Mountains Beyond Mountains.

As I was typing up some stuff for a future blog post about an organization called Partners in Health, I realized that my entry about the book Mountains Beyond Mountains, which talks ALOT about PIH and Paul Farmer never actually made it onto this blog.  A lot of my older posts are on my pre-married BLOG, and I have yet to figure out how to convert all the posts over to my new blog!

So I figured I would repost it here for all to read in hopes of giving some background on the organization, Paul Farmer, and the book Mountains Beyond Mountains.

So this book...everyone should read it. I have read it before, and I am currently reading it for school for my Health, Healing and Culture class. I must say it is so very different reading it in the context of a class, and I am getting soo many different things out of it than I did before. But this book has inspired me and evoked in me soo many different emtions...emotions of joy, feelings of inadequacy, and feeling as though I am not doing enough to change the world, feeling as though I am not doing enough with what I have been given...and the list could go on!

So this is a post for a forum I did for school, but I though it would be good to put it on here...so here goes...

WHY IS IT SUCH A BIG DEAL??

I have soo much to say about Farmer and PIH ...Farmer inspires me, he ignites in me a passion to see the world and people through a different lens, he challenges my conventional way of thinking, but more importantly he has opened my eyes to what it means to love. Farmer is after true transformation...he longs for hearts to be awakened and lives to be changed. He has set his sights high and made incredible progress along the way!

In the 60 minutes video, Farmer stated, "Everybody should have access to medical care – it shouldn’t be such a big deal!!!" and after hearing that...I thought WHY IS IT SUCH A BIG DEAL?? Why is healthcare and medical care such a big deal...why do the prices for services and medicines vary depending on what country you live in and your health insurance? We are all human beings who were created in Christ's image and all people should have equal opportunities in regards to medical care regardless of where they were born ...

In the Kidder text, Farmer stated, "I feel ambivalent about selling my services in a world where some can’t buy them" (p. 24). Why don't more doctors think this way? Farmer believes healthcare is a human right, and he doesn’t feel right charging people for services when they can’t afford them and are truly struggling to survive. They are not only suffering from a disease or illness, but they are also suffering from malnutrition and lack of resources. Farmer and company recognize that in order for a person to experience complete healing it is essential to treat ALL of the person, not simply just the disease or the illness. The patients get not only medicine, but also food and other resources. A health worker said, “Giving people medicine for TB and not giving them food is like washing your hands and drying them in the dirt” (Kidder, 2004, p. 34).

Ten million people a year die from treatable diseases, such as TB and malaria, because they don’t have access to the necessary vaccines and medicines to treat the diseases. TEN MILLION people!!This is not just a statistic…these are lives, lives that have been lost unnecessarily. There is no excuse for this. Why is it that their patients with AIDS and TB get better care in the impoverished country of Haiti than they do in the wealthy United States?

I have soo many unanswered questions and reading this book just reminds me of all the questions and frustrations that have been welling up in me, just longing to pour out. I feel the system is soo unfair, so unjust, so cruel – sometimes I feel ill-equipped because I don’t have a specific skill, and all I can be is an advocate, sometimes I feel it truly isn’t enough. I even go so far as to think just for one second…Maybe I should have gone into the medical field? And then before I know it that second is over…and I am reminded of where the Lord has me RIGHT NOW, and right now I must be at peace with that.

We are all in the same boat…we all want to be change agents. We all want to be used by God in tremendous ways to make a tremendous impact. Paul Farmer and PIH have done just this…they HAVE made a lasting impact on the lives of countless individuals. According to the 60-minute video, there is a Haitian expression his patients use when he is away… we miss him they say like dry earth misses the rain!!Now if that doesn’t demonstrate the impact he has had, then I don’t know what does!

Zealous Love.

So I just finished reading this book called Zealous Love. It took me awhile to get through it to be honest..and it's not even that long, but the concepts are big! Really big! So the tagline for the book is A practical Guide to Social Justice and the book touches upon 8 issues: Trafficking, Unclean Water, Refugees, Hunger, Education, Environment, HIV/AIDS, and Economic Inequality. I must say it is the issues of unclean water, HIV/AIDS and economic ineqaulity that get me all fired up! The editors Mike and Danae Yankoski have compiled TONS of real life stories of people working in each realm. The stories are encouraging amongst all the discouraging facts and statistics...interlaced within all the stories are some bits I wanted to share.

UNCLEAN WATER - Water is life. After air, it's the most essential bodily requirement. All of our bodies' mechanisms depend on water. The average human can survive only about three days without water. When the body is deprived of water, brain function deteriorates quickly. The tongue swells and cracks. The eyes deflate as the volume of fluid decreases...drinking contaminated water can be almost as awful. Vomiting and diarrhea rapidly dehydrate the body, often leading to death.

Most of us flush our toilets several times a day without stopping to consider that between two and three gallons of unclean water just went down the drain. That's more than some people in developing countries may have for an entire day's cooking, cleaning and hygiene. Never flushing our toilet isn't the answer, but the privilege of so much clean, cheap water ought to make su pause. Our brothers nad sisters in other countries are dying becuase they lack clean water while we wealthy folks in developed countries have so much clean water to spare that we defecate in it and then flush it away.

REFUGEES - the following is a quote from Mother Theresa - You can find Calcutta anywhere in the world. You only need two eyes to see. Everywhere in the world ther are people that are not loved, people that are not wanted nor desired, people that no one will help, people that are pushed away or forgotten. And this is the greatest poverty.

HUNGER - the following is a quote from Basil the Great - When someone steals a man's clothes, we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has not shoes/ the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.

HIV/AIDS - Quote from C.S. Lewis - you never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had tohang by that rope over a precipice. wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?

ECONOMIC INEQAULITY - Quote from Dallas Willard - Christians must learn how to live simply, even frugally, though controlling great wealth and power - his point is that by living simply and frugally, we might use our wealth for others - for selfless rather than selfish purposes...instead of our only concern being a luxurious retirement, a bigger house, faster car, or nicer clothes, or that incredible vacation next summer, we should also consider the needs of others.

What gets you fired up?? whats your issue? what do you care about? What do you want to see change?