It's the End of the World as We Know It

I've been thinking about the end of the world, lately. There have been a lot of world disasters, and food prices have gone up (well, in America at least. Here they haven't changed at all; small blessings), and gas has gone up - it's at about 4.64 a gallon - and that's in British Pounds. That's $9.28 a gallon!

In the blogs I read, in the conversations with my Mom about my siblings back at home, it seems like everywhere Food Storage comes up repeatedly.

We don't have any Food Storage. We have the opposite of food storage - we're using up any spare food in our cupboard or fridge/freezer, and after this week, should have almost no reserves of food at all. Of course, we are moving to America in two weeks, so this is understandable, but it still makes me a little nervous. I know that I don't need to fear for the end of the world, but that's because I don't need to fear because I'm prepared. And I'm definitely not prepared.

Back in Provo I used to be. I had a bucket of wheat; what's more, I even used it on regular basis to make homemade bread, along with my powdered milk and honey that I used in the same recipe. I was borrowing long term my mother's wheat grinder, while she was on a mission.

Well, her and Don are home from their mission, they have the wheat grinder again, and I moved, so I got rid of all my excess food storage anyway. I had a lot more than just the basic survival stuff, too. We may have lived in an apartment with less than 600 square feet of living space, but that didn't stop us from storing (and regularly using) cases of tuna fish, tomato paste and sauce (Avram always makes a homemade tomato sauce; it's great. We haven't bought store canned/bottled sauce since we've been married), and massive amounts of olive and canola oil, among other food items.

We got rid of those all, too.

The only food that we saved, apart from spices, is some honey that I helped can at Welfare Square, because according to Avram honey never goes bad. Apparently they've found honey from ancient Egypt that is still technically edible. Count me out.

So now food prices have risen a bunch, and everyone is either grateful for their food storage, or starting to build theirs like mad, before it's too late. And we have nothing.

I know we can start at square one just fine again, and that no one, least of all the Lord, expects a technically homeless, itinerant family who'll be living with their in-laws this summer to have a working food storage system. Until we move to Ohio, I'm not even going to get to reconstituting our seventy-two hour kits, because I'm not even sure where everything got put from them over a year ago, when I last saw them.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this, except as to say; pray for us. Pray that tomorrow Oxfordshire doesn't flood horribly from all of the rain we've been having, and we have to live for weeks off of the food in our pantry because the road washed out, because then this'll be our last goodbye. Or pray that we'll have enough extra in Ohio money-wise, so that we can start food storage up again, so that way my children can also know the joy of drinking powdered milk (actually I only use powdered milk for cooking with; I can't stand to drink the stuff straight, so I certainly couldn't make my kids do it. Except for a couple times this year, when we had run out of milk before we could get to a store to buy some more, and Lydia was throwing a fit for milk, or for milk and cereal, and so one of us would distract Lydia, while the other one surreptitiously mixed up a glass of milk on the counter, and then opened the fridge and pretended to "pour" the glass behind the cover of the door, and then served it to Lydia, who drank it down heartily, never seeming to notice it wasn't cold, and tasted like yuck. The things you do as a parent.)

Another thing I've been thinking about is being poor, but also about the Lord providing for you. When we planned for England, we had to prove to the University that we had planned for and had already provided the money needed for a year of school in England. Let me tell you, that's a lot of money you're supposed to already have in the bag. We had plans for money; student loans, Avram working, dissolving a mutual fund Avram had from before his mission, Tax refund, etc. So I presented this all out to Avram's paternal grandfather, all the while assuring him that he wouldn't have to help fund Avram's master's degree at all, and he then graciously had his people tell Oxford's people and the British government's people that we were covered for funds (Avram's Grandpa is wise in investments, and so is quite comfortable in his retirement).

All well and good. Until they gave us less student loans than we applied for. And what we were given was disbursed in four disbursements, the last not being until June, when we needed to make rent and tuition payments all earlier in the year. And Avram didn't find a job here for the first four months. And the Mutual Fund lost money for a year straight. And the money we had saved up over the summer didn't go as far as it was going to, because the rate of exchange between pounds and dollars had worsened a lot since we had made our budget. And.... And.... And before we knew it, we ended up borrowing enough money from Grandpa Shannon to pay the rent every month, totaling to $6,000 by the end of the year. Thankfully, he's a grandpa, and not a loan shark, so we're paying him back interest free for the next three years, starting this fall, once we have enough income.

Even with this extra help we still started running out of money. By the end of November, we could count about three weeks into the future before our money all ran out, and we had nothing to eat. We would talk to our respective parents, who all worried a lot for us. Then everyone we knew seemed to send us money as Christmas presents this year. So we ate off that (and had some fun and bought things too). Then by the end of December, once again we were down to enough money for 2-3 weeks of food. Then my brother Soren and my sister Amy and her husband Todd both gave generous and unexpected gifts, which kept us eating through mid March. By this point Avram had a job, but his first paycheck wasn't until March 20. And we had filed our taxes, but didn't have anything back, yet. But my parents came to visit at this time, and they fronted our visit to France until our taxes came back. And since then, Avram's paycheck has supplied all of our needs except for rent. So we've been thoroughly covered, to the point where we canceled our last loan disbursement completely.

Although I grew up without much money, some would even say poor, I have never been in a position where I didn't know how we were going to eat until this year. And without the promptings of the Spirit and help from family we wouldn't have survived this year.

This all comes up in my mind now because in some ways we're the poster child family for how not to live; no food storage, no savings, living hand-to-mouth, etc. For that matter, adding another member to our family in all of this (babies, aside from medical costs, which don't apply here, are practically free, really) could seem odd, too. Yet, I know that when we have, and when we will trust in the Lord that all will work out. It had worked out here in England this past year, when as we have prayed over our food every meal, and thanked Heavenly Father for the food, it wasn't a generic comment, but rather a heartfelt gratitude for the specific food on our table that we hadn't known how to pay for until He provided it. Because He has provided for us.

I know that as the world sees more and more natural, food and economic disasters that He will provide as well. Even if all I have to offer on my side is some honey and fervent prayers.