A Weapon A Voice

War.

War is a word that creates such hostility and pain in one’s heart.

War destroys lives, destroys freedoms, and destroys hope.

But most people in the world just sit back and feel like if it does not directly relate to them that it is not their problem. Most people feel like they cannot do anything to help, so they stay in their bubble of a world and hope that nothing pops it.

What is really sad is most people do not even know when wars are going on in other countries. Most people for instance know about the War in Congo.

There have been two wars in Congo dealing with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Millions of people killed because of the conflicts. Children stolen and forced to fight. Famines and diseases spread. All because other nations see the Mineral Wealth in the soil. What many people see is “a great big pile of riches that some black people are inconveniently living on.” People may think that this does not relate to them but truthfully there is a train of blood that leads directly to us and our electronics.

People need to start taking a stand over this issue because it does lead to all of us. I personally already have, and that is through the new organization: Falling Whistles. Falling Whistles is an organization dedicated to helping the cause of peace in Congo. To save the children’s lives that are hurt and unfairly treated.

Falling Whistles is the representation of how the small children stolen to fight in the battles of the war who are too small to carry guns are armed with a whistle: A whistle to blow in front of the enemy and act as a shield for those with guns behind them. So their weapon is to become our voice. To go online and read the story and buy a whistle to help fight for peace and carry it around our neck near our hearts. So that people will ask about it and we can inform them of what it means to be a whistle blower for peace. That is the first step in the four step plan to find peace.

ONE: educate

TWO: disseminate

THREE: congregate

FOUR: advocate

These four steps will hopefully lead to the rehabilitating of the children in Congo. Help restore their lives to something close to peaceful.

Not only do we need to step up to the plate and support the cause to have children rehabilitated, but also need to petition the government to make them only buy conflict free electronics. Businesses have been doing well with no longer selling blood diamonds, so why can they not do the same with electronics made from the conflict minerals from Congo?

After going onto the site- http://www.fallingwhistles.com/tour/ - look up the Free World Reader and start the process of becoming educated in the war and the happenings with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Spread the word. Maybe with enough people our cause will reach the people in Congo and allow us to find peace at last within the hatred, the pain, the fear. Let us find hope. Let us find our VOICE.

Midterm France Love

Two years ago I started developing my French speaking skills at my high school.  I was taking French language classes and soon became the Vice-President of the French club. Towards Christmas time my teacher began talking about bringing foreign exchange students from our sister city of Amiens, France.  I of course became excited about this, and after talking my parents into it, helped my teacher make the plans.  We partnered with the **Alliance Francaise de Tulsa.  We got the papers in from the students coming and were able to choose which person(s) we wanted.  I looked through them all with my friend Kelsey, she really wanted a boy because she thought it would be funny, and I was looking for a compatible girl.  Turns out God helped me choose the right one.  Come April when they came I met my new best friend.  We grew to love each other and called each other sisters.  We kept in contact, and my senior year of high school it was our turn to be the foreign exchange students to their home in Amiens, but because of the swine flu epidemic our plans were canceled.  This upset my Camille and me because we so badly missed one another, so she talked to her parents who decided they very much wanted to meet me, and they invited me over to their home during the summer.  It took a lot of convincing with my parents, but finally I got them to agree to it, and then organize the whole thing.  Luckily since I was just going to be staying with Camille’s family, all I had to pay for was the plane ticket and any souvenirs I wanted, food and housing her family graciously took care of for me. 

                Amiens, France is small town with a school where many students from a variety of small farm towns go to.  Camille lived out in the country, about thirty minutes from Amiens.  Let me just say if you have ever seen the recent making of the moving Pride and Prejudice and the scenery in that movie, then you will know how beautiful the countryside of France is.  It took my breath away, the rolling hillsides, many corn fields, so many wheat fields, small roads, livestock roaming around, and absolute bliss.  The French culture is beautiful, especially how much they love good food.  “Food is one of the great passions of the French people; French cooking is highly refined and involves careful preparation, attention to detail, and the use of fresh ingredients; it varies by region and is heavily influenced by what is grown locally,” (*Kwintessential).  The first night I arrived they prepared this huge meal of different courses of a great variety of foods, most of them from their own garden.  Home grown vegetables and fruits are so very delectable.  Camille’s grandparents would bring over freshly picked raspberries from their trees, now those were my favorite.  I also adored how no matter if you were well acquainted with the people, or just somewhat in knowing of them, they all would kiss each other on the cheek.  It takes away from the awkward pressures of if you should shake a person’s hand, or hug them, or just wave.  It is a really nice greeting that I really wish us Americans would do without people believing it was awkward.  And trust me, they do because I do sometimes greet and say goodbye to my close friends in such manner.  It is my hope to someday find a nice husband who has a good job that can support our family in case the books I hopefully will begin producing do not sell so well.  I say this because I very much desire to move to the countryside of France and be a novelist.  That is the romantic side of me coming out, but it is the truth.  I have much more to express about my love for France, but that will be soon to come. So au revoir et bonne nuit!

*http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/france-country-profile.html
**http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=156760202527&start=20&hash=2f8bcc45dad77c3ab1ca3ee23bb64a92

 

Angelos

Where do I fit in? Arriving on campus I was pushed into a whirl-wind of what they call “Music Camp.” Singing from nine in the morning to nine in the evening; meeting new people from all over the state of California, and the few from out-of-state like myself. Then New Student orientation begins and even more people are added to the equation: going to fun activities, sitting in fun seats during seminars, making awkward small talk with new people; bonding with my focus group .The joy of having to figure out where and with whom to sit at meals with in the ADC.  Of course it is then time for school to begin: sitting in classrooms, meeting even more new people; being loaded on with homework that there does not ever seem time to do. Auditions start up, and I am making quick bonds with people as I act and share audition scenes with people.  The good news, I made the show! Now I have made bonds with my new theatre family. Then I am connected in with my Yearbook family. So there, I have my choir family, cottage family, theatre family, yearbook family, and all the other people on campus I have bonded with.

                I am still meeting many a new people, but holding on to the strong connections with my already close friends, but I still am not sure exactly where I fit in here. I do not want to be defined by a group, although being in theatre already almost does so, but I would like to know where I am with other people. Then again, the atmosphere here in college allows one to make friends with all kinds of different people; people from so many different groups or backgrounds or life styles. Maybe my relationships with people are actually like a prism, through one group or one person I can connect to many others of different relations. Or maybe even I am a Prism in itself, God shining through me and connecting me to different colors, or people in this case.  This is definitely something to ponder upon as I fall asleep at night in my lovely, not as comfortable as I would like, bunk bed.

My Girls

My cottage consists of ten lovely girls, half of us from places near Riverside, and some as far as Texas and Oklahoma. All of us are in different majors:  nursing, music, political science, art and design, theatre and journalism. We have instrumentalist, actors, singers, cheerleaders; the girls with a big family to an only child. When someone walks into my room in the cottage they will see one side of the room the basic white and black colors, and the other a variety of vibrant colors of every shade. All of our styles are different ranging from the t-shirt and jeans look to cute sundresses. Not one of us in my cottage is alike, but that does not stop us from having the time of our lives together.
It was about one o’clock in the morning, a school night of Wednesday evening. All of us decided to stay up late and work on homework, but instead it ended up with all of us making tea together, laughing, talking, and eventually making a midnight breakfast. We got out our pots and pans, eggs, bread, butter, and all that is included in making the product of breakfast, and started cooking at one in the morning. We all had class the next morning, but my cottage has become a family. A family of different races, backgrounds, majors, styles, lifestyles, and desires in life. Although we may all be diverse in so many ways, we are united because God is our anchor, and California Baptist has brought us together to love and support one another for the rest of the year, and hopefully the rest of our college careers.