Evolving in Monkey Town (4) 07/23/2011
In "Evolving in Monkey Town," Rachel Held Evans describes being a student at an evangelical college when she saw footage of the execution of a woman by the Taliban in Afghanistan. She puts it this way: Suddenly abstract concepts about heaven and hell, election and free will, religious pluralism and exclusivism had a name: Zarmina. I felt like I could come to terms with Zarmina's suffering if it were restricted to this lifetime, if I knew that God would grant her some sort of justice after death. But the idea that this woman passed from agony to agony, from torture to torture, from a lifetime of pain and sadness to an eternity of pain and sadness, all because she had less information about the gospel than I did, seemed cruel, even sadistic. Arguments to the effect that we are all sinners deserving of hell make a lot less sense when we see the senseless death of people who have never had real access to the Gospel. The best I've ever heard is pretty pitiful. Something like, "Well, we don't know what opportunities she had to hear the Gospel." Perhaps, but we have a pretty good idea. Then there's the affirmation that this is what makes the missionary enterprise so important. Let's be realistic about this, my friends. Generations lived and died without the light of the Gospel in lands and times after the birth of the church. In many regions what arrived and called itself "church" was a far cry from the witness to the resurrection we see described in the New Testament. In our own day, many areas are legally closed to mission work, and the clandestine missions that go on do so in a niche environment, reaching relatively few. Then there are the children and others with limited mental faculties: "We just assume that little kids and mentally disabled people go to heaven," I said. "The Bible doesn't come right out and say that. So why can't we believe that people without the gospel go to heaven? What's the difference? Why won't anyone give me a straight answer on this?" Somehow it's affirmed that God is good enough to spare some from endless suffering, but not others. It all seems to an outsider's eye like damnation by technicality. My upbringing was in the Roman Catholic Church. I had a belief in God and Jesus, but it wasn't until I was 17 that I decided that I'd stake my faith and life on him. I prayed to Jesus that where he led, I would follow. At that time I didn't have any notion of baptism by immersion as part of becoming a disciple. A couple of years of true, heartfelt devotion and seeming communion with God came and went before I was presented with the biblical teaching on this topic. A real crisis of faith ensued, as I questioned everything I'd believed and thought I knew up to that point, and even began to see God in a very negative light. Rather than a merciful Savior, I saw him for a time as a wrathful Judge. The space between doubting God's goodness and doubting his existence is not as wide as you might think. I found myself crossing it often, as it didn't require much of a leap. I suppose it's similar to what happens to a person when she is betrayed by a loved one. At first, the bretrayed is angry because the betrayer has violated some sacred bond between them, some official or unofficial committment to love, friendship, or loyalty. But over time, the betrayed begins to wonder if that bond ever existed in the first place, if it was real or just in her imagination. That's how I felt about God. First I doubted that he is good; then I doubted that he is real. It seemed the teological argument in support of his existence was a lot less effective when I was unsure of his benevolence. I never realized how important hope is to belief. It was a hard month. I was baptized into Christ, but really only found peace after a visit home to the family farm. In the fields that weekend, with prayer and reflection, I simply decided that God is good and merciful. While continuing to embrace the truth that the promise of remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit is connected to faith, repentance and immersion in water, I also believed that God is patient and loving. Over the years, though, I slipped further into the negative line of thought and became exclusive to the point of toxicity in my faith. Only in the recent few years have I found myself into something I think is closer to the thought of the early church, as found in Scripture. In reality, the hope we have is both for this life and for the next. In Acts, Paul is recorded as having declared that he was being judged for his hope in the resurrection of the dead. In Romans 6 he affirmed that through baptism we are raised to walk in newness of life. In 1 Corinthians 15 he says that if it is only in this life that we have hoped in Christ, we are above all people most to be pitied. Our hope is for new life now and resurrected life in the future. The Christian faith isn't all about believing all the right things now so we can go to heaven later. It's about living for Christ now and being resurrected through him later. What does God do with children, the mentally disabled, those who have never heard of Christ and those who have heard of Christ but were never presented with the truth about baptism? I believe God is better, greater, more merciful and loving than those questions. Add Comment Evolving in Monkey Town (3) 07/21/2011
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets." - Matthew 23:29-31 NRSV We would all like to believe that had we lived in the days of the early church or the Protestant Reformation, we would have chosen the side of truth, but in nearly every case, this would have required a deep questioning of the fundamental teachings of the time. It would have required a willingness to change. We must be wary of imitating the Pharisees, who bragged that had they lived during the time of the prophets, they would have protected the innocent (see Matt. 23:30), but who then plotted against Jesus and persecuted his disciples. - EMT, pp 20-21 Christians often chuckle at how long it took the disciples of Jesus to catch on to what he was doing, and we shake our heads and grumble about the conspiracy of the religious and political leaders against Jesus. We have, however, the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. In actual fact, the challenge of accepting Jesus is far greater than a warm religious experience, a renewed sense of piety or an improved outlook on life. Following Jesus means embracing a complete change from the status quo. Embracing hope means not only rejecting despair, but setting out into unknown territory and doing things we never imagined we'd do, all for the sake of the One who called us. So many believers in Christ in the American South and Midwest think they have it all figured out. I know I did. Right Bible versions, right doctrines, right worship style (and all very hotly debated in certain circles). Well-fed and comfortable, there's time and energy to try to sort through the Bible and strain at gnats while swallowing camels. That's not to say there's no value in Bible study. Clearly I think there is, else why do I bother doing it myself and even blog and write studies about the Bible? The trouble comes when we (and by that I truly mean "me" as well) start thinking we have it all figured out, and then God does something different. How much do we miss because we've defined God's truth so narrowly that we can't see the big picture any longer? Of course, the greatest danger of all is that of becoming the ones who cast stones at those who are doing the work of God. Evolving in Monkey Town (2) 07/20/2011
In my previous post I indicated that I couldn't fully relate to Rachel Held Evans' experiences growing up evangelical, as that was not my background. In fact, I really only considered myself "evangelical" for a few years after leaving the Roman Catholic Church. Once I became part of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, I didn't see myself as evangelical any longer, although it could be argued that this movement is "evangelical" in nature, despite the distinctions. I really can identify strongly with at least part of Rachel's journey: the trip out of certainty through doubt into faith. My perspective from the time of leaving the Roman Catholic Church on for years became more and more like what Rachel describes in "Evolving in Monkey Town"(EMT). I figured that if I read the Bible enough and learned all of the right arguments, my faith would be secure and I'd be able to win others over. Even ideas like 6-day creationism could be defended, I figured, if I just knew the "right" answers. I found ample "proof" that this was right from my own experience...or so I thought. Once, early in my college career, while working at a convenience store I got to know a regular customer who was part of a local sect that used the King James Version and had some pretty strange beliefs. He wanted to study the Bible with me, so we scheduled a day. I was completely unprepared. He was throwing odd concepts at me from isolated passages of Scripture, and in the end I felt all I could do was give my testimony. He was unimpressed. A few years later, shortly after completing my Bachelor of Ministry through Harding University, a Jehovah's Witness came to my parents' door while I was there over Christmas. For every topic he attempted to discuss, I had an answer, all the way to chapter and verse. He was visibly unsettled by the end of the exchange, which I managed to keep friendly, and he excused himself. I felt as though my time and dedication in study was proven worthwhile. Looking back, I now have no regrets for having studied for ministry (though I have often regretted it over the years, particularly when I needed gainful employment outside of ministry to support my family). I also still feel pretty good about the chat that day with the Jehovah's Witness. The trouble is that I had learned only how to win arguments, not how to make friends or call people to discipleship. Mostly, I didn't learn how to be a real Christian. At the core of all of that study, I believe, was an element of fear. This came into the light years later as a ministry in New Mexico with a struggling and somewhat abusive church came crashing down around me. Through that experience and the subsequent years of recovery in New Jersey I began to see that all of my line-drawing and contending for the faith was an attempt to somehow justify and protect the idolatrous notion of God's doctrine that I had formulated. The problem with fundamentalism is that it can't adapt to change. When you count each of your beliefs as absolutely essential, change is never an option. When change is never an option, you have to hope that the world stays exactly how it is so as not to mess with your view of it. I think this explains why some of the preachers on TV look so frantic and angry. For fundamentalists, Christianity sits perpetually on the precipice of doom, one scientific discovery or cultural shift or difficult theological question away from extinction. So fearful of losing their grip on faith, they squeeze the life out of it. - EMT, pg 18 This was precisely how I felt, although I wouldn't have necessarily put it that way. I organized a short-lived non-profit called "Ancient Faith Ministries" and began trying to build a coalition of "faithful" ministers and congregations within the independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. My problem wasn't just with the world, but with other Christians as well. Panic and despair became frequent companions. In the aftermath of my toxic faith, one of my earliest realizations was that I'd made a particular viewpoint into an idol. In reality, I'd been doing worse than that. I had been treating God Himself like an idol that needed to be defended. The God I know through Scripture is the Living God, mighty and powerful. He does not need me to defend him. In 1 Peter 3:15 Christians are told to be ready to give an answer or "defend" their faith. This is largely taken to mean that we need to train in all of the "right" apologetic questions and answers. Although I see some value in this still, a closer look at the passage in question might be useful. Look it up yourself. Notice what we're really supposed to give an accounting of to those who ask? It's our hope. Our hope in this life and our hope for resurrection through Jesus. Think about it. Evolving in Monkey Town (1) 07/19/2011
 What you're seeing here wasn't supposed to happen. Perhaps two years ago or more I decided not to blog any longer on a daily basis. The only exception is my Tumblr blog, and it hardly counts. Daily blogging takes a lot of time, thought and energy, all of which I need for my family, ministry (such as it is at this point) and job. I've read some pretty substantial theological works and never had a problem doing a one-off book review for each. With Rachel Held Evans' "Evolving in Monkey Town" (EMT) though, I'm going to have to open a pretty big exception. It took no more than two days for me to breeze through EMT, but I underlined or bracketed so many paragraphs that it became clear pretty quickly than more than one post would be needed to explore some of the thoughts. What Rachel describes in her memoir (so odd for someone younger than me to have a "memoir") is her life growing up in a small town with a stable family, her father being a theology professor. She was raised evangelical, and what she describes sounds pretty idyllic. It was towards the end of her time studying at Bryan College that cracks began to show in her personal evangelical facade. The answers she'd been trained with only raised more questions, or else failed to answer the real questions she was beginning to encounter. She went from certainty to doubt, and the remainder of her story is of her journey from doubt to faith. Two points I'd like to make in this first post: First, I cannot fully relate to Rachel's experience. Though I was raised in a stable, two parent home in a rural area, my father claimed no religious affiliation and my mother was (and still is) Roman Catholic. I was raised going to Mass every Sunday (and "Holy Day of Obligation"). I had my first communion when I was 8 or 9, and was in the early stages of preparing for Confirmation in my late teens when I left the Roman Catholic Church. My parents had a subscription to National Geographic and I knew all about the theory of evolution from my earliest days in grade school. It wasn't until after I left the Catholic Church and began to identify myself as "evangelical" that I felt the need to side with "creationism." This uneasy situation ended only a few years ago. In essence, I'm saying I wasn't raised evangelical and so can't say I identify fully with what Rachel described. I can understand it, though. Second, here's the part I always detest hearing people say, but I'll write it anyway...the fact that I appreciate Rachel and what she wrote does not mean that I agree with all of her conclusions...where she reaches any. Over the next several days I'll post a paragraph or two from EMT, along with some of my own thoughts. You might as well buy a copy yourself. It only costs $6 in paperback from Amazon.com. Book Review: The Prophetic Imagination 04/29/2011
 When this slim volume of only 125 pages arrived in the mail, I figured it would be a fairly swift read. Having listened to podcasts of Walter Brueggemann teaching and having read another of his books, I should have known better. This is not a dense book, but it is deep. The depth comes, I believe, from how strikingly different yet ringingly accurate is the perspective presented. In this book, Brueggemann lays out the distinction between royal consciousness and the prophetic alternative, drawing examples from the alternative community of Moses, the Solomonic monarchy, Jeremiah, Second Isaiah and Jesus of Nazareth. He then closes out attempting to explain how prophetic ministry applies in conventional ministerial settings. Anything I write here will really not do justice to the book, but I'll attempt to lay out some principal points and then share a few of my own thoughts. The royal consciousness leads people to numbness, especially to numbness about death. It is the task of prophetic ministry and imagination to bring people to engage their experiences of suffering to death. Throughout this book, Brueggemann contrasts what he calls the "royal consciousness" with the "prophetic alternative." The royal consciousness is the voice and mentality of the earthly monarch, seeking a peace that is advantageous to himself and believing that all will (or at least should) remain static forever. This perspective denies any possible end to the status quo, promoting either numbness or despair in those who are subjects to the power. Solomon is seen as the prime example in Scripture of the royal consciousness, though there were and are many other examples, with his wealth, excess and the forced labor that promoted it. The book of Ecclesiastes is brought out as describing the viewpoint of the royal consciousness, with an unchanging world, endless cycles and rivers flowing to a never-full ocean. The prophetic alternative calls into question the royal consciousness. Through grief and declarations of hope numbness and despair are challenged, and this is nothing other than the challenging of the monarch's status quo. Moses faced Pharaoh, led the people of Israel out of Egypt and provided the grounds for a new, alternative community based around the religion of God's freedom and the politics of compassion and justice. By the time of Solomon this new community had been subverted and in Solomon the reign of Pharaoh was re-enacted. The various prophets spoke and visualized through symbolic action the lament of God over his people and the hope of God for his people. The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us. As I mentioned above, the prophetic alternative calls for a religion of God's freedom and a politics of justice and compassion. This is the belief that God cannot be placed in a box and put under anyone's control, and certainly not under the control of the temporal authorities. It is also the conviction that justice and compassion are paramount, seeking the good and safety of society's weakest and most voiceless. It is so easy to fall from this back into the royal consciousness, a view that places God at the beck-and-call of the so-called king and which even invokes his name to commit injustice. For this reason the prophetic ministry is a constant necessity, denying the permanence of the present situation and creating space for a different reality to be born. The prophet must speak metaphorically about hope but concretely about the real newness that comes to us and redefines our situation. Theory doesn't accomplish anything without action. As it is written in the book of James, "faith without works is dead." It isn't enough to merely talk about the prophetic alternative to the royal consciousness. The new reality must be demonstrated. Towards the end of his book (after an excellent section on the prophetic ministry of Jesus), Brueggemann share's examples of ministries and Christians that are acting in concrete ways to enact the prophetic alternative. Much of what I see churches doing is merely an attempt to deal with the dominant reality it encounters, rather than speak into existence an alternative. Though many examples could possibly be given, there are two areas in which I see the Western expression of the church erring most in this regard: First, relevance. I've long said that so long as the Good News isn't "watered down," relevance is a good thing. As Paul put it, we want to become all things to all people. On further reflection I can see that this is true of communicating the way of Christ, but a definite problem when it comes to confronting the enslaving tendencies of the "royal consciousness." A fully "relevant" suburban church isn't going to address racism, poverty or even its own nihilistic embrace of the status quo...unless of course engaging any of these issues is the hip fad of the moment. Even at that the relevant approach will only attempt to make the confrontation palatable to congregants. It seems more useful to attempt to use language and symbols that are culturally familiar to communicate the radically different prophetic reality, rather than use these same elements to rehash the dominant view into something conveniently religious. Second, benevolence. Too much of what churches do amounts to charity, and not enough challenges the reality that causes poverty and injustice. Churches and parachurch organizations often strive to give the man a fish and sometimes teach him how to fish, but when he gets to the lake and the powers that be have built a wall to keep him out, he's left to his own devices. Nearly every Midwestern church of any size that I ever had contact with had some type of food pantry. Once, a handful of churches in a city an hour away from the rural community where I grew up decided folks where I lived were a bunch of needy peasants and began trucking in food every few weeks. This lasted for some months, and on evening walks in the country my mother kept finding the flour and other baking supplies that the "poor" were throwing out in favor of the candy and breakfast cereal that also came in the boxes. (For the record, my family never accepted the charity, since we weren't poor and neither were most of our neighbors.) What I describe above is essentially just benevolence on steroids. If that ministerial association really wanted to help out, they should have investigated the reality of the community and attempted to address the real concerns, like underage sex, drinking and drug use (among a multitude of possibilities). They could have sought to provide job training and financial counseling. They could have partnered with local churches and genuinely lamented the numbness and then spoken hope where they found despair. In sum, I found "The Prophetic Imagination" to be a challenging, eye-opening book that was well-worth reading and which I will definitely be re-reading and referencing again and again in the future. Book Review: An Unsettling God 07/09/2010
 When Brian Nicklaus mentioned he had bought a copy of "An Unsettling God" by Walter Brueggemann, I knew I'd have to borrow it. I'm glad I did. This slim volume, consisting of "only" around 176 pages of text divided in 6 chapters, is dense reading. Seriously, I think I could camp out on this book for a year working out everything Dr. Brueggemann says here. As with virtually everything I read, there are some aspects of the writer's viewpoint I couldn't quite accept, such as Brueggemann's rejection of what he terms "supersessionism," the belief that in Jesus of Nazareth a new covenant has come that supercedes the old. Rather than risk misrepresenting Dr. Brueggemann's position here, I'll just say that I follow the advice of my professors at Harding University: I treat the text like chicken, eating the meat and spitting out the bones. Dr. Brueggeman discusses in this book the nature of God as revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures as one of relationship with four "partners,": Israel, the Human Person, the Nations and Creation. All four were fantastic in their analysis of the text, from a faithful critical perspective. I was especially encouraged by the description of YHWH's relationship with the human person. He spoke in terms of a person at ease living in obedience, discernment (wisdom) and trust, while the person in crisis acts in complaint, petition and thanksgiving. After the crisis is resolved comes praise and hope. In my opinion, the best part of Brueggeman's handling of the Old Testament biblical texts is how he looks at them on their own internal merits, in the light of solid critical scholarship, without undue regard to the later re-interpretations of Christian writers. While, as I mentioned above, I disagree with his position on "supersessionism," I respect his ability to set aside the lens of classical Christian thought in his reading and analysis. Below I include a rather lengthy set of quotations from this book. Read through them slowly and I believe they will make sense, even without their original context. Better yet, buy a copy of "An Unsettling God" and see everything I failed to mention or quote. ________________________________ “The God of Christians, understood in the midst of God's revelation to ancient Israel, is a God deeply at risk in the drama of fidelity and infidelity in the world.” - page 11 “In these ancient texts and in its ongoing life in the world, Israel is indeed an oddity and a mystery, because Israel is a theological phenomenon that has concrete sociopolitical embodiment and is expected to live differently in a world of power.” - page 19 “The command to justice is understood as marking the polity of the community of Israel. That is, justice is not charity, nor is it romantic do-goodism. It is rather a mandate to order public policy, public practice, and public institutions for the common good and in resistance to the kind of greedy initiative that damages the community.” - page 28 “For our purposes, it is enough to see that for reconstituted Israel it is a sure datum that the future is not in hock to the present and will not be extrapolated from it. The future, moreover, is not to be determined by Israel's obedience; the future, as it has been since Israel's most daring core testimony, is in the hands of the One who is sovereignly faithful and faithfully sovereign.” - page 51 “These themes thus form one coherent construal of Israel's unsolicited testimony about its life as YHWH's primary partner: (a) loved to existence, (b) commanded to obedience, (c) scattered to exile, (d) recipients of YHWH's hidden turn, and (e) gathered to obedience and hope.” - page 52 “I have no itch to dismiss either the notion of image or the ancient physiology reflected in the text. But I do not want to be sidetracked from what seems to me the central concern of Israel regarding humanity: namely, that the human person is a person in relation to YHWH, who lives in an intense mutuality with YHWH.” - page 60 “These three aspects of humanness – obeying, discerning, and trusting – are of a piece, even though they are characteristically evidenced in different circles of tradition. These three habits (or disciplines or practices) of humanness articulate the sine qua non of what it means to be human in the purview of Israel's testimony. Humanness requires:
"There is no doubt that YHWH relates to human creatures as free and sovereign. They are created out of YHWH's great generosity, and perhaps out of YHWH's yearning. They are situated in the midst of YHWH's sovereignty and commanded to live on YHWH's terms. When those terms are violated, trouble comes. The world of human persons in their life with YHWH is a fairly tight moral system. The amazing alert offered in these texts is that in the midst of the sanctions that YHWH pronounces, in the face of guilt and in the face of mortality, in the face of both situations in which the human person is helpless, YHWH is attentive. Full of steadfast love and compassion, YHWH is like a father who pities, like a mother who attends. YHWH is indeed for human persons, for them while they are in the Pit, willing and powering them to newness. It is the central conviction of Israel that human persons in the Pit may turn to this One who is powerfully sovereign and may find that sovereign One passionately attentive. That is the hope of humanity and in the end its true joy." - page 97 “Wisdom is the critical, reflective, discerning reception of YHWH's gift of generosity. That gift is not for self-indulgence, exploitation, acquisitiveness, or satiation, all practices of 'foolishness.' Wisdom urges careful husbanding, so that resources of creation may be used for the protection, enhancement, and nurture of all creatures. Wisdom is the careful, constant, reflective attention to the shapes and interconnections that keep the world generative. Where those shapes and interconnections are honored, there the whole world prospers, and all creatures come to joy and abundance. Where those shapes and interconnections are violated or disregarded, trouble, conflict and destructiveness are sure.” - page 141 “The world, as YHWH's creation, requres daily, endless attention to the gifts of creation, for their abuse and exploitation can harm and impede the generosity that makes life possible. Creation, moreover, has within it sanctions to bring death on those who neglect the enhancement of generosity.” - page 141 “Israel bears witness, as did its antecedents, to an enduring force of chaos in its life. This chaos may go by many different names – Tiamat, Leviathan, Rahab, Yam, Mot – which we may summarize under the names of Death or Nihil. In a variety of texts, this rhetoric in Israel points to a recognition that something is at work in the world seeking to make impossible the life of blessing willed by YHWH.” - page 143 “This is a powerful, irresistible, transformative resolve, to be undertaken with a high level of emotional intensity. It is a burst of generativity that is going to change everything and create a newness. This is a God who will not forsake: 'I will not forsake them' (42:16); 'You shall no more be termed Forsaken' (62: 4). In this resolve to new creation, YHWH promises to overcome all forsakenness and abandonment known in Israel and in the world. When creation is abandoned by YHWH, it readily reverts to chaos. Here it is in YHWH's resolve, and in YHWH's very character, not to abandon, but to embrace. The very future of the world, so Israel attests, depends on this resolve of YHWH. It is a resolve that is powerful. More than that, it is a resolve that wells up precisely in tohu wabohu and permits the reality of the world to begin again, in blessedness.” - page 161 Book Review: The Lovely Bones 02/05/2010
Before ads for the movie version of The Lovely Bones came out I had never heard of the novel upon which it was based. Now that I've read the book I never want to see the movie. After the book, the movie could only be a disappointment. This a story as much about a murdered girl coming to terms with her death as it is about her family dealing with the same. The vision of heaven is somewhat of a mix of views common to popular contemporary Western Christianity, New Age and Spiritualist concepts. It felt something akin to What Dreams May Come. There was no judgment, resurrection and New Heavens/New Earth, as found in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. God was also strangely absent. If you were to read this book for the theology you'd be making a mistake and missing its real value. Susie, the young lady who in her early teens was raped and killed (this was graphically portrayed in the book, with the rape apparently absent from the movie), has a sort of omniscience and near omnipresence as she follows the path of grief taken by friends and family coping with her disappearance and then confirmed death. She also watches the man who violated and killed her. Her ability to interact with the living is, for the most part, quite limited. There were some stunning exceptions, but nothing I dare give away. This is also the story of Ruth, a "weird girl" who saw Susie's departing spirit without at first realizing it. Again, there's not much I can say without giving away important parts of the story that are better read in the book itself. The Lovely Bones is the sort of book that sucked me in, one that I resented having to put down to deal with real life, and one that I know will linger with me for days and quite likely leave a mark on my consciousness. If you haven't seen the movie, realize that I haven't either when I say: "Don't bother." Just pick up a copy from your local library, bookstore or on Amazon and read it. You'll be glad you did and will probably see why I say to avoid the movie. | 
Adam Gonnerman - Former missionary, ESL teacher, customer service rep, social media manager and web producer; currently employed as a project manager in New York and volunteering through HOPE worldwide.
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