Where There's a Mill There's a Way

Suppose you’re in the mood to make some corn bread. You’re a true chef and the thought of using a

box mix gives you hives. But, you’re out of corn flour. What’s your solution?

Option A: You hop in the car, cruise over to the grocery store, and buy some corn flour. You’re back in the kitchen 20 minutes later, mixing and whisking, dancing to Pandora on your wireless Bluetooth speaker.

Option B: You grab a 50-kilogram sack of corn and prepare for an eight-mile walk to the local mill. You strap your smallest child to your back and ready the other children for the journey. The older kids could stay home and watch the younger ones, but you may need help carrying the corn. You decide to bring the whole gang because 110 pounds of corn is quite heavy. Nonetheless, the older children are missing a day of school. All for some corn bread.

If you chose Option B you may live in Mozambique and the corn bread might be all that’s for tonight’s dinner.

I left my heart in Mozambique last summer. I went as a part of a team called Life for Mozambique, which is the global missions branch of my church, Life Covenant in Torrance, California. Through eight years of following God’s lead, two orphanages and 16 churches have been established in Mozambique. We spent a lot of time at the first orphanage, The Melanie Center. In addition to housing and caring for few of the country’s 700,000 orphans, the Melanie Center serves the local community in many ways.

To get a good idea of what this community is like, imagine your neighborhood, but take away all of the infrastructure: the stores, shops, and service providers. Turn all the roads to dirt. Delete most of the electricity. Picture a half dozen one or two-room houses made of cinder blocks and thatched roofs inhabiting the space your home occupies. Each day we traveled through this community by van on a long bumpy road. We counted over 200 homes along the road. Countless others lay hidden behind those that were visible. Needless to say, it’s a large community.

Who knows how many people actually live around the Melanie Center, but many of them visit for medical care, education, and clothing. One of our goals last summer was to find another project to help move the Melanie Center toward self-sustainment. We already have a chicken-raising business called Operation Mozambeaks. A group of our guys visited the nearest corn mill. They reported back that building a mill at the Melanie Center was a strong possibility. They also figured that we’d require about $17,000 to build it.

We thought it would be a daunting task, as 17 large ones is more than half of the Life for Mozambique annual budget. Some serious fundraising was in our future. Just about a year later, the mill is almost ready to go. Without a fundraising campaign. Because when God needs a mill, he provides the money.

We started by presenting the need, which we did back at church. One Sunday morning after our return, everybody from the trip had about three minutes to talk about his or her experience. The last team member to talk was one of the mill researchers. He talked about the women, the kids missing school, the weight of the corn, and the distance traveled for a simple meal.

A pair of women in the congregation donated about two-thirds of the money to build the mill. They saw the struggle and the danger the women in Mozambique endure to provide food for their families. They felt the pain of walking long distances and of carrying heavy loads. They understood what such a task was doing to these women’s bodies, the physical breakdown, the wear and tear, and the emotional hardship. They realized that they couldn’t do themselves what Mozambican women do day in and day out. They were compelled to act. This was women helping women, girls helping girls, sisters helping sisters. This was the family of God assisting in a real, tangible, completely life-changing way. The rest of the money came from a local foundation that has a heart for children and for providing for those in need.

Construction on the mill happened over three phases. First electricity had to be run out to the site on the Melanie Center grounds where the mill would sit. Then a building was erected to house the mill. Lastly, the milling equipment had to be purchased and installed. As of today, the mill is nearly functional. Remaining agenda items include hooking up the electricity and hiring some local people to operate the equipment and keep the books. A security guard will also be required. Thus, the mill is also creating employment.

It's estimated that the mill could generate $30.00 a day. After expenses and salaries the profits will go toward the operating costs of the Melanie Center. Additionally, the discarded cornhusks can be used as chicken feed, which offsets some of the Operation Mozambeaks expenses. After time, the mill quite possibly could generate enough money to cover all the costs of running the Melanie Center. That would free up Life for Mozambique to fund for other projects like a mill at the second Melanie Center or possibly a third orphanage.

So now Option B from above is completely different: You’re out of flour and your older kids are at school. You strap your youngest child to your back and walk a few hundred yards to the local mill. Your smaller children run up ahead, laughing and playing. Your burden is light because the distance is short. A smile crosses your face as you remember how long this journey once took. As the vision of freshly baked cornbread fills your mind, you offer up a prayer of thanks for the new local mill, knowing you’ll be home in plenty of time to feed your hungry family. 

Wondering about Kindness in the Age of Social Media

"If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all." Thumper the Rabbit

Thumper would have loved the book Wonder.

For the last three years I’ve ended the school year by reading it to my class. The same thing has happened each time. Without fail, students get their own copies to read along with me. Some even finish on their own before I do. With no other book does this occur.

Wonder, by R.J. Palacios, is the story of August Pullman, a 5^th-grade student in Manhattan. Auggie has previously been homeschooled, but for junior high his parents decide to send him to a private prep school. It’s a risky decision, because, well, Auggie isn’t a normal child. Intellectually, he is above average. Physically, though, he is facially deformed. Hideously deformed. The Elephant Kid.

Palacios gives her readers a few descriptions of Auggie’s face, mostly in one chapter narrated by his sister Via (if you’re curious, Google mandibulofacial dysotosis). But the full force of his appearance comes through how others react to seeing him for the first time.

The look away.

The pause.

The double take.

And these are from adults. Children are less subtle. Through Auggie’s classmates, we see how mean kids can be. Auggie is ignored at lunch and sidestepped during class. His classmates go to great lengths to avoid touching him, as if his DNA is contagious.

Against this backdrop, Palacios weaves a theme of kindness. She starts with Auggie’s English teacher, Mr. Browne, who challenges his class to live out a monthly precept. He starts the school year with:

“When given the choice between being right or being kind. Choose kind.”

Palacios concludes with a wonderful commencement speech by the middle school director, Mr. Tushman. In between, Mr. Browne’s precept reverberates as Auggie’s classmates are challenged. Readers see who has listened and who hasn’t.

Why does Wonder resonate so strongly with today’s children? Palacios uses humor at the beginning to grab her readers. Her chapters are short and fast-paced and Auggie is as funny and loveable as he his grotesque. In this age of picture books disguised as novels, Palacios proves that today’s kids can handle mature themes with challenging messages.

But I wonder if it’s because children are longing for moral direction and instruction. Which takes us back to Bambi’s sidekick Thumper. His words from 1942 need to be repeated to our kids everyday. Or at least as often as they hear the latest Ariana Grande lyrics.

Additionally, children need tangible examples of what responding with kindness looks like. They need to know that being right is secondary to being kind, that emotions and feelings get bruised just as easily as elbows and knees. Because, yes, words, just as much as sticks and stones, do hurt. Most children don’t judge their peers based on race or socio-economic status. But children do respond selfishly, angrily, or cruelly if they feel they’ve been slighted. This happens regularly, usually when lining up or playing on the yard. It’s during these times that teachers and parents need to not just quote Thumper but also explain and instruct that’s it actually okay to respond with kindness and suppress the desire to be right.

Classroom teachers are big on quoting a guy a little older than Thumper. He said to treat others like you want to be treated. Maybe you’ve heard of the Golden Rule? This rule is summed up with the word respect.

With all due respect to Aretha Franklin and Rodney Dangerfield, I’m going to have my students attach another word to the Golden Rule and Mr. Browne’s precept: Admiration. What if students were taught to treat others better than they want to be treated? As if they looked up to their peers, like they do the principal or a pop-culture superstar. As if little Suzie was Taylor Swift and little Billy was Clayton Kershaw. Perhaps then more kindness would start seeping into our schools.

Wonder’s message is good for our grown-up hearts too. Who are the Auggie’s in our world? For many, they’re those who appear or act differently than the perfect view we have of ourselves. They’re those who think differently or believe contrarily than we do. In our PC climate we don’t voice our disgust out loud. Instead we take to social media to express our “rightness” and declare everybody else’s “wrongness”. We tweet and post things that we’d probably get punched in the stomach for saying to someone’s face. People leave hatefully anonymous notes to protest a war and they type vile and repulsive comments about a dentist who killed a lion.

The culture of social media reminds me of my only trip to Boston’s Fenway Park. It was in 1997 and Redsox great Roger Clemens had returned as a Toronto Blue Jay to pitch against his former team for the first time. Clemens had left Boston as a free agent the previous off-season. My seat was near the Toronto bullpen and as Clemens went through his pre-game warm-ups, the Boston fans read him the riot act. They spewed every form of possible profanity on him. And man, can Bostonians cuss. Of course, Clemens was helpless. He had to take it. Today’s fans save the strain on their vocals cords and type their disdain into their smart phones.

Facebook is a great platform for declaring your agreement or disagreement with the issue du jour. But is it always kind to do so? I learned a valuable lesson in this the other day. I “shared” a chart about murder rates in Chicago vs. the murder rates in Houston. I thought it was interesting and maybe a little snarky. I didn’t consider that I have friends and relatives in Chicago. Nor did I think that they might not approve of the chart. A Chicago-based friend minced no words in explaining in a private message how angered she was by the chart. It was a misgiving that could have been easily avoided. It was an-anti-Mr. Browne’s-precept-moment.

It’s impossible to limit our newsfeed readership to those who believe exactly like we do. However, I am going to think very carefully in the future before I hit the “share” button. For me, it’s worth it to do so if I want to place kindness above being right.

Maybe Thumper’s words need to be updated: If you can’t post something nice, then don’t post at all.

I think it’s what Auggie would want.