I discovered this, written by a Shaker while I was studying at the Culinary Institute of America. One of the most fantastic aspects of that school is the huge library they have of culinary works from across the centuries. I was writing a paper on the Shakers. When I first read this I got goose bumps and my spine shivered.

Unfortunately the people who are in positions of power currently in our world are generally on pretty bad diets. Couple that with high stress lifestyles and we have a perfect recipe for paranoid, grumpy and negative thinking personalities. Is it really such a good idea to let people like this run our world? The following, written by a Western Plowman and published in The Shaker Manifesto of September of 1883, lays this out in clear language.

Kitchen Education

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When we first arrived in Egypt after our overnight flight through Frankfurt we were split up into two groups with the guys going down to a place called Beni Suef where Freeman will be working, and the women going to Anafora where Chelsea will be living and working. Beni Suef is about two hours south of Cairo, and Freeman and I stayed at what they call a motranaya which is the compound surrounding the Orthodox Church that houses the Bishop for that area. This is where Freeman will be living for the next year, and it was quite a nice place. It is sort of like a dormitory, or boarding house for people that are traveling and also those who wish to work in the Church and possibly become priests someday.

Our housemates on the top floor above the Bishops residents were mostly young men who were working with the Church. They spoke almost no English but were very passionate about helping us learn Arabic and picking up some English along the way. I actually learned enough to basically get around because of these interactions. They also loved to cook for us which I was quite happy for. The other resident was an older, celibate priest who was quite playful and would often harass the young men while the others looked on and laughed uproariously.

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I just wanted to thank everyone again for donating either money, time or prayers, and for wanting to stay updated on what’s going on in my life. I am now in Egypt, but not yet in my assignment or falling into any kind of routine. Apparently that will all fall into place starting the last week of September. But until then I can catch you up on the orientation process with MCC (Mennonite Central Committee in case anyone still does not know that) and my attempt at fitting into the Egyptian culture.

First of all my flight to Akron, Pennsylvania had some issues involved with it, which seems like it should be true of the beginning of all adventures. I showed up on time to the airport, which meant that I left my house at 4 am, only to discover that my plane was having “mechanical problems.” This meant that the plane was delayed indefinitely although not “canceled” necessarily. So they told me to go wait in a line which took two hours and I was then reassigned to another flight which left four hours after my original flight was intended to. Because of this I missed my transfer flight in Chicago, and arrived in Akron quite late at night rather than 4 in the afternoon as was the plan.

The week in Akron was incredible. The organization is really great, and I felt as though I had never been around so many people that thought the same way as me. There were three groups of people in Akron with MCC at the time and telling about them will give you a little more information on the type of organization that MCC is. The first group is the SALTers, which is the program that I am going with. This program takes young single people from North America and sends them out around the world for a year to work with and serve those in need in many different ways. Most of the work that these people do fall into the categories of either relief, development, or peace-building. Some of the people I met were going into: working with water supplies, working on micro-finance/ micro-enterprise, working on community development initiatives such as early childhood work, teaching English, working as nurses at local hospitals, providing employment opportunities for women, etc.

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