International Health

Yesterday before he started his lecture, my Professor of international nutrition played "We Are All One" for the whole class, and I could feel my face get a little red when he announced who wrote it and recorded it because I didn't know he was going to play it for the WHOLE CLASS (though I prominently announced to the whole class that I'm not the star here, my husband is :). The song fit perfectly with our discussion for the day on starvation and refugees.

The teacher, Dr. Johnston, is a softie- caring, kind, and probably has one of the biggest hearts on the planet. He has been all around the world working with various prominent church leaders to help solve international nutrition deficiencies, building small farms, testing rural areas for nutrient levels, and even making fortified cookies for children. I admire and respect him for his work and personality and hope to someday do work along those same lines. But for now, this little certificate I received from Save the Children will have to suffice.

Hunger Banquet Jam Jolt

So, we wrote a song called "We Are All One" to celebrate human dignity for this year's hunger banquet. I have pretty much done everything at this banquet. One year I was a server, one year I was on the entertainment committee, but this year we sat on the floor and ate rice and beans while the people on the tables scarfed their food down. If you have never been to one, I highly recommend it. It forces you to realize how Americans are so in their own little world with all their food and goods while almost the rest of the entire world sits on cardboard boxes scarfing down what little they can find being constantly hungry. If one was to divide all the food in the world up into jelly beans, America would have WAY, WAY too many jelly beans for the amount of people they have. Why can't we share our jelly beans? Go here to listen to the song we wrote and sang:

http://www.myspace.com/marshalljensen

The CRUISE JAM JOLT

On this trip, the peak jam jolt happened after we ended up calling TWO TIMES to reschedule our flight after the captain had a heart attack or something, so we had to go back to the last port and drop him off and pick up a new captain! It put the cruise ship way behind schedule and because of the high tides the show in which he was supposed to be Ricki Martin was postponed until the next morning because "they were afraid for the safety of the performers", especially the half-naked dancers because they could fall into "the pit". The pit was a big hole in the front of the stage where the orchestra played during the show. Their concerns were valid, the ship really was rocking all over the place- so much that you didn't even have to drink to know what it was like to be drunk. ANYWAY! Sorry, the Jam Jolt, gosh. After the performance we ended up getting all packed and ready to go and waiting in a lobby FOREVER with about all the other passengers doing the same thing. Needless to say, people were sick and tired of waiting forever like sardines in a can, and that's when my brilliant MJ unpacked his guitar and started jammin' away for all the annoyed passengers. So, they all got a free concert instead of just waiting, and everyone LOVED it and LOVED him for it. We ended up giving out like 5 cds right there as we finally left the ship for customs in California. You think that would be the end of the Jam moment, but I'm not through yet. We got off the cruise line and realized we had left our cameras from the trip in our suite. SO! Instead of heading off to the airport after waiting hours, we were told if we waited about another three hours while they cleaned we could get our cameras. I figured it was worth it because I am madly in love with pictures and the waiting began again by the poor taxi man's booth who gets yelled at about all sorts of things like the bathrooms, etc. Geez! Give the guy a break! Like he can do anything about that shiz. Tangent- so MJ decides to bust out the guitar again and soon we have a flock of elderly ladies gathered around him snapping their fingers and dancing like crazy! They love him, and one guy even puts out a hat where MJ earned enough money in 30 minutes to pay for dinner at the LAX airport that night! SWEET! So, that moment has inspired this blog of Jam Jolts. Boo-yah. Wish I had more pictures of the moment, but this will have to suffice. We did get our pictures back finally, but not the ones from para sailing :(