Youth and adults traveled to Heifer Ranch in July 2008.  Below are some reflections from that trip.

To learn more about Heifer International, click here.

Reflection on Heifer Ranch

by Elizabeth Futrell

“I’m hungry!”  “Pass the Rice Krispie treats.”  “Can I have some blueberries?”  These are words you would hear coming from the van on the way to Heifer Ranch. We were hungry, sure, but we didn’t know about hunger.

At Heifer Ranch, we learned that not everyone in the whole world is as lucky as we are to just be hungry. Hunger is a big problem. Some people are starving out there every single day. They have to plan out what they are going to do about feeding their families.

For one day, I pretended to be in a family that had to face hunger. It wasn’t as easy as I thought. Making a few eggs and onions and vegetables stretch to feed a lot of people is difficult. We tried but we weren’t very successful. We were very hungry after that experience.

Then I started to think about it. We only had to do this for one day. But a lot of other people have to go on with this for days and weeks and years. For me, I just felt hungry. They know hunger.

Thanks to programs like the Heifer Project and Bread for the World and UCHM Food Pantry and Kid’s Kafe, people like us are able to make a difference for people who know hunger. Programs like these are ones I would like to help support.

Reflections on Heifer Ranch

by Lily Priel

With all the heat, animal smells and commotion at Heifer Ranch it is not exactly what you would think of as peaceful; however, if you’ve ever been there then you’ll agree with me when I say that it’s a very peaceful place.  I learned at the Ranch that there is something about helping people that brings us peace.  And something about being outside in God’s world that also brings us peace.  Knowing that one family, one village will no longer suffer instills tranquility within us.  And once our minds and bodies are at peace then we can continue to help others.

Reflections on Heifer Ranch

by Phoebe Priel

At Heifer Ranch I learned that our culture can be greedy.  We take things for granted like food and fresh water and we don’t always think about the people who have nothing.  However I also learned that I can make a difference.  I can teach other people about Heifer and what I learned and start buying Fair Trade.

Reflections on Heifer Ranch

by Andrea Trautwein

My story starts with my sisters, Lisa and Elaine. They were a part of youth group led by Bill MacKenzie. The group was very large, averaging 15-18 kids at any given time. During the Bill years, they took mission trips to Missouri, Colorado and Manchester, Kentucky. As a younger child watching these kids, they seemed to be very close knit, and they were definitely very cool. As the time came for me to join, Bill had moved on, and many of the youth group members had graduated, gone off to work or college, outgrew the group.

I had wonderfully dedicated leaders. Pete Gota, Jocelyn Sheldon and Whit Malone. But our group was very small, sometimes four or five people, sometimes, just me and Julie Jones. I guess we were too small of a group to take mission trips, whatever the reason, our trips were limited to visiting Opryland and Kings Island.

So when the opportunity came about for me attend the middle school mission trip to Heifer Ranch this year, a trip in which two of my daughters would participate, it seemed natural for me to go. I could fulfill a longing to participate in a mission trip while sharing the experience with my children.

But would they enjoy the trip with me there? And what about the enormous responsibility Katherine, Sandra and I had assumed.

My fears quickly subsided as we got under way. We ate lunch on the Mississippi River banks. We watched a barge full with black coal roll down the river and I thought of the beautiful mountains we visited last year. We saw rich farm land on the road from Memphis to Little Rock. Fields of rice crops, perfect in color and order. And we laughed. For about the last hour of the ride we laughed ourselves to tears.

We quickly settled in to the routine of the ranch and by the middle of the second day it was our time to live in the Global Village. Things went well there. We were divided up into Guatemala and Thailand. We shared our resources with another youth group, who lived in Zambia and the Urban Slums. The kids made soup, all twenty five of us ate, it was tasty, but not what I would consider filling. The overnight rain prevented the Urban Slums group from starting a fire, and as a result we had no breakfast Sunday morning.

To be clear, I’m talking about very little food in a twenty four hour period.  My experience with hunger was not pretty. I had a terrible headache, I felt nauseous and I was tired and impatient. I felt angry that the staff at Heifer Ranch couldn’t at least provide the adults with coffee and angry that the Urban Slums dwellers didn’t try harder to make the village breakfast.

I had all of these feelings, and I knew that there was an end in sight. All I had to do was make it until 11:30, for lunch. A hearty lunch fully prepared for us. I didn’t have to go to work in the fields, or take care of small children or aging family members. I didn’t have to tend to animals or carry loads of water. And I didn’t have to wonder if, in fact, there would be food.

Everything that I did, was with 100% of my body. I didn’t have to function with poor muscle coordination, fatigue, weakness, tunnel vision or other side effects of malnutrition.

We spent the rest of the morning reflecting on our experience in the Global Village. The group identified these as contributing factors to world hunger and poverty:

Resource distribution

Transportation

Money

Greed/corruption

Geography

Over-consumption

War

Racism

Lack of understanding

My reaction to this list of problems was “How will this change?” “How can ANYONE make a difference?” These problems are too big, and they’ve gone on too long.

According to Heifer International: The purpose of a Learning Center is to transform individuals by providing progressive learning that contributes to a global movement for social change that ends hunger and poverty and cares for the earth.

We realized we needed to set off a chain reaction of positive change, so we discussed solutions:

Buy local food and fairly traded items

Share and care for a just world

Conserve water and energy at all times

Start a compost pile

Reduce the use of harmful cleaning chemicals

Participate in training and education

Pray

Pass on the gift

We discussed these specific ways that our group can make a difference Ways that each and everyone of us can make a difference.

And on our drive home, we stopped to see Central High School in Little Rock. We stopped to see where, in 1957, nine brave young men and women did in fact make a world of difference.