Gave a talk to Clare Teixeira’s youth group at Epiphany Catholic Church in Lake City, Florida. I said when people are on the verge of starving to death, they get distended stomachs because without protein in their systems, the body starts feeding on the muscles, including the ones holding the stomach in. These quite well fed American youth were, for the most part, aghast. I also told them about Morning Star Fishermen, a “fish farm” project we’d just researched in Dade City, Florida. Morning Star is a teaching facility that brings up people from South America to learn how to get these fish farms going in their own villages — so not as many people have to starve. After hearing about all this, the youth committed to doing a fundraiser to help Morning Star.
Met with Teresa Walsh in San Antonia, Florida. For ten years, their family put up her mother and father in an ‘grandparents suite’ in their ranch style home. (The grandparents lived in a converted basement, with a kitchen and so on.) Teresa said the benefits were: her children got to know their grandparents quite well, they were able to intimately share their faith together; the grandparents sometimes spelled Mom and Dad so they could get periodic breaks…
Today is my 50th birthday. My wife Liz, 38, with her characteristic sensitivity and aplomb, said: “Wow, I didn’t realize how old this was going to make me feel.
Toured Morning Star Fisherman, a non-denominational project in the outskirts of Dade City, Florida. Morning Star has developed an excellent teaching “fish farm.” They raise Tilapia here, which reportedly has the highest protein content of any fish in the world. People from South America come here to learn how to set up variations of these fish farms, then go back to their countries to start similar projects — so people in poverty stricken villages can have a steady protein source… Later this day, I gave a talk to a Religion class at St. Leo’s University in St. Leo, Florida. I said we should all be concerned about hunger in the Third World. After talking about this at length, a student asked why “…as a presidential candidate,” I wasn’t talking about things that “directly affect” people in America (social security, crime on American streets…). I responded Third World hunger did directly affect everyone here, because if we fail to significantly help our brothers and sisters living in poverty in the Third World, the gospel message indicates (quite frequently) we might not fare too well on Judgement Day.
The Terri Schiavo case down here continues to get a good deal of national press. (She is a severely brain-damaged woman at Woodside Hospital in Florida whose life hangs in the balance because her former husband is fighting to take her off artificial life support. The contention is that it wasn’t her wish to be kept alive using artificial means.) Anti-euthanasia advocates are up in arms about this case, and euthanasia in general… I called into a rather heated local radio show in Ocala a few days back and said our society has to realize euthanasia, especially with the elderly, actually starts when families, and communities, start pushing the elderly farther and farther out — in retirment communities, then assisted living complexes, then nursing homes… How they are often “pushed out,” I said, is by younger generations no longer esteeming them, or listening to them, or…
Traveled south to Dade City, Florida where I interviewed Fr. Edwin Palka at St. Rita’s Church. A good percentage of the church is Hispanic, and a good percentage of those are illegal. When I asked, on average, how much these illegals make, Fr. Palka replied: “Not much. I’ve been in their homes.” He said it’s not uncommon for two Hispanic families here to live in one small mobile home. And what’s more, every additional penny is sent down to relatives in Mexico who have even less.
My wife Liz and I did the “Bobby D” Show on WKKO in Ocala, Florida today. A caller said (as is the sentiment among many) that there should be no leeway for Mexicans who are illegal. Liz responded that we had gone to Juarez, Mexico several years ago to research Hispanic immigration issues, and saw abject poverty in the extreme. Dirt street after dirt street of whole families living in cobbled together shacks with no running water, no electricity, no sewers… The children were hungry, very hungry. Some of the parents leave their children behind, risk dangerous border crossings, work from sun up to sun in our fields for virtually nothing… and at that, still take the savings to send to their wife and children — so they can eat. I then said to the caller that I wondered how Jesus would deal with the situation? Offer them no leeway?
Went to hear a talk by Dr. Chuck Baldwin in Ocala, Florida today. He was the Campaign 2004 Consitution Party vice-presidential candidate. Dr. Baldwin, who is a well-known Christian pastor, said both major parties are “owned by big money interests.” He also said most pastors in the U.S. are preaching a “prosperity mentality” and not dealing much with the Pro-Life issue, the homosexual issue… While I believe this as well, during the question and answer period I told Dr. Baldwin I didn’t believe in several of the Constitution Party platform points. For one, part of the Party’s Foreign Policy statement reads: “We would end all aid to foreign governments.” So, for instance, there would be no governmental aid to Africa for the AIDs epidemic, no governmental aid to the Indian Ocean tsunami victims… I said that while the Constitutional Party, apparently, adheres to the teachings of the Bible, this didn’t seem to match up with the spirit of Jesus’s message about stridently trying to help the disadvantaged.
Interviewed Teresa Pinkos, who is the director of the “Maria Goretti House” (for women in crisis pregnancy) in Ocala, Florida. Opened in 1997, some 65 women have found shelter, and love, here. The House is non-profit and staffed by area volunteers (primarily volunteers from Queen of Peace Church in Ocala). It’s genesis: A parishioner had come to Queen of Peace’s Fr. Patrick O’Doherty and said there was a need for a home to be established for these women. Without pausing, Fr. O’Doherty told the parishioner to: “…find a house.” He did. And the $130,000 to purchase the home, and get it ready, was raised shortly after.
Met with Gail Zach, 50, who is the vice-president of Ocala, Florida’s Queen of Peace Pro-Life Group. She told me she had an abortion on May 16, 1978. She was 22-years-old at the time, newly married, and she and her husband were concerned about whether they could afford the baby — and deal with all the new responsiblity the baby would bring. Gail said she was told at the abortion clinic that the fetus was nothing more than a “blob of tissue.” So she had the abortion and didn’t think much more about it — until she saw the movie Silent Scream. “Then I knew what I’d really done,” Gail lamented, in tears. Now she’s down every week in front of the Ocala Women’s Center protesting and trying to plead with the women going in: not to make the same mistake.