so we have this missionary, elmira, staying at our house this weekend. she does work for some methodist thing in the area around kenya. she was forced to flee her homeland seira leone due to civil unrestl. she preached today at church, and i actually attended the service since i knew she was speaking. she had a very good sermon, even though i dont believe in god, i was still able to understand and appreciate the strong idea behind what she was saying. she kind of went with the theme of "stones" like there are good stones and bad stones. we must roll away the bad stones, and where have you heard roll away the stone. so the bad stones were AIDS, terrorism, poverty, ect, ect. we must work together to roll away those stones, they wont just disappear. ok a big problem i see looking at the church is "its ok god will take care of it" yeah that is freakin false hope because i have yet to see god randomly make peace fall down from heaven. what i took from that sermon, is WE have to roll away the stone, not some other person or "god", but you and i have to roll away the stone for the people just like us. it is hell in africa. i have been listening all day to stories from people who have been to these places. i cannot even begin to touch how violent it is. it is just sickening that we can continue our daily carefree lives while people are having they're hands cut off. please please go read cnn international news and learn about only a very few things going on around the world. i know i post this type of message every time i post, but i guess i will quit when we give every person rights to a free non violent world. i learned today that more countries than i can ever imagine are caught up in this violence and it is horrible. i have been down playing what is actually going on.

http://new.gbgm-umc.org/work/missionaries/biographies/index.cfm?action=details&id=496

this above is elira's little biography thingy check it out.

so i think i am going to have to start an athiest/agnostic/whatever organization for helping other people. it is impossible to find anyone or anything to do to help without any kind of religion in it. sure there are plenty of "interfaith" things, but those you have to have faith in some crazy thing to fit in. i think i should start a faith in yourself and other people organization. sure beliefs in a god or what ever would be accepted, but the sole focus of the group could just be helping others only to help others, not to spread religion and what not. that would also prove that just because you dont believe in a "god" doesnt make you a bad person like the stereotype says.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/05/11/btsc.robertson/index.html
hey hear is an article from darfur. check it out.

i was watching a cnn special about gangs, and later after seeing, i got to thinking... one gang member said that the gang only protects the neigborhood and the people in it. they dont want anyone else causing harm. this sounds very innocent, but when you think about all of the innocent people that die from bullets from a gang member's gun, it looses that innocence. you would think the neigborhood would be safer if they let law inforcement protect the neigborhood instead of commiting crime in the name of justice. now think about it, does this situation sound at all familiar? it rang a bell to me that this is how many counties (definately including the us) deal with law inforcement. why is it fair, that the u.s. gets to monitor every other country when we can bend the rules only because we have the upper hand over them. through what i have observed of the un, is that the reason it is failing is because countries refuse to unite with the un. we all try to protect only our neigborhood at all costs. the un is losing its power because power and money seeking countries tend to control everything to their agenda, not what is best for the world. now this sounds like i'm doing some wishful thinking saying that all the countries need to unite, but i think that is what we need to see happen. if we would all relize that all people are the same, that just because they are at risk of being raped or killed everyday doesnt mean they have no feelings. i find my self and a few friends talking about why should we care and why do we care, because life doesnt have that much of a big point to it. but i have come to the conclusion that it is very easy for me to say that because i live in a safe community where poverty and war doesnt control my life. but if i was living with the fear or war and starvation my whole life, i would sure hope someone wouldnt write off my life as just another life. we (the whole world) need to unite for the good of ALL people. not just the ones standing beside us, but for our enemies, friends, and strangers. we will always live in violence if this doesnt happen. i'm not saying we agree with everyone, but we learn to live for others and thats all.

this is an e mail i recieved this evening from savedarfur.org!

I have some good news to report! Earlier today, the Sudanese government and two of the main Darfur rebel factions signed a peace agreement to end three years of fighting that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions from their homes.

This is only the first step toward ending the violence in Darfur and putting a stop to the tragic genocide.

You and others have sent over 800,000 Million Voices postcards to President Bush. And just a day after over 50,000 rallied on the National Mall in Washington, and thousands joined rallies in cities across the country, President Bush dispatched Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick to the peace talks.

You helped make the issue of genocide in Darfur a top priority for the Bush Administration.

The momentum is building and we can make a difference!

Click here to tell your friends and family about our campaign. And thank President Bush for his leadership so far - but let him know there is more work still to be done.

The peace agreement has been signed, but we must make sure that both sides live up to the terms. The millions of men, women, and children who have been displaced or have had their lives rocked by violence will not know peace until the government and the rebels live up to theses agreed terms.

The Bush Administration must continue to play a leading role.

On a more personal note, I am incredibly grateful to the Save Darfur Coalition staff, our volunteers, member organizations and all of you for your incredible efforts over the past weeks and months. Each of you helped us reach this historic point - but it is only the first step.

As we continue the fight, there will be many more opportunities for you take action and help make a difference.

Best regards,

David Rubenstein
Save Darfur Coalition



yeah so i really hope all goes well over there. if intrested, go to www.savedarfur.org to send a million voices for darfur post card.
obviously this is helping in the effort to end the genicide

this is an email from a german cousin that my grandma forwarded to me.

we have the problems, nobody knows the best way to solve them. Wars are not the way to do it.
In West Europe we had wars, always wars, terrible wars. You can begin with Napoleon or earlier and end with the last two world wars. All these wars brought huge misery, death, hunger poverty, not only as long as they were lasting but much longer. There was not one war which brought any improvement to the people. We still live with the aftermath and consequences. In spite of USA where wars mean to send the army in foreign countries, we had the war in our towns, in our houses. I still have the poem my grandfather wrote when he was sent to France in WW 1 as a very young man. It was Christmas, he was homesick and behind a trench he wrote : When, when will it get true, the christmas message: peace on earth? It didn't get true until now. Some days later, on the latrine his friend told him - Robby you shit blood, pur blood - he had got dysentery and came to the military hospital. This saved his life, nearly the whole group where he belonged to was killed in one of the next fights. These were the first stories about war, my grandfather told me when I was a child. WW II is not so far away - I know so many many women here in Moessingen who couldn't marry - there were not enough young men who came back after the war - they all lived and live their lifes alone, they never had the possibility to love or to get children. So many lonly lifes. My father was 18 or 19 when he was sent to Russia. He can't speak about the war until now. Once he only said: they have stolen us our youth. His brother told me about a terrible shooting, were friends of my father were killed, he has got a trauma, parts of his soul were hurt and this is nothing what is healing. My grandmother Hoch was in her kitchen, when a foreing soldier came in, the war was already finished, she cried for help, a neighbor came to help ,he was shot down in her kitchen. Some years ago a relative of this man told the story to me, my father had never spoken about it, this old woman was still a littly angry about my grandmother.
My grandmother Schanz was a tough wife. She walked many many kilometers to get some flour for her family. Everybody was hungry.The French sent the Moroccans as vanguards into the villages, they knew they would rape the woman and of course they did, but when they came to my grandparent's house and began to catch the hens, she went outside fearless and told them to take the cock and not the hen, to have some eggs helped to survive. My grandfather walked with a handcart from Moessingen to Tubingen, 17 km to and 17 km back to pick up the careparcels the Nill realtives sent to them, and this helped tu suvive too , even for the little baby Erne 1949, whose mother couldn't breastfeed her. We were a lucky family, grandfather and father back from the war, the wifes healthy, the house not bombed, only! my father's brother was dead. But thousands of children never met their fathers. And then all the cripples, one of them was our neighbor, an unfriendly man with one arm, who tried to kill our nut-tree. Or the old mother in Belsen who lost all her 4 sons and kept their suit for years. So there is nearly no German family which was not touched from the war and millions of lifes - not only the dead soldiers - changed to loneliness, poverty, illness, expulsion, lifes as refugees. Why should we say: let's make a war, a war solves problems. Do you really think that the war in Iraq turned anything better? There is not on day without bombs and assassins. Things got worse for the people there and for the world. thousands of terrorists who explain terrorism with this war. Perhaps it will get better when they have a new dictator? Then the misery can begin for a new. It's true, I'm a pessimist very often. But enough now.

so i have not had meat in like two weeks or somethin around that time frame, it is not hard at all. however i am very tired of hearing that i need plenty of protein and i have to eat a ton of food to compensate for no meat, and that basically i'll probably die of malnutrition. gah, people freak out over someone simply taking meat out of their diet. imagine what would happen if they actually took time to really empathized with people in developing countries that live on about two crappy meals a week and are still expected to work in the hot sun all day. i'm not saying that i'm going to be unhealthy, but would people just open their eyes. how many times is some one like "o im feeling weak i need some food" and some one rushes to get them some cheese and crackers or somethin. to be able to do that is a pretty darn good life and half the world doesnt know what its like to be able to grab somethin out of the fridge.

well i managed to keep the world problems that dont directly effect me blocked out like most other developed country citizens this week... until tonight. its all hitting again. genecide... its happening. war.... its happening. kid knappings..... its happening. poverty..... its happening. forgetting about the world..... its happening
remebering the world..... this is also happening i just wish i wouldn't overlook it. its hard to remember when so much violence and poverty still exist.

so today in geography we watch "hotel rwanda". i have been meaning to watch that movie for sometime now and on account of we will have to pay a bajillion dollars in late fees when we go back to blockbuster, i havent seen it. man, that movie made me want to throw up. it is horrible what happens. im not going to go into detail about the movie because once i start i wont stop. but for those that have seen it, know that the violence is still happening in darfur and they need help just as much as the hotel needed help. i just dont see how people can block that out. its like when the camera man had the footage of people being sliced with the blade thing and dead bodies all around, paul was like show that on international tv, and people will have to come and help. but the camera man knowing the attitudes of people in other countries, said, they will watch the tv and say wow, that is horrible, and then go right on eating their dinner. how can we let that happen? we need to stop closing our eyes just to stay happy. families, brothers, sisters, moms,dads, friends are being brutally murdered.

so friday after i posted, dad was like hey i want you to care for the world and im proud but i hate to see it consume you so. and i was like dad look at how many things are messed up and need attention. he was like yeah thats true. and i explained that everyone tells me if i make an impact on one person i have made an impact on the world, but why should i set my goals so low to one person? i also dont really like the saying "think globally act locally" some people interpret it differently, but i see it as yeah think about the world but dont take a risk and try to go and help them. so dad after hearing some more arguements was like why dont you try to center in on one area of social justice, such as women's rights, darfur, chinese labor, ect. but my response is so do i choose the people that i think have it worse than everyone else, and only help them? so dad was like you have to trust the other people caring about the other areas to help them, but i see what some people call help and its not help at all it just adds more violence on top of the violence. and i know there are very good people out there, but im just not very good at trusting what i cant see. and i dont want to let myself stop thinking about the other world citizens who aren't as lucky to have civil rights and food. we allow ourselves to shut out what we dont want to see. so any way i kind of got stuff straight in my head and my dad is now on the same page with it and no longer poking fun at it.

so anyway on a positive note....

we had thirty hour famine planning today and i almost didnt go because i didnt feel like even attemting to try to get through to people about social justice because so far i have recieved quite a bit of disappointment. but i went, and my spirit was renewed by the ideas and spark everyone has and how well i know it will go. we have this great idea of creating a village out side and no sleeping bags or anything just our little make shift huts, that is just the kind of the main thing, but there is plenty of stuff that hopefully will give everyone participating a deeper understanding of other people. i would like to see people get big ideas of helping people outside of the usa.

anyway im goin to bed.

i'm so exhausted from fealing so overwhelmed by the world. i have been in a depressed mood three out of five days this week. the reason why, i can't stop thinking how helpless i feel about the world. i see so clearly that non violence is the way, but it seems as if no one else sees it this way. i know that there are people that care for the world and want war to end, and dont think i have forgotten you. but i am so tired of seeing something so clearly but it is so big and as simple as it is complicated. i have gotten to where i am trying to forget about the victims of social, religious, ethnic, political, ect. discrimintaion and murder. i have tried monday and today to shut it out, and those days i had "perky" days, but when it comes to the end of the day, i know the problems still exsist and i can't stop caring. i don't even have the motivation to even try to help the world anymore. i just feel as if i can't do anything. anyway sorry for being so pesimistic.