Happy April Fools Day!
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With all the concern in the country over the beef recall of the last few months, sales at Dakota Beef LLC, the country’s largest organic beef company, are exploding as we see in this report on CNBC. If you would like to buy direct and have the organic beef delivered right to your door, please click here. Dakota Beef can also be found at Costco stores all over the country.

To watch the video, please click here.

Organic Foods Are Booming

The Organic Trade Association’s latest survey cites beef as the organic industry’s fastest growing segment. The U.S. organic food industry grew 21% to reach $16.7 billion in consumer sales in 2006. Organic foods are one of the fast growing market segments within the food industry, with sales growing at an annual rate of 20.9% in 2006. Looking forward, the survey anticipates growth of approximately 18 percent overall each year on average for 2007 through 2010 for organic food products.

About Dakota Beef

Dakota Beef LLC is the leading certified organic beef company in the United States, operating its own USDA inspected, certified organic processing plant in Howard, South Dakota. Founded in 2003, the company only sells certified organic beef products guaranteed to be free of antibiotics, growth-promoting hormones and pesticides. Dakota Beef cattle are humanely raised on pasture and fed a proprietary diet of organic grains, resulting in consistently flavorful and tender beef. Dakota Beef has recently announced a partnership with one of largest organic Angus ranches in the country.

Jim Poole, an excellent actor (at Steep Theater) and someone who worked at Park Community Church here in the city as Artistic Director for nearly 18 years (as well as doing a number of voices in the Veggie Tales video series), provides a guest commentary each Tuesday morning at 5:4o am and 8:4o am on Moody Radio. This week, he used his commentary to talk about those people in our lives who model what it is to give of themselves to help others without thinking twice and to tell us what can we learn from people like this. He used Abby-Jill Brauhn from Park as an example and here is what he said:

I walked up the steps to a place that was once a home to attend a memorial service. I counted this my fifth such service, as five unique women, all from our same church community, had died battling cancer. All were in their prime. And yet all seemed to live extraordinary lives – and I don’t say that lightly. Four of these services occurred in the past three years, this most recent one on the Saturday before Holy Week. The extraordinary life of Abby-Jill Brauhn was celebrated in grand fashion.

Over 300 people came – not that I counted, and not that a large number mattered unless she actually and significantly touched the lives of these people… which she did, in meaningful and practical ways. Abby-Jill served as the director of missions at Park Community Church, but she operated much more like a special concierge: connecting people, helping them network and land jobs, find apartments, get a deal on renting a truck, …helping you move in and stocking your pantry with groceries. If you were sick, her skill set from her nursing days kicked in, and she got you set up with the best medicine. It seemed like she had an inside track on everything from travel plans to fashion tips and she was generous with it all – she gave me my favorite fleece sweatshirt for no other reason than that’s how she rolled.

I suppose one of the most significant ways she made an impact on people was through the short-term mission trips she led, most often to an orphanage in Mexico. One friend who spoke at the memorial service described his experience this way: “Immediately, I was in the company of someone who could juggle and multi-task with excellence. But it was not only what she did, but how she treated other people. I was in a van riding for six hours and the word “non-judgmental” comes to mind. For her to break her way through my crusty exterior, she had to be that way. I mark our conversation in that van as very significant in opening me up for the rest of the trip and for the church community as a whole.”

Another woman who spoke said that “it was like one week I did not know the powerful force that was Abby-Jill, and then the next week I was calling her on the phone for a late night personal conversation as if we were friends, just like that – that’s just how she was.”

Afterwards, many remarked at how inspiring the memorial service was, and yet it seemed also to create a sense of longing, or yearning, for a life well lived, for a community of friendship like many of us had once called home, but has since scattered. C. S. Lewis has said that longing is a part of the human experience. It’s developed and comes from times when we hold a baby, or experience true fellowship during a dinner party conversation, and times when we glimpse peace. And I would add, times like the memorial service for Abby-Jill.

It’s these feelings of longing deep within us that point to things beyond our world. They point to what the resurrection of Jesus reveals: that His Kingdom is here now, but not yet fully realized. And so, it is a holy longing. And the timing of Abby-Jill’s service just before Holy Week couldn’t have been more fitting.

Don’t know what to do with all your old cell phones, IPods, and printer cartridges?

U.S. Postal Service has just announced a vital new service that lets you recycle cell phones, iPods and other electronics — as well as printer inkjet cartridges — via mail.

For free!

To use the “Mail Back” program, find one of the 1,500 post offices that offers special free envelopes. Drop in your recyclable electronics item, and mail it without postage. It goes to Clover Technologies Group, which recycles, remanufactures and remarkets inkjet cartridges, laser cartridges and small electronics. Best of all, for those of us who live on the road, you can take as many “Mail Back” envelopes as you please, and use them to mail your electronics from anywhere. It’s a great idea to tuck one into your carry-on laptop bag. When something dies on the road, you can drop it in the envelope and give it to your hotel’s front desk to mail — no need to carry the extra weight home.

Currently the program is a trial, and is focused on ten cities, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego. If successful, it will go nationwide in the fall, according to the Postal Service.

Details here.

Today we as Christians celebrate Resurrection Sunday, when Jesus rose from the dead and conquered death and began God’s work of redemption in all of us. Look at how Philippians 2 describes Jesus:

5…………..Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God,did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

In the first book of Corinthians, Paul describes the essential nature of what we celebrate on Resurrection Sunday with the following two verses:

…if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also is vain.”

…and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17).”

There are a number of people who would argue that Jesus did not have to have a bodily resurrection or some even argue that Jesus’ death alone was enough, but we agree with Paul when he tells us that anything short of a bodily resurrection ignores the victory of God. God does not want to just rescue people from this material world — God wants to restore all things. God CHOSE to send His son to die on the cross for OUR sins.

Jesus’ resurrection reminds us of three things..

God has defeated death.

God has defeated evil.

God has begun the redemptive work.

For those of us believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we celebrate that good news this Resurrection Sunday.

If you have some questions or want more information, check out these in-depth questions and answers about Jesus here.

I sat here tonight, thinking about how God works…He has given me excellent marketplace skills that have allowed me to start and grow four successful companies (as I yet embark on my fifth start-up –fanfuego.com), just as He gave Abby-Jill Brauhn a tremendous love for people and their well being and development, and a heart for the orphan children in Mexico. God has created each of us with unique skills and talents to help grow the Kingdom. Some things I can do and some things I can’t, but each of us has a role to play in God’s orchestra.

God gave a close friend, Mat Barber Kennedy, a tremendous gift of painting — I look at some of his pieces that hang in my house, and I marvel at God’s continuing orchestration of life. I don’t have the painting skills that Mat does — yet God has given me other skills and experiences — all which He asks me to use to bring glory to Himself. While I may be frustrated that I cannot paint, God can be glorified through my marketplace efforts in other ways. By the way, Mat’s painting of the new building and its place in the skyline gets me more excited to be living in this world-class city!

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Abby-Jill’s death has been hard on me.

It has caused me to slow down and reflect on what is happening in my life and more importantly, what is important. God wants us to love him and love our neighbor — seems pretty simple.

But sometimes I find myself doing too much other stuff to slow down and enjoy the relationships that God has brought to me. I am operating in a whirlwind, a seasonoflife where everything is moving too fast. Abby was always good at making the emergency slow down to stay connected with other people and their lives. Putting her agenda and tasks on the back burner so that she could invest time into someone else’s life, like Janelle Keller or others. This is a HUGE lesson I am trying to learn each and every day now. Stop….smell the roses….enjoy each day as if it were your last, they say…I am trying….

Earth Hour 2008 is happening on Saturday, March 29 from 8pm to 9pm. It is an event to raise awareness about conserving electricity. To participate, individuals, business and cities all around the world are invited to switch off non-essential lighting and electronic equipment for an hour at this specific time and date.

The idea was first adopted in Sydney last year and resulted in a pretty spectacular event with the lights shutting out on several landmarks including the Sydney Harbour Bridge as well as Sydney Opera House. On March 31st of last year, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour — they called it “Earth Hour.” It is a simple concept, with could have some far-reaching, movement -sortof implications. They wanted to see what would happen if everyone, in the entire world, turned off their lights for one hour at the same time?

The world has taken notice. Inspired by the collective effort of millions during last years event in Sydney, many major global cities are joining Earth Hour in 2008, turning a symbolic event into a global movement.

Five Things You Can Do:

1. Join the effort! Turn out your lights for one hour on 3/29/08 from 8-9pm.
2. Spread the word. Tell your friends, family, community members, & businesses.
3. Host a Earth Hour party by candle light. Invite others over for Earth Hour. You can have food, drinks, board games, a barbecue, all by candlelight!
4. Use the time to discuss other ways to reduce your carbon and electricity footprint. Whether it be replacing your light bulbs or car pooling – there’s a lot you can do.
5. Use the time to replace your standard light bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

Fermi Blog asks some great questions for us to ponder –

How much do we rely on electricity in our daily lives?
How does electricity impact our ability to live in community?
If we did not have electricity, how would our daily lives be different?
How would communication with our family increase or decrease without electricity?
How thankful are we that we have electricity?
How does electricity define us on a daily basis?
Would our prayer life be better if we did not have electricity?
How do we view our home when it is candle lit?
What is life like in remote places where people do not have electricity?
How long could I live without electricity?

Let’s all do this and see what impact our little effort can have. Join me in this hour of quiet reflection with your lights off and ponder some of these questions with me.

www.earthhour.org