The Amberican Dream

In the last couple of weeks I've finally discovered what it is I want to do with my life. Hopefully, and I believe it to be true, this is also what God is calling me to do. I've had passions and desires for several things through my lifetime. I never really thought I was passionate about anything until about a year ago when I realized I actually am.

Passion One: I'm passionate about missions. I really want to be a missionary and live in another country. Maybe not forever, but at least for a while. This all came about maybe 3-4 years ago. When I was a freshman in college I was an education major because I wanted to teach elementary school kids in a poor Spanish speaking country. That isn't what I imagine myself doing any longer, but I still love missions, missionaries, people of various cultures and countries, etc. Most recently this passion has translated into an interest in agricultural mission work. My church supports a woman who works in Guatemala with Food for the Hungry teaching people how to grow food and working on ways to provide them with clean water. Up until about three weeks ago when I began to formulate what I"m about to share she had my dream job.

Once I discovered that passion for missions and agriculture, it became very difficult to stay in school. I wanted to go NOW...like yesterday. (Patience is not my strongest Fruit of the Spirit). Once I get an idea I'm ready to jump in and get it done...pronto. As I was thinking more about the prospect of living outside the United States it also dawned on me how much I love it here and how often I take this country for granted. A missions trip to the Dominican Republic in March reminded me of this fact. Although I still want to live in another country for at least year (one of my life goals) I also really desire to just live here in the US too. We're called to be missionaries wherever we are.

Passion Two: I've been told by people I have a very holistic personality, which I guess means I care about the person both physically and non-physically (emotionally and spiritually). Through out my growing up years my family often had other people staying in our home. At first it was my aunt while she was in college, then a few missionaries and people for a weekend here and there, a family who was waiting for their house to sell, then a couple exchange students, a single mom, and currently a single woman who's been dealt a rough life and just needed a place to stay. In the future I'd love to have a guest house or a basement apartment that would be open for homeless, missionaries, or other people God sends across my path to stay. If I never set foot on foreign soil again, that would be my mission. I'm passionate about hospitality-making people feel comfortable and at home within whatever space they enter. To be a person (and my home an environment) that is open, inviting, comforting, and friendly.

Passion Three: This one ties into the first passion, or is at least strongly correlated. It's not about missions, but it's about food. I'll be the first to admit I love to eat. Mmmmmm... but that's not the point of this passion. I'm not passionate about eating, but I am passionate about nutrition and good food. Yes good tasting, but more importantly healthy. My freshman year at Bethel I became very sick. I know much of it was intense spiritual warfare, but another was an unhealthy lifestyle. I had successfully avoided the freshman 15 and had actually lost 6 lbs. I thought I knew what eating healthy was, but I didn't. By the time stress, bad diet, and unhealthy lifestyle all piled up I was not in a good place. I told my mom "I just don't feel healthy. I try to eat right, I excersize, but something is just not right." So I went to see a nutritionist who put me on a really strict "Get Healthy Again" diet. What I learned was not only more about food, but also about what eating healthy really is and how we as Americans have is completely, 99%, absolutely messed up. Our food system is broken, just like this fallen world, we produce our food in a way that is unhealthy for us, the animals, and the land. We have created mono-cultures in our fields and our grocery isles. Everything is processed, fortified, salted, and loaded with sugar. "Food has just the sum of it's nutrients" (Michael Pollan - In Defense of Food) We don't let land be fallow, we spray with fertilizers, pesticides, and who knows what else*. Not what God intended, and not healthy. I go to Mexico or the Dominican Republic and see the kids eating cookies and juice constantly. No wonder many of them have diabetes by the time they're 18 (I know some personally). I'm passionate about educating people about eating balanced diets, low in sugar and processed food products. I want to grow as much of my own food as I can, and live off my own land. I also want to teach others (especially the world's poorer residents) how to use their resources to produce good food efficiently without exploiting the land so they can feed sustainably feed their families.
*I'm not trying to put down the farmers of America, I'm the grand-daughter, niece, cousin, and best friend to several of them, and I live in a rural area of Wisconsin. I know they are just trying to make a living like every other person in this country. However, the practices and methods now put into place (thanks to Earl Butts, corn subsidies, and corporate big shots) have become harmful. Did you know we produce enough corn in the US to feed the world, but instead we masquerade it into all these different products so we can find sneaky ways to use it here in the US. Companies are just dying to find more ways to pack more corn and empty calories into our diet.

Passion Four: Part of me just wants to be a stay at home mom. This isn't to say I don't want to pursue a career or somehow live the completely unrealistic vision of the "American Dream". Although at first I felt that being in the workforce would make my somewhat more meaningful to me, I've now realized this to be most completely untrue. I like to see progress, I like to be efficient, improve upon ideas, come up with ideas of my own. If I'm not learning, I'm bored. I have to get out of the house, see something, interact with people, work with my hands. I've sometimes wondered if being a stay at home wife/mother would be extremely boring to me. Then there is the whole idea of homeschooling, what do I do there? I wanted to be a teacher...for other peoples kids...but my own?? Well I'm not so sure. I have now realized two things about children and the future. Being a mom is a mission field. Our children are the only thing we leave behind on this earth. They are the vessels we send into a future that will be dirtier and darker than the world we now live in. If I never set foot on foreign soil again, or started a home ministry for missionaries, my mission would be this...motherhood. The best thing I can do for the future is bless it with Godly children who can be the missionaries of tomorrow. No, it's not official missionary training school, but in someways it is. So although I feel completely too independent and inadequate to be a mom anytime soon. I've realized that God may sometime in the future call me to that position of ministry. Oh, and as a final note, I'm planning on adopting my kids. Why be selfish enough to have my own kids when there are thousands who are already destined for the world ahead who need to see love and be loved? I guess you could say I'm passionate about adoption too. I was adopted into God's family and if I'm not passionate about that I have some prioritizing to do.

We're coming to the end. It's time to tie it all together.

So what is the Amberican Dream? This is what was revealed to me on Tuesday, July 20 2010 in my car (where the best thinking happens) on my way to work.

I had just been in Milwaukee the day before at "Growing Power" which is a sustainable greenhouse right in the city. They grow so many types of food organically in these innovative systems which allows for recycling of nutrients and use limited resources. They have solar panels, collect their rain water, compost discarded food from grocery stores, grow fish, chickens (eggs), goats, and plants all on a very small plot of land. I like many of their ideas and would love to start something similar someday. It all ties together. Everything I've ever wanted to do with missions, with food, with where I live all came to this one pinnacle.

What I'd do if I had my dream life (of course what God has planned is my dream life, but if I was planning it this is how it would go). I'd move to Florida next year after I graduate where I'd work with marine animals and plants and get some more SCUBA certifications, then I'd save up some money and go to school at a place called ECHO- a missionary minded organization which grows different plants in different habitats mimicking those found around the world. They work to discover which plants grow best in which environments and produce seeds to send to missionaries. Then I'd go abroad for 2-3 years doing missions work as described above (Passion One). Then I'd move back to the US with my husband (hopefully I'll have one by then) and we'd start a greenhouse/farm where we could train students and missionaries in how to build and run these self sustaining low cost and low power systems so they can take them back to their own rural areas and build them to feed the local people (Passions One and Three). Of course they could stay with my family (Passion Two) or in a missions house which I/we would hopefully have. Then I/we would also go to different countries a few times a year to help assist in starting up operations for those who can't come to our training. This whole ministry would all be small scale so I would still be a stay at home mom and of course kids love playing in the dirt and with plants and animals :D (Passion Four).

Hopefully that made some sort of sense. It's all a bit jumbled and so interconnected it's hard to organize my thoughts.

We'll see where God leads and how much of this actually happens, but for now this is what I'm going to pursue. Usually when multiple things "click" together like this it's only by divine intervention. God has to be pretty obvious for me sometimes, and this all seems to work together. It not only builds upon my interests and passions it's also completely realistic (which is a miracle in itself...I can be a dreamer most of the time). I'm excited beyond belief for what the future holds and where God leads. Is this is in line with his will and plan? Ask me again in 25 years and maybe by then I can let you know. :)