‘a sense of exile’

Here is a recent post from a fellow AIMAir pilot who is currently back in the U.S. on leave as his dad fights cancer. It is worth your time.  Read the post.

‘village of hope’

Here is an excerpt from one of our teammates working in Doro, Sudan. This gives you a good idea of the type of work SIM is doing in southern Sudan, in partnership with other NGO’s. These are the types of initiatives which Ginna will begin support and which I will fly personnel and supplies for.

At last, the construction of the Nutrition Village in Doro, South Sudan is underway…thanks to your prayers and God’s perfect timing. During the past month, the compound fence corner posts and gates have been installed and a tukul (hut) has been built to house 2 malnourished children and their moms.

There have been some changes in the plans for the nutrition village. A few months ago, a Christian relief organization called MedAir learned of our nutrition program: of the 30 sick kids (at that time) that we were caring for on an outpatient basis from the clinic and our proposed village. They wanted to help, so they first organized and performed a random survey of many villages in Mabaan County. They recruited and trained 15 surveyors, most of whom were students at our own SIM Community Health Workers School in Doro. The purpose of the survey was to assess 2 things:
1. The percentage of malnourished children under 5 years old,
2. The mortality rate among those children.

I joined them for 1 of the 2 weeks of the survey as a supervisor of the surveyors (and also to learn from them). It was an interesting and valuable time going out to many villages.

The results of the survey:
Of the 796 children under 5 years old who were surveyed,
Severe Acute Malnutrition = 3.3%
Mortality rate among the under 5 children = 2.21%.
read more

sick.

Well, we now know why I have been feeling so crummy. Turns out I have the mono. Its a lousy illness because I usually don’t feel like I am really, really sick, but I haven’t felt good for over a week. I think I would rather be really sick for a few days. The idea of this lingering on for a few weeks, as my wife is trying to prepare me for, does not jive with my agenda. But, we’ll see.

Quick updates: we are over 80% on our financial support requirement and we have had plenty of showings on the house, but no offers…yet.

theology of Coldplay

Coldplay’s latest album, Viva la vida, is simply excellent…musically. The boys thought outside of the box for this album and it is great! Thumping bass drums, rich strings, choirs and tastes of Arabia and South America all complement their core of piano driven, melodic Brit rock with ever-so-smooth bass lines. It quickly launched itself to the top of iTunes and the US Hot 100 list.

Lyrically, it is evident the band (or at least Chris Martin) has spent some time thinking about life, death, heaven and the meaning it all. Every song is laced with the honest questions and thoughts of a guy who (from the way it sounds) doesn’t have much hope for beyond the grave, making the album title (meaning ‘long live life’) tragically pertinent. read more

how politics & morality relate

The relationship between morality and politics is always a hot topic. People of every belief system and political system have passionate arguments for or against a connection between the two. In this election year, the question will (has) already come to the forefront. Issues such as gay marriage, abortion, capital punishment, global poverty/hunger, environmental stewardship and euthanasia will be discussed in the public forum. I think Ravi Zacharias makes an incredibly insightful observation of the dangers of the extremes, in his book Light in the Shadow of Jihad:

We are all tempted to justify our proclivities with political arguments. On the one hand, those of us who are privileged to live in democracies have convinced ourselves that morality is purely a private matter, and we allow no one to invade that territory. Sit in on the lectures of some intellectual arguing from the liberal side of any issue and it becomes clear that relativism is the guide writ large on our cultural belief. We hear it said that there is no such thing as an absolute and that each one must decide his or her moral lifestyle. Anyone who holds to absolutes is mocked and derided.

On the other hand, demagogues such as Osama bin Laden believe that morality is totally a public matter, interwoven with religion, and that their followers are doing the world a favor by ridding it of any culture that privatizes religion and morality. read more

our ‘post-American’ world

Last night, I read an excerpt from Fareed Zakaria’s book, The Post-American World. His observations and conclusions are, I feel, important for us as Americans to consider. We are at an exciting point in world history (and have been now for over a decade). The ‘West’ is no longer the assumed center of the world. As Zakaria points out, this is not necessarily because the West has declined, it is more a result of the “rise of the rest”. It will be interesting to see how Americans respond to this fact. After all, we helped make it happen.

This is all happening because of American ideas and actions. For 60 years, the United States has pushed countries to open their markets, free up their politics, and embrace trade and technology. American diplomats, businessmen, and intellectuals have urged people in distant lands to be unafraid of change, to join the advanced world, to learn the secrets of our success. Yet just as they are beginning to do so, we are losing faith in such ideas. We have become suspicious of trade, openness, immigration, and investment because now it’s not Americans going abroad but foreigners coming to America. Just as the world is opening up, we are closing down.

Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that by the turn of the 21st century, the United States had succeeded in its great, historical mission—globalizing the world. We don’t want them to write that along the way, we forgot to globalize ourselves. (Zakaria)

Globalization has also, thankfully, caused consideration and corrections within Christianity. read more