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This book presents an analysis of Yemen's progress towards economic
self-sufficiency. The study reveals that minimal investment
opportunities and migration-induced labor shortages has driven
wages up so much that labor-intensive agriculture is no longer
viable and it is cheaper to import grain.
Although social scientists tend to agree that emigration improves
the standard of living of migrants and their families, research
suggests that more generally it has a neutral or even negative
effect on economic development in the home country. The Yemen Arab
Republic is a case in point: while living standards there have
improved with emigration, t
Nehemiah is a brief book in the Bible. Nehemiah is also a man
steeped in religious tradition and working for a foreign
government. When bad news arrives, he finds an impossible purpose
for his life: rebuild Jerusalem. This book is a series of
conversations with Nehemiah exploring how he followed God and led
people.In these conversations, Jon Swanson explores prayer,
opposition, distraction, injustice, and staying faithful to the end
of life. The conversational style reaches beyond the book of
Nehemiah and teaches us a way to explore the Bible. A Great Work is
not a typical commentary on the Bible, it's a conversation with the
Bible.
"Lent For Non-Lent People" is a daily guide to prayer, fasting,
rest, and following Jesus for people who want training wheels for
Lent. In ordinary language, this book explores prayer, fasting, and
Sabbath. There are eight chapters. You can read them as chapters.
But if you look closer, you will find seven sections in each
chapter, a reading for every day of Lent and a bonus chapter for
the week after Easter. So this can be a daily reader. In each
reading, we explore what Lent is, what giving up and committing to
can mean. Lent is an old word that means spring. But if you had to
pick a phrase that best captures what people think of Lent, it's
this: giving up. Not as in quitting a competition, but as in giving
up something. People observing Lent give up something that matters
to them. Often it's food, like meat on Friday or sugar for the
forty weekdays. Sundays often are free days, exempt from the giving
up. As best as I can tell, it started with the idea of helping
people appreciate the festivities of Easter. If we spend the time
before Easter preparing our hearts and our bodies, the celebration
has more significance. The forty days are designed to resonate with
the forty-day seasons that show up in the Bible. Jesus fasted for
forty days. Moses was on the mountain for forty days. Noah and his
family watched it rain for forty days and forty nights. Older than
the name Lent is the term "fasting." It is also about giving up.
Fasting most simply is giving up that for this. That is something
good in itself. This is something great. That is nourishing to a
point. This is life itself. That's why Lent isn't about giving up
sin. Think about it. "I'll give up my affair for forty days. But
every Sunday, just for the day, I go back to my mistress."
Ludicrous. It's easy to get legalistic about forty days of fasting.
When humans are presented with a boundary, we focus on the
boundary. What counts as fasting? How much can you eat without
breaking the fast? How long? What health matters? Focus may be a
better word than Lent, fasting, or giving up. Often, the best way
to give something up is to choose what to focus on instead. In the
case of Lent, the intended focus is God. We'll talk about God a
lot. This isn't a book of how to survive a fast. It's not about the
health implications, good and bad, of fasting or praying or
resting. We're going to give up some time, give some attention, and
spend a few minutes, or a few weeks understanding ourselves and
God.
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