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Quiet Creek Herb Farm & School of Country Living

Ackee

2/28/2012

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A small fruit about the size of a toddler’s fist dangles 25 feet above the ground as Shane (a new Jamaican friend) and Ashton gently dislodge it.  Reddening in the morning sun, this tropical fruit tree has pinnate evergreen leaves that spread out in 6 to 10 elliptical leaflets.  The pear shaped pod is not any tropical fruit; ackee is the heart of Jamaican cuisine. 

            Although native to Africa, it has naturalized and become rich in Jamaica’s culture.  Most likely imported here in the 1700s along with the slave trade, ackee was taken to England and named Blighia sapida by the discoverer Captain William Bligh. 

            The fleshy fruit is only edible when the pod’s bottom splits open revealing the dark black shiny seeds.  The seed and orange insides are removed leaving the yellow arils.  The arils are then boiled, changing the water twice.  As a stir-fry with scallions, tomatoes, and calilou or as a main dish with salt fish, this island staple resembles scrambled eggs in appearance, tastes buttery, and has a firm melon texture.

            Canned ackee is a major Caribbean export especially to the USA, although the fresh fruit is much better.  Referred to as vegetable brains, ackee is a complex carbohydrate rich in linoleic acids essential to human health.  In total, 22 diseases have been recognized to be healed with ackee. Dental decay, fever, malaria, internal hemorrhage, dysentery, burns, eyes inflammation, yellow fever, constipation, cutaneous infections, whitlow and head lice are the most common. All parts (bark, seeds, roots, leaves) are involved in the composition of drugs. The bark is useful in the treatment of 13 different diseases followed in decreasing order by leaves, roots and seeds.  This type of knowledge is kept mostly by old people and traditional healers in the communities and varied sometimes from one ethnic group to the other.

            That night we dined on an ackee stir-fry.  First I boiled four cups of ackee twice in water and rinsed it in between boilings.  I sauteed two tablespoons of butter with three tablespoons of scallions and a fresh chopped tomato.  Next I added the drained ackee into the stir-fry. 

            What a wonderful way to celebrate Jamaica Day, our friends, and new foods! 

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Faith in Faith

2/20/2012

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_ Last week we grew in Faith.  She is a woman with a body mass index (BMI) of 15, so rarely found in the states, especially after having ten children.  Six of her offspring are at home and four more are out surviving as young adults. As do many single-mothers, Faith shares many talents and traits:  perseverance, love of family, and a dedication to her Creator.   

We met her through a local pastor who invited us to help rebuild her dilapidated shack.  As a squatter, she ended up there after her husband was unable to fulfill his fatherly responsibilities. 

With a few chapters under our belts of When Helping Hurts:  How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself, we were ready to minister.  The book states so often Americans damage their efforts thinking they know what is best for fixing the resource-lacking.  Instead authors, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, reveal one should consider developing relationships. 

Making people feel valued can help much more than providing for physical needs.  Although there was no doubt the necessities of a bathing room with a drain and cement floor, a privacy fence for dressing, and cooking areas (open air and encased with corrugated tin) were much more important than a hug from a “whitey visiting 2000 miles away.”

With the need to connect our family to hers, my mom considered one of Faith’s strengths -- cooking local, whole foods for a large gathering.  Mom established the perfect moment to ask Faith.  It happened when we all were collecting limestone pebbles to fill the shower and cook area footers.  Here Faith willingly accepted the invitation to teach us how to create a typical Jamaican meal from scratch. Dictating a list of ingredients, she shared and I frantically jotted down in my journal:  chicken, brown rice, red peas (kidney beans), thyme, coconut, pimento leaf, cinnamon bark, scotch bonnet peppers (habaneros), salt and pepper. 

The following Thursday laden with cloth bags full of Faith’s nutritional needs, my mom and I walked a short hike to her 20 square foot lean-to.  The roof was leaking from the recent downpour (Jamaica’s annual rainfall is 77”), but the rain tank for washing was overflowing.   The outhouse and bathing areas were now donned in curtains.  In the midst of little, we were greeted with plenty -- cheers and broad smiles of seven of the emotionally happiest, but materially poorest people we had ever known.  My mom and I looked at one another and nodded in agreement; we were attempting to diminish our own “poverty of others” – a phrase is defined by Corbett and Fikkert as self centeredness. 

After a full day of scrubbing clothes by hand and hanging them to dry, Faith still made time to start two fires with homemade charcoal – one for peas and rice and another for the chicken.  Her older daughters, Evanna and Channakay put the peas on to boil, while I joined Faith in preparing the chickens into perfectly portioned pieces where nothing was wasted.  We didn’t actually cut the chicken, instead we hit their joints and they snapped open.  With olive oil, Evanna fried the protein while laughing with my mom who attempted to speak Jamaican Creole.

 I learned how to crack and drain a coconut on a rock.  By then my dad had arrived with three other friends and he volunteered to grate the coconut; my mom taught me that beneficial saturated fats (coconut) are used to season the complex carbohydrates (beans and rice) high in fiber.  There was richness in “whole foods” cooking and creating the Vassell and Orner union.

Ashton played a makeshift game of cricket/baseball with Faith’s younger children (Ashley, Asley, Kimberly and Sheldon).  As the evening’s darkness set in, they decided not to lose the ball in the bush and circled around the rest of us at the fires.  Hymn singing rose up intermixed with the smells of a slowly cooked, traditional Jamaican meal. 

After four and one half hours of food preparation, Faith dished up thirteen heaping plates of the best tasting food any of us Orner’s had experienced.  Famished under the star-lit sky and ready to devour our meal, I noticed at once that Faith was foodless.  Soon our plates matched hers in size and you couldn’t tell we had even shared any with Faith, a self-less woman deserving of basic essentials.       

Our faith in Faith flowed with admiration and respect that night.  What a model of “community” -- rich in love, knowledge and hospitality for her friends, family and deity. 

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Crystal Hunting

2/10/2012

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“Walker, are you ready to go?” calls my brother, Ashton, from downstairs.  “Yes”, I reply as I put my rock hammer and water bottle in my pack. 

Yesterday Ashton had gone crystal hunting with Finley who is the care taker of our sabbatical home (Harmony House), Junior, Jay, and John—three Jamaican friends.  I had stayed back to help build a house for Miss Faith and her six children. 

They all live in Harmons, a remote village in the mountains, rich in the bauxite needed to quench America’s thirst for aluminum.  Mining this natural resource without environmental regard has exposed calcite crystals covering boulders at the huge holes in the ground (some 80 foot in depth)

For family day my parents planned to join us too.  My dad, Rusty, being a “retired” mineralogist was excited beyond explanation; whereas my mom saw the beauty of geologic studies for our home schooling. 

I ran down the hallway and met the excavation crew at the front gate.  Junior, our guide, started off into the bush.  We all followed along the well-worn paths, passing clumps of houses made of tin and cement.  Outside one home was a group of Jamaican children adorned with dreadlocks and smiles. They questioned Junior in Pautwa (the native creole) about where we were going.  Junior replied that we were crystal hunting. A few of them joined our procession including a new friend named Antony.

The weather was beautiful with puffy cumulus clouds in the sky and a warm wind blowing through our hair and in our faces. Soon a complex system of hills, valleys, ditches, and ponds came into view.  “It is the quickest way,” Junior chortled, so we obediently followed. 

Within minutes, I felt like a mountain goat scrabbling across the switches.  Ashton was in his glory, not only is he an avid tree climber back home but he loves to climb rocks as well. His new friend Antony was just as much of a daredevil as he is.  They challenged one another to do handsprings down the ravines and jump off the highest peaks.  My mom was having difficulty and I could sense she would have preferred the safer route.  Likewise,  my dad shared in her discontent until he looked down and spotted his first cluster of calcite crystals.  Junior yelled, “Come now, this is nothing to compare to what is coming!” 

As we progressed, I learned about the calcite crystals (CaCO2) from my mom.  Evidently Jamaica, a Greater Antille, had volcanic origin, but was covered by an ocean laying down millions of now compacted sea shells. Calcite had grown out of the solution of dissolved calcium carbonate.  Commonly found world-wide, this soft mineral is known as a “3” on Moh’s hardness scale. They are classified in the trigonal crystal system.

Once again my dad wanted to stop and get more treasure protruding out of boulders   surrounded by the red bauxite refuse. Ashton and Junior ran ahead bringing him back a sample of ecstasy.  He dropped his most recent collection and quickly journeyed onward. 

What we saw was incredible, piles upon piles of calcite, the size of your wrist displaying perfect rhombohedra cleavage and sparkling vitreously in the hot sun.  Junior requested my hammer and showered the ground with finger-thick, diamond-like crystals.  Pumped with adrenaline, my dad lifted a sixty pound boulder.   Then he would drop to the ground and pick through the crystal as if nothing had happened.  This hulk-like activity continued until a huge pile of calcite heaped in front of us. 

My mom and I gazed in amazement.  Then I saw the concern on her face, knowing of my dad’s severe inflammation in his shoulder area. 

“Are you ok, Rusty?” she inquired.  “Oh yes, I have always wanted to do this with the boys, but I never had the time or had access crystals like this to share with them.” 

What a glorious day in Jamaica; I learned a ton of geologic facts and a new respect for my father and his love of mineral hunting. 


         


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Condering a Sabatical?

2/7/2012

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_         Seven months ago we came to the realization that God commands His children to not only remember the sabbath every seven days, but also take a sabbatical every seven years. At that time we were hustling with business as usual at Quiet Creek. There were grant reports to complete, gardens to weed, theater camp to coordinate and four interns to mentor. 

An overwhelming weight lifted as God spoke to us in the book of Leviticus “in the seventh year the land is to have a rest.  Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.”  With little effort, God unfolded our sabbatical plan – three months in Jamaica serving God’s people through the Won by One to Jamaica ministry and four months learning how to protect God’s temple, the human body, through nutrition and fitness.  It was Corsica, France God said to go discover the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet.

In addition, His plan perfectly provided Robbie and Jessi Orth, a young couple grounded in Christ’s love.  They accepted our invitation to steward Quiet Creek while we recharge mentally, physically and spiritually. 

          Knowing it best to gather each of our expectations before taking God’s incredible gift, the four of us shared our definition of a seven month sabbatical.    

To Ashton, “a sabbatical is building relationships with people of different cultures.  Also going on a once in a life time journey while spending time with family and meeting new friends.”

Walker states, “to me a sabbatical means a trip to see the world. It means influencing people and being exposed to different cultures and seeing different life styles. It means tasting different foods and going out of our comfort zones to help other people.”

Claire feels “a sabbatical is spending time with family, learning from others, and serving God.  It means the time to luxurious practice the fruit of the spirit—loving your Jamaican neighbors;  experiencing the joy of your husband; feeling the peacefulness of the morning while sipping  Jamaican coffee;  giving gentle hugs; providing the patience my children deserve; reaping the goodness of the papaya, pineapple, and orange; reaping the kindness of Ruby and Finley, the Harmony House caretakers; and maintaing self-control during family French lessons.  A sabbatical means reading “When Helping Hurts” and “Understanding Poverty” then putting theory into direct application.”

Rusty sums up “this sabbatical is more about listening than slowing down.  It’s about stepping back and hearing the important things in life:  love for my family, and the God who blessed me with Claire, Walker and Ashton.  It is about appreciating other people and true relationships that can be built with them.  It is about the beautiful creation of water, earth, sky and hearing the birds sing, children laugh and wind before a storm.” 

We anticipate the long term rewards will outweigh the short term challenges we face in taking this sabbatical. Specifically, Won by One to Jamaica’s mantra, changing lives by changing lives, is our focus.  Come journey with us, learn from our discoveries, and consider doing the same in your life. 

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Ashton enjoys a coconut!

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    Author

    Walker Orner, son of Rusty and Claire Orner

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