...out of the house of bondage...
"Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul; be not slain because of her sin; for this is the time of Hashem's vengeance; He will render unto her a full recompense." Yeremi'yahu 51:6
With those words and others like them throughout the Tanakh, we were called out of mainstream America and deep into the jungles of Central America. There we made a peaceful life for ourselves, with a 40 acre farm and international learning center called The Sustainable Tropical Agriculture & Natural Development Center. This gave us the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and every walk of life though outreach programs, student projects, and our volunteer programs. We were practicing sustainable logging techniques to harvest high quality tropical lumber, and teaching workshops on sustainable development, natural construction, herbal medicine, and more. We promoted cutting edge organic agriculture techniques like bio-char and 'terra preta'. and worked with communities and universities both locally and internationally to develop high quality living internships that plunged students into real world Sustainable Development. We raised and grew all our own food. Then everything began to change. As deforestation and the subsequent climate instability progressed, the water tables got lower in the dry seasons. At the same time that the established climate patterns were destabilizing, the social fabric of our beloved country began to disintegrate as well. Corruption and bribery flourished and in this environment the cartels proliferated leading to increasing violence and risk to ourselves and our family. Then in the driest part of the dry season in 2018, the water stopped flowing almost entirely. Yet Hashem has afforded us a single hidden spring which still flows to this day, while all the farms around us have dried up. This is truly mayim chayim. As climate refugees, and fleeing violence related to the illicit drug and human trafficking trades tolerated by corrupt governments, we are heading northward, something many of the people in the migrant caravans were also doing. We have made the hard choice to relocate our family of 9 to The United States once more. With great sadness we have now begun the process of starting over again, here in America, under a President that seems to be an unlikely hero or a Mob boss villain, depending whom you ask. Attacked from all sides, he pushes forward, sometimes blundering his words along the way, and with enough swagger to make a stallion blush. But the economy is flourishing, the swamp is being slowly drained, as promised, and at least some of the moral decay that was left to fester during the failed Obama administration is being turned around. Still, the fight is far from over!
There is a raging war on morality in our modern world, the effects of which have seeped into every aspect of our daily lives. In our countries, communities, and public institutions, the assault on the morals laid out in the Tanakh is undeniable, and the effects are devastating. We are being pressured to exchange the unchanging moral code that has served as the foundation for free and fair societies around the world, in exchange for the shifting morality of political correctness and doing that which is right in our own eyes. This battle against His Instructions for righteous living is not a new phenomenon but is part of a cyclical pattern of rebellion that has played out over and over since the days of the Prophets. It is a Deep Revolt. In our Online Journal, our Blog on the Times of Israel, and in each of our Books it is our goal to blow the shofar in these days of the Mashiach. We fall upon our face in awe before Hashem and pray that in some small way our words might touch even just a single heart to seek Hashem while He may still be found!
With those words and others like them throughout the Tanakh, we were called out of mainstream America and deep into the jungles of Central America. There we made a peaceful life for ourselves, with a 40 acre farm and international learning center called The Sustainable Tropical Agriculture & Natural Development Center. This gave us the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and every walk of life though outreach programs, student projects, and our volunteer programs. We were practicing sustainable logging techniques to harvest high quality tropical lumber, and teaching workshops on sustainable development, natural construction, herbal medicine, and more. We promoted cutting edge organic agriculture techniques like bio-char and 'terra preta'. and worked with communities and universities both locally and internationally to develop high quality living internships that plunged students into real world Sustainable Development. We raised and grew all our own food. Then everything began to change. As deforestation and the subsequent climate instability progressed, the water tables got lower in the dry seasons. At the same time that the established climate patterns were destabilizing, the social fabric of our beloved country began to disintegrate as well. Corruption and bribery flourished and in this environment the cartels proliferated leading to increasing violence and risk to ourselves and our family. Then in the driest part of the dry season in 2018, the water stopped flowing almost entirely. Yet Hashem has afforded us a single hidden spring which still flows to this day, while all the farms around us have dried up. This is truly mayim chayim. As climate refugees, and fleeing violence related to the illicit drug and human trafficking trades tolerated by corrupt governments, we are heading northward, something many of the people in the migrant caravans were also doing. We have made the hard choice to relocate our family of 9 to The United States once more. With great sadness we have now begun the process of starting over again, here in America, under a President that seems to be an unlikely hero or a Mob boss villain, depending whom you ask. Attacked from all sides, he pushes forward, sometimes blundering his words along the way, and with enough swagger to make a stallion blush. But the economy is flourishing, the swamp is being slowly drained, as promised, and at least some of the moral decay that was left to fester during the failed Obama administration is being turned around. Still, the fight is far from over!
There is a raging war on morality in our modern world, the effects of which have seeped into every aspect of our daily lives. In our countries, communities, and public institutions, the assault on the morals laid out in the Tanakh is undeniable, and the effects are devastating. We are being pressured to exchange the unchanging moral code that has served as the foundation for free and fair societies around the world, in exchange for the shifting morality of political correctness and doing that which is right in our own eyes. This battle against His Instructions for righteous living is not a new phenomenon but is part of a cyclical pattern of rebellion that has played out over and over since the days of the Prophets. It is a Deep Revolt. In our Online Journal, our Blog on the Times of Israel, and in each of our Books it is our goal to blow the shofar in these days of the Mashiach. We fall upon our face in awe before Hashem and pray that in some small way our words might touch even just a single heart to seek Hashem while He may still be found!
