What we learned at Heifer…
What a week of fun and learning we had at the Heifer Ranch!
Eight middle school youth, Jeff Bell and myself embarked upon a journey of a lifetime last week. We encountered Heifer International’s ranch in Perryville, Arkansas—which today is entirely dedicated to education. Heifer International is a development organization whose mission it is to eradicate systemic hunger in the world through organizing communities to help themselves and one another with their gifts of livestock and livelihoods for a lifetime.
There were several important messages we gleaned from our time at Heifer, but the main message we were constantly reminded of were world statistics such as: there are an estimated 7 billion people inhabiting our planet at this time; the earth has enough agricultural resources to feed all these 7 billion people adequately. So, if there are enough resources for everyone, why do some people not have enough to survive? We learned this was a matter of distribution of resources and the role we each play in that distribution process.
One small part of our experience, and yet the most important part, was the one night we spent in the Global Village. Heifer has set up an area consisting of 7 family units designed to replicate how people throughout the world might live every day of their lives. These 7 villages were: a Guatemalan home, a Tibetan yurt, an Appalachian cabin, an urban slum (three corrugated tin units—one dirt floor, one wood floor and one brick floor), a Zambian brick hut, a refugee tent and two Taiwanese bamboo huts built on stilts. The youth and adult participants were divided for the night into these 7 dwelling places and given a basket of resources for the night (with the exception of the refugees—they were given nothing and were not allowed to talk in order to replicate the desperation and the language barriers refugees often face when crossing borders). No one group had everything they needed for the night, but there was enough resources for everyone to survive—again, that reminder that the earth has enough for all and yet not all have enough.
When the exercise was explained and the youth divided up into their family groups the ensuing chaos reminded me of my high school reading assignment, Lord of the Flies. Prior to the Global Village experience, the youth participated in many community building games where the solution to each dilemma required them to work together as a cohesive group. They all had full knowledge that they were in no real danger of starvation simply because we live in a relatively stable society where most do not go hungry—and certainly our kids have more than enough nutrition in their diets to sustain them through one day of meager subsistence. Still, with knowledge of how to communicate and work together and knowing they were healthy and well enough for the exercise, they chose to live for that one night in stiff competition for resources and fending solely for their own family groups. It was VERY difficult to watch—but it was necessary for them to learn in this way.
In a few weeks our mission groups will gather together and plan an evening meal and presentation of their separate mission trips for familes, friends and church members that offered so much support for their journeys. At this time they will be invited to share with you the lessons learned from these trips. It is my hope that the lessons learned from Heifer and Puerto Rico will still resonate fresh in their minds. It is more likely that they will have already returned to their lives of ease and leisure and forget that not everyone lives with such luxuries. If so, we can rest well in the understanding that a seed was planted and when those seeds are combined with the life lessons which still lie ahead of them they will grow into a knowledge of the world and hopefully a heart for caring and sharing that will then promise a return one-hundredfold. It is my prayer that we join together to nurture these seedlings into maturity.
Blessings,
Tracy