The New Student & A Lot To Digest Series

THE NEW STUDENT

Wendy Brown has the typical dreams owned by the typical High School students. She wants to make friends, she wants to join some clubs, she wants to become a cheerleader, and ultimately wants to graduate and make a living for herself and her future family. There’s only one problem however. Wendy is 33 years old and stole her daughter’s identity to re-enroll in school.

That’s right. 33 year old Wendy Brown enrolled in Ashwaubenon High School not far from Green Bay under the guise that she is a 15 year old transfer student from Pahrump, Nevada. She attended cheerleading practice even before school started, and acted in a demeanor that was consistent for a high school girl according to sources. Teachers say that she was not very good in math, and acted very emotionally when questioned about the “tragedy” of having to move away from home. Brown has had a history of identity theft, and is currently under arrest for this felony and could face up to six years in prison if and when she is convicted.

How can this happen? More importantly, why would this happen? Why would a troubled adult wish to re-visit her youth and attempt to pull off a gaffe like this one in Northern Wisconsin? Brown says that she “had no childhood and was trying to regain a part of her life she missed.” But in all reality, Brown was wishing to circumvent her adulthood maturity and live life on the basis of what makes her happy rather than what makes a person responsible. In other words, she was refusing to grow up.

And growing up is something we all must do, especially spiritually. In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 3:2 states “I fed you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready. In fact you are still not ready.” As Christians, we need to strive to eat spiritual food. But Paul was challenging the Corinthians to grow up in their faith so that they’re thinking would reflect that of an adult Christian, not just that of a child.

When it comes to spiritual growth, there was recent spiritual growth study conducted by George Barna titled “Parents Describe How They Raise Their Kids.” In it we find some interesting facts. It states: “you might expect that parents who are born again Christians would take a different approach to raising their children than did parents who have not committed their life to Christ - but that was rarely the case," Barna explained. "For instance, we found that the qualities born again parents say an effective parent must possess, the outcomes they hope to facilitate in the lives of their children, and the media monitoring process in the household was indistinguishable from the approach taken by parents who are not born again."

Parents, we must take the responsibility of feeding our children the Bible. My friends, please let us all commit to this so that our youth will be prepared in strength for the future. I believe in you so let’s work on this together.

For the complete study: check out barna.org and type in the title listed above.

A LOT TO DIGEST

The digestive system is the body’s way of cutting down the food our bodies consume by breaking down chemicals into smaller parts that then can be absorbed and put to good work through the blood stream. It starts in the mouth where teeth and saliva work first, then later the chemicals in the stomach work to do their job as well. Next, the gastrointestinal systems take over as the small and large intestines complete the task and finally the unnecessary remains are eliminated. It is an absolutely remarkable system in that every different food item taken in is used and then later eliminated in different ways—its almost as if the body at times knows exactly what it needs and how to use it.

But there can be problems. Blockages, bloating, gall stones, diabetes, and dozens of more problems can occur inside the friendly confines of the body, and often times these problems have taken place despite the person doing everything right and eating the correct amount of food quantity and quality.

During the end of the Nazi Holocaust, when the brave American soldiers arrived at what was left of the work camps, they experienced sights of death that had never been seen before in all of history. And for some of those newly freed captives who were still alive, there was an amazing discovery. Some of those close to death actually had lost the ability to intake food. As soldiers fed bread to those near death, the bread was actually spit out of their mouths because the body had already cannibalized itself from all remaining muscles and fat mass making food consumption impossible. Though stories like that were rare, they were well told from one soldier to another.