A cow named Faith
Ward, Leo
Heifer Project International A COW NAMED FAITH THE LEGACY OF DAN WEST DAN WEST was born in Ohio in 1893 and died a little over a decade ago. He was a deeply committed Brethren Christian, and he...
...Where people already have cows and goats, as in Greece and Italy, it would not be difficult to help them to have better cows and goats...
...Don't give cash or powdered milk, either of which is gone in one round...
...After eleven years, two of the first nineteen heifers, shipped in 1944 to Puerto Rico, were still producing milk...
...Cash and powdered milk today, and the family needs a refill tomorrow...
...Many faiths, organizations, and persons now contribute...
...And at an international gathering, West's daughter said, "How beautiful is this idea of giving the first offspring to another in need...
...The heifer would give milk for several years and surely be a benefaction for children who never before had milk...
...But the three churches, even when aided by various individuals, faiths and nations, could scarcely go on and on furnishing relief to poverty-stricken peoples...
...Dan West written all over it...
...The Spanish Civil War, repudiated point-blank by the peace churches - Brethren, Quaker, and Mennonite - challenged those churches to find a way to serve suffering people...
...she produced milk and nine bull calves...
...The whole enterprise, expanding far beyond Dan West's dreams, now helps poor rural families to help themselves in scores of countries and areas, including, at one time or another, many areas in the U.S...
...He looked like a preacher, was always moralizing, and his four sons and at times his wife and daughter, all of them proud of him, wished he would occasionally come down off his "moralistic high horse...
...the first gift heifer was christened Faith and the next two Hope and Charity...
...He never did...
...72203), states: "We estimate upwards of 70,000 head of livestock have been sent since HPI's inception (larger animals: heifers, bulls, goats, sheep, swine) and hundreds of thousands of small domestic stock (chickens, rabbits, honey bees...
...But what could be done where people had no animals that produce milk or meat...
...Who would donate such a beneficent beast...
...The Project's present stated purpose would please Dan: "To help people produce food and income for-themselves, and to expand livestock production to help overcome worldwide protein deficiency...
...At first he called the Project a dream...
...Gifts must be tailored to the situation...
...Could not a better way be found...
...An impossible dream," said his wife Lucy...
...So far, so good...
...LEO R. WARD (Father Leo R.Ward, C.S.C., is a retired teacher at Notre Dame and the author of many books...
...He provided children with quite nourishing food,mostly powdered milk from Holland with cod liver oil supplement...
...What a simple and loving way...
...Dan West's answer was to try giving dairy heifers, each of them bred and due to calve in a few months...
...all had produced meat and milk, but the cow named Faith never produced a heifer...
...Dan himself was named Director of the joint three-faith relief program in Spain (1937-38), and it did him good to live and suffer with people at war, where everything, the people, the war, and the genuflecting were so foreign to him...
...A letter, dated Feb...
...perhaps the need is for a beef breed, or for chickens or hogs or sheep, or even for a mill...
...He was a deeply committed Brethren Christian, and he made a career of perpetually asking questions...
...Dan explained his "dream" plan in his parish church, and at once several farmers offered heifers, cattle feed, and cattle care...
...Her heifer calves would also furnish milk, and her bull calves could be butchered to furnish protein...
...He came up with the Heifer Project which has...
...That is what Dan West, doling out milk and shoes and underwear in Spain, kept asking himself and others...
...16, 1981, from the Project's Center (825 W. 3rd, Little Rock, Ark...
...Give a heifer, a continuing source of milk and meat...
...The only stipulation was that the poor family receiving a heifer would donate her first heifer calf to another poor family, passing the gift along, This, plus providing some temporary expertise to help a family make the most of a cow, a goat, or a pig, was the essence of the Heifer Project International...
...West's way of finding answers and of getting educated was to keep asking questions, especially asking how to square faith with action...
Vol. 109 • June 1982 • No. 11
