Showing posts with label That's why. Show all posts
Showing posts with label That's why. Show all posts

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Hang in there...

I'm not posting much because it's been busy. On Monday we Baptized our daughter and had a little party and I've been tending to goats the rest of the week.
 It was a party that almost didn't happen because I woke up this Monday morning to a dying goat. I spent the majority of the day finding a large animal vet on call, getting there and back, and being schooled in anatomy, some pharmacology, and worst case scenarios. We'd already lost three kid goats due to the harsh conditions caused by the drought. I was told we could pretty much count on these to be goners, too. My job was to save the nanny, if I could.

So, all my cooking time and primping time for the party was taken up the emergency veterinary run. I prioritized on cooking and scrimped on the primping. Nobody noticed my outfit and hair--the main point being the Baptism, after all. Just for the record I'll have you know I did not smell like a goat during Church or during the reception. It was probably the first time all week, too.

I am not a fan of blood, nor gore. I dislike needles and medical jargon has never thrilled me either. In fact, my husband is the expert on anatomy and gross stuff, but he was on retreat when the first set of kids didn't make it and then he came home pretty sick with a staff infection by the time the second set were due to arrive. I've had to do the burying and the pharmacy farmer duties around the clock. But this little miracle made it through. She wasn't supposed to.She still might not make it, but she is here now. We like her and we'll keep her if we can.

Eudia the Wee
A Tiny Miracle

Now I get to warm a bottle for a little goat instead of digging deep holes for them. I much prefer the former. It's been one, long, dramatic, and very messy week. Did I mention we had both cars in the shop this week, too? Long week. Looong, long, long.

P.S. I'm boiling my shoes later.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Population Control - The Kenyan (and Zimbabwean) Perspective

Most American citizens don't have the opportunity to chat with citizens from African nations very often, so you might not know that a lot of the general population of Africa think Americans hate and despise children. When I first met my friend Peter Ndamba, an African born minister on one of his trips from Zimbabwe, I was very surprised to learn this. He shared with me a perspective on America totally at odds with my own. We only want dead African children or none at all is the message that we send to the mother holding her dying son. The doctor could hand over a lifetime supply of condoms for the baby from the shelves in the hospital, but not bleach for cleaning the water, not the shot of Penicillin that would save him, not even clean sheets for the hospital bed he will spend his last moments on. We send boatloads of contraceptives to people whose children die in their arms. Is it any wonder they wonder at us?

About a year after this conversation at a small get together to celebrate Peter coming to the States again, Peter insisted on having these pictures taken to show his congregation proof that some Americans love children. "Some," he said. I don't think I did a fair job convincing him otherwise.

The Hands Family and Peter

The Ohmes Family and Peter

 

The Martin Family and Peter

 

Population Control - The Kenyan Perspective(click title to jump to original article)

The first birth control clinic was opened in Nairobi, the Kenyan Capital, 44 years ago. The second one opened a year later in 1956 at the Port Town of Mombasa. These two amalgamated into the Family a Planning Association of Kenya (FPAK). In 1963, FPAK was affiliated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, thus becoming the first association in Africa south of the Sahara to join this monster which has nearly destroyed our society. Our nightmare just began.

Following publication of a report on the demographic trends by the Population Council (New York; 1968), which partly talked of still unproven adverse effects of rapid population growth on socio-economic development, the Government of Kenya was coerced to become overtly involved in birth control. Thus a young nation then bustling with enthusiasm, hope and ambition for its people who had endured the yoke of colonialism suddenly offered itself to imperialism like it had never seen before, as we will soon discover.
We were then only 7.9 million people in a vast empty country rich in resources but no people to exploit them. Believe it, we were said to be overpopulated—34 years from then we are only 23 million—in this vast still empty land.

The United States of America has used vast amounts of money over time to destroy the people of Kenya. USAID and other Non-Governmental Organizations funded mainly by the U.S. Government have targeted our people with a ruthlessness that makes one shudder. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Population Council (a subsidiary of the Rockfeller group), Population Action International, and the United Nations through its agencies like WHO and UNFPDA have targeted Kenya for depopulation at the expense of the integral development of its people. Some examples of the stark realities living side by side with the millions of dollars for population control include:
  • Our health sector is collapsed. Thousands of the Kenyan people will die of Malaria whose treatment costs a few cents, in health facilities whose stores are stalked to the roof with millions of dollars worth of pills, IUDS, Norplant, Depo-provera, most of which are supplied with American money.
  • Some of these contraceptives like Depo-provera cause terrible side-effects to the poor people in Kenya, who do not even have competent medical check-ups before injection. Many are maimed for life. The hypertension, blood clots, heart failure, liver pathology and menstrual disorders cannot be treated due to the poor health services. The American Government seems to want to solve the problem of poverty by reducing the number of the poor.
  • Special operation theatres fully serviced and not lacking in instruments are opened in hospitals for sterilization of women and some men. In the same hospitals, emergency surgery cannot be done for lack of basic operating instruments and supplies. Most of the women are sterilized without even knowing it is final. Some with only one child. Some are induced with financial assistance to accept sterilization. Horrified sterilized women now trot from hospital to hospital looking for reversal of the Tubal Ligation. This is breaking marriages especially when the single child or two succumb to the myriad tropical diseases—with easy treatment that is not available.
  • Millions of dollars are used daily to deceive, manipulate and misinform the people through the media about the perceived good of a small family—while the infant mortality rate skyrockets. Some of this money is not used to educated people on basic hygiene, proper diet or good farming methods that would be useful development, but it appears that the aim of population controllers is to decimate the Kenyan people.
  • I am a practicing gynecologist in Kenya and I would like to share with you facts about some of the patients I see daily:
A mother brought a child to me with pneumonia, but I had not penicillin to give the child. What I have in the stores are cases of contraceptives.

Malaria is epidemic in Kenya. Mothers die from this disease every day because there is no chloroquine, when instead we have huge stockpiles of contraceptives. These mothers come to me and I am helpless.

I see women coming to my clinic daily with swollen legs — the cannot climb stairs. They have been injured by Depo-provera

America has been a blessed country. This nation saved the world three times. During the first World War, the second World War and the Cold War. The American people can still save many in the world from preventable diseases. I do not believe that Americans want their taxes used to hurt other people. Why do you not stop this money being used for contraceptives and use it instead to provide clean water, good prenatal and postnatal care, good farming methods and rural electrification. Do the American people know that the millions of dollars spent for population control are used in the ways I have described? Why does your government not deal directly with our government but instead uses a third party like IPPF, which has no respect for the values of our people and our laws?

It is therefore clear, that contrary to what one is led to believe, American Aid to Kenya is not a reasonable attempt to bring about integral development, rather it is a comprehensive and highly organized campaign to kill off as many of our people as are necessary so that the U.S. and other developed countries can continue exploiting our national resources.

Therefor, for the first world to dominate the third world through contraceptive imperialism under the big stick of withholding development assistance for non-compliance makes us conclude that, not only the so-called Population Assistance to third world countries but even the "development assistance" has been tailored first to serve the interests of the richest of the rich of this world.

USAID is the single biggest supporter and promoter of population control in Kenya. The programs it funds are implemented with an aggressive and elitist ruthlessness. In Kenya the target are always the poor and the illiterate who are pressured and tricked into using dangerous drugs which are often banned in the west, or who are sterilized during childbirth without either their knowledge or consent.

You in the media, those in the White House and many in the United States Congress continue to deny these facts. We in Kenya are a people like you who are entitled to the same human rights and dignity as yourselves, but our right to live a normal human existence is ignored by globalist decision makers. If the funds you use to kill, maim, subjugate, dominate and break us to nothingness were used to cultivate our extraordinary resources, Kenya alone could feed more than half the African continent. Dear Americans, you cannot build your own security on the insecurity and degradation of others. You cannot build your own wealth on the poverty and destitution of people in the least developed nations.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Why it is good...

A few months ago, a Facebook friend acted like a troll. He came over to my page to insult both me and my Christianity. I allowed it to stand and didn't react with the vitriol I was tempted to, much to the amusement of my friends out in the real world. "Better you than me," one said. I was tempted to drop him, of course, but I won't do that except in extreme cases (and haven't yet). I'd rather interact. I'm probably the only person of faith this person actually engages with, so I tolerate the periodic pettiness because, honestly, aren't we all petty on occasion? From all I can tell, he surrounds himself with people who agree with him and so his world seems pretty narrow. Though I know I drive him crazy, it seems he's willing to put up with me, too. I can't begin to imagine why. I'm his "diversity" maybe, so I'll stick it out. We're tolerating each other.

Another friend and I disagree radically on several fundamentals. We have a nodding recognition that we'll probably never come to common ground on those few things, so we simply don't discuss them. I post my pro and anti pages and she politely does not comment. She posts her polar opposite pro and anti pages and I politely do not comment. I read a few of hers and think, "How sad this all is." She very likely does the same. We peacefully coexist until we come across common ground, then boy howdy can we go to town on each other's comments. We are waiting for those moments when we agree so that we can pick each others' brains and spur each other on. I enjoy those times because I really and truly love the way she thinks. I forgive her as she forgives me, for being different. I just love that about her, almost as much as I love her.

My sister taught me this skill, by the way, in case you think I am some sort of saintly, tolerant woman. I'm not. I'm a pain in most every one's behind really (most especially my own). My sister can attest to what an obnoxious, opinionated person I am naturally. She bore the brunt of my bluntness for years with a patience I can only admire. I have studied her. I have watched her exist, relatively peacefully, in a world that disagrees with nearly every cherished belief she holds. I have seen her temper flare up in her eyes, only to be expressed by a raising of the eyebrows and a slight cooling of her natural warmth. I have always wanted that.

Good, God! WHY?!
With all that in mind, I will answer on Good Friday this accusation of a question on why Christians hold up the Cross as a cherished symbol. "It's like Jews worshiping Auschwitz!" that certain somebody accused, offending me and two wide swaths of humanity in the same careless analogy. In swallowing my anger, I had my answer, "Because it gives me the strength to bear you." The cross means that suffering has a higher purpose. You suffering with me and me suffering with you is a good thing. I'd give up my life for that, for you, in a minute. At least I hope I would, if called to. In the meantime I'll be giving up my anger instead. It's practice. We Catholics call it "dying to self." It's a type of martyrdom that isn't much admired in the world, but some of the most admirable people I know practice it.

I'm working on it. In the meantime, God Himself thought we were worth dying for and I agree, even if I'm only called to "die to self" for you.

So there.