Graceway was located in the largest slum (Tuwani) in Kitale. I was told about the poverty we would come across, and all I could think about were the commercials I had seen on TV or the articles I had read about Africa. Commercials and articles so often give you the statistics on death, disease, malnutrition, and the list goes on (I hadn't seen this level of poverty in South Africa). Without even realizing it I had let those things shape my view of poverty. I thought poverty equaled misery. I thought it would be really hard to be in the slums and see how some people have to live. But what really struck me once I got there was not the misery but the joy I saw in the people I met. Many of them possessed more joy than I see in a lot of people in America.

One of my favorite families to visit in Tuwani was Beatrice and her five kids. Beatrice was around 25 and a widow, so she had to raise her four daughters and one son by herself. This is a somewhat common picture of what a family looks like in Africa. Many women are widows. Many children are fatherless, motherless or both. And that's usually where the story ends. You don't get to see inside their little mud huts where they somehow still find things to laugh about. But this is what I saw every time I was with Beatrice and her kids.

I met Beatrice and her kids through Graceway. Her three oldest girls attend school there. Because Graceway has a feeding program these three girls were getting enough food, but Beatrice's daughter, Esther, was too young to go to school. Her baby brother was still young enough to be breast fed, but Esther wasn't getting the food she needed. Her hands, feet, face and belly were swollen, and she wouldn't eat although she would drink a little bit. She barely had energy to move, and you could tell she was uncomfortable. We didn't realize she was malnourished until she was brought to the hospital. She needed more protein in her diet, but Beatrice wasn't award of that.

Families rarely have enough money to bring someone to the hospital, so my friends took Esther in. They spent much of their time with her there since Beatrice also had to take care of her four other children and couldn't be with Esther all the time. Another friend and I went to visit her shortly after she was brought in. I had never seen such a dirty hospital before! I was surprised that people could actually be helped there. Patients were treated in the same areas with nothing being washed or cleaned in between each one who came in. Children were being laid on top of a counter that had no sheet, no paper, no anything to cover the counter with. Doctors would check them, stick a needle in them (sometimes IVs were inserted into their heads), do whatever they needed to do, and then bring in the next child and lay them on the same spot. It was strange to see a hospital able to function like that. The floors were dirty, the walls were stained with I don't know what, and it smelled pretty much everywhere you walked, especially near the choos (a choo is a Kenyan toilet...a rectangular hole in the ground/floor). As many as three families were assigned to one bed, and there were multiple beds in each sectioned off room. It was crowded everywhere. Families would spend days or weeks in these conditions depending on how long someone needed to be in the hospital. Sometimes you could wait a whole night at the hospital (the top half of your shirt stained with blood - I saw this), in a waiting area, before you were even seen or attended to. The hallways and waiting areas were all out doors, but at least they had tin roofs covering them. They had a children's ward, maternity ward, and a few other wards that were inside with walls around them.

So, that is what I walked into the day Esther was brought in. The workers in the hospital knew right away that she was malnourished. They said she would have to stay in the hospital for a week, but agreed to release her after a few days since they explained to us what to feed her in order to get her healthy again. So, thankfully, only a few nights were spent there before they let her go home early.

I had known Esther for a few weeks before I saw her smile for the first time. It was after she came home from the hospital, and my friends and I were visiting them. Beatrice's older girls are some of the most joyful kids I remember meeting while I was in Kenya, yet I had never seen Esther as happy or as energetic as they were. On this particular day, as we were there playing and laughing with the kids, something made Esther smile...and we even saw her teeth! We talk about this day even now because it was so good to see her happy. I don't remember what it was that made her smile, but we even got a picture. It was wonderful to see the change in her as she began to get healthier.

But it wasn't just Esther's smile that made us happy. It was being with that family. Here is a mom with five kids, living in a tiny mud hut, struggling to even be able to feed them everyday. You would never know by their attitudes or actions how hard things were for them though. As we were walking to their house that day the older girls came running out to meet us. They jumped on us, hugged us, and brought us inside. I think we laughed the entire time we were there. And we don't even speak the same language! I know at one point the girls were making fun of us, I think just because we were white (and we had 'small eyes'), but even that made us laugh with them! And it was so good to see how Beatrice interacted with her kids. She knew how to make them laugh, and you could tell that they had fun together. They would only have to say a few words to each other before the giggles started. She struggled to provide for them, but she loved them! I just never expected to see that kind of joy, and hear that kind of laughter in such hard circumstances. It was so different to be in a place where people's joy is not dependent on the things they possess.

There was another day, towards the end of our stay, when my friend and I visited their home. Only Beatrice was there with her two youngest kids, because the others were in school. When we walked in, they were eating the powder out of vitamin packets. I wasn't sure why they were doing that at first, but after a little while, we realized she didn't have any food in the house. I asked her two or three times if she had anything at all, and her answer was always, "No". I kept asking her because I just couldn't grasp not having food. It's hard to understand poverty without seeing it, but I had actually stepped into it, at least physically. I could see and smell the trash all around, I could see how people were living, but I still could not comprehend waking up without any food. And there was Beatrice, smiling and welcoming us into her home. Her smile was always so big and came so freely. She must have been wondering where the next meal was going to come from and what she could feed her kids, but she was calm as she was telling us she had no food. The only reason I didn't start crying when she said that was because she was somehow okay. We left, bought some food, and brought it back to her. She just smiled and said 'Asante' (thank you) over and over.

Meeting Beatrice and her family made me think about why I don't smile as much as them, and when I do, if it comes from a true appreciation of God's grace in my own life. I was reminded, for the hundredth time while I was in Africa, that you can find joy in the most unexpected places. There is always something to smile about. Always something to be thankful for - by the grace of God. There is no other way to explain their smiles, laughter and hospitality alongside the physical destitution of their lives. God's grace, His undeserved goodness to us, is a free gift that we cannot earn. Some have much, others have barely anything. But when He gives anyone any good thing to even smile about, it's a gift from Him. I don't know how conscious Beatrice was of God's grace, but her smiles proved that it exists even in the midst of human suffering.

Every crisis, and this is a crisis by any definition, brings out the best - or the worst - in those who try to isolate causes or future preventative measures. The crassest, and most callow, are those who, at least initially, placed the blame on those who "bought more home than they could afford". Besides the mathematical absurdity (does anyone really think a few thousand defaulted home loans could bring down a world economy?) there is the pragmatic reality that virtually all of us, with pay cuts or job losses find ourselves in "more home than we could afford".

This simplistic - and vindictive - analysis, mostly from talk radio hosts with multi-million dollar salaries, does little to help us make sense - or deal with - an immensely difficult and complicated situation - one that reverberates from the headlines to the house next door.

There's a old saying among those who work with the homeless that we are all, no matter how middle class, merely three paychecks from being homeless. And that was true several years ago. We have all, no matter how prudent we might have been, moved several steps closer to that brink in the past year or so.

One of the many ironies in our current economic mess is the silence of people of faith - these are the people who make a public profession of compassion and restoration. But where are they? Where are the voices of hope? Where are the groups who were so eager to "protect the American family" a few months ago now that families from virtually every neighborhood have been evicted and scattered across couches and tent cities across our country?

The Bible is not silent when it comes to these armchair pontificators. Consider this verse - "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation." Matthew 23:14 (New King James)

Every empty home, every tangled and overgrown lawn, holds a story. In fact, every empty home holds a series of stories; one about those who used to live there and one about those of us who look on from our own emptiness.

We are awash in explanations and blame. There is a cloud of grief and rage that hangs over our neighborhoods.

But as we might step, or even just peer, into an empty, cold and damp house, what says more than the broken toy left in an upstairs closet? Or a bag of cat food left on the fridge?

Brad D. Strawn is dean of the chapel and Vice President for Spiritual Development at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany Oklahoma.

And then I blog about it. Here's an entry from several months ago.

December 16, 2008 I wonder what things in people's lives never go away. What becomes the background radiation of an individual? I got to thinking about this, because I went to do a home visit yesterday. When I do those, I always end up talking to Ray for a little while. Ray is the front desk man. I said, "How are things, Ray?" He said, "Okay. We had a suicide here over the weekend." He went on to tell me about how he found the body of this person in the shower, naked. He'd used pills and booze to do it, apparently. Finding a dead man in the shower is something I can barely fathom. I said to Ray something to the affect of, "That's terrible. How are you handling that?" And Ray said something to the affect of, "At least I found him right away. Other times I have to open the door when somebody has been dead inside for a couple days." Here's a man to whom, on some level, the finding of the dead is part of the job. I wonder how that plays out for Ray. I wonder, when he turns off the lights and all, how he listens to that or how it informs who he is the rest of the time. It's the same for interacting with our guests... I'm always fascinated to find out the events in the past which are unignorable, the memories of which never go away.

It spooks me a little to reread that. If I believe (I do believe this, you should know) that an essential element of this kind of work is identification with the poor, then what elements of the lives of these men and women will never leave me? It's sort of like I fear transference of the emotion of their experiences. That might be a disrespectful way to put it, because really, how could I ever know what the abuse some of these men and women have gone through is really like? Of course I can't really know. But the background radiation of the lives of some of our guests is very invasive and I get hints and whispers of trauma that's not mine in my case management meetings with them. After awhile, those hints and whispers really do become mine. They feel really heavy and I'm afraid they will never leave. That's the best way I can put into words what scares me about finding any kind of identity with the poor.

But there's also this: I found out that one of the biggest, but most subtle dangers of doing this kind of work is becoming filled with pride. The organization I work for is Christian based. We all know the dangers of that particular sin and we all know the appropriate response: Do the work you do for the glory of God and not for the glory of yourself. I get it. You know what though, I constantly find myself feeling superior to other people. It's not like a real overt sense of superiority, but just a little something I carry around in the back of my mind so when I meet somebody new at church, let's say, and I ask him what he does and he says something like, "I'm in finance," I can dip into that little sack of pride in the back of my mind and think at him, "Finance, huh? Well, who gives a rat's ass? I know a guy with a huge crack problem and it's my job to help him. Finance? Please. Come on, ask me what I do, you sucker." Not a lot of room for the glory of God, I'm forced to admit. I find myself clinging to crack guy's pain, the heaviness of which, in reality, I'm afraid will never leave me. I think it's because when I'm around other people, that pain provides a kind of identity. "This is what I do, and it makes me feel like a hero," is what I would secretly say out loud to nobody.

So it's my own pride that keeps me clinging to the hurt of others. (Man, that sounds terrible.) I find it hard to release that pride because somehow, doing it all for the glory of God just doesn't seem to erase the complicated and nuanced god-awful experiences of some of the men and women my organization serves. How do you shove it all under a marching order like that? So I find myself giving lip-service to that glory of God motivation--evidently I don't think it's enough. If I think about it even more, I realize I ignore doing anything for God's glory because I don't see how that relieves me of the little traumas that aren't mine and that I find clinging to me every day when I get home from work. I think if I could ever get beyond my pride, what I would really want to do with those whiffs of hurt is to share them with somebody who gets it, diffuse them a little bit with some honest conversation, seek some comfort in the arms of somebody who understands more than me. (By the way, for me "seeking comfort in the arms of somebody" = having a beer together in a dark corner of some pub somewhere. It's not really hugging. Lest you think I'm a weenie.)

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11 verse 28, the Lord says, "Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." I've never really thought about this verse as it might apply to me, specifically in the context of working with the poor and of putting on the burdens that they might bear. As a matter of fact, I've always thought it was the poor He was talking to. I suppose the realization for me here is that in fact, He is talking to the poor and I am one of the poor he is talking to. On some level, it's identification with the poor, a kind of solidarity of inadequacy. I am poorly designed to handle the pain and grief that some of the men and women in our housing program experience daily, just as they are poorly designed to handle it. In my pride, I've assumed that I have been set apart to carry those burdens, but, as I am always finding out, that pride of mine leads to an exploitation of those burdens, to a license to secretly lord over other people the work I do. I realize in my more lucid spiritual moments, or perhaps I should say, God shows me in those moments that the kind of rest He is talking about not only is given to the poor for the immense burdens some of them carry, but to me as well, because I'm not supposed to carry those burdens either. It really is a relief to stop pretending I can.

Paul Luikart lives with his wonderful wife in Chicago. He struggles with his own pride all the time. Writing and reading and Christ-centered social justice all matter a lot to him. More thoughts can be found at paulluikart.blogspot.com, if you are so inclined to read them.

John begins with 1984, the real year, not Orwell's. About Ethiopia and Stevie Wonder and pictures of babies with big bellies and flies on their faces. I think that he's talking about how great it was that the world finally cared about Africa, but he's not. He says those photos and songs and TV ads, "destroyed the dignity of Africans." He says the world advertises Africa when there is a disaster, but not when there is a success. (Except Mandela, and "there's a reason for that, too," he says, unsmiling). His words echo in my head. Destroyed the dignity of Africans.

I do this, too. I write about the disasters and the poverty, the beggars and the rapists. As though this is Africa. I, too, appeal to the emotions of others with images of need, without the other images, just as true. Why don't I write about my Kenyan friends and colleagues who are educated, professional and happy? Or about the amazing diplomacy work, development work, and research that Kenyans are doing?

But isn't there also value in describing the suffering? The poverty isn't fabricated. My stories aren't just some isolated instances that I'm using repeatedly or falsely to rip at people's emotions. This is what I see every day.

Like yesterday, I was in a small brick building just down the road where there are 15 babies in 2 crowded rooms, waiting for mothers who are in prison or adoptive mothers who have yet to appear. I know a woman who runs an orphanage in the highlands outside of Nairobi who can't pay her rising, astronomical electricity bills, and so is trying to care for 25 children with no electricity. And I just learned this week of an Internally Displaced People's camp less than 30 miles away that no one seems to know about where 200 people are literally starving at this very moment. I can't imagine that failing to mention this suffering is somehow lending these people dignity. I describe these images because I feel so strongly that this kind of disparity should not exist in a world where so many of us are so wealthy and have access to every possible resource.

So I'm at a loss. I long to write with respect and humility, to honor the people whom I live with here in Kenya. I don't want to contribute to a phenomenon that allows the western world to nurse condescending stereotypes of Africa. And yet, these stories need to be told. If my writing, or someone else's song or photo, can shake someone out of apathy and maybe somewhere down the road even move them to relieve a little bit of the suffering in their world, isn't that worthwhile? Isn't the act of writing my own way of "look[ing] after orphans and widows in their distress"? Lord, have mercy. My African brothers and sisters, have mercy. And my wealthy North American family, please, please, have mercy.

We both had a sick feeling in the pits of our stomachs. We both had the same first thought, that of comparison to a certain day in September. But I believe our reasons weren't the same as those of many others. This was before we knew anything about Westerners being hostages. All we knew was India was under attack, and that was enough. We felt for India as we would for a friend.

Last year, we had the opportunity to visit a ministry in the Southwestern part of India. During that time we developed friendships that we hope will continue. We also hope to return this year, as there is more work that can continue. I won't describe it in detail for reasons I'll explain later. The main point is, going to India altered and expanded our perspective more than somewhat. Though we were just there a week, that was all the time it took to expand our view of family. We were connected.

If I were called upon to give a sermon, it would be two words. Just go. Many in Christian circles read Acts 1:8 and related passages in the Gospels with the intention of dissecting the entire command. This is necessary as well, but let's not miss the power in that first word alone. There is power in going.

I missed that power on my first missions trip. I went to England for a week with teachers and fellow juniors and seniors in our small Christian school. We went from jet lag to literature distribution in a matter of hours. The rest of the week consisted of presentations, one after the other. I can't remember a single conversation. I also don't remember much about England, except which words they apparently consider vulgar.

My second short term trip came several years after college. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, so I came to Korea to try teaching English as a Second Language and the Bible to college students. I taught and learned simultaneously, and my point of view began to expand. Until then I was unaware of the possibility to be a Christian and dislike President Bush. Wasn't God a Republican?

Perhaps the language barrier required much more listening, but whatever the case, it began a journey that continues to challenge. And then there was India.

I can't remember what we taught when we visited India, but maybe if I were pressed I'd remember. That wasn't our primary reason for going. We went to see.

I remember learning how much diversity can be in one country, by seeing people with different languages and cultures from different Indian states work alongside us. A seminary professor asked for us to bring a group back the following year because he wanted to see more diversity. As an expatriate in Korea, diversity wasn't something I saw or heard about every day.

I also learned I wasn't the only one with something to say. When I was handed a microphone for our assembly following Vacation Bible School I passed it to students asking what they learned. We put our common language and lessons to good use.

There were many other lessons I learned about poverty and wealth, how rich we really are, and the blessing a common language can be. I didn't learn by holding on to the microphone; I had to hand it over.

When I contrast India and Korea with England, I remember the microphone and I can spot the difference. When we went to England, we had a common language, but we were trained to talk. We had a message to share, and we had to spew it out in as many ways possible. Our eyes and ears weren't shut, but it was pretty close.

In Korea and India, I still had a purpose and a message to share. But I had to watch and listen before I could teach. My human nature wanted to hang on to the microphone, because I had to say something, but I never would have learned that way. And only by learning can we truly hope to teach.

Back to the two word sermon. Just going means I have to be silent first, only using my voice to ask questions. In going there is learning, and from learning we can truly teach and share. I hope more of us decide to go, with service in our hearts. We are there to help, but also to listen and learn. And when it's our turn to hold the microphone, we'll know what to do.

---

Matt Miles is currently living in South Korea. He teaches English as a second language to elementary students, and leads visits to local orphanages and nursing homes. He also encourages reading world news with an international focus. He enjoys traveling when he can.

On my TV set, when I open the computer, when I don't even know about it. In fact, it has happened since forever.

Last August, Russian tanks crossed the border into Georgia and started war there, the same day the Olympics started.

The Olympics. That world-unity-is-our-theme-extravaganza.

What we still can't seem to grasp as a people is this: War is not the solution. Never has been. It is a human solution to a human problem. No matter what spin the religious try to put on it. Always has been. The human problem is that good and bad dwell in each of us and the power to destroy is as much a possibility as the power to heal and reconcile. Put us together, and collectively, we can help one another or we can hurt one another. The evil that we seek to protect or deliver people from is in us and thus will never be removed at the end of a gun barrel or by the imagination of a scientist. Never has, never will.

Even though God's name is used a whole lot in some of these conflicts, I've come to see that God rarely has anything to do with them. Those making the decisions, some of my fellow Americans, and a large number people in the world, who speak as if God is supportive of them, saying "God bless America" or "it is our duty to fight 'evil' and protect people." We live in a world of rhetoric where it is natural to view our own countries - and our own selves - as the "good", the "righteous", the "blessed", if you will. We say, "we are fighting for freedom and democracy everywhere." "We are on the side of justice." "God is with us and blessing us in our endeavors." "God is for us." The challenge is when the people of faith take on the national identity and blur the lines between being faithful and being a patriot. We are no longer a people tied to our faith in God, unbounded by borders, but we are now a people tied to a flag, a government, a set of colors, a name. It's then that we use religion and the Bible to support our decisions. In other countries, the same thing happens, though the book they reference may be different. It's a wonder so many people stop keeping the faith when God appears to suffer from a multiple-personality disorder.

So, what bothers me as an ordinary U.S. citizen, who is obliged to vote, is how to respond to things like the ongoing conflict in Iraq and the Middle East or the crisis in Sudan or daily gang wars in South Los Angeles? I mean my gut reaction is to say, "Something has got to be done. These things are unjust and must be stopped." It is, of course, a response to the injustice of it all. How do we stop it if war is not the answer?

I think we must start here: It is the ugliness in our hearts that fuels all of this just as much as "the enemy" or "the other." This is the "enemy" we can change, the one in our hearts.

However, this is easier said than done.

A message-bearer of peace Himself, Jesus, never used a weapon, and in fact, got upset at one of his disciples for picking up a sword to cut off the soldier's ear when He was arrested in Gethsemane. In fact, Jesus came and spoke into the lives of folks (representative of all of us) who thought they had it right, who wanted Jesus to free them from foreign oppression with the sword and who thought this belief was on the side of God (and justice). He told them they didn't and was killed for it in a part of the world that continues to see daily conflict, all without the use of a weapon, without invoking the need for war or a physical fight. There are many more that have followed in his footsteps (whether they believed in Him or knew Him), dying at the hands of "rulers"- the ones with "weapons".

Weapons. This is where I sit in thought for a while. The tools of war.

Perhaps the argument is this: weapons and the imaginations that invented them won't go away or be erased from memory. Thus, we need to find a solution that helps our world the best. Our presidential candidates endorse this too. They have to or they wouldn't get elected today. The cost-benefit analysis is that we need the "cost" of war to fund the "benefit" of protection and safety (or, at least, the illusion of it, is my guess). But, I still want to ask them- how is it peacekeeping when we are the holders of the guns and bombs and technology in a poverty and ethnic violence-filled, no-trust-atmosphere, where you can't go out on the street for fear of bombs or bullets?

How are we keeping peace at the end of a gun barrel?

Post-Manifest Destiny, the U.S. has justified our military presence in the world as protectors and peacekeepers. We enter only when national security is threatened or our personal interests in a region are threatened. In 1954, our country supported the South Vietnam government after the North became Communist. But, in the 1960's, a full-scale war ensued not to simply show solidarity to the Southern Vietnamese army, but largely to protect our trade interests in the region. Several of those decision-makers today have expressed remorse at their decision and realize they didn't know what they were doing.

So, how is war good and beneficial to us and how is it that my country of residence, the U.S., can claim its military efforts are about keeping peace in this world?

Us?

The country who invented the worst weapon yet- the nuclear bomb- creating instant holocaust in two towns in Japan in 1945. Was this notion of peace endorsed because the people were either too dead or too traumatized to speak or move? Thus the ensuing silence and cooperation out of being stunned was interpreted as peace.

Again, this is the same country whose leaders and strategists supported slavery, lynching, Jim Crow laws, eugenics, anti-immigration policies for ethnic groups, the cattle-herding and killing of American Indians, the turning away of the Jewish people during WWII, and the list goes on.

Now after saying all this, I'm thinking two cents is so small. Mere pittance really, and my focus on this fact can overwhelm and undermine. But, as the mountain is huge, I leave with a question for each of us to ask ourselves: How does my personal weakness/ugliness of heart perpetuate all of it and how have I personally acquiesced to the human rhetoric of war rather than heeded Jesus' words of reconciliation and his rebuke of this mindset?

In conclusion, war exists because darkness exists in all of our hearts and peace will never happen here on earth as long as we, individually then corporately, don't recognize that and pursue making changes to that. I am again reminded of Jesus and how he came to speak to people who thought they had it right, didn't listen to him, and were offended by him so much to the point of killing him but the things he was documented to have done and said do not warrant a criminal's death. Jesus came to make us aware of our own ugliness but we, as a whole people (believers in him or not), are sometimes so focused on protecting ourselves that we refuse to accept it and so our ugliness grows and grows until we are justifying actions that are just as evil as the people we claim to be protecting ourselves against.
And there is no freedom or peace in that.

Barbra Bowman is trying to live this life as best she can, currently in Los Angeles, California. She works in the non-profit field in the areas of youth development, art, and education, writes stories and non-fiction, and volunteers a whole lot.

But this was all before I came to Ecuador. I'm not going to tell you that I live in a little thatched hut surrounded by trees, where half-naked people with bones through their noses serve me bread. Because while that would make for an entertaining story, it would also be a big fat lie. I live in a nice home here, with bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and so on. But here, bread is life. I've never been much for bread back home, because the words "carb-conscious" or images of overweight people always swim around in my head every time my eyes find themselves staring upon a piece of baked goodness. I often will take off the bread in a sandwich, to cut back on calories and get rid of the fat on my body that never seems to go away.

Living here changed that for me, though, because I'm served foods with carbohydrates four times a day, and if I don't eat, then I starve. Breakfast often consists of bread, juice, and coffee. Sometimes eggs are served, but even when they are, two eggs are cooked for the entire family, which are then divided equally for each member. Lunch often consists of pasta soup, an entree with rice, potatoes, a portion of fish or chicken, popcorn, bread, and juice to drink. Merienda (an evening snack) is more bread, served with coffee. Finally, dinner consists of the little meat that is leftover, served over rice, with potatoes, bread, popcorn, and juice to drink.

As someone who grew up obese, and to this day has a slow metabolism, there were many times when starving seemed like a very desirable option. But my host family would have none of this. My host family would go so far as to try to convince me in Spanglish that there were certain kinds of bread that would help "carb-conscious" people lose weight. At home, I live on a diet of fruits, vegetables, a little bit of lean meat here and there, water, tea, and coffee. With the exception of the occasional cookie, I virtually eat no sweets at home. I don't put sugar in my tea or in my coffee, and I don't eat bread. Not only do I feel better from living on this diet, I have lost a lot of weight from it. So when my family gave me the the "carb-conscious" bread to eat, I didn't really believe them. As far as I was concerned, I was beginning to think that my host family was part of a conspiracy that involved finding out what I ate at home, choosing the polar opposite of those foods, and making everything that I do not eat the national diet of a small country.

But as I watched the way other people eat here, I began to realize that everyone is not eating this way because they are a part of a national conspiracy. Everyone is eating this way because this is the food they have. "Variety" is not a part of the language or the consciousness in Ecuador. Life and diet are simple here. Living in America makes me forget this at times, where life and diet are not so simple. The main diet here is a supplementary side dish on the family table at home. Growing up with variety has made me come to expect it. Whenever my family has leftovers from a previous meal, we save it in the refrigerator for days, so that variety is preserved. Here, the leftovers from lunch are dinner served, and no one says a word. Whenever my family goes out to eat, we make sure to choose a restaurant that we have not eaten in a while, so that variety is preserved. And as variety is preserved by going to these different places, we choose different items off the menu than before. Here, my host family takes me to the same restaurants, and we order the same things. Even at different restaurants, the menu is virtually the same: some form of meat with rice, potatoes, bread, and juice. Because of this, many restaurants don't even have menus.

It took me a while to figure out that variety comes from wealth. And it was after I finally understood this that the menus and similar entrees made sense. The wealth we have as Americans gives us access to variety. And when all we understand is variety, we forget bread. We forget what we have to have to live day-to-day, because we are all so busy looking up and down long menu lists and salad bar options, trying to decide what we want. It's sad we waste our time with such trivialities while people in other countries starve, simply wanting bread. It wasn't until I went to another country that I understood why people would want bread. Bread is universal. It is the most basic of sustenance, and is easy to make. It doesn't cost much, either. Bread is accessible to anyone with flour, yeast, and a stove. It fills you up, and it gives you energy to go on and about your life. Bread gives you life, and anyone can have it.

It's interesting that the more money people seem to have, the less bread they choose to eat, and the less money people seem to have, the more they choose to talk about God. This is not to say that money in itself is bad. Neither is the variety that comes with having money. But variety can be bad in that it gives us so many options and so many choices; so much variety, that we don't know what to do with it, other than to live with variety. I don't know anyone with money that chooses to live on bread alone. They move on to bigger and better things, like fine wine and steak. Bread sits in a basket on the table behind the fine wine and steak, like God in a church service on Sunday. This is when I realized why God constantly reminds us that He is the bread of life and not the steak of life, or the multivitamin of life. God is simple like bread, and is available to anyone, regardless of wealth. He may not make our lives a world of flavor, but He's really all we need to live. We need Him not as a supplement, next to steak and fine wine, or only on Sunday. We need Him all the time.

Many of my friends talk about what they are going to eat when they return to the States. I've been dying for sushi, to be honest, but other than that, I've gotten used to the food here. Even though I got sick of seeing potatoes, rice, bread, and juice at first, I've learned to become content. I've even learned to enjoy bread. And another thing I've discovered is that living on bread alone does not make me gain weight. I've lived on this diet for a month, and I'm not any different than I was before. What made me gain weight when I was younger was variety. The variety of healthy and unhealthy foods I had in excess caused me to gain weight. I always thought that the reason that I lost weight was because of a variety of foods without lots of fat and sugar. But I now see that the real reason that I lost weight was because of a lack of variety, by living on a strict diet of vegetables, fruit, lean meat, water, tea, and coffee.

Variety is wonderful. Variety expresses the creativity of God. Variety is only bad in excess, when you have so much of it that you forget what is important. This is not all to point fingers at you. I'm pointing just as much at myself, if not more so. We have all lied to ourselves, saying that we are fine with God as a side dish, or one day a week. What I am saying is to enjoy variety for what it is. But don't let variety make you forget the essentials. Don't let variety make you forget what matters for day-to-day living. Don't let variety make you forget the simple life. For food and God are about continuing life. It was never about the variety or the religion. Both were always about a means directing us towards what we need to live, and not the end. But I think I've said enough about this. It's probably about time for us to eat. Who's ready for some bread?

---

John is from Gunter, Texas. A sophomore at Taylor University, he is studying the field of Psychology in hopes of one day becoming a counselor. Other than Jesus, he lives for conversation, Jazz music, and the occasional plate of sushi. Above all, he is a flawed human being learning to embrace the bumpy journey that the Christian life is.

I started thinking this way in Chicago, in the bright classroom of a community college, where I met a group of refugees from Darfur and Sudan. They were all representatives of a coalition they had formed here in the States, designed to reach out to refugees stranded in America, plead their cause, and connect them with their families back home. A group of us had been invited to meet with them to hear their stories and learn about the plight of millions of men, women, and children who remain in the grip of war, hunger, and pestilence around the globe.

I wish I could tell you everything we talked about that day. I wish I could show you their faces. We spent the morning with them, hearing harrowing tales of flights through the forest to escape men with automatic weapons. We heard heart-wrenching stories of wives and children left behind. We even saw the video recording of a mother reunited with her son after more than a year of separation due to violence and political instability. Middle aged men wiped tears from their eyes as they drew maps on the whiteboard and told us of their country's history (despite the fact that many of us could not locate their home nation on a globe prior to walking into the room). As we were preparing to take a group photo, one majestic young man said to us, "Everyone here always tells us to smile. We do not smile. We do not know how."

Don't get me wrong, I am pretty sure these men were all in the country legally. But in speaking with them, I realized just how many people aren't. I could picture them in my head, masses of people fighting their way out of death and destruction and, by some miracle, making it into our borders. Having escaped with only the clothes on their backs, they had no time to wait for proper clearance. Or perhaps they just stepped over our border when no one was looking, or rode into the country under a tarp in a flatbed truck, or arrived in a shipping container. Regardless of the circumstances, these people are leaving their homeland and coming to us. That in itself is more complex than people realize.

I understand global politics about as much as a penguin understands global warming, but I am struck by the absurdity of arresting these survivors and sending them back to the hell they came from. Even if they don't come from war-torn countries in Africa, the truth is that most illegal immigrants come here to escape adverse conditions in their home country. I have a hard time finding fault with that.

Naive, eh? Here are a few reasons why my house will become a miniature sanctuary city.

Reason Number 1: Because of My Green Card

I think I am more inclined to look after immigrants because I'm not a citizen of this country either. Not really, anyway.

When Paul says in Philippians 3 that believers are citizens of heaven, he does not mean that when we finish life here on earth, we will move to heaven. That is probably true in some way or another, but focusing on our eventual, otherworldly escape causes us to miss the point. Paul means that believers are citizens of heaven, colonizing this planet in anticipation of the arrival of our imperial Lord Jesus who will eventually come from heaven to earth to establish His final reign. We are heaven-people infiltrating this country, awaiting the day when the King will come back. And, we play by a different set of rules than everyone else.

God has always called His people to seek the well-being of aliens, strangers, and sojourners. God Himself "defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing" (Deuteronomy 10:18; see also Psalm 9:9; 146:9). God always roots for the underdog, and He commands His people to do the same. Somehow, we totally forget passages like this. Upon meeting an immigrant, our first question is never, "How can I help this person and provide for them in their time of turmoil?" Instead, we ask, "Have they followed the procedure put in place by the temporal, worldly institution that is our government?"

In Leviticus 19:33-34, we read God's instructions to Israel regarding their treatment of outsiders: "When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt." All of God's people are called to "defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed" (Psalm 82:3). I know there was no INS back then, but if there was such an entity, perhaps God would have discouraged His people from alerting the agency to the presence of strangers.

Jesus identifies closely with refugees, probably because He lived as a refugee Himself. Remember that story, when He and His family fled to Egypt to escape the wrath of a tyrant? Jesus identifies so closely with refugees in fact that He will take the plight of the wandering stranger into account on Judgment Day, saying, "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in... I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to me" (See Matthew 25:31-46 for the whole story). Jesus is most likely talking about the care of other Christians (having called His disciples "brothers" in other instances). But He undoubtedly taught and demonstrated care for the outcast throughout His life.

And part of the determination of our faithfulness in the final day will involve our treatment of the sojourner. When we are standing before the Righteous Judge of the World and He asks us why we ignored the plight of His brother, the alien, I don't think our silly immigration laws are going to impress Him much. "Sorry, Jesus. I wanted to help you out in Your time of need, but the immigration laws in my country prohibited it."

If there is a naked guy, give him some clothes. If there is a hungry guy, give him some food. Be hospitable to strangers, visit the sick and imprisoned, and defend the cause of the powerless. No need to check their green card, just follow the commands of King Jesus. When we waste time and energy defending the status quo, our international brothers and sisters often fall by the wayside.

Reason Number 2: Because of That Time I Lost My Football

"Wait," cry the masses, "We cannot help illegal aliens! They are criminals!"

That may sound like a caricature, but I've heard people say it. Many people believe that immigrants who cross our borders are criminals. After all, they are "illegal" aliens. Let me ask you this: if "illegal" immigrants are criminals, what is their offense? I've thought about this one for a while, and though I am no Ally McBeal, I have come to my conclusion: they are guilty of trespassing.

You know, trespassing. The same thing you did as a kid when you jumped the neighbor's fence to get your football. Don't you remember times in your life when you crossed borders without permission to seek better conditions for yourself? I guess that makes you a criminal, too.

I am not trying to say that immigrants lead perfect lives or that they never commit crimes within our borders. Of course they do, just like any other population. But let's face it: the only thing we really have against "illegal" immigrants is that they have the audacity to set foot where they are not wanted. They have the nerve and ambition to seek the same standard of living we have and that makes us mad.

Most of them come here in search of better lives; so naturally, when they arrive, we treat them like thieves and rapists, crossing to the other side of the street when we pass them by. Or we protest and hold obscene, crudely constructed signs and demand that they go back where they came from. Or we talk about building a massive wall to keep people away from us. And some of us even advocate such things under the guise of Christ-likeness.

Trespassing is the only real charge, unless of course you want to launch into a rant about immigrants "not even speaking our language," or their malicious efforts to steal our jobs, or their being dirtier or lazier or more dangerous than we are. You can talk about those things if you want, but I will not dignify you with a response. I try to not to answer a fool in his folly.

Lest you appear wise, however, imagine if you were uprooted from your home by violence or poverty and dropped into a foreign country with no connections and no job. How long would it take you to learn a new language?

Tomorrow, if some crazy dictator overthrew our government and began killing people, and you fled to Mexico, wouldn't you like to be welcomed there? I have been criticized more than once for the simplicity of this statement. But, that's okay, I'm not out to impress anybody.

Reason Number 3: Because I am an anarchist...apparently.

That was sarcasm, if you're wondering. I am not an anarchist. But I have been accused more than once of failing to submit to the governing authorities. Some of you read the last section and jumped from your chair shouting, "Romans 13 says to submit to the government!"

A pastor I worked with in New York City encountered this quandary. After working closely with some families who had been attending his church, he realized that several of them were in the country illegally. Should he turn them in? Should he part ways with them?

I understand that it is important to situate ourselves in a submissive posture below those whom God has placed over us. That is very important. But, the standard in Romans 13 does not suggest that we must blindly obey the laws put in place by the worldly authorities.

What if there was a law against feeding the hungry? Would you break it? How about a law against clothing the naked? You would break that too. So why do we pay so much attention to laws that may or may not influence our care for wandering strangers? Compassion, mercy, hospitality: these are basic Christian principles, Discipleship 101. Why do we let politics cloud the issue?

Again, our identity as Kingdom people takes precedence over our identity as Americans. While it is nice to help out the government when possible, it is far more important to operate by the principles Jesus taught us. Sure, give Caesar what's his; but above all, give Jesus what belongs to Him. So what if the United States has immigration laws? God has laws too, and all of them hang on the principles of loving God and loving people.

Besides, does helping a brother or sister in need necessarily mean that we are subverting the government? I don't think so. We are merely recognizing our unique identity as the church.

Suppose I meet an illegal alien on the street. (For the sake of argument, I know he's illegal because he is holding a big cardboard sign in front of him that says, "Hi, everybody! I am here illegally!") He has fled his home country to seek refuge from poverty, disease, and war. Or maybe he just wanted to move. Regardless, he is hungry, he has no place to stay, and he has only the clothes on his back.

If Uncle Sam wants to pick him up and kick him out of the country, fine. Go ahead, Sam. Do your thing. I won't stop you. But what Uncle Sam decides to do with this man has absolutely no bearing on my commitment to my fellow man.

So, when I find myself standing face to face with someone from outside one of our artificial borders, I'll buy the guy a cheeseburger. I'll make sure he has a place to stay for the night. And if he gets sick, I'll make sure he gets the attention he needs. I'll play with his kids and help them with homework and eat with the family and invite them to church. I'll help teach him English and learn about his culture. I will listen when he speaks, and look him in the eye, and treat Him as the Image-bearer he is. Maybe I'll even let him stay in my spare bedroom until he gets on his feet.

I'll do all this, not because he is my fellow American, but because he is my neighbor. That used to be enough.

These were the words flashing through my mind as I watched the fourth installment of the Rambo franchise ten weeks ago. The film portrays the brutal ethnic cleansing campaign in Eastern Burma targeting the Karen people, a situation that is every bit as bad as what's happening in Darfur, (some argue that it's worse) though frightfully few people know that it's happening. Little did I know that in just eight short weeks, I'd actually be standing on the same soil as the Karen people, talking with victims of the junta's atrocities and listening to their stories.

My wife and I are freelance Christian missionaries. In a nutshell, we travel the world and look for ways to share our faith and/or help people in practical ways. About a week after I saw the Rambo movie, I met a missionary at a conference in Texas that lives in Thailand and works among the Karen people living in refugee camps along the Thai/Burma border. At the conference, an invitation was given for volunteers to go to Thailand and teach an oral communications workshop at a Karen Bible School. At the time, my wife and I were already scheduled to spend three weeks in Brazil in November, so we didn't think we would be able to make it. Within three weeks the door we had to travel to Brazil was slammed shut - providentially I think - and we were able to credit our tickets to travel to Thailand instead.

While in Thailand, we spent six days at a Bible School with Karen pastors in training. Many of the young men and women had been driven out of their homes when they were little children. Some told us stories about their home villages being burned to the ground. Others were too young to remember life outside of the refugee camp, but longed to return to their homeland nonetheless. The constant theme we heard over and over was that the junta troops are continuing to systematically drive Karen people out of their villages and are placing landmines in the villages to keep the people from coming back. Many of the people fear that if the world doesn't act soon, there will be a final campaign in 2010 that will wipe their people off the map forever. That's the year the Burmese government has given the Karen National Liberation Army an ultimatum to lay down their arms - or else.

Speculation aside, here are the facts:

- In Eastern Burma, the military regime has destroyed, burned, or relocated over 3,000 villages;

- At least one million refugees have fled the country;

- An additional million people remain inside the country as internal refugees. They face abuse in the forms of rape, torture, extortion, and murder. Many are also forced into forced labor for government projects and army campaigns - a modern form of slavery;

- The military junta in Burma has recruited more child soldiers than any other country in the world - up to 70,000;

- Sexual violence is used as a weapon of war in Eastern Burma, terrorizing thousands of women and their families;

- The United Nations Security Council has remained shamefully silent in the case of Burma, even though it has passed many resolutions on other countries in similar situations;

- The longer the UN Security Council remains silent, the more people will die.

Amazingly, we were able to go into Burma and visit a camp for internally displaced people. Though the camp is comprised of 820 people, the week before we arrived, 87 new Karen entered the camp after the junta attacked their village and planted landmines to prevent the people from returning to their homes. This tells me that the killing is not only ongoing, it's worsening. But we can do something about it. History shows that when brutal regimes are denied the money and the weapons to carry out their atrocities, the people are able to rise up and take back their country. The U.N. must play a crucial role to make this happen.

You and I can make that happen. Go to http://www.uscampaignforburma.org and sign the petition to tell Ban Ki Moon to pass a resolution to stop the genocide in Burma. The clock is ticking. God have mercy on us all if we stand by and do nothing.

---

Aaron D. Taylor is the founder of Great Commission Society and the author of "Alone with a Jihadist", scheduled to be released in June 2009.

Other: "So...umm, what are you?"

Me: "Well, I'm multi-ethnic. I'm latino, but I'm white, too."

Other: "Wow. Worthington... How'd that latino thing happen?"

Me: "Well, you know, I have two parents, so..."

Other: "Right, right. So then, what are you?"

Me: "I'm Both."

Other: "Righhhht... So do you identify more with the white side, or the latino side?"

And that's the thing - it's frustrating as all hell because it feels like I have to choose between something. It's either one or the other, never both, or in my case, all four. Since my last name is Worthington, a lot of people assume that I'm white or some (more PC) will say "Anglo-Saxon" or "WASP" (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). The truth of the matter is that a majority of me is probably not. Mostly, I'm from four families (three of which aren't actually WASP heritage, but Gaelic, Italian and Spanish). Regardless, I'm not any one of these. I'm all of them. Yet, people try again and again to make me choose.

When I was in middle school, I had these friends who were also Mexican and Italian. And, I kid you not, I almost forgot my last name was Worthington because I'd run around with them talking about "Viva La Raza," "Brown Pride," and spending too much time looking at Low Rider Magazines. At one point, I even thought it was shameful to spend too much time with white girls (even if I secretly had a crush on them). I'd talk to them for about 5 minutes, tops. I had convinced myself that I was the next Homie's figurine. My mom didn't like the idea, so when I asked her if I could wear Ben Davis clothing, Dickies Clothing, or at least JNCO's, she just looked at me. I was hopeless. She bought me Bugle Boy jeans instead and told me I wasn't going to be a little cholo. That's the abbreviated Latin affair I had with my ethnic identity.

Then there was the white affair. One of my high school friends almost convinced me that I wasn't a Latino. He said he spoke more Spanish than I did, though he was white, and lived in the country. During my junior year of high school, I raised sheep and started wearing Cinch clothing, since Wranglers were for people who didn't want children. I gave up hip hop, which is what I grew up on, and I started listening to Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, while dreaming about making out with some freckle-speckled brunette beauty who went from churning butter on her family's farm to becoming Miss Rodeo Teen of Texas. I even tried chewing thistles in my teeth during livestock shows for that added white authenticity.

A couple of years down the road, during the summer of 2007, I attended a race and ethnicity conference in the Bay Area. It was a part of a program I was doing with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Ironically, everyone at the conference was segregated into ethnic groups. The purpose was for us all to have a safe place to talk about our fears and our values, and to discover the things we wanted people from other ethnic groups to know about us. I remember feeling stressed at the thought that I was going to have to choose which group to go with.

Fortunately, I didn't have to. They said I was going to be a part of a multi-ethnic group, which strangely felt relieving. Yeah. Relief, that's what it was. And not just for me, but for everyone in the group. It didn't matter that all of us were made up of different stuff. There was Chinese/Spanish, Black/White, Mexican/White, Moroccan/Lebanese/Mexican, and Japanese/Black. Whatever - ... everyone was there. And everyone had one thing in common: we didn't like it when people asked us to choose.

I don't know where that comes from, that whole choosing thing. The more I think about it, I think that perhaps a lot of it had to do with being born in the 80s and growing up in the 90s. I remember every time I took one of those standardized tests in elementary school (the ones that allow you to pass into the next grade level), they wanted you to check these little boxes indicating your ethnicity. But they didn't just tell you to "check all that apply." That's only recent. Back in the day, you could only check one. Just one ethnicity. I dreaded those little check boxes every year because the options were so limited: "African American," "Asian American/Pacific Islander," "Hispanic," "Caucasian," "Native American," and "Other." All I was left with for most of my life was choosing between two of those choices, because God knows I never wanted to be an "other."

Anyway, I found healing at that conference, in that group. I stopped feeling forced by people's cornering questions that pressured me to choose one part over another. I realized that nothing was wrong with me for not wanting to choose, but that a lot of people have yet to wrestle with the fact that our country and our world are becoming more diverse than it ever has been. According the US Census, there are over 6 million people who are categorized as "two or more races." And the diversity is only expected to grow.

So that's where I'm at. I'm not choosing anymore and I don't think anyone else should have to either. Because parts matter, no matter how great or how small they may be. There's a great parallel for this in 1 Corinthians 12, when Paul is talking about the body of Christ and all of its members:

"But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body...those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor... But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other."

Giving great honor...That's what we should be about.

In a world whose racial makeup and ethnic demographic is changing rapidly, we should ask ourselves what it means to give great honor to the each part of the body. Not only should we do this in the lives of our friends, but we should strive to understand how this serves as a model for so many other things in our lovely, shape-shifting world. What does it look like to give great honor to different denominations within the Church? Political ideologies? Cultures? Moral viewpoints? World religions? Nationalities? Languages, even?

How many ways do we choose one part over another? And how many ways might this be killing the fabric our humanity? One of the most striking aspects of Paul's quote is the bit about those parts that seem to be weaker, yet are indispensable, in the body of Christ. In other translations, I've read, those parts that seem "weakest," "least important," "insignificant," etc. When we apply this principal to any of those questions mentioned above, we understand that we cannot undermine any of the parts that exist in our world. Not with ethnicities, nor religions, moralities, cultures, languages, etc. To be honest, I can't give you a full explanation why we shouldn't do that, I just know that we're not supposed to. And I've felt it, too, in my own life whenever I stopped undermining the parts inside of me. One of my friends likes to remind herself, "At the end of the day, everyone wants to feel special."

Maybe that's it. I think that's beautiful; the feeling that I exist, that I can be validated or important. The feeling that wherever I may be in this world, whatever language I speak, whatever family I came from, whatever social class, whoever I voted for, whatever baggage I carry, whatever decisions I made or didn't make, whatever grocery store I shop at, whatever clothes I can afford, whatever color or colors my skin may be, whatever it is...I am necessary.

Yes. I am necessary. You are necessary. She is necessary. He is necessary. They are necessary. We are necessary. Great healing comes in not just saying these words, but believing in them and feeling them and understanding most of all that God is telling each of us in the world these things. What a mysterious, beautiful, and special world we live in, brothers and sisters.

Every part of it wants to be special. So let us discover the true meaning of that statement.

---

Matt hails from San Antonio, TX, home of the NBA Spurs Dynasty. However, his current home finds him in Abilene, TX finishing out his last semester at ACU studying English. In his spare time he's an ex-president, chef, roommate, friend, hip-hop head, storyteller, speaker, and writer. One day, he hopes to write a book or five. Also, Matt wants to give a shout out to his Mom and his niece Giselle.

Signing up for social services felt like committing adultery against the rich-white-Christian mentality in which I had been raised. However, when complications during my daughter's pregnancy and birth left us with medical bills over $100,000 and every cent was covered by Medicaid, I found myself exceedingly humbled and grateful. "God took care of us," I told my family, understanding for the first time that he hadn't circumnavigated the government to do so. He had used it.

Census reports show that 37.3 million Americans currently live in poverty - that's less than a $21,027 yearly income for a typical family of four - yet many well-off people are furious that Barack Obama plans to raise their taxes to provide more health coverage for the poor. Many Christians have shown outright hatred toward the president-elect and his policies, accusing him of communism, terrorism, and even witchcraft. Countless evangelicals are angry that their hard-earned money will go to people "who don't deserve it," and some justify this sentiment by saying that charity is the church's responsibility rather than the government's. Remarkably, they seem to feel that confining good deeds to the church lets them off the hook and keeps their wallets safe. I think they are missing the point.

God's heart for the needy is evident throughout the Bible as he stands up for victims, provides sustenance, and commissions his followers to give special care to the down-and-out. These good deeds are never tempered with qualifications. The Israelites were not instructed to care for only hard-working widows or only foreigners with a green card. The rich young ruler was not told to save his possessions for the poor who would treat them responsibly. Paul didn't encourage Timothy to be only mildly generous. Jesus did not hand out fishing poles to the hungry crowds that came to learn from him; he thanked God and gave them fish.

Social justice from God's point of view is no more limited by finances than it is by merit. Time and time again, the Bible reassures us that money is no big deal; we didn't need it when we were coming into this world, and we certainly won't need it when we leave. Why worry over the economy or cling to our savings accounts when God promises to take care of us? Financial responsibility in spiritual terms is simply this: giving...and trusting.

How does this translate to a nation in economic and political conflict? It could mean exchanging prejudice for compassion and leaving other people's worthiness up for God to decide. It could mean organizing a solution, such as Church Health Center in Memphis, which uses volunteer doctors and financial donations to provide cheap medical help. It could mean acknowledging that most churches can't pay $100,000 hospital bills and that God can use the government to fill that need. Above all, it could mean taking a deep breath. Letting go of financial worry. Releasing the "right" to be rich. Loving this God of ours who showed us by example what we are to do:

Give freely and spontaneously. Don't have a stingy heart. The way you handle matters like this triggers God, your God's, blessing in everything you do, all your work and ventures. There are always going to be poor and needy people among you. So I command you: Always be generous, open purse and hands, give to your neighbors in trouble, your poor and hurting neighbors. (Deuteronomy 15:10-11, The Message)

While there may be other reasons to disagree with the new president-elect, his commitment to kindness should resonate strongly with Christians - both those with resources to spare and those who have shuffled through the Medicaid queue. After all, generosity is a privilege when our taxes go to helping "the least of these"...when our compassion and cheerful giving add up to treasure in heaven...and when we trust our needs will be met in return by an extravagantly generous God.

A few months later I was sitting with my friend Makayla on an antiquated couch in the middle of the thrift store showroom our non-profit ran, surrounded by various lampshades and vases filled with plastic flowers collecting dust. It was a weekly ritual for us and some other ladies from the program; we would talk about anything and everything, from the weather to the progress of their custody battles. To be honest though, it was the other women who talked, and I listened with open ears and wide, sometimes tearful eyes. Makayla, a woman with whom I had grown particularly close due to many job hunting excursions and these weekly chats, was passionately relaying the depth of her distress over her daughter. Over the last couple of years, her 14-year-old daughter had caused countless problems with authority, initiated fights with others, and become heavily involved in sex, drugs, and alcohol. Between her tears, her anger, and her hurt, I distinctly remember my friend telling me, "She will take one of two paths now: she will get pregnant, or she will die. I do not know which one it will be, but there is no other way out for her." Tears over the struggle of this mother and her daughter clouded my vision. My small, safe life could not comprehend such extreme distress. Immediately, I felt the contradiction between the dark shame of a privileged upbringing, and yet the humble gratitude for my protected life, lavished with love. Overall, the pervading sensations of helplessness crippled my speech, and I stammered something eloquent like, "Oh my goodness, I am so sorry."

For Makayla's statement was not an exaggeration; no, she was not speaking with hyperbolic humor. It is this reality behind her statement that exposes the tragedy that awaits this girl, and the countless others just like her. The children of the impoverished incarcerated population, the children who are born illegitimate and live illegitimate, the children who's parents are too high, or too abusive, or too absent to retain the definition of 'parent.'

My friend is now wrestling with her role in her daughter's downfall, how she was in prison when she should have been with her, how she was too addicted to crack to understand that she was neglecting her child's very livelihood. I talked with individual after individual who told similar stories, speaking of turning to crime after neglect from their parents, and how now they realize they have done the same to their children. The cycle is vicious, and the learning curve is high.

Over the years, starting in her teens, Makayla's time has been split between the city jail, the streets, back to jail, then back to the streets. In the criminal justice world, the words 'revolving door' are commonly used in reference to the continual entering and reentering of criminals in and out of our prisons. Living in a nation where over two-thirds of released prisoners are rearrested within three years of release, there is a severe failing in our concepts of punishment and rehabilitation. The Department of Justice found an estimated 1,706,600 children live with one or both parents in these recidivist-ridden prisons, which accounts for 2.3% of our nation's children. The revolving door is problematic enough for the criminal, but perhaps the forgotten casualties of such a system are the children, impressionable and innocent. Physically, their parents are vacillating between presence and absence, which is only compounded by their criminal, and thus typically violent and iniquitous, behavior. Despite making remarkable progress over the recent years, Makayla has had children taken away by social services, she has engaged with violent suitors who raise their fists to her children, and she had regularly abandoned her young kids in order to take a hit of crack.

For a nation that advocates human rights and liberties, we perpetuate a starkly cold and morally disengaged penal system which progresses criminality by repeatedly using temporary detainment as a means to punish, but not to rehabilitate. We wrap thin bandages around gaping wounds, paying no mind to prevention, no mind to holistic healing. Offenders leave the prisons with nowhere to go, nothing to recommend them, and no traces of rehabilitation; and yet they typically return to screaming babies with diapers to change and mouths to feed. And for a faith that advocates reconciliation and healing, we, as a body of believers, are detrimentally overdue for addressing the grievances perpetuated by our criminal justice system. The status quo breeds isolation and fosters recidivism, without so much as a fleeting concern for rehabilitation or accountability. The system's core is founded on punitive punishments, in the hope that they will serve as a deterrent for future crimes. Unfortunately, without true accountability, exclusively punitive punishments hold no weight for the deterrence of the criminal. The fault lies not solely in the sustained status of criminal behavior, but in the effects of the un-treated criminal's relationships, particularly as a father or a mother. Without reform, without pursuing respect, stressing relational fortitude and empowering towards rehabilitation in our burgeoning criminal justice system, we risk generation after generation being crushed under the wheel of parental depravity.

The silence surrounding these egregious flaws must be upended and exposed, especially to a population of people who see potential for grace in any circumstance, and hope for the disenchanted. It is the people who take seriously the demand to visit the inmate in prison (Matthew 25), and the call to refrain from casting the first stone (John 8), who can be the initial catalysts for reform. It is time the nation understands the expansive and unavoidable damages our punitive punishments create, and the hopeful alternatives that are available. It is time we raise our voices against the dehumanization of the prison system, and for the imperative towards restoration, accountability, and rehabilitation. Ignorance and naïveté are no longer acceptable when thousands of stagnant and un-phased criminals are released from our prisons everyday to return to their homes and their disregarded positions as parents.

Let us look to alternatives, let us advocate for restoration, let us seek compassion. Christ called us not called to hate or revenge. No, we were called to show the very worst in society the grace they have been missing, and the healing they deserve. Where else should we start but in the prisons?

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For further reading regarding alternatives, visit:

Prison Fellowship Ministry

A Branch of PFM that works directly with Criminal Justice Reform

The up-and-coming alternative to our current system is actually called "Restorative Justice"; It is highly promoted by Prison Fellowship domestically and internationally

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Rebecca Parker is a soon to be college graduate with a liberal arts degree that renders her completely unemployable. Other than looking for a job, she can be found in Virginia either writing, rock climbing, skiing, or escaping from the world through camping. She may not have any viable job skills, but she does have deep passion against injustice and an unnatural love for The Avett Brothers.

So I decided to do something about it. Convicted that I was pretty likely to go through the second half of my life with a "business as usual" approach to my faith, I decided to take seriously the Biblical concept of Jubilee. I was entering into my 49th year as a white, affluent, middle-aged, fairly clueless American woman (not to say that I've been middle-aged for all of those 49 years, mind you), and I asked God to help me think through what it would look like to live out the principles of "jubilee."

I will need a jubilee year, and maybe two, to live into whatever I learn and hopefully begin to reverse the trend. I've had 48.5 years of American ethnocentric conditioning. 48.5 years of comfort and ease and entitlement. 48.5 years of ignoring many things under the guise of "there's only so much one person can do." And hopefully I'll have 48.5 years more (give or take a decade or two on the short end) to rectify some things and reorient towards the things God cares most about.

My own jubilee call popped into my head one day, some association of the number "49" (and my approaching birthday) with "jubilee" and a "What would that look like?" pondering. Jubilee, in the Old Testament, is the ultimate Sabbath, the culmination of the seven-year cycles. Seven, that number of Biblical perfection, times seven. Forty nine. Leviticus 25 is the main Scriptural mandate for this, while other passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy challenged the Hebrews similarly. Letting land lie fallow for the benefit of the poor, setting slaves free after seven years of service, and a year of remission in which those who have debts will be released from them are concepts espoused.

Even a cursory reading of these would convince you that my trying to live out the letter of this concept (vs. the spirit of it) would be ludicrous and legalistic. I don't have land. I have no slaves. No one owes me money. And besides, Jesus' arrival on the scene was the ultimate jubilee, the redemption of all that was amiss in our inability to live as we were commanded. Yet it's incumbent on us as modern-day believers to do our parts to usher His kingdom into our world here and now, even though the completion and perfection of the new heavens and new earth are not within our power or assignment to bring about.

For my purposes, therefore, I'm thinking of my jubilee year (which could become two years, satisfying those folks who read Leviticus to mean that the 49th year is the jubilee and those who see it as the 50th) as a time of reorientation, not a time of ultimate repentance and perfection. Good thing huh?

In Old Testament times, the year of jubilee was announced with a trumpet on the Day of Atonement, so repentance certainly is in order (actually... when is it not?). That's how I began my reorientation "project" on January 1, 2009. I really have little else to give as I start, other than a weak prayer of "Make me want to live in ways I don't yet want to, for the sake of loving you, God, with all that I have, and loving my neighbor as myself. I am willing to be changed and even turned upside down."

I also started with questions, disciplines and external actions.

My questions:

- How will this affect my husband and young adult children living at home? How can I bring them into it without forcing it on them?

- What sources should I turn to to learn more?

- What will the challenges be? What will the default slacker positions be?

- Whom will I inevitably offend?

A few of the orienting disciplines I am undertaking (though ideally not legalistically) include:

- Scripture reading and reflection (starting with Isaiah 58 and Micah 6:8)

- Expressing gratitude, even when it's hard

- Prayer categories including "Bold Prayers," "Nailing Sins to the Cross," "The Old Has Gone; the New Has Come," "Debts I Must Forgive (Some of Them Repeatedly)"

- Study, reading and listening in areas of environmentalism, economics, racism, slavery, resource distribution, world history and current events.

I'm examining and reflecting on the following concepts with a commitment to action and not just head game analysis:

- Redistribution of property (my excess at the expense of others' lack)

- Forgiveness of debt (including, it seems, a lot of things that I erroneously feel I owe to society or some unseen critic)

- A cycle of rest after seasons of striving (emotionally, spiritually, and in terms of deriving my value from what I do and not who I am)

- Expressing gratitude to people (known and unknown) who have sacrificed for my benefit

- Mindfulness of the effect of my lifestyle on the rest of the world

Already, about a month into this undertaking, I have seen how easy it is to simply make a new and improved set of rules to follow and how joyless that is. I have seen how quick I am to beat myself up because I don't know more about important issues and I don't care enough or quickly do something about each new thing I learn. I'm suffering from compassion fatigue already, and I see that I'll need to extend grace to my efforts and take this as a slow turning around of a great big cruise ship that was heading slightly in the wrong direction instead of a change of plans for the motor-boat captain who decides to run back to the dock for more beer.

I'm blogging about this and will be giving quarterly updates here at Burnside Writer's Collective. The journey of one middle-aged woman wouldn't be particularly interesting or fruitful on its own, but I do have hopes that my jubilee year can be effective in inviting others in to think about the same things (don't wait until you're 49!) and that I can learn from others who came to these explorations more naturally, with less contradictory preconditioning, or earlier. Join me. Help me. Read me at www.jubileeyear.wordpress.com.

Reading the news from Gaza, I can't help but despair. The majority of Palestinians want peace with Israel and would accept a two-state solution (the majority of Israelis have expressed support for the same plan), but Palestinian civilians are caught between two violent and powerful forces: an oppressive nationalism in the form of the Israeli military, the fourth largest in the world, and Islamic extremism as exemplified by the terrorist group Hamas. I think also, with some shame, of how a just and lasting peace in Israel-Palestine is complicated (if not totally compromised) by churches and para-church organizations in the U.S. which offer unwavering support to Israel while relieving Israel of any moral obligation to the occupied Palestinian people. David Brog, Executive Director for Christians United for Israel, the largest such para-church organization, wrote on January 12 that "Israel will continue to be blamed for all of the bloodshed that results from a conflict it tried so hard to avoid for so long. Standing with Israel in the coming weeks will be more important than ever. And this is what we will continue to do."

To get a different perspective on the conflict than the one so prominent in American evangelical churches and mainstream media, I interviewed Sister Elaine Kelley, the administrative officer of Friends of Sabeel - North America (FOSNA), a Christian ecumenical organization seeking justice and peace in the Holy Land through non-violence and education. FOSNA, as the name suggests, also supports the vision of Sabeel, a grassroots liberation theology movement initiated by Palestinian Christians in the early nineties. Sabeel's three stated goals are to promote theological, moral, and legal principles for peace as outlined in its Jersualem Sabeel Document; to develop a spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation; and to promote a more accurate awareness of the heritage and witness of Palestinian Christians. FOSNA, which is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, cultivates the support of American churches for Sabeel through regional educational conferences, alternative pilgrimages, witness trips, and international gatherings in the Holy Land.

Sister Elaine Kelley, SFCC, a Roman Catholic and member of the Sisters for Christian Community, has been involved in the Palestine-Israel peace movement since 1989 when she traveled to the Holy Land on pilgrimage. She lived in Bethlehem in the West Bank for four years, learning the Arabic language, becoming part of the local Palestinian Christian and Muslim communities, and witnessing life under Israel's military occupation. She served as development officer at Bethlehem University from 1998-2000. For six years she was a writer for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and is a contributor to the book, They Came and They Saw: Western Christian Experiences of the Holy Land. She has served as the organization's Administrative Officer since August 2001.

BWC: What is FOSNA's response to the current Israeli offensive in Gaza?

Official Sabeel statements about Gaza are posted at our website www.fosna.org. Briefly, we oppose all violence, whether it is Israel or Hamas, but work to educate people about the great disparity of power between Israel and the oppressed Palestinian population in Gaza. Our view is that Israel is in violation of international law, UN resolutions and human rights and bears the brunt of the responsibility because it is the fourth most powerful military in the world and has a long history of oppression of the Palestinian people.

BWC: What are you hearing, if anything, from the Christian community in Gaza about the humanitarian situation there?

Our board chair, The Rev. Richard Toll, has received communications from the Episcopal Church USA and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, detailing the tragic situation at the Episcopal Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Rev. Toll visited Gaza and the hospital last April (08) with Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit. This was during Israel's blockade of Gaza (going on 15 months now), in which the entire population of Gaza was being punished for the actions of Hamas militants. The situation was dire in April--lack of medicines, food, water, electricity, and continued under Israel's blockade, resulting in the current crisis.

BWC: What has been the response of the Palestinian Christian communities to the latest violence?

The Palestinian Christian community is a very small minority in the Holy Land (under 2% of the total population) and dwindling still--all because of the hardships associated with Israel's occupation. The response has been the same for the past many decades. That we need a final political solution based on international law, existing United Nations resolutions which call for Israel to withdraw to 1967 borders and give Palestinians their independent state in the West Bank, Gaza, and with East Jerusalem as their capital. The Palestinian Christian community, working with European and American church leaders, has attempted to achieve this only workable political solution that would put an end to the conflict. But lack of political will, especially in the U.S., allowed the suffering to continue, allowed Israel to continue its illegal military occupation (now 41 years), basically allowed Israel to do whatever it wanted to achieve its goal of total domination in the region, and total control over the West Bank and Gaza. There are many historical statements and documentation of the words and work of the Palestinian Christian community at our website.

BWC: Your use of the phrase "final political solution" can't help but conjure up the specter of the "final solution." The association was obviously unintentional, but it is a reminder of how much Israel believes it has at stake. It is understandable - though not necessarily defensible - that Israel should react so strongly, given the long history of persecution and even genocide against the Jews and the blatant threats of some of its Arab neighbors. The slogan since the Holocaust has been "Never again."

The Palestinian people did not take part in the Holocaust; they, too, are victims of it and continue to be victimized by a political Zionism which justifies any violence to defend a Jewish state. But to destroy the lives of Palestinians for the purpose of Israeli security, to subjugate another people who live in misery under a brutal military occupation is presumptive. Israel will only be able to defend its citizens if it addresses the causes of their insecurity--the 41 year-old occupation.

BWC: I think there are still some American evangelicals who might be surprised to read that there is a population of Arab Christians living in Israel-Palestine. Can you describe for us the Christian community there? Are these Arab Christians transplants from the West or has there been a continuous population of Christians in Israel-Palestine for some time?

The Christian community is a tiny minority (less than 2% of the total Palestinian and Israeli population). These are descendants of the original Christians of first-century Palestine (who "drank tea with the apostles," as some proudly point out). Before the creation of the state of Israel, the Christian population was more like 20%. They are the most educated population in the entire Arab World and have been the "living stones" of the Holy Land--witnesses to Christianity from its beginnings and providing a living, worshiping Christian community for over 2,000 years.

BWC: Several years ago, Sabeel convened a conference in Jerusalem which called for the rejection of "Christian Zionism" as heresy and as an ideology of "empire, colonialism, and militarism." (You covered the 2004 conference for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and I'm quoting your article.) First of all, do you agree with Sabeel's assessment of Christian Zionism as heresy? Secondly, is Christian Zionism, especially the Christian Zionism prevalent in many American churches, giving Israel the political cover it needs to conduct these raids into Gaza?

Christian Zionism is a modern theological heresy and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel. Christian Zionism promotes a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism, and militarism. In its extreme form, it places an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ's love and justice today. Sabeel repudiates the more insidious form of Christian Zionism pervasive in the mainline churches that remains silent in the face of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Therefore, we categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that undermines the biblical message of love, mercy, and justice. The alliance of Christian Zionist organizations in the West with extremist elements in the governments of Israel and the United States are presently seeking to impose their unilateral preemptive strategies and militaristic rule.

BWC: How do Palestinian Christians view their brothers and sisters in the West?

Palestinian Christians make a clear distinction between western Christians and western governments that claim to be Christian (i.e. George Bush). While Palestinian Christians have extensive relationships with American and European Christians through Christian institutions long established in the Holy Land, they lament the profound ignorance, especially in the U.S., of the history and heritage Christians of the Holy Land, the stewards the Christian holy sites for over 2,000 years. Palestinians Christians, thanks to the work of Sabeel, are becoming more and more versed in a theological understanding of the political dimension of the Gospel, its clear message of preference for the poor and oppressed and its call to justice and peace. Through writings, such as Naim Ateek's Justice & Only Justice and A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation, Palestinian Christians see the Gospel as relevant to their daily lives and the hardships imposed by military occupation. While liberation theology is seldom a subject for serious study by the privileged Christian of the West, it provides an important exegesis and much needed world view for the rich and powerful.

BWC: What do Palestinians wish American Christians knew about day-to-day life of Arab Christians in Israel-Palestine today?

Sabeel's entire program and regional education conferences (in the U.S.) and witness trip/alternative pilgrimage is an effort directed at Christians in the West who need to "come and see" for themselves and learn about day-to-day life of Christians and Muslims under Israeli occupation. Thus, our alternative pilgrimages include visits to refugee camps, checkpoints, demolished houses, Jewish settlements, by-pass roads, bull-dozed olive groves, etc. Any human being with an active moral life will be transformed by this "seeing". Our most dedicated volunteers are those who have participated in a Sabeel witness trip or other church-sponsored pilgrimage to witness the suffering of people under Israel's occupation.

BWC: I read an article today in a conservative online magazine that Hamas has implemented Sharia law in Gaza and is even reinstating crucifixion for Christians? Does this report sound credible to you? How much freedom do Christians have in the Occupied Territories, including Gaza, to worship freely?

There are isolated incidents of persecution of Christians by Muslims, but these incidents get much attention from right-wing and conservative circles that are looking for reasons to discredit Islam and to put the blame for the problems of Arab Christians on Muslims. All during the time I lived in Palestine I saw predominantly a harmonious community. I lived in Beit Sahour, a town of about 20% Christian/80% Muslim. I worked at Bethlehem University, the only Catholic university in the Holy Land, which provides the only higher education available for the surrounding community and has a student body consisting of 31% Christian and 69% Muslim (a majority of them women). This describes a basic demographics of the area. Sharia is a small part of Islam. It means "path" or "way", much as the Arabic word, Sabeel, mean "way" or "stream of water". It has a positive connotation in Islam, but occasionally it is misused by extreme Islamists (much more in Saudi Arabic and Afghanistan than in Palestine). While there is some religious extremism in Islam, there is just as much in Judaism (and of course Christianity has its own version). Where I lived in the Bethlehem area there was total freedom of worship. Muslim and Christian honor each other's holy days and live in respectful consideration of the others' religious beliefs. On the other hand, Israel will not allow either Muslim or Christian Palestinians to go to their holy sites in Jerusalem.

BWC: The crisis in Israel-Palestine seems so intractable. I mean, I feel like among our duties as Christians are to hope and to pray, but is peace really possible? What does peace look like for FOSNA?

I often feel that way too. However, if we keep a historical outlook on this seemingly intractable conflict, we realize our humble role in something much bigger than ourselves. The early Abolitionists in America gave a cry in the wilderness and it took 200 more years of building an anti-slavery movement before emancipation. When I first got involved in the Palestinian peace movement in 1989, there was little, if any, interest in the churches on this issue. The churches unfortunately have been ignorant too, have given Israel unconditional support, often motivated by left-over guilt over the Holocaust, not realizing that in supporting any nation state Christians reject Jesus Christ and choose Caesar. It is one thing to say "I didn't know" (the German excuse) and it is forgivable to not know the truth about every political issue in the world. But the bigger problem is that Christians do not know Christianity, which is profoundly subversive and anti-empire, and deeply nonviolent. First century Christians knew it was a great sin to serve in any army and would be denied Communication for that reason. What does peace look like for FOSNA? It looks like Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, whose vision of the Kingdom of God (on earth, not up in the sky), was based on social equality, justice, and nonviolence, and which was in direct and dangerous conflict with the vision of the Kingdom of Caesar, which was based on power and control and domination. The two cannot co-exist; so Jesus was crucified.

BWC: Supporters of Israel can often deflect criticism of the actions of the Israeli government by labeling it as "antisemitic." Perhaps its naive, but I've thought for a while that small hope for the Israelis and the Palestinians (and, by extension, the whole region) might lie in broadening the definition of "antisemitic" to include the Palestinians, because, of course, the Palestinians are a Semitic people. Naim Ateek talks a bit about this in his book "Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation." An attempt to relocate the precise meaning of "antisemitic" might yield some common ground to begin conversation and maybe even reconciliation. A single-state solution - an admittedly distant reality - might involve creating a unified Israel-Palestine as a haven of justice for all oppressed Semitic peoples.

The issue is not antisemitism and we do not allow pro-Israel arguments to reduce the problem to that charge. Marc Ellis, a Jewish scholar at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, has told Christians in no uncertain terms that they are not doing Jews any favor by cowing to the fear of being called antisemitic. Israel and its supporters have succeeded in turning propaganda to their benefit with the development of a "New Antisemitism" that include any legitimate criticism of the state of Israel. To be anti-Israeli is to be antisemitic. The criticize Israel violations of international law is to be antisemitic. To condemn Israel's Apartheid Wall and land confiscation is antisemitic. Even those Israeli Jews or American Jews who dare to criticize the Jewish state are not "real" Jews; they are "self-hating" Jews or some other kind of non-Jew that can be explained-away. Israel does not want two states - Israel and Palestine side by side; it does not want one state either, because then they would have to incorporate non-Jews inside their Jewish state and one day be outnumbered by non-Jews. They don't want justice; they want victory.

BWC: Regardless of one's political and theological position on the present conflict, it's undeniable that what was a dangerous humanitarian crisis in Gaza only two weeks ago is now only getting worse. What can American Christians do to help the innocent Palestinians, including Arab Christians, who are caught in the middle of these powerful and violent forces?

They can insist that our new president change U.S. Middle East Policy. The Palestinian/Israeli issue is a very American issue, considering that Israel is completely dependent on American tax dollars, is using American-made weapons to kill Gazans, is protected in the United Nations Security Council by the U.S. veto on any resolution condemning Israel. We may as well say it outright: America calls the shots, unfortunately, all around the world, in the United Nations where it uses carrots and sticks to get its way, and in Israel where $100 billion plus American dollars has supported Israel's military exploits against Palestinians for decades.