So following Julie’s example, I’ve decided that this year for Lent I will begin the process of sorting through what it looks like to eat ethically. Part of this commitment is sharing the information that I find in this blog. I’m also hoping that those more knowledgeable than me will contribute so that I can learn more and more about eating ethically.

So far I’ve established the following (and I’m sure, imperfect) guidelines for myself:

1. I will seek to buy produce that is organic, locally grown, and/or in-season.
2. I will reduce my consumption of meat. If/when I do buy meat, I will buy grass-fed beef or free-range chicken, locally if possible. I will be intentional about learning all that I can about the treatment of animals from the companies I buy from.
3. I will learn more about the brands that I buy and seek to buy only from ethically-conscientious brands.
4. I will buy from grocery stores with commitments to ethical and sustainable standards.
5. I will buy directly from local farmers when possible through farmers’ markets, CSAs, and co-ops.
6. I will be conscientious about the amount of food I consume and will seek to not overconsume.
7. I will be conscientious about using food before it goes bad, reducing waste.
8. If I eat out I will seek to eat at restaurants that support local and sustainable products.
9. I may consume food that was purchased prior to my commitment (but all new purchases during Lent must be ethically-conscientious).
10. I will happily eat with and receive food from those I am invited to share a meal with.
11. And finally. . . I will share my findings with you!

In this blog I will share recipes, tips, restaurant and grocery store recommendations, articles, book recommendations, and local resources, among other things. I will also share my experiences and the obstacles I run into as I seek to follow Jesus in the way I eat. Hopefully I’ll learn from you as well, and by the end of Lent I will have learned eating habits that will continue far beyond the Lenten season.

So I encourage you to follow her journey, encourage her along the way, and learn from her experiment.

Children’s Sermon: Giving Away Your Money to the Poor

Props: Two bowls of chocolate on a table, one full of fair trade chocolate, one full of regular chocolate, both covered with a cloth. I picked up small $.25 candy bars and a bag of gold coins at Ten Thousand villages, but you can go on-line to www.serrv.org or www.globalexchange.org to find fair trade chocolate as well. Cadbury has also recently gone Fair Trade. Oh and many thanks to Julie Clawson and her new book “Everyday Justice” for inspiring and informing this children’s sermon.

Good Morning! So, we are well into the month of October already. Are you having a good Fall? Do you like this month? What are some of the best things about October (leaves changing color, cool air, the first fire in the fireplace). And isn’t there a really fun holiday at the end of October? Halloween! That’s right. Are you already thinking about what you want to be? Great. Well I thought today I’d help you get ready for that holiday by talking to you about one of the most important parts. Can you guess what that might be? Candy, right. (reveal the chocolate)

Now I have two bowls of chocolate here. Can you tell me the difference between them? (one is full of snickers and one is full of other stuff, color of the wrappers, one more familiar). Well let me tell you the most important difference. This bowl here is full of Fair Trade chocolate and this bowl here is not. Do you know what Fair Trade means? It means that the people who worked to grow the cocoa beans to make the chocolate were paid fairly so they have enough money to live on. So if it’s not Fair Trade, do you know what that means? It means that whoever grew the cocoa beans for this bowl of chocolate wasn’t paid fairly at all. In fact I learned something very sad this week. I learned that most of the cocoa beans grown in the world are grown by people who receive little to no money at all, and that many of them are children; children who have been taken out of school and in some cases even taken from their families and they are forced to work all day for no money at all in really horrible conditions. We have a word for that kind of treatment. It’s called slavery. It’s supposed to be illegal, but it still happens all over the world.

But there is something very powerful we can do to help those kids and get the big chocolate companies to start treating them fairly. We can refuse to buy any chocolate that is not Fair Trade and tell every one we know to do the same. I got this chocolate from Ten Thousand Villages over in Northampton, but you can also get Fair Trade chocolate at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, you can order it on line, or you can buy Cadbury chocolates, because they just recently made the commitment to go Fair Trade. It may be a little harder to find, it may mean skipping our favorite brands for the more familiar candy we are used to, and it may mean spending more money, but I think it is worth it to help those kids and their families.

You know in our gospel reading today, a young man comes up to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. After they go back and forth a bit, Jesus tells him to give away all of his money to the poor and the young man walks away sad because he was a very rich man, and that meant giving away a lot of money. I think this story scares a lot of people because they don’t want to give away all of their money, but how we use our money really matters and if we can give even some of it away in ways that help others we’re at least on the right track.

I think buying Fair Trade chocolate (or sugar or coffee or bananas) is a great way of giving our money to the poor and helping them. And it’s definitely more expensive. This bowl of Fair Trade cost me $8 and this bowl only cost me $____. Spending three dollars for a little bag of chocolate coins when you could get a whole big bag of mini snickers bars, might seems like giving your money away, and it is, but it’s giving to people Jesus cares about and who we ought to care about too because they are our neighbors and also children of God. So I hope you’ll only give out Fair Trade Chocolate this Halloween at your house and that you’ll encourage all of your friends to do the same. Sound like a good plan? Great. Let’s have a prayer together.

Dear Lord, please help us to help others by using our money lovingly and wisely. And please bring an end to the selfishness and greed that is hurting children around the world. Amen.

Austinites hope drink coasters can help battle human trafficking
Each coaster bears the story of a victim.

By Chelsea Duttweiler
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, August 08, 2009

They say they’re part of a new abolitionist movement, a wave of people dedicated to ending what they see as modern-day slavery. And they’re doing it, in part, using drink coasters at local pubs.

Austinites Shelton Green and Kester Smith, both 33, are working with seven friends to distribute coasters to bars and coffee shops with information about human trafficking.

“Trafficked people are all around us,” Green said. “People are blissfully unaware. We have to be people who want to know.”

The coasters have three designs, each with one side showing a blurred face with the phrase “Can you see me?” — which Green says represents the way victims are “hidden in plain sight.” The other side tells the stories of victims taken from case files from the Central Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking. The names and a few details have been changed to protect the victims, Green said.

“My name is Armando. I am a slave in Texas,” the back of one coaster reads. It tells how the boy was forced to work in a factory without pay and without being able to leave and asks, “What’s your response?”

The coasters refer people to www.whatsyourresponse.com, which provides links to resources to find out more about the issue and a list of suggestions for how the average person can take action.

The group has printed 80,000 coasters with money they got from donations and a T-shirt fundraiser. The group is rounding up volunteers to help distribute the first round during a “coaster crawl” today, when they plan to head to bars and coffee shops around town and ask managers for permission to leave the coasters behind.

The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, estimates that at least 12.3 million people worldwide are subjected to some type of forced labor. A report from the Texas attorney general’s office to the most recent Legislature stated that nearly 20 percent of trafficking victims nationwide have been found in Texas.

Sgt. Todd Harrison with the Austin Police Department’s human trafficking unit said that most cases he sees involve immigrants who pay a smuggler to bring them into Texas, then are held against their will and forced to work.

Smugglers may tell victims that they owe them more than they had originally charged and must now work to pay off the extra debt, or they promise them jobs in the United States, then force them to work without wages, said Wende Hilsenrod, a training specialist with the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.

Harrison said all new police recruits are trained to be able to recognize and rescue victims of human trafficking. He said citizens can help police by paying attention to what’s happening in their neighborhoods and calling 311 if they notice anyone being locked up or escorted everywhere. Victims are often taught not to trust law enforcement, so they don’t usually come to police for help, he said.

For the average person, one of the best ways to stop trafficking is by consuming wisely and avoiding products that may have been produced with slave labor, Smith said.

“If you can get six T-shirts for $5, there’s probably a reason,” he said. The group also recommends supporting organizations that provide aftercare for victims.

Texas lawmakers passed several bills in the last legislative session relating to trafficking, including one that allows victims to sue their traffickers in a civil court.

“We’re going to hit the traffickers where it hurts — in the pocketbook,” said Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, author of the bill. Hilsenrod said suing gives victims a chance to recover the money that was made from their labor and rebuild their lives.

Anchía said he was not sensitive to the problem in Texas until raids of massage parlors a few years ago in his home district of Dallas revealed sex trafficking rings.

Green said he got the idea for the coasters from a friend who did a similar project in the United Kingdom.

“I’ve shown them to some of my co-workers, and they are shocked. They can’t believe the stories are actually real,” Smith said. “And then I’m reminded how much work is left to be done.”