Free Fun Fish Fry in February

It’s not often enough that a boy gets to embrace the fine art of poking a filet knife into the gut of a catfish. And young girls can never have too many chances to prepare a feast for 40. So with that in mind, the CWE365 Mentoring program planned February’s “Free Fun Fish Fry in February.” There was plenty of fish and fun to be had.

The mentoring program aims to host events for it’s mentoring matches (a mentor and a student) once a quarter. The events are a fun way to remind mentors of the community surrounding them and introduce students to peers who are also mentored. Additionally, it provides an exciting and well-planned activity to matches that they wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise.

February 25^th surely brought a new experience to the matches! After learning about the miraculous feeding of over 5000 people by Jesus in the Bible, guys and girls were broken into groups. The men traveled outside to learn to ropes catching live catfish with their bare hands and filleting them into scrumptious portions. Ladies had a long list of delicious recipes to learn to accompany the grilled and fried catfish being prepared. Both groups worked in a series of teams to see the meal to fruition.  As the catfish sizzled outside, baked macaroni and cheese became bubbly in the oven. The guys rolled the hushpuppies into perfect bite sized shapes and the girls smashed roasted red skinned potatoes into mouth watering mashed potatoes. Bread, several chocolate pies and banana pies and gallons of sweet tea and lemonade finished the spread. Everything looked incredible. As mentors and students sat down to their feast, conversations blossomed over plates of warm, rich smelling food. It wasn’t long before the notion of “seconds” came up, and quite a few attendees added an extra hushpuppy or scoop of mac and cheese to their plates! “I loved watching the kids’ faces as they realized the food everyone was eating was what they just cooked themselves,” mentoring intern Jessica Hawley spoke of the meal.

The outing ended with a few fun giveaways fitting to the theme- fishing poles and kitchen items- and a word of thanks and encouragement from CWE365 staff members Brent Jensen and Hannah Cypert.

All in all, it was a great day of learning new and useful skills, and strengthening a growing mentoring community. “My mentee Maddie and I had a blast learning how to cook several items… It was great to see her learn a new and practical skill that she enjoyed and had fun doing,” Mentor and University of Arkansas student Jillian Sharp said. Matt Noetzel, Ozone staff member said, “If you just teach a man to fish but not to prepare it, he’ll be eating raw fish for the rest of his life. But now that we know how to cook a fish, we’ll eat delicious fish for a lifetime!”

Save Lives, One Click at a Time

Did you know that bad water kills more daily than AIDS, Malaria, Measles and warfare COMBINED? Humankind Water is an organization that has set out to change that statistic in a practical but incredible way.
Humankind Water has entered the "Get on the Shelf" contest sponsored by Wal-Mart to do exactly that. To "get on the shelf" and Wal-Mart and sell, with 100% of the net profits going towards ending the crisis of bad water.
But it begins with people making a choice to vote and dedicating themselves to spreading the word! Head over to Get On the Shelf to vote today through Facebook. Then, take a moment to text to the number 383838, with the message 4829.
Vow to get involved and spread the word. A difference will be made when you vote. Humankind Water must win!

CWE365 students and staff have pledged to vote and share this important information with others. Will you?

Chicken Flavored Soy or Soy Flavored Chicken? Serving with Feed My Starving Children

The following was written by Rogers Ozone Director, Christine Janssens

6         30      216    6,480  17      2

Children all over the world are not getting adequate nutrition. What do these random numbers have to do with starving children? One thing we believe the Lord has been calling our ministry to do is to serve not only our community, but to reach out to those around the world that need help. How on earth can a bunch of students help such distant problems?

Feed My Starving Children is an organization whose mission is "to feed God’s starving children in body and spirit."  Their goal is to reach those children who don’t get adequate nutrition and feed them a well-balanced meal of rice, soy protein, vegetables and chicken, so that their health can be restored.  This wasn't real chicken though. The bags of food are vegan friendly, meaning the chicken was just a soy-based flavoring that added a little extra life to the food! It brings joy to know that the organization took the time to consider the taste of the food for these families! The most important, and impressive, part to me was that these nutrients are designed to save the lives of severely malnourished and starving children. Not only that, but the ingredients also improve the health, growth and physical well-being of children who are no longer in immediate danger of starvation.

So on February 25th as we joined with Feed My Starving Children, this was our job. To pack bags that contained each of these ingredients. One person manned the chicken in one hand and the vegetables in the other. Another was in charge of scooping a big scoop of soy and a big scoop of rice. Once funneled into the bag in the correct order—chicken, veggies, soy, rice—the bag was weighed then sealed. When 36 bags were completed, they were strategically placed in a box. Then the really fun part began. The whole group had to do a cheer so that a runner could come and pick up our box of rice! Since Camp War Eagle chow hall cheers are loud, fun and easy to remember, we stuck with those. The other teams, and our own, seemed to really like the cheers about Joy, Jesus and others! It was an experience that everyone enjoyed and definitely something that will be on the agenda for next year!  

Let's go back to those numbers. Now that you know a bit about who FMSC is and how we helped, I’ll clue you in on what great an impact the Ozone group had!

6—The number of meals in one bag of Rice        

30—The number of boxes the Ozone students packed

216—The number of meals in each box

6,480—The number of meals Ozone Students packed on February 25^th

17—The number of children who will now have food for a whole year, packed by our own Ozone students

           

2 –The number of hours it took out of our day.

This was a group effort that allowed our students to bond and have fun, but ultimately to help those who are in need. It was a true eye opener for me and for all the students to see how the Lord has blessed our lives here in the United States. It was a true blessing seeing the hearts of our students and their desire to spread Jesus’s love.  It was also exciting to see them live out what is written in the bible, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action” 1 John 3:18.

Please visit the FMSC website: http://www.fmsc.org to learn more.  They are a loving organization that is living out the Word of God, and we were so happy and blessed to be a part of it!