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Mennonite Central Committee is relief, development,
and peace in the name of Christ.
As a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches,
MCC's table of sharing brings together supporters,
partner organizations and workers to meet basic human needs
and work for peace and justice.
Here are six stories of how we share God's love and compassion for all.
In Bangladesh, MCC has been focusing on developing organic compost
that reduces the reliance on costly chemical fertilizer
while helping poor rural Bengali farmers to increase their crop yield.
Key ingredients in this compost: worms and fungus.
In our soil the amount of organic matter present is less than required.
There is 5% nutrient required, but the nutrient in our soil is less than 1%.
A common problem in every area is fertilizer crisis,
especially chemical fertilizer availability and its high price.
To improve this MCC Bangladesh stresses the use of organic manures.
Earlier we were using chemical fertilizers, now we can use this and cow dung.
Now we need not buy anything to use manure.
I had concerns whether we will have good crops or not.
But now we get different crops from here; we benefited.
Dipali uses tricho-compost, named after trichoderma,
the beneficial fungus in the manure mixture.
MCC also supports the production of vermicompost,
made by red wiggler worms that effectively turn cow manure into compost.
To encourage both kinds of composting,
MCC works with Bengali partner organizations,
whose mission is to support small farmers.
Regarding the damage caused to the soil by using chemical fertilizers,
they use organic manure to bring back the quality of soil,
and that is why they are interested in using organic manure.
The small farmers have very little financial resources
to buy chemical fertilizers.
And this is very good for them.
When they produce vegetables in a small place,
then this kind of fertilizer is very useful.
I have got 10 mans (380 kg) using this.
I used to get 5-6 mans (190-228 kg) using chemical fertilizers.
The hope in the future is that I will increase this fertilizer further.
And people are getting its results.
And in the current partnerships of MCC Bangladesh
more than 500 people are involved with this process.
And it is increasing every year.
And it is making an impact on the community.
MCC urges the Canadian government and its citizens
to hold Canadian mining companies accountable.
The great threat that mining presents us here in Sibinal
is the destruction of the mountains.
This really concerns us...
We're scared to eat the fruit, the tomatoes,
all of the vegetable that are grown on our lands -
we're scared to eat them.
And the water that I drink... even water from my own well...
It's shameful that one day I might be drinking cyanide.
A mining company comes here to do business.
This is what interests them.
What interests them is making money,
even though they talk about social responsibility.
But if, in order to make money, they will damage the environment,
use the water, and create conditions that do not promote
a life of dignity for the people, we cannot accept this.
With brother Francisco -- well, I call him brother,
because I never got used to calling him Pastor.
When we arrived at the church, he was the one who helped us the most.
And we learned to treat each other with a level of affection.
He was concerned about the well-being of the community and the country,
and I think that is where the problems began.
His group did studies of the mining situation.
One day, people began to threaten him. He appeared on a list,
a list of people mean to be killed.
We left Honduras for the United States to the state of Virginia
and we've been here since November 2008.
He didn't say goodbye to us. It was really hard for us.
The church was left... without a pastor.
My name is Anje Cassel, and I'm a nurse from Virginia.
And I've been volunteering with Mennonite Central Committee
at Macha Mission Hospital since November of 2010,
working primarily in preventing mother-to-child transmission of ***.
For so many years, Africans, especially Sub-Saharan Africans
didn't have access to ARV (Antiretroviral) medications that they needed
in order to make themselves well.
Meanwhile, *** was spreading like wildfire through this part of the continent.
And now the hospital has what many other hospitals in Africa are now having,
which is clinics devoted especially for *** care.
So I would say that just the fact that medicines are brought to Africa,
the fact that there are people working at a clinic
to dispense them and to follow up every month with these patients
is in of itself a success story.
And the patients themselves are making it a success story
because they care about their health and they're taking their medicines.
There are so many simple ways
that we can support these people to help them live a better life.
If we're just reminded that either through donations
or indirect support of service workers overseas
or through ourselves coming overseas,
we really can make a difference.
As a nurse you can always say,
"Yeah, I'm helping someone, I'm serving someone,"
but to come here to Zambia
and work with this population is really rewarding...
To think that by preventing a mother from passing *** to her baby
here in rural Africa it could make a difference
in the next generation of Africans that grow up, maybe ***-free.
When you tell them that we do 45,000 pounds of meat,
then they kind of grasp the kind of operation we have going.
I think the biggest confusion is that they think how grandma used to can,
that you have glass jars and you put it on the canner on top of your stove
and do your pot of cans.
And so those are some of the myths that you have to dispel.
We use cans like the ones you get vegetables in
from the grocery store so you can ship it.
You kind of go through that process with them...
It's not a glass jar and we do such a large volume.
I had to take a government class at Penn State.
Everybody who deals with canned meat has to take this class,
and we were invited to share about what we did, and so I did.
As it usually does, it strikes something in people to think,
wow, there's really something good going on.
And they wanted to know more about it.
And that's great.
Welcome here.
If you have any questions at any time, please ask me.
We do three different kinds of meat.
We do pork and turkey and beef.
This stop we're doing turkey.
There are 33 stops around the U.S. and Canada - 17 states.
The canner starts in October and goes until April.
So the end of April, that's the end of their season.
In one season we do about 560,000 cans of meat,
which for us is a lot but for a big company isn't all that much.
Everything we get is donated. Everything.
This local community here, they fundraise to buy the meat,
they fundraise to pay for everything from water to electricity - for fuel.
Everything is fundraising and all the help is volunteer.
Everybody here is a volunteer.
The canner is a gathering of a lot of different people
who have one goal in mind, which is feeding hungry people.
I never had idea that I'm going to come to America and do this kind of stuff.
Today, in the car, when I came with my coordinator,
I asked her what are we going to do.
She told me we are just going to cut meat and lot of stuff.
I said, "I have no idea what we're going to do there."
But then I came and it was really exciting for me, actually.
And I think it's valuable because you're helping people,
you're helping them...
It's good because they're a lot of people starving around the world
and you feel like you help somebody, and that's amazing.
It's kind of nerve-wracking the week of meat canning
but other than that it's...
When I see pictures and hear stories about the meat that's going out,
it kind of makes you want to keep on. Keep on, yeah.
There are a lot of experiences where we hear stories
and we hear the community from the base saying,
"We need peace work." This is what it's about here.
Seed is a two-year program of Mennonite Central Committee
that focuses on connecting young adults from a variety of places
to reflect, serve, and advocate.
Jes Stoltzfus Buller worked with MCC partner Sembrandopaz
to provide transformative education to help build trust within a community.
Through a series of workshops, a diverse group of respected community members
learned about the importance of human dignity
and how to manage conflict.
The goal of the workshops was to provide a venue for the community
to do constructive reflection and community building.
The armed conflict has had deeply resonating impacts
on the community and on the culture of the community.
And with this project we are working with
four pillars of the community:
the churches; the schools;
La Junta de Acción, which is a community organization;
and the social sectors.
The workshops are helping us a lot.
The churches in regards to the pastors have been a very closed network.
It wasn't a good thing because there were divisions among the denominations.
Now, this is changing. The story is changing.
It's what the Gospel preaches.
It's what Jesus' life was about.
I mean peace and love, maybe it sounds hippie,
but that's what it's about.
And I think it's too much a fundamental of what our belief system is based off of
and what we identify ourselves as a church community,
to leave it behind.
It's just too fundamental.
My name is Hans Shamoaay. I'm 22.
I came from Baghdad to study theology and philosophy at Babel College
and to have specialty classes in seminary.
In the future, I will go to Baghdad
or I will be sent to another parish or another country - I don't know.
I'm Deborah Fine, and I'm presently living in Ainkawa,
which is in the province of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
MCC is helping a variety of groups of people here in Iraq.
I'm working specifically with a group of Chaldean Christians
at a Chaldean seminary here in Ainkawa.
We have this ongoing project for me to be an English teacher
to the seminarians at St. Peters Seminary.
There are so many books that are written in English.
So this will help me to develop my information.
Arabic, it's not enough.
I think it's important for these students to have
a facility in English to feel comfortable throughout the world.
Many of the texts that they read doing their research and work
as they study to become priests are in English.
And this training will actually open more doors for them
and give them access to a much wider world.
The good thing in MCC, they like to help all.
I like really when I see this organization work for all,
and in the same time,
it tries to work for people in the name of Christ.