The Day After Christmas
"Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don’t have enough to eat. What good is there in your saying to them, “God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!” – if you don’t give them the necessities of life?" -James 2:15-16 When you're doing research, you're always supposed to be prepared for unexpected events that can turn everything you thought you had set up on its head. Planning to research informal settlers only to find that they've been forcibly cleared out of your research area already. Going to research organic agriculture with small farmers only to find that none of them have any idea what organic agriculture is (or are already farming organically and just don't know it). Or, when you're studying natural disasters, having a natural disaster practically destroy the place you were planning to research. It's easy to take several steps back and say "hey, an actual disaster hitting during my research? This couldn't be be...