COMMUNAL HEALING

We are experiencing a time in this country unlike any in my lifetime. I have been on this earth for over sixty years and more people in this country and around the world have their backs up against the wall than ever. Solutions are being sought, but are they really the ones that help people over the long haul. Do you give folks a fish or a fishing pole? The following piece comes off the website of Heifer International, which can be found at www.heifer.org

“A Midwestern farmer named Dan West was ladling out rations of milk to hungry children during the Spanish Civil War when it hit him.
“These children don’t need a cup, they need a cow.”
West, who was serving as a Church of the Brethren relief worker, was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn’t – literally, who would live and who would die. This kind of aid, he knew, would never be enough.
So West returned home to form Heifers for Relief, dedicated to ending hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and training so that they “could be spared the indignity of depending on others to feed their children.”
In 1944, the first shipment of 17 heifers left York, Pennsylvania, for Puerto Rico, going to families whose malnourished children had never even tasted milk. Learn about the cowboys who brought cows and kids together.
Why heifers? These are young cows that haven’t yet given birth – making them perfect not only for supplying a continued source of milk, but also for supplying a continued source of support. That’s because each family receiving a heifer agrees to “pass on the gift” and donate the female offspring to another family, so that the gift of food is never-ending.
This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for over 60 years. Since 1944, Heifer has helped 8.5 million people in more than 125 countries.” From the Heifer International website
This is more than a story about one man’s dream, but it is also the story of many people being able to dream again. The AARP Magazine in its May/June issue has an article by Barbara Kingslover about her trip to Nepal and the work of Heifer. It can be found at http://www.aarpmagazine.org/people/the_color_red.html

Why am I going into such detail about all this? Because if you want to help folks you have to reach out in ways that empower them to help themselves so they can regain and maintain the dignity of their humanness. That is what the Messiah did for us on the cross. He made it possible for us to be restored. To be completely whole again. To become a new person. Persons with brain disorders and their families need to know and to be able to dream again about becoming whole.