Veggies and fruits are awesome foods. Their colorfulness is a good clue to their being loaded with vitamins and antioxidants. No other foods come close. Go for at least six servings daily!

It's good to get back into my regular routine again. I walked to the gym after breakfast (steel-cut oats and fruit) and worked out for an hour. Then I walked over to Whole Foods Market and bought fresh organic groceries for lunch and supper today. We'll have organic sweet potato soup for lunch and ratatouille on brown rice for supper. I also got a bunch of organic beets, and we'll have the beet greens for supper tonight also. San Antonio was still fogged in as I walked the mile back home, but what an invigorating walk!

The Daily Word for today is based on Luke 17:21. "The kingdom of God is within you." What a marvelous statement by Jesus. We can nourish this kingdom daily with positive living and love.It's up to us!

We arrived back home last night after two days of driving our Toyota Tacoma from Inverness. What a trip! We had our suitcases and other bags stuffed in the back of our little cab, and the pick-up bed was loaded with stuff that did not go in the moving van. Yes, we sold our home! We bought a tarp at Lowe's in Inverness that partly protected our stuff, but it turned out to be an adventure to keep the tarp in place properly. Fortunately, the one time it poured cats and dogs was on Friday night, and the management at the La Quinta in Daphne said it was OK to let the pick-up park under their front portico overnight. That was one of the nice things that happened to us during our marvelous three weeks in Florida. Being with family and seeing lots of old friends was the icing on the cake. People are wonderful!

The students in the Holistic Health class I finished teaching at Central Florida Community College this week were wonderful. Their interest, enthusiasm, and participation made it a terrific class, and it was a joy to teach. Thank you, class!

Today's tip for exceptional health is simple: Refresh your commitment to healthy living every day! This is simple, but very significant. Without daily refreshing of commitment, it is all too easy to slip off the healthy living trail. How do you refresh your commitment daily? That's the subject of my Wellness Newsletter this month. Please sign-up or let me know if you're interested. It's free!

Today makes one week since we landed in Harare, so it's a good time to let you know how everything is going. 

People in Zimbabwe are still going through tough economic times, but there is clearly a sense of hope in the air that things are getting better, even though times are still very tough for most people.

I'm in Mutare at the home of Tom and Tracy Sarimana, my host family. I stayed with them in 2004 and 2007, and it feels wonderful to be with them again. Sunday, most of us went with Kennedy to his home church at Chitikatera, and it was a delightful experience. It was Harvest Sunday, and the church was jammed. Even though the impact of the economic hard times is severe, everybody was joyful as they shared their harvest with the church. This pretty much sets the church budget for the coming year, so it is a very important Sunday. The singing was incredible, and there was lots of it. It is so wonderful to experience that kind of joyful service. One of the very interesting bits of information that came from talking with elders at that service is that Dad presided at the ground-breaking for the Chitikatera church about fifty years ago. That was something that Kennedy did not know, even though he grew up in that church, and neither Peg nor I knew anything about it either. Interestingly enough, today, one of older members of that church brought an old faded picture of the ground-breaking, and it clearly showed Dad as the presiding church official for the ceremony! That makes our connection with the Chitikatera church even stronger!

Monday, we went to the Chitikatera Primary school and gave gifts to the 1257 students there in a general assembly type of program, though it was conducted outside. The faculty and staff were most welcoming, and the kids were wonderful. Then we went back to the Chitikatera Church to meet with the Women's Sewing Club, and that was a very nice experience. They welcomed us with the kind of exuberant singing that we hear so much of here. It is really great to hear them singing so joyfully in spite of their dire economic circumstances. They showed us samples of their sewing work, and it is excellent. I bought a few sample place mats, as did several others in our group.

Tuesday we went to the Zimunya Project site, and carried bricks each morning for the brick-layers to work with. The gables are all completed now, and we're hoping to see the trusses put in place early next week. It now looks as if the roof will be put on later that week or early the next week. In any case, the classroom building should be roofed over by the time I leave, and that will be great.

Wednesday, we were at Africa University, starting with morning chapel service at 8 AM for the Pastor's School being conducted there this week. I met with Dr. Fasan and Dr. Fadzai at 10 AM, and it was a very productive meeting. It looks like there will be a good opportunity for me to teach here for three months next year, and it all goes well, probably for several years after that. In addition, Dr. Fasan is interested in the possibility of tying our Zimunya Project with Africa University's community outreach program. It looks promising.

Wednesday evening I went with Tom Sarimana to the Prayer Section meeting for which he is the chair person. There were about twenty people there, and I enjoyed meeting all of them. The discussion was lively and well informed, and then we concluded with prayer. Among the people I met, the Kangwenda's (husband and wife physicians) are both on staff at Mutare General Hospital, and they invited me to be the guest presenter at their hospital Grand Rounds on the morning of Friday, August 14th. I accepted the invitation, and it should prove to be very interesting. There will be about twenty physicians, and many nurses and lab techs. Presenting to such a varied group will be challenging, but I have a topic that will attract much interest. I'm going to present the problem of obesity as a major public health problem, which it is, and discuss the contributing factors, causes, and consequences, as well as approaches to prevention. They already know it is a huge problem in the United States (everybody around the world seems to know this,) and they realize that it is an emerging problem in Zimbabwe among the more affluent urban people. The Kangwenda's are enthusiastic about the topic, and it is certainly something for which I have much information to share.

Today we worked at the Skills Training Center again, carrying bricks for the brick-layers. After lunch we went to the factory making the trusses for the roof, and saw our own trusses in process. They now plan to deliver them over the weekend, and start raising them on Monday.

All told, this week has been a marvelous experience. Peg has loved being here, but I'll let her fill you in on her perspective when she is able.

It almost 6 PM on Friday, July 24, and I'm now in Mutare at the home of Tom and Tracy Sarimana, my host family. I stayed with them in 2004 and 2007, and it feels wonderful to be with them again. Our flight arrived in Harare last night at 9:30 PM (after leaving the USA at 5:30 PM the day before,) and it was midnight by the time we cleared customs and crawled into bed in our hotel rooms. I think all of us were bone-tired, and we slept like logs until 6AM. We all met for breakfast in the hotel dining-room at 7:30 AM, took care of some business in Harare after breakfast, and then hit the road for Mutare a bit after 10 AM. We stopped at Halfway House for lunch at 12:30 PM, and then came the rest of the way to Mutare for introductions to our host families and a brief overview of the work we will be doing in the coming week.

Our other team members are Peg Miller from Arizona, Rev. Mark Conard from Hutchinson, Kansas, and Don Corwin and Rev. Kennedy Mukwindidza from Quinter, Kansas. Every one of us has been to Zimbabwe at least once before, so nobody is worrying about culture shock. The economic situation in Zimbabwe is beginning to stabilize, but its impact is evident in many ways. On the road between Harare and Mutare we saw almost no buses, whereas there were many buses on the road five years ago. That is simply one small indicator of the economic hard times here.

On our flight between Johannesburg and Harare, an elderly lady sat between Mark Conard and me. She and her husband run a private orphanage in the outskirts of Harare, and she was returning after a brief trip to see family members in the USA. Her husband is eighty years old, and she is in her mid-seventies. Together they care for sixty-six orphans, with only intermittent help from volunteers who come from the States. Older orphans also do a great deal to help with the care of the youngest ones. The couple began the orphanage about ten years ago when they retired from mission work with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. What a remarkable couple!

More updates later this week!

I've just come back from the Angola Reunion, held at Niagara Falls, Canada this year. We stayed at the Mount Carmel Monastery, within walking distance of the falls. It was a beautiful location, and it was wonderful to see old friends again as we were updated on the latest progress in Angola.

Wednesday, July 22nd, two days from now, I'm taking off for Zimbabwe, stopping in Washington DC to join the rest of the Volunteer-in-Mission team. We will arrive in Harare late Thursday night, and then travel on by van Friday to Mutare in Eastern Zimbabwe. That's where we will be spending most of our time as we work on the Skills Training Center project. It's great to be this close to take-off!

We are concluding a wonderful nine-day Avatar workshop in Orlando this weekend. It is truly remarkable that over one thousand people from over twenty countries can come together to learn and work together so well and so harmoniously. I cannot think of any other organization that brings so many people together from such diverse backgrounds, and has them working together so effectively within a day or two. People from different cultures, languages, races, ages, and religions become fast friends within a few days, and their lives are often transformed in a wonderful way.

As a side note, there is a marvelous Whole Foods Supermarket about half-a-mile from the conference center, and many of us walk there to eat at lunchtime. The food is delicious, nutritious, and tasty, and it's cost is very reasonable. My lunch plate loaded with delicious organic food usually costs me about $10, which is less expensive than at most restaurants. In addition, we get the bonus of walking a mile (round-trip) so we get in our daily exercise and Vitamin D!  

Carol and I are attending an Avatar workshop in Orlando this week. I received an "Aha" moment as Harry Palmer was speaking to the group on the first day of the workshop. He noted that the goal of Avatar is to teach people how to become responsible for their lives - to give people tools to help them take ownership of their own lives. My "Aha" was that this is in complete sync with my goal of teaching people to become responsible for their health - to take ownership of their own health. This has real potential for helping people develop personal health power.

My friend, Cheryl Vyfuis, better known as Che`, is a writer and a poet who also happens to be a corporate public relations professional. She is an expert in communications, so it is not surprising that she has created a fascinating online blog. It is entitled Namaste` Wholistic, and it explores a broad range of subjects and issues. As the blog title suggests, its central focus is spiritual in nature, which might seem surprising coming from a corporate PR person. What is not surprising, for those who know Che`, is how wide-ranging she is in her explorations. If you ride with Che`, it is wise to buckle your seat belt.  

In one of her ventures, Che` is showcasing the lives of some of her friends this year. As it happens, her blog published this week features Carol and Ed Dodge. Why she chose us, I’m not sure, but she wrote a nice piece about us. If you’re interested, click on: namaste wholistic. 

By tomorrow, you should have the March issue of the Wellness Explorations Newsletter in your inbox. Be prepared for some mental jogging!

Dear Friend,

Below is a link to the picture story of my trip to Project Mercy in Ethiopia. Click on the link to bring up the picture album. Click on "View album," and then on "Play Slideshow." You should get a picture show that lasts about five minutes. Enjoy this mid-month bonus to Wellness Explorations!

Picture Story of Project Mercy

Ed Dodge

As many of you know, I returned a few days ago from a trip to Ethiopia that was especially meaningful for me. I had fond memories of Ethiopia because of living and working there forty years ago. When I was invited to go with a team of faculty and students from Taylor University to Project Mercy in Yetebon, Ethiopia for the month of January 2009, I happily accepted.

I have written a series of six articles for the Citrus County Chronicle about this experience, and I will not try to recap those articles here. The first article was in the paper this week, and the others will follow weekly in the paper, and also on my website. Anyone interested can find them under Chronicle Columns on the Main Menu of this website. My purpose in this newsletter is to share some thoughts about wellness that have come to mind over the last few days as I have reflected on this trip.

Ethiopia remains a very poor country in terms of material wealth, and it has many major health issues related to poverty. Those issues are similar to ones faced by many developing countries, and I will not explore them now. Instead, I wish to emphasize some of the features of life in rural Ethiopia that may be instructive for us in the West.

One of the things that struck me was the walking done by Ethiopians of all ages, at least in the rural areas. For most, walking is the main, if not the only, way of getting from one place to another. Children may walk several miles a day to get to school. Farmers walk, laborers walk, housewives walk, and elderly people walk. The result is that most Ethiopians are remarkably fit.

My second observation is that the standard Ethiopian diet consists of whole grain foods with vegetable and lentil sauces, along with modest amounts of fruit and meat. Highly processed foods are rare or non-existent in rural homes, so basic eating patterns are healthy for most rural Ethiopians. From a standpoint of nutritional health, Ethiopians do better than most Americans.

My third observation is that in spite of much hardship, most Ethiopians seem happy. It’s worth noting that happiness has been the subject of many studies. Results typically show that happiness does not hinge on wealth. In fact, poor indigenous cultures often rank higher in happiness than wealthier ones.

In thinking about why this might be so, and reflecting on our experience in Ethiopia, I realized that when Ethiopians greet one another, they do so with a great deal of affection, deeply validating one another’s worth. When this is repeated on a daily basis, it must have a favorable impact on one’s feelings of self-worth. This is certainly a key factor in anyone’s happiness quotient.

Another notable factor was the absence of many distracting influences that are a daily part of our lives in the USA. During three weeks at Project Mercy we saw no television, received no daily newspapers, heard no radios, and saw no movies. Even email and telephone communication with the outside world were very limited. Without these distractions that are so common in the West, we were less stressed, and life was more peaceful in many ways.

Before concluding, let me make it clear that I am not painting Ethiopia and its citizens as utopian. Ethiopians who are poor have a hard life, and it is not to be romanticized. If given any opportunity for an easier life, most would take it. That is one reason why education is prized so highly. It is an avenue to a life that most dream of as being more desirable.

Still, there are virtues in the simple agrarian life that tend to be lost in urban settings and in more developed countries, and it is worth highlighting them. I believe it is possible to achieve a balance between the simplicity of rural life that I have described, and the excessive richness of diet and accumulation of things that characterize much of our Western culture. Striking that balance is my personal goal, and a subject worthy of Wellness Explorations.

Be Well!
Ed Dodge

Welcome to the Wellness Explorations Newsletter. The purpose of this letter is to give you brief updates on health news or research that I find interesting, as well as to offer you my personal reflections about various aspects of life and health. The letter is sent to interested subscribers, but the main text of the letter will also appear on this blog site each month. 

This first report is a particularly apt one for January. We’ve known for some time that health behavior has a powerful influence on quality of life as well as on mortality. A study done by the University of Cambridge in England documents how much four basic health behaviors affect life. 

The study was done on over twenty thousand men and women between the ages of 45-79, following them for an average of eleven years. None of these people had any evidence of cardiovascular disease or cancer at the start.

The four health behaviors evaluated include non-smoking, physical activity, moderate alcoholic intake (two drinks a day or less,) and fruit and vegetable intake of at least five servings a day. The results were eye opening.

After eleven years, those with four desirable behaviors, compared to those with none of them, showed a four-fold lower risk of mortality. The authors of the study calculated that for those with all four desirable factors, this was equivalent to being fourteen years younger in chronological age. 

What made the study even more convincing was the step-wise progression of risk. That is, all four desirable behaviors were associated with the best results, three desirable behaviors had the next best results, and so on, to the group with none of the desirable health behaviors who had the worst results. 

For those thinking about enhancing their health outlook in 2009, this study provides powerful motivation. One’s improved quality of life is worth any added self-discipline it may take to follow a healthy lifestyle. 

To shift gears at this point, I’m flying on the first leg of a trip to Ethiopia later today. I will be there with a volunteer group from Taylor University for the month of January, and am looking forward eagerly to this venture.

For those of you who did not read my article about Ethiopia in the Chronicle last week, it is now on my website under the category heading of Chronicle columns. If you would like to read that article, return to the home page and find Ethiopia in the Chronicle columns. It explains why I’m so interested in this trip.   

Since time is flying by, I will bring this letter to a conclusion. Part of it will appear on my website blog, for the sake of people who are not subscribed to this newsletter. If you would like to respond to anything in this letter, my suggestion is to do so on the website blog. I am turning my computer off at noon today, and will be essentially incommunicado for the next four weeks. 

This will be a monthly newsletter. There will be no advertising of any health products of any kind, though on occasion I may mention health meetings or conferences that may be of interest. Your privacy will be respected and your name and email address will be kept confidential. If at any time you wish to unsubscribe, simply send me a quick email with the word “Unsubscribe.” 

Be Well! 

I'm enjoying delicious, homemade lentil soup today. We made it earlier this week, and it is especially good on a rainy day like this one. To make it, we mixed a one pound bag of dried lentils with six cups of water in a large pan. After bringing it to a boil, we put the cover on and let it simmer on low for 35 minutes. Then we added one can of Italian style diced tomatoes and one half cup of medium salsa. We also added one cup of veggies leftover in the refrigerator from the night before. They include diced potatoes, diced carrots, chopped Vidalia onion, and one third of a cup of chopped greens. We let this simmer another ten minutes, and then it was ready to serve. It was delicious!

Welcome to my blog, I hope to blog about things that interest you!

This is our first blog. I look forward to hearing your replies about what you would like to see in this blog.