Food for the Hungry...future job?

This week at school we are having "New Vision Week". It is a time to learn more about missions around the world and how we can become involved with them. In the Campus Center there are a bunch of booths set up advertising different missions organizations. I chose to visit the booth for Food For the Hungry. The man running the booth was named Mark Klink. He is my new favorite person, and I'm not kidding in the least bit. We started talking about the different things his organization does and that led to an hour conversation on all different things. We also ate dinner together, along with Matt, and talked for almost 3 hours. We talked about a lot about two programs I'm interested in, Hunger Corps Missions and Go ED. Semester Abroad. Both of these programs I'm seriously considering. Actually, there is going to have to be a lot to stop me from doing them.

The Hunger Corps is like the Peace Corps but with a Christian organization. They do work in many areas of need, like medical, business, and social work. The Hunger Corps is my exact vision for what I want to do with my life. They are a humanitarian relief aid organization that also shares God's love with the people they help. Their concentration is on the true needs of people like food and water. I really like this because I have been contemplating the Peace Corps for a long time. The biggest difference between the two, other than the religious aspect, is that Peace Corps pays you to do it. Hunger Corps on the other hand makes you raise your own money, usually through support. I like this because it teaches people to rely on God for their everyday needs, like we are told to in the Bible. People learn what it's like to have true faith, because there they have no steady income.

The other thing I found out a lot about is the Go ED. Program. This is a semester long study program in Africa. During the semester you work in Uganda, Rowanda, and possibly in Ethiopia or Kenya. During the program you take one class for three weeks and then switch to a new class. You do this for three classes and then at the end of the semester you do a practicum in the country of your choice. It looks like an amazing experience. I would really like to do this as well as Tanzania, but I'm not sure at this point if it's possible.

Crash

Hey guys, sorry I haven't written in forever. I have had a lot to do and I have been experiencing a lot of writers block lately as well. Anyways, I watched Crash for the first time last night. Like everyone told me, it was a great movie. It is fully deserving of it's 30 awards including Oscars for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Editing, and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly of the Screen. For those who haven't seen it, it a movie about the lives of about 6 different people/couples and how there seemingly unrelated lives are so intricately intertwined. I really like one of the taglines which says, "Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other." This perfectly describes why the world can seem so big and yet people can never run away from their past of problems. We are bound to collide. The movie shows the need all humans have to contact with others. No one wants to be alone, everyone wants to be touched. Don Cheadle says it best in the first line of the movie, "In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." This movies exposes humanities reliance on others. No one on earth can live life on their own. Many people may say that all we need is God, which is true, but God gave us others for a reason. If we were meant to be alone, God would have only put one of us here.

Another big theme in the movie is racism. Almost everyone in this movie is biased racially at one point or another. I think it is important that everyone is portrayed as biased at some point (I say biased, because I think racist is such a strong term). It is human nature to make judgement about other people who are different. Race is the most obvious of human differences. We all make judgments or assumptions about other people at one point or another. It doesn't mean you are a racist, it just means you are human. The whole point is to not let those difference or assumptions control our actions or lives. I think this idea of everyone being biased is best shown when Anthony (Ludacris) is talking about people being racist when he leaves a restaurant. In his dialogue with his friend, he shows his own racism and biased towards white people, and later East Asian people.

It was interesting how the movie also used tragedy or traumatic events to truly wake people up to true life. Every character has either had their life threatened, a family member die, or their life as they know it destroyed. Through these events the characters find out what it truly means to live. Life means more than just accumulation wealth. This is best shown through the life of Daniel. Daniel is a static character that most people can easily relate to. He is a locksmith that comes in contact with a couple of the other characters. It is understood from dialogue that he was from a dangerous part of L.A., and is now living in a different neighborhood that is safer for his family. I enjoyed his character because it was clear he has worked hard to get where he is and he truly loves his family. He showed that life is about family and enjoying life.

This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. I felt as though it was a real life portrayal of what life is like for some people in L.A. It opened up my eyes to the fact that racism is not always as we see it. In the times we think we are being discriminated against, we may be doing it to others as well. I also liked how the movie showed that L.A. is so big, but it is smaller and more intertwined that most realize. Well, let me know what you thought of the movie. Please comment!

Visit the christianity.com forums

Just as a follow up on my post about polygamy, I would encourage you to visit this christianity.com forum about polygamy. There has been a lot of interesting comments and arguments brought up supporting both sides.

Another interesting question brought up on one of the forums is if modesty standards are dictated by culture or not. I have commented on this issue and, as many of you probably expect, I think it's culturally dictated. I don't see where the Bible says, other than New Testament Law, how people should dress. It says that we are not to cause others to stumble; but, what I might call immodest, in some cultures is perfectly normal and is not looked upon as something sexual. For people that think it's an issue of right or wrong, my question to them is: What is the right modesty standards for Christians? I think anyone would have a hard time answering this question because it varies even within people in America. Some see women wearing pants as wrong, while other see it has acceptable. In any case, the forum is interesting and you should take a look!

Christian morality

Is there such thing as Christian morality? This question was raised during my Intro to Christianity class the other day. As I thought about this more, I realized something that was surprising to me. There is NO such thing as Christian morality. An example used in class was when a student said that killing another person is something that is purely wrong. My professor, Dr. Eckley, said in response, "What if someone hits another person with their car on accident, the person is killed, but they had no intention of hurting anyone? Has the person driving the car done wrong? Have they sinned?" The response most people would give to this is no. The person did not wrong because they did not meat to kill anyone, it was clearly an accident. This would show that killing someone is not purely wrong, but it's a matter of the motive behind the action. There are numerous other arguments that support this that I won't get into on this post. I just found this an amazing revelation that Christian moralities are non-existent. Whether something is sinful or not is all a matter of the motive behind what someone does.

If you have any arguments that you think combat this, please let me know! I am continually redefining my own theology and I want to hear every side of this issue. Even if you think I'm crazy let me know!

Afican news

Please visit Chase's blog to read up-to-date news on Africa. For those of you that know me, or look at anything in my blog, Africa is very close to my heart. It is a continent that is overflowing with tragedies that much of the world either doesn't know about or chooses to ignore. I have felt a call to open the eyes of my friends and anyone I know to the travesties in Africa. So please, don't be another ignorant American and go to his blog and do something to help the people of Africa. Thanks, much love.

Message from a former terrorist

Tonight we had a former terrorist speak at Houghton. It was extremely interesting! His name is Dr. Tawfik Hamid and he was born in Egypt in the early 60's. Since he was born to secular parents, he first started to explore the possibility of God in his mid-teens. Being in Egypt, Islam was the most popular religion and the first one Dr. Hamid turned to. He was recruited by JamahaIslameia (JI), a terrorist cell, when he was still in his teens. JI was led by Dr. Ayman alZawahiri who is now second only to Osama Bin Laden in Al-Qaeda. Dr. Hamid was taught the ideas and beliefs of fundamental Islam. As he grew in his maturity and learning, he decided that the violent teachings of so-called "radical Islam" were wrong. He could not ignore his conscience and ill feelings towards the taking of another life. He then began to speak against the violent teachings of radical Islam. After Dr. Hamid began doing this there were many threats on his life. He along with his family had to flee the country to ensure there safety. Dr. Hamid even changed his name to what it is now in order to be safe. He now speaks all over the world including the Intelligence Summit in Washington, D.C. about his views on Islam and ways to combat fundamentalism. He has spoken to many television agencies which include: CNN, CBS, and FOX. Dr. Hamid's ultimate goal is to reform Islam, and refute the violent, fundamentalist ideas taught in much of the world today.

A very interesting thing Dr. Hamid talked about was that the reason fundamentalism grew so big and rapidly because of Saudi Arabia. Before Saudi Arabia became the rich country it is today, it was home to many fundamental Islamic groups that were suppressed because the country was not the power it is today. When Saudi Arabia became the power it is the suppressed people rose up and spread their fundamental ideas on Islam. The writing on the Saudi Arabian says, "I testify that there is no god but Allah, and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." This is called the "shahada creed". Under the creed is a sword. The meaning of the flag, according to Dr. Hamid, is that the religion of Islam is to be spread through all the world, and spread by force (the meaning of the sword).

One of the things I found most interesting was his views on the Iraq War. He said that there are three aspects we need to look at when considering the war. 1) The local insurgency is the first aspect. Dr. Hamid said that we initially made smart moves, including the capture and detainment of Sadam Hussain. After the good initial moves, he said that the U.S. clearly made some poor tactical decisions. The problem is now how to salvage those bad decisions and turn the war around in favor of the U.S. 2) The "Global Jihad" is the second aspect that needs to be looked at. This, Dr. Hamid said, was not affected much by the war. If anything, the war slightly decreased the "Global Jihad". It made the attacks on people more concentrated in Iraq. This was helpful to the rest of the world, because it made radical Islamics concentrate on one area, not the whole world. This was all on a small scale, however, and like I said before, the war only effected this a little 3) Reformation in Islam is that last aspect of the war. In Dr. Hamid's mind, the war has helped this cause greatly. He said that the Muslim people always like to feel victorious in whatever they do. When the U.S. came in, captured Sadam, and took control of Iraq it made many of the radical Islams feel defeated. This had an effect on their psyche and it opened the door for people to teach a peaceful form of Islam to those who would listen.

The final things he said about the war were, in my mind, ingenious ways in which the U.S. needs to pull out of Iraq when the time comes. The first thing he said was that the U.S. absolutely can not just pull out immediately. If the U.S. were to do this, the fundamentalists would say that they had won, and the attacks on the U.S. and around the world would get worse. As I said earlier, everything comes down to a sense of victory for the Muslim faith. We need to play "psychological warfare" on the people in Iraq. The first option for the U.S. is to pull out of Iraq slowly and strategically, but as we pull out we need to say things and do things that make the Iraqis feel like they have been defeated. Unlike what many people in America believe, if the Iraq people feel defeated they will become weaker and fall back instead of making more attacks. A testament to this would be after the attacks on September 11, there have been no attacks to U.S. civilians on our soil. The fundamentalists felt defeated when the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and therefore only began to fight in their own countries. The second option, and my favorite, is that the U.S. needs to set a date for leaving Iraq. Along with this date is a condition that says, for every attack on American soldiers the U.S. exit of Iraq will be delayed by a certain amount of time (ex. two or three months). If we do this, Dr. Hamid believes that that attacks on soldiers will reduce greatly. As much as the fundamentalists hate Americans and want to kill them, they feel even stronger about America leaving Iraq. This plan will make any terrorist think very hard about attacking anyone.

Well, there is much more that Dr. Hamid said, but this is all I am going to write. Please, if you have any questions or comments ask! I would love to hear what people think regarding this subject. As always, thanks for reading.

Polygamy...right, wrong, or culturally defined?

Polygamy is an issue that many Christians, and even non-Christians, would say is wrong. It is even illegal to have multiple wives in America. Why is this? Is it a law that was set in place because the forefathers thought it was Biblical, or was it a cultural norm? This is a question that was raised during my cultural anthropology class. I have done a lot of thinking and reading on this subject and I have finally come to a conclusion...polygamy is culturally significant. Let me say that again, polygamy is NOT wrong. Now, you cant quote me all the scripture you want but unless we are talking about a leader of a church, in which case they are to have only one spouse, there is nothing in the Bible that says polygamy is wrong. This view is supported by an entire missions organization in Africa. We recently had a missions conference at my church and a woman who ministers to Gambia agreed with my view. So now that you know my opinion, what is yours? Let me know what you think on the subject and your thoughts on my views. Please comment!

Rochester Homeless Experience

Hey all, so this pat week me and Matt went in to the city (Rochester) to hang out with the homeless people that live there. We took my video camera in hopes of getting some interviews. It was cold that day and rained the whole time we were there...a perfect day to brighten someone's day, right? So we walked around for a while until we saw someone who looked homeless. We were about to talk to them when I turned to Matt and said, "Wait...what are we going to say to them?" We kinda forgot about the whole initiating conversation thing...whoops. So we decided that we would but some coffee and offer it to anyone who looked like they could use a hot drink. Well, after we walked out of the diner where we got the coffee there was no one in sight...no one homeless at least. So we started to walk down the street to find people. We walked about a block until we passed two guys who were making a drug deal, one of them being homeless...we decided to keep walking. After walking about 10 blocks and me peeing in a parking lot, we found a group of guys waiting outside of a homeless shelter. Perfect! So me and Matt asked them is they wanted some coffee, they jumped at the offer. We started talking to two guys, men named Alan and Steve. I concentrated on Steve and we ended up talking for the whole time. Steve is retired from the military. He fought in the first Gulf War. Almost everything he talked about referred back to being in the ARMY. He seemed to be very enthusiastic in everything he talked about. He was a great story teller who had a talent for embellishing most everything he said. He talked about how he is actively involved in the ARMY and still trains and things like that. I think that was a little far from the truth, it was good to talk to him thought because he seemed as though not many of the other men would talk to him. Matt, on the other hand, was able to interview Alan and get some good stuff from him. Unfortunately my video camera broke and I cant view any of the videos on it anymore. So we'll have to wait awhile until we can retrieve that material. Besides that I think the day went really well and we seemed to have a positive impact on the men we talked to. They said right before we left that they were looking forward to us coming back soon, and hopefully we can.

A wretched sinner saved by grace,
Jordan

October Break

So everyone at Houghton makes such a big deal about going home...why is that??? For me going home is not something I look forward to or even enjoy really. I find that most of my time is spent lying around the house doing nothing, because all my friends back home either don't talk to me or have become drunks...that's Christian schooling for you. Maybe I am too close to home to appreciate being away from it. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I feel as though I'm the only one not hyperventilating the day before a break because I get to "go home". Freshman I understand, they have never been away from home for very long and for them going back home maybe seen as going back to normalcy. For others, maybe its getting back to some sort of civilization, I know some can't take being in Houghton for extended periods of time...I think someone should have thought about that before they signed away $28,000. Now neither of these two reasons fit me. One, I'm not a freshman; two, I find it much more boring here, even though there is "civilization", because I have no friends here. Applebees and the mall are not as much fun as you would think if you are there by yourself. So all this to say, I am bored out of my mind. Sure I could do homework or get ahead on stuff I know I have due later in the semester, but seriously it's vacation...enough said. I have found that no matter how many movies you watch...2 movies and 6 episodes of "The Office" in less than a day...it is still boring here. So, if you are reading this and can think of any good things for me to do...please, help a poor guy out and let me know.

D.C. Uganda Lobby Day Part II

So it was a short night and we were up again and heading into the city. This day we were headed for Capitol Hill. This was that day that I had drove over 8 hours for...the lobbying day. We were going to met with advisers of our senators and representatives. We were to meet at 8 am in the Dirksen Senate Building. Everyone was split into the state they came from, so they could talk to their own reps and senators. We were briefed on what were were to say and do at the meetings. There were for points that we wanted to get across to congress: 1) Active U.S. support for the peace talks in Juba 2) More humanitarian aid provided for the people of Northern Uganda 3) Calls to be made to the State Department to bring more attention to this situation 4) Increased and constant funding to the country of Uganda. We first met with Chuck Shumer's advisor. The woman was very nice and seemed to be very open to what we had to say. She had quite a bit of knowledge about the conflict and seemed to be excited about what we were doing. It was a great meeting and very encouraging. The second meeting with Hillary Clinton's advisor was about the same. The man was very informed and interested. The day was going great, I didn't think it could get much better; then, lunch came.

We walked to the cafeteria of the senate buildings and began to find a place to eat lunch. Just as we were about to sit down I looked across the cafeteria and saw Jason Russel. For those of you who don't know, Jason was one of the three filmmakers of Invisible Children! If you know me very well, you know I was freaking out at this point. Jason is about as close as it comes to a hero for me. So me and Matt walked over and introduced ourselves. After we talked for a second he asked us to sit down and eat lunch with him. It was a dream come true! We talked about what me and Matt were studying in college and about this book he was reading. It went really well, but unfortunately we didn't get to talk long because he had to leave. After all of that excitment, we finished our lunch and set off to talk to our reps.

We were split into different groups this time, so we could see as many reps as possible. My group was me, Jenna, a girl named Michelle, and another guy whose name I can't recall right now...whoops. We vistied the offices of Rep. Timothy Bishop. Both of the meeting went well, not quite as well as the first two though. The advisors didn't seem to much or anyhing at all about the confict in Uganda. That was ok though, we got a chance to tell someone new about what we cared so passionatly for. They seemed interested and they told us that they would do what they could. After those two meetings me, Matt, Kaylie, and Allison headed out of Wshingotn as fats as we could. We had a long drive ahead of us and we wanted to get started as soon as possible. After changing in the parking garage, we got in my car and drove back to Houghton, stopping a few times for food and to take Allison home.

As I look back on the trip I hope that we accomplished something in D.C. Even if only one person heard our voice, thats all we need. God can use the smallest seed to make the tree. I think we impacted more than just one person though. I think all those yellow shirts in one place made a difference. I'm glad I was apart of that difference. My question for you is what difference are you going to make?

D.C. Uganda Lobby Day Part I

So I don't know if anyone even reads this, but if you do thanks...and sorry I haven't written in so long. It has been a hectic few weeks. I guess I will start with D.C. About a week and a half ago me, Matt, Kaylie, and Allison went down to Washington D.C. for the Northern Uganda Lobby Day and Symposium. We left Sunday the 8th and came back to Houghton late Tuesday night the 10th. We stayed at Kaylie's house which is near Baltimore. It was about an hour and fifteen minutes into the city from here house. Both days we drove to the outskirts of the city and took the metro in from there.

The first day I experienced a little "culture shock" when we got to the metro station because we had no idea how to get tickets. Everything was through machines, and we were totally confused. I could tell that people were looking at us and knew that we were not from the area. I hate that feeling, the feeling of not belonging. What was worse was that we looked like tourists, I hate being a tourist. We got some help from a nice man however, and we were soon on our way. The first days events were held at the George Washington University campus.
The events was all lectures and speeches basically from people who are either from Uganda, or well educated on the subject. First we had a morning session with a panel of 5 different people. These people included a former sex slave to the LRA and the Chief of the Acholi tribe (the tribe most affected by the war). I thought is was "ok", not the best thing I have ever gone to. For the most part I felt like people there said the same things over and over. For me, and I bet most people, the things said were things we knew already. The later sessions in the day were better because they dealt more with what will happen after the war in terms of rebuilding and humanitarian aid. I did learn a bit from that and I enjoyed them. It was just too bad that we had to drive so much the day before and we got little sleep, so it was a little difficult to stay awake.

After all that we decided to skip one of the talks and explore D.C. a little, even though we had all been there before. We went to the mall and walked around for a little and then came back to the GW campus and went to a Chinese restaurant close to there. The day ended with the film "Uganda Rising". It was a film about the history of the war and its effect on the people of Northern Uganda. It was quite moving and much more graphic than I thought it would be. The film makers seemed to hold nothing back, which I thought was good and I respected a lot. After the movie was over we quickly headed back to Kaylie's house because we were all dead at that point, and we needed to be up at 5 the next morning.