that, as I said, frustrates me as it often happens towards the poor.

Donald and I said our g'byes. Faith found a box and put the bird in it. Then we went home.

Perhaps next week, I'll be able to focus on the sermon and not on birds and Bears.

A meditation on this Sunday as Faith and I prepare for worship:

Wonderful merciful savior
Precious Redeemer and Friend
Who would have thought that a lamb could
Rescue the souls of man
Ohh, you rescued the souls of man

Counselor, Comforter, Keeper
Spirit we long to embrace
You offer hope when our hearts have
Hopelessly lost our way
Ohh, we've hopelessly lost our way.

You are the one that we praise
You are the one we adore
You give the healing and grace our,
Hearts always hunger for
Ohh, our hearts always hunger for.

Mighty infinite Father
Faithfully loving Your own
Here in our weakness You find us
Falling before Your throne,
Ohh, we're falling before Your throne

Each day here on the farm, I'm reminded of my own weaknesses and inabilities. Even as I learn and become well aware of farming technique, I'll still be very limited. And it's at the week's end, when I'm close to my wits' end, that I find comfort in knowing our Father sought us out in our weakness and still chooses to use us.

Today, I hopped on the tractor (for the last time for quite some while, I hope) to finish mowing the pecan orchard. Decked out in my straw hat from Haiti, manure-covered blue jeans to protect against poison ivy, and my Nalgene bottle with fresh, ice-cold water. (Word on the street is that those Nalgene bottles are indestructible!)

Five minutes into the mowing, I hit a massive bump in the orchard that knocked my bottle off the tractor and under the shredder I was pulling. Three seconds later, my indestrublbe Nalgene bottle filled with fresh, ice-cold water was nothing but a memory as the shredder promptly sliced it in half as if it were a stick of butter.

After a few choice words, I grabbed the remains that once made up my indestructible Nalgene bottle and returned to mowing the 20 acres of orchard.

Then the heat came...all 100 degrees of it.
And the dust and pollen flew.

And I grew thirsty.

Four hours later, I finally finished the mowing and parked the overheated tractor in the barn. It's safe to say I was a bit upset, parched, and overheated myself. Since then I've downed various types of fluids (water, apple juice, and Dr. Pepper...but not at the same time), eaten a light lunch, and cooled off. Now that I can look back on the experience in gratitude for surviving such an ordeal, let me share some tidbits that I took away from mowing today:

1. ATTENTION John Deere, Ford, and whoever else makes tractors--please install cup holders on your stinkin' equipment. You know that your beastly machines heat up to close to 300 degrees. You know that in most farming states, temperatures can get close to 100 degrees several weeks out of the year. So you know farmers will get hot and thirsty...you know, with that 300 degrees coming from below and 100 coming from above. So give us cup holders.

2. Nalgene bottles don't stand a chance when it comes to a shredder. Wus.

3. Never again will I underappreciate water. I understand how precious it must be to those who survived Hurricane Katrina. And I remember how important it was in a place like Haiti. Odd thing is that for the Katrina victims and Haitians, it's the rush of water that nearly took their lives away. And afterwards, it's the lack of that same substance that threatens their lives again.

4. In John 4, Jesus talks to the Samaritan lady at the well. He's thirsty and asks her for a drink. He then offers her living water--eternal life. As desperate as I was this morning for a drink of water, I must not forget the eternally quenching power of the living water that Christ provides. And even more importantly, I mustn't neglect our Maker's desire for us to be the vessels that carry this water to others in need.

Nalgene doesn't have anything on us.

After surveys in some fifty cities it was clear that 85-90% of all major barriers to effective urban ministry are not in the cities at all-they are inside our churches. The schism in the church that has pitted social and personal ministries against each other in the city is a tragic legacy of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy early in the twentieth century, still marginalizes the church's ministry in the rapidly urbanizing developing world. The church must learn how to go up to the urban powerful and down to the urban powerless with equal integrity

--Ray Bakke, A Theology as Big as the City

Yesterday we went on Mission Waco's annual "Walk for the Homeless", which covers several urban ministries in Waco that work with the poor. It's main purpose is to raise awareness and mobilize the middle class. This is my 3rd or 4th year on the walk, so much of the info and discussions I heard weren't too unique for me. However, I did go on the walk with a new set of shoes to walk in. For instead of my typical flip-flops, I was in my mud-covered boots...going on the walk this year as a resident of World Hunger Relief. The context of my worldview is slightly different.

As we walked and listened to the various statistics regarding the plight of the poor and their tendency to migrate to the cities (for the first time in history, over half of the world's population lives in cities), I struggled to bring these two seemingly different worlds together--that of my urban experience with Mission Waco/Talitha Koum/Church Under the Bridge vs. that of my growing experience here at the farm. Is there a way to remedy these two different lifestyles? Can they be brought together somehow?

My initial thoughts seem to affirm the possibility, though the actual method is still unclear. For now, as I continue to become more and more enmeshed in rural life, I find myself constantly comparing my two different life experiences.

Any answer, I think, that will come from this hope of mine will likely come through Christ, as manifest in his body, the church. So as I read the quote at the top of the page, I'm disheartened but also challenged to try to find some sort of balance--b/w rural and urban with Christ (through the church) somehow tying things together.

If this sounds completely confusing and incoherent, just imagine what it looks like in my head!

Maybe I should just shut up and go milk the goats.

I know I made an endorsement for my friends' (Micah and Etta) blog who are living in Haiti right now, but I really want to make sure you at least visit their site to catch a glimpse of life there. They do a really good job of illustrating life in Haiti. So far, their posts have brought back some fond memories for me...memories that really strengthen my love for the country.

They're at: http://pascuccisinhaiti.blogspot.com/

In my previous post, I briefly mentioned the unique relationship that develops between human and animal when they are inextricably tied together by life and death. Well, yesterday I realized that I really didn't know what in the world I was talking about...yesterday we slaughtered one of our rabbits for class.

I've seen goats and cattle slaughtered while in Haiti, and those processes weren't too dramatic--so I figured watching one of our rabbits being butchered wouldn't be that big of a deal. I mean come on, it's part of the rodent family. Well, it ended up being a little harder to watch than I imagined. The process was about as humane as it could have been, and it was a pretty clean and painless ordeal all in all. But I think that the reason why my heart rose up into my throat was because I've been personally caring for the rabbits each day since I've moved out to the farm. There was a sense that I was losing one of my own, or even the feeling that I had betrayed them somehow.

(I can't imagine having to slaughter goats, chickens, or rabbits on a weekly basis in order to eat. Or to take it a step further, I can't even fathom how much more intensified Abraham's pain must have been when he was preparing to sacrifice his own son!)

As a whole, I learned a lot through the experience. I learned about the health and cost benefits of raising and eating rabbits, as opposed to chickens or cattle. I ended up making rabbit & dumplings for lunch yesterday to complete the life cycle. Knowing where my food came from--harvesting the veggies used and personally knowing the rabbit eaten--made me truly thankful for what I have.

Life is thriving. The past week or so has had me up to my eyeballs in our pecan orchard (literally actually, as the grass down there has gotten to be 6 feet high in some places). I find myself filfthy dirty, sweaty, smelly, and incredibly exhausted at the end of each day. If I manage to work up the energy for a shower, I usually fall to sleep immediately after lying down in bed...no matter what time it is. I absolutely love it!

Though I'm daily struggling with aches, exhaustion, blisters, cuts, and simple ignorance for farm lingo and procedure, I'm constantly catching the beauty in this type of life--of being completely meshed with God's creation and in absolute appreciation for the intricate ecosystem and food chain that is in place. A goat or rabbit becomes so much more to you when you daily take care of it, feed it, brush it, milk it. Knowing that it will provide drink, and eventually meat forces a relationship you won't be able to find by running to Wal-Mart to grab a gallon of skim milk and cold cuts!

That said, some friends of ours who once lived at the farm, Micah and Etta, are now living in Haiti. They're keeping a blog of their time there. Do read it. Here it is: The Pascuccis in Haiti.

Well, my first day on the tractor was a success. Sort of. I didn't run over any sprinkler heads (though I did come within 3 inches one time!), and I got a good chunk of the orchard mowed. However, halfway into the morning I noticed a hydraulic leak, so I had quit early. I was a bit nervous that the tractor would malfunction with me on top of it. Call it the Midas touch, Dowdy-style.

Each day is a new adventure of sorts, as I learn more and more about agriculture. It is also refreshing to work and live with others who have actively ponder and seek out social justice in the name of Christ. On top of that, it continually gives me a challenge to continue growing and learning.

Sadly, that's all I can post for now because I have to get ready for bed. I do hope to post more later, but tomorrow starts early for me as I have a meeting with other farmers of pecan orchards.

Peace,

Aaron

Well, my first day on the tractor was a success. Sort of. I didn't run over any sprinkler heads (though I did come within 3 inches one time!), and I got a good chunk of the orchard mowed. However, halfway into the morning I noticed a hydraulic leak, so I had quit early. I was a bit nervous that the tractor would malfunction with me on top of it. Call it the Midas touch, Dowdy-style.

Each day is a new adventure of sorts, as I learn more and more about agriculture. It is also refreshing to work and live with others who have actively ponder and seek out social justice in the name of Christ. On top of that, it continually gives me a challenge to continue growing and learning.

Sadly, that's all I can post for now because I have to get ready for bed. I do hope to post more later, but tomorrow starts early for me as I have a meeting with other farmers of pecan orchards.

Peace,

Aaron

After a nice "break" on the farm (by 'break', I mean only having to spend 1-2 hours a day on chores, as opposed to 8-10) after a fast and furious start last week, today we picked right up where we left off.

First thing this morning, I learned how to drive a tractor. No, they didn't show me. No, I didn't receive instruction beforehand. No, I didn't get to read some sort of manual. They gave me the keys and told me to do it. At first, I was quite intimidated, I must say. But, learning which levers to pull, pedals to push, and knobs to turn by actually sitting up there and doing it really ingrained the whole process into my memory. My instructors for the morning, Neil and Charles, showed an abundance of patience for me and really let me learn through first-hand experience.

Then, in class this afternoon, I was able to witness this pedagogy as we discussed actual teaching methods. In it, we discussed the concept of "problem-posing education" as opposed to "banking education", as described by P. Friere in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This whole idea of 'problem-posing education' is one in which the typical roles and relationships between the teacher and student are erased so that the teacher "is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach". In the 'banking' method, Friere writes that the teacher is like a person depositing money in the bank, and the students are the depositories. "Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat."

In America, probably >90% of the teaching that goes on in schools, universities, and other institutions is similar to the 'banking method'. While there is merit to this style, it is largely hard to digest. I must admit I'm very appreciative of the style that is taught and used here at the farm. It encourages both hands-on activity and open dialogue so that the teacher-student relationship is practically interchangeable.

And tomorrow I hop on that tractor to mow the pecan orchard. Solo.

Faith and I have now spent two full days here at World Hunger Relief...and we're still alive everyone! It's been a crazy couple of days, to say the least. I've learned more and worked more in the past 48 hours than any other time in recent memory. It's also been quite an adjustment--getting used to being without air conditioning, sharing living space with 4 other people, and composting my own poo.

That said, here's a brief summary of what I've done in just the past 2 days here at the farm:

-helped repair sprinkler-heads at our pecan orchard
-helped provide shade for several rows of veggies, as well as the goats
-planted beets, cauliflower, broccoli, and kale
-fed the rabbits
-milked and fed the goats
-brainstormed on ideas for urban gardening
-hauled out trash
-cleaned out the attic of the barn

Typically, mornings begin b/w 6 and 7AM, depending on what chores I'm assigned to for the morning. The chores include milking and feeding the goats, feeding the rabbits, and feeding the chickens. Afterwards, we have a group devotion time at 8, followed by a morning full of work. We finish off at 12:30 for lunch together. Then, for afternoons, things switch up a bit. On Tuesday's & Thursday's we have a class where we learn everything from farming techniques to theology. Monday's, Wednesday's, & Friday's are generally days where each person can spend researching or working on the enterprise they're in charge of.

The enterprises are: local education, livestock, dairy, pecan orchard, urban gardening, fresh market vegetable production, and the village store. I've been asked to help head up both the pecan orchard and the urban gardening enterprises for the year. I'm incredibly excited and overwhelmed with the challenge of learning more about these areas!

All this to say, please please PLEASE pray for Faith and me. It's been greatly enjoyable here so far...but it's also been greatly trying on us. We're both having to learn how to love and grow in ways that we're not familiar with.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or simply want to come out and visit, I'd love to chat!

To close, let me finish with an illustration:

As I was planting the beet seeds yesterday...at 3pm...in 100 degree heat...I realized just how tedious the task was. For a moment I grew weary and frustrated with the task of delicately placing these seeds an inch apart from each other. Then, I became aware of God's love of us...right there in the 100 degree heat and dirt. I realized just how deliberate one has to be to plant something as simple as beets or kale. And when I thought about the intricacies of nature and the complexities of man, I became awestruck as I became mindful of how unbelievably deliberate Almighty God was to create not only the world, but me. Such purpose practically shouts out just how much our Creator loves us.

Peace friends.