Philippines Typhoon latest

My heart is heavy this morning for the people of the central Philippines. Initial reports seemed that Typhoon Haiyan had moved over the islands with such speed as to avoid the major destruction of flooding and mudslides. But subsequent reports of a deadly storm surge of seawater (think Katrina, Sandy, the Asian tsunami) up to 13 feet deep, along with winds clocked up to 190 mph, have decimated lowlands. Today's NY Times story and slideshow paint a grim picture of total destruction in some areas, with many others unaccounted for... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/world/asia/vast-challenges-for-philippines-after-typhoon.html?_r=0

In anticipation of the typhoon, last week WV had pre-positioned relief supplies  but I have not seen reports yet on whether those are already being deployed.  As you'll see in the NY Times video clip above, WV's global supply site in Frankfurt has air-shipped blankets, tarps, and medical supplies.  (I've also run across in-country WV interviews on BBC and NPR.) WV has many ongoing programs and sponsored children in the effected areas, and staff who live alongside the people they serve there. The most recent internal SitReps from World Vision include this:
Twenty World Vision ADPs [area development programs] across nine provinces are affected by this latest disaster, including in Bohol, which was hit by an earthquake last month. In World Vision ADPs, close to 40,000 sponsored children and their families are potentially affected. 
There are reports that 10,000 people have died in one area alone (Tacloban) as a result of the massive storm. The number of recorded fatalities is likely to rise as communications channels are restored and access improves to impacted areas. Around 4 million people are believed to be affected by the disaster country-wide. Lack of communication and power outages, plus destruction of major roads and infrastructure is rendering information flow extremely difficult. 
The key needs will be water and sanitation, food, shelter, child protection and education, health and nutrition and psychosocial support. Staff care is also a priority – many staff have been personally affected by this latest disaster and relief workers have been managing back-to-back disaster responses this year. 
World Vision is planning to target 400,000 people with relief operations.  To meet the significant humanitarian needs of children and communities affected by Typhoon Haiyan, World Vision is appealing for US$20 million for its response. 

Please join me in prayer for the people in these devastated communities, our staff, sponsored children, and for effective and speedy relief operations.

Kindly,
Cory
PS: Janet and I felt moved to donate for relief the day the typhoon hit and may send more.   If you feel led to do so, the fastest way is through our website Typhoon Haiyan Response page http://www.worldvision.org/news-stories-videos/typhoon-haiyan-philippines , or contact me for details.

"Who Are the Poor?"

This summer, we visited our son, who is living in lower Manhattan, the West Village (Greenwich) to be exact.  We had a lovely time with him, walking from Soho to Central Park, and on Sunday morning I decided to walk the couple blocks to the Episcopal Church we'd seen the night before.  I arrived late, just as the female priest was concluding her written sermon in a rather uninspiring voice.  It was styled after one of those New England churches with the private pew boxes. So as I sidled into a nearby pew quietly, I found myself "boxed" with a young man and his motorcycle helmet.  

Considering the geography, and that the pastor had just shifted into weekly announcements and was now enthusiastically inviting everyone to their annual LGBT square dance the following Saturday, it was easy for me to interpret the guy next to me as someone right out of the band "Village People" (you'll hear their famous "YMCA" at every wedding reception).  I was fine with that, but it was definitely a different demographic than at my home church.  My curiosity wanted to take it all in, but as I did I found some judgmental feelings in the mix.

Communion was the game-changer I'll remember for a long time.  Up to the altar they all came: young and old, gay and straight, biker, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. On one side of me stood a tough woman in flabby jeans, the pudgy motorcycle guy on the other, next to a very effeminate man, next to an old woman leaning on her cane, smiling. Looking around me as we stood between the pillars of the altar with open palms for the communion host, forming our own flash-mob community as fellow beggars for this precious moment, rapid fire phrases from Simon and Garfunkel's song "Blessed" came to me...

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit.

Blessed is the lamb whose blood flows.

Blessed are the sat upon, Spat upon, Ratted on,

O Lord, Why have you forsaken me?

...Blessed are the meth drinkers, Pot sellers, Illusion dwellers...

...Blessed are the penny rookers, Cheap hookers, Groovy lookers...

(I've pasted the full lyric at bottom…it’s worth reading.)

It was a lovely moment. I starting smiling, too. I came back and knelt down, listening to the magnificent choir singing from a Monteverdi mass, and said to myself, "I like this Jesus!"

I thought today of this whole scene and re-read my journal entry about it because of today's devotional from Henri Nouwen, entitled "Who Are the Poor?".  He has been challenging readers that the poor need to be the center of the church, so that our focus is outward, not inward -- which inevitably leads to disunity and contention. But today he expands the definition of the poor to include... all of us, including those who recognize our poverty and those who don't…

   The poor are the center of the Church.  But who are the poor?  At first we might think of people who are not like us:  people who live in slums, people who go to soup kitchens, people who sleep on the streets, people in prisons, mental hospitals, and nursing homes.  But the poor can be very close.  They can be in our own families, churches or workplaces.  Even closer, the poor can be ourselves, who feel unloved, rejected, ignored, or abused.

   It is precisely when we see and experience poverty - whether far away, close by, or in our own hearts - that we need to become the Church; that is, hold hands as brothers and sisters, confess our own brokenness and need, forgive one another, heal one another's wounds, and gather around the table of Jesus for the breaking of the bread.   Thus, as the poor we recognise Jesus, who became  poor for us.

   

Gathering around “the table of Jesus for the breaking of the bread” in our shared brokenness. Thus, AS the poor we recognize Jesus, who became poor.

At first we think of the poor as those who are "not like us," like the odd conglomeration at that Greenwich Village-people church.  But miraculously and mercifully, in that moment, I was suddenly allowed to become part of that same motley crew.  And I felt blessed to be in their company, all of us under the cross we encircled, arms outstretched, hands open to receive. As one.

Blessed are the judgmental too; thanks be to God.

Cory

November 2013

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit.

Blessed is the lamb whose blood flows.

Blessed are the sat upon, Spat upon, Ratted on,

O Lord, Why have you forsaken me?

I got no place to go,

I've walked around Soho for the last night or so.

Ah, but it doesn't matter, no.

Blessed is the land and the kingdom.

Blessed is the man whose soul belongs to.

Blessed are the meth drinkers, Pot sellers, Illusion dwellers.

O Lord, Why have you forsaken me?

My words trickle down, like a wound

That I have no intention to heal.

Blessed are the stained glass, window pane glass.

Blessed is the church service makes me nervous

Blessed are the penny rookers, Cheap hookers, Groovy lookers.

O Lord, Why have you forsaken me?

I have tended my own garden

Much too long.

-        Lyrics by Paul Simon

The Village People Photos.... http://officialvillagepeople.com/photos/official-approved-group-photos/

Thanks to Women, We All Belong

My sister-in-law Maria told me an amazing story once when we were visiting.  She was explaining to her three-year old daughter Frida that she shouldn't touch birds that have fallen out of the nest, because their mothers recognize them by smell, and a human touch would mask that unique scent.

I don't know if that's ornithologically accurate, but that night, Frida was laying in bed with Maria next to her, when she suddenly whispered, "Mama, smell me.  Am I your baby?"  Maria immediately remembered the earlier conversation, so she sniffed Frida very theatrically, and announced with a big hug that yes, Frida was her own special girl.  Apparently, Frida and her mother had been repeating that ritual every night since.  Each night, Frida would ask again, then Maria would sniff her and announce with great affection and fanfare that yes, Frida was her baby.

There is something in us that desires connection and a sense that we belong, that we have identity.  My brother's daughters, while raised in a very gender-neutral environment, nonetheless want to understand who they are as little girls.  At preschool, they gravitate to the little girl groups and do things the little girls do.  They want to know who they are, where they belong.

Who are we, mommy? Am I your own little girl?  Is this where I belong?

I remember once back during our years living in Chicago when Janet gave some cheese to the two daughters of some friends of ours. The younger one immediately looked to the older one and said, "Laura, do we like this?"

Is this who we are?

We all feel the yearning to belong, to something, to someone. To feel cared for and cared about.

One of the most tragic side-products of the AIDS pandemic that swept the globe, especially in its poorer places, during the first decade of this century, was the millions of children who lost one or both parents to the disease.  Most adults died between ages 20 to 45, the prime child-rearing years. Orphans who could move in with an Auntie or were shipped off to an elderly grandmother were the most fortunate.  Next were those who could be taken in by a neighbor.  Those on the other end of the spectrum ended up on the streets or, in rural areas, in what we in the poverty business rather clinically refer to as "child-headed households."  But a dilapidated one-room mud-and-stick hut occupied solely by children trying to fend for themselves, the oldest sibling maybe age 13 or 14, is anything but a "clinical" event.

The experiences of visiting these child-headed households were for me mind-numbing and almost paralyzing in light of their tremendous needs.  They were also times where I most admired the nurturing response of women.

I met John and his two siblings in Malawi, living in a "home" which was almost indescribable. Inside it was probably no more than six feet by eight feet, with an interior dividing wall stretching most of its length, giving the effect of it having two "rooms" with an open door between.  The three boys slept on the bare dirt ground, with a blanket and a single peg for each boys’ clothing being the only other articles I can recall inside.

It was my first trip to an AIDS-ravaged region in those early days, and I did what I often do when I don't know what to say: I played the organizer of my group instead of engaging the people in pain, and instead I made sure my group was involved in the experience of meeting these boys.  But one woman traveling with us, Kay, didn't need to be a host and wasn't about to act like one.  She was no doubt overwhelmed as well, but unlike me, she funneled those feelings of disorientation and shock into compassion.  She sat on the ground with the boys, she spoke tenderly to them, and with her words and countenance she showed them a mother's compassion.  John, the oldest and therefore the one who always needed to be strong, furtively wiped away a reluctant tear sneaking out of the corner of his eye. That stingy tear said more than a torrent could have, about how the compassion of a woman and mother had, at least for the moment, broken through and soothed his weary and fearful soul.

A few years later, I traveled in Tanzania visiting orphaned children with a woman from a very different background. Evelyn is a member of her Community Care Coalition, which is a volunteer network that was caring for orphans and vulnerable children in their own area.  Evelyn and I, with a staff translator, rode in the back of a vehicle on our way to visit Rosy and her two sisters, who comprised another child-headed household.  Theirs was again a miserable story, but the Care Coalition was ensuring the girls are checked on regularly and can receive help that comes available from outside or from the community's own meager possessions. Some coalitions develop a community garden where all the food that is grown goes to the orphans and vulnerable children. Other groups, such as Evelyn's, get trained and become officially registered nonprofits which can receive grants such as chicken coops and other assistance to distribute to those in need, those like Rosy and her sisters.

But though the sisters were surviving--living by themselves for over three years when I met them--I sensed a deep loneliness.  "We love it when Evelyn comes.  She's the only person who comes to visit."  It was such a forlorn comment that I used a photo of Evelyn with these three girls as my screen saver, reminding me why I do my work on behalf of children.

But even more powerful to me than the lonely misery of these children was my conversation with Evelyn.  On the way there, I asked her why she gave the many hours she does to being a community volunteer. Her feelings needed no translation.  "No child should live like this," she replied with the indignation of just about every mother everywhere.  Her own children have their mother, but here are other children who have neither mother or father. Therefore, Evelyn sees that it is partly her responsibility before God to care for them, too.  The rest is unimportant: No child should live like this, not if Evelyn can do something about it, anyway.  The response is immediate and caring.

There is a great mantle women carry as nurturers and caregivers.  Kay, from suburban Orange County, California, and Evelyn from rural Tanzania, both feel it.  Both push past revulsion or shock better than most of us men, and they extend arms of love that reach across chasms of culture and spasms of pain to say, "Yes, you still belong. You are one of us. You still deserve motherly love and a compassionate touch.  As long as we share this planet, you are important to me."

Cory
August 2013

Paying It Forward

Today was my birthday, and my favorite gift was one I was able to give away.

Janet walked back into our condo with a sober look on her face after taking the trash out to the dumpster this morning. "When I opened the trash enclosure door, there was a Hispanic man and woman in there, picking through the trash."

We have a Hispanic family that comes by in a truck fairly regularly on the evening before the trash truck comes, the truck bed usually piled high with discarded furniture and mattresses.  I'm glad they seem to do a good business.

But Janet wasn't sure what the couple in there today was doing.  I asked her if they were using any tools; she replied that the man was just using his bare hands.  

I immediately knew what I wanted to do, if it wasn't too late to catch them.  I ran to the garage and snatched up the pincer tool that I'd been given 4-5 years ago by a little Hispanic woman who didn't really speak English. I'd grown to really appreciate that tool for reaching into the rafters, or retrieving the bar of soap our cat knocked under the sink.  Every time I use that grabber tool I think of her generosity and smile to myself.

But the tool has done the good work in me that God had intended for it.  After all, it prompted me to write about it, write what became my first meditation.  I assigned that story to the first chapter in my book, to mark its significance to me in shaking up my bifurcated worlds--the one I resided in, and the one I'd visit among the poor.  That little Hispanic lady started a cascade of synapses, connecting the dots between paradigms I'd experienced on my trips and the value they could bring to my everyday life, my life back in the erstwhile "bubble" of comfort in which I live.

Having a forty-something couple dumpster-diving a few yards from my front door tends to make those worlds collide, too.  I knew there were a great many things I did not want to do in response to Janet's report, actions I could take which might be perceived as demeaning, or would embarrass them, like giving them money.  I could assuage my discomfort by calling the police.  I could tiptoe over and lock my front door. 

Or, I could pay it forward and accept that God now had a new, needier owner in mind for my now-beloved pincer tool.

I thought I'd missed them, but when I opened the wooden door to the closure, there they stood.  As soon as I held out the tool in my two hands, they both smiled broadly and the woman exclaimed, "God bless you! Thank you so much!"  Hoping she actually did speak some English I decided to tell them the pincer's story, probably for no reason other than I wanted to share with them my joy in being able to pass on this blessing that some kind Hispanic person had blessed me with.  

I felt a bond, a kinsmanship, in rejoicing along with them.  And I felt like a caretaker, a steward; that I'd been entrusted with the tool for just such a time as this to pass it along. I wasn't the owner.  I certainly wasn't better than them; I felt more like a delivery boy who was handed some valuable, and I now understood that my job was to transport it from one VIP to another VIP.  And I was thrilled to successfully complete my assignment.

I suppose I should feel this way about everything that happens to currently reside "in my hands". That's what this idea of being a steward is all about, isn't it?  If I felt this much joy "transporting" a tool that cost ten bucks, imagine the joy I ought to be getting from stewarding things costing hundreds or thousands.  

But for now, I'm just glad to close the loop on the "Uncomfortable Generosity" I had powerfully experienced in receiving the pincer tool, and the joy I felt in paying it forward.

Cory

August 2013

PS: If you’ve forgotten or never read “Uncomfortable Generosity” or want to close the loop yourself, I’ve pasted it below…

Uncomfortable Generosity

Last Saturday we met my son and grandkids to celebrate the twin’s birthday.  As we sat outside at a multi-restaurant food court in Yorba Linda, a Hispanic shopping center employee in her tidy uniform came by picking up trash with a trigger-handled pole that had rubber-lipped pincers on the end.  I marveled that she could pick up the tiniest piece of straw wrapper without stooping down, and non-verbally commented several times with a “wow!” on what a wonderful tool it was.  "I want one of those!" I affirmed with a smile to this pleasant-faced, round and compact, middle-aged bronze woman.  I tried hard to talk respectfully, calling her "Ma'am" so she hopefully wouldn't mistake my friendliness for condescension.

She smiled, nodded and moved on to pinch trash in other areas.

Half an hour later she’s back, again with her fancy tool... but this time with an identical one still in the packaging which she thrusts into my hand, speaking a few words in Spanish that I didn't understand.  I tried assuming that she only wanted to show me what the package looked like so I could go buy one myself; or that maybe she would let me try out the new one.  She however didn’t understand me either and apparently thought I wanted her to unwrap the new one for me, which she carefully did.  Then she firmly placed it in my hands. 

I animatedly tried it out—they work great!—ready to hand it back.  But when I turned around, she was gone.  Nowhere to be found.

I kept looking around, trying to decide how to appropriately respond... Could I pay her?  If so, how much? But no, that would cheapen her graciousness. 

Then maybe there is something I could give her in return?!  I quickly tried to assess my assets at hand to find something commensurate with her kindness. 

But it was futile and pointless... she never came back.

Did she give away her employer's asset?  Will it put her job at risk?  What if someone saw her do it?

All the while, my son sits back assuring me I should simply accept the gift and relax… the same advice I always give to fellow travelers on an international trip when one of them is overwhelmed with the generosity of the poor.  I self-assuredly spout off about relaxing, about accepting, as though I'm the expert.  But subconsciously I comfort myself with a feeling that part of the generosity shown is actually in thanks to World Vision and the impact WV has already had on the life of this poor person, that the visitor is simply the representative of all donors and thereby the lucky and uncomfortable recipient.

I'm full of crap.

Here was no such substitutionary reciprocity, no gratitude for the impact of something I am counted as representing.  Just kindness.  Raw generosity.

Maybe the pincer tool was hers to give, maybe not.  Even if not, she could be charged for it, or possibly fired for giving it away.  Yet she wasn't discreet or clandestine about it: the adjacent tables all watched the animated conversation.  (Although perhaps that's why she disappeared again so quickly.)

Her gracious, simple generosity demanded the attention of my thoughts for the rest of the birthday party.

How does one account for the amazing generosity of the poor, and of other cultures in general?  How do I account for claiming to be a person who promotes and inspires generosity yet doesn't even know how to accept the smallest gestures of it when it comes in pure form?

A major donor recently said to me (though it was clear he was mildly scolding himself), "Don't thank me for donating.  Let's face it, Cory.  I'm not giving out of my lack, but out of my abundance.  My giving doesn’t really impact my lifestyle; and almost everyone else you work with is the same."

We who are not poor may never understand the calculus and ethos of the poor, and why they are so absurdly generous.  It's why the story of the poor widow who put a mere pittance in the temple offering plate has made the papers for 2000 years and continues to bother us; because she gave everything she had.  Who would do that?  It doesn't make any earthly sense. 

And yet there it is.  The act itself screams for our attention.  It slams up against our own calculus and says “There is another way; a way of freedom and trust.” 

Of course, we spiritualize the story, and think it’s all about donating money for the church or other Christian causes.

But then what do we say about 50,000 Africans World Vision has trained and organized who are voluntarily caring for those sick and dying of HIV/AIDS around them?  They not only don’t get paid anything, but they will share of their own family’s meager food supplies to feed the sick, use their own money to buy needed supplies, and take in orphans to the extent that virtually 100% of them are caring for other people’s children, either in their own homes or with financial support.

When those realities slam into me, I realize again how little I understand, and how much we’ve lost as we’ve gained material comfort. 

Tim Dearborn of World Vision’s Christian Commitment team, and in some ways our global pastor, recently told us “Our job is to connect those who are rich in commodities with those who are rich in community.” 

Isn’t that beautiful?  Who’s poor?  Who’s rich?  We all are.

What we have, they need.  Sometimes desperately. 

What they have, we need.  Just as desperately.

Cory

February, 2008

Drafting

This week I read a short piece by Henri Nouwen, about how he would seek God in silence and fervently ask God to express his love and pleasure toward him.  It struck me how vulnerable Henri was to write such a thing, not asking God to give him direction, but rather to give him affirmation.  Let's face it: it takes real courage to ask God to tell me he loves me and hope I hear something back!  Everyone wants this kind of word from God of course, but very few would admit that publicly.  It was Nouwen at his vulnerable best.

Then today I read about Mother Teresa's regular discipline of spending time in silence with God, and her private agony at not hearing from God about his favor, despite her incredibly God-pleasing work.  I took a short time of silence this morning after that reading, and I have to admit, I didn't hear from God either.  

But as I did, it struck me that perhaps I was looking in the wrong place, because I have had very many times of feeling God's favor toward me in my life and my work, and even his superintending of my actions.  The most recent was only last week when I wanted deeply to surprise and bless Janet to celebrate our 500th month anniversary since we first began dating, way back during high school in November, 1971.  

As we sat on a blanket at the beach at sunset, all of the surprises having now been revealed and Janet superbly stunned, I marveled at how God had placed extra treats directly in my path to accentuate the experience, like the dozen red carnations I walked right past and bought at the last minute. I didn't even have a clear plan how I'd use or present them, but then I thought to stand each one up in the sand circling around our blanket, like some miniature picket fence of love encircling Janet. I'm not that creative!  

I felt that God knew my desire was to bless Janet, and he shined his favor on that desire to help make it happen beyond what I could have planned. Some angel must have given us perfect sunny weather, unusually majestic waves, a warm ocean, the carnations, and music I played Janet as she opened the card, which I'd not heard in years until only the day before, when it had moved me to tears. I somehow found the absolutely perfect card.  And Janet, knowing only that I was making some sort of surprise plan for the evening for reasons she didn't know, wore the same perfume she wore in high school.  And some guy ten yards away took photos of us on the beach, then voluntarily built a fire for us and left it for us to enjoy.  

I was well-prepared, certainly, but beyond all that I could do or even dream, I felt God was showing us his favor and love by showering special blessings on us. 

Then, reminiscing on the beach about our relationship over these 41+ years since we began dating as pimpled high-schoolers, through a 'crisis' pregnancy and the ups and downs (very few downs, really) of life to the crescendo of that evening... We know we are not that good, we were unqualified and unaware and have in no way 'deserved' the marriage with which we've been blessed, the life we've had together.  

Janet said, "If I die tonight, it's OK." She called it her best date she's ever had (which maybe doesn't say much for my performance the prior 41 years!).  We felt like two kids again, staring back at a minefield we'd just somehow safely crossed, knowing without a doubt we couldn't have done it alone.

I'm not single, as Nouwen and Mother Teresa were.  I don't need the level of intimacy with God that they perhaps felt.  They each walked a lonely journey in rarefied air, feeling tremendous expectations from the outside world, as special representatives of the God to whom they clung fiercely despite it all. I've had over 40 years with a true life partner, for which I'm inexpressibly grateful.  So I don't pretend to know or see God in the places where Henri and Teresa could not.  I'm not sure I have as much courage to ask as they did to hear God's voice, fearful I'd be setting myself up for deep disappointment.

But I'm grateful for the many times and ways I have in fact seen God's fingerprints, walked in footprints he'd already set down, his hand preparing the good works God intended for me to walk in. (Eph 2:10)

I think I can relate my own experience most to the story where Moses asks of God, "Now show me your glory." (Ex 33:18)  God answers that he'll pass by, but tells Moses he'll only be able to see God's back. 

For a cyclist or a swimmer, it's known as "drafting"--when the resistance of the water or air is reduced because there is another rider or swimmer traveling slightly ahead of you, "running interference for you" as it were. Last week I was reminded once again how much pleasure I have felt from God, in my life and in my work, when I discover I'm drafting behind him.

Cory

July 2013

Building Bridges

"What do you mean, a dish rack?"

The question came from one of the travelers on my trip to Zambia this month.  We had just met Oswald, a boy who may be alive today because of a mobile health (mHealth) project that was underwritten by the Innovation Fund last year.  This cellphone-based program allowed a volunteer community caregiver to assess that Oswald had a dangerous case of malaria, which convinced his mother to walk the four hours needed to get him to the nearest clinic.  Because he’d been prescreened, he received priority treatment, and when we met him, he was fully recovered ...and he wants to be a doctor!

Now Oswald’s mother was explaining that Betsy the caregiver also helps her family live a healthier life, so they don’t get sick as often.  Case in point: the dish rack.
Our eyes danced around the ground looking for a rubber-coated wire strainer, like the one that fits neatly inside half our kitchen sink. The Zambian mother pointed instead to something that resembled the frame of a small shed, with bare branches creating a flat if uneven roof.  Atop this contraption were a few pots and pans and plates--about what we'd stack neatly into one kitchen cabinet--spread out and all turned upside down.  

"Now we use a latrine, but before Betsy, we’d defecate in the bush. The dogs and pigs would eat the waste, and then they’d come home and eat from the plates. So now we keep our plates and cooking pots off the ground and away from the animals."

Please excuse the shock of that story, but this one small part of an otherwise very encouraging conversation became very dis-couraging to me.  Since returning from Zambia, I've been hounded with recurring melancholy this past week, which happens occasionally.  I don't know how much of it is frustration from watching myself chase again all the things I think I 'require' for a happy life, the depth of poverty in the people we met, unrealistic expectations of how far World Vision's efforts will carry them, the gnarl of underlying issues, or simply the huge gap between how I live and they live.  The feelings aren’t completely new to me; in one form or another, it's an occupational hazard.  But the upshot is that, after a truly wonderful trip, my re-entry has been surprisingly unsettling.

I saw my pastor midweek, and he'd just come back from a diocesan conference on global food insecurity, where one speaker had warned that anyone who gets involved in these issues will at times be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the problem, which the speaker said is the predictable side effect of any vision worth pursuing.  That was a comfort. But comforts only seem to last me a few hours, then the gas seems to leak out of my tank again.  Janet equates it to grieving, and she's probably spot-on.  And when she pointed that out, I immediately thought of the story above, of how Oswald and his widowed mother are living, with a mentally challenged sister besides. I was grieving for their reality, improved though it is.

We run the good race when we pursue "any vision worth pursuing", but there are times when the magnitude of the gap can feel overwhelming. I’m not disgusted with myself (this time at least) so much as I’m simply sad at the huge chasm between our worlds, feeling almost hopeless that it will ever be bridged.

Yet, I think my typing fingers may have just shown me a path forward: You see, a bridge doesn't make things "the same", it spans two different things and allows connections between them, a flow of people and goods and assistance in times of need.  I've seen bridges that allow women in birthing distress to get life-saving care, and bridges that allow poor farmers to suddenly have buyers and produce the income to support their families.  

And my work is also to be a bridge.  My personal mission statement is "Connecting the wealthy and the poor to build a better world and to transform both." Andrew Natsios, a former World Vision Sr. VP who left to become the head of USAID under President Bush said it even better in his confirmation hearing: “Putting the hand of the at-risk poor into the hand of the 'at-risk' rich so that BOTH will be blessed."

If we can connect, much good can happen.  If we can continually widen the connections, more help can flow--to both sides.  Yes, some people will always be poor-er economically, but they needn't be condemned to suffer forever from maladies we long ago solved.  Bridges also mean a flow both ways, which allows opportunity and options and ways to get to know one another.  Ways which hopefully, with God's grace, as more and more connections are made, can turn strangers into friends, where they learn from each other and benefit from the gifts and skills the other brings.

OK, the bridge is very long.  The distance seemed particularly daunting this past week.  But I can work on a bridge.  Work has already been done, for many lifetimes.  My work won't complete the bridge, nor add all the expansions it will one day hopefully need.

But I can put my shoulder to it, drop my welder's mask down and start back to work.  Just staring off at the horizon won't build the bridge.  Jesus' kingdom vision calls me to be a bridge constructor.  Yet, I am only a workman, not the Master Builder.  That's where faith and trust come in.  It's his vision, not mine.

And if the vision isn't overwhelming, I guess it probably wouldn't be worth pursuing.

Cory
May 2013

Who are You, God? And who am I?

I'm writing this from Orange County airport, held up by weather from getting to Chicago, where tomorrow we are scheduled to make the major decisions related to the story below.  I know the Grant Committee would covet your prayers...

Last week, I felt caught in some vortex.  I spent much of the week plowing through twenty-eight project proposals submitted to the Innovation Fund.  It was emotionally draining, at times difficult to psych up or even pray up to start again.  The very first proposal I read was about child trafficking on the Haitian/Dominican border, an area I visited just last autumn, targeting Haitian refugee children just like those we met on our vision trip.  The next day my first read was, unbelievably, about child sacrifice in northern Uganda, or more accurately about robbing living children of their organs--which causes death, painful horrible death--in 90% of the victims.  A supporting study from another organization included bone-chilling quotes from an organ robber, the customer of a witch doctor who "places orders" and uses these body parts, and a rare survivor who told his story.  I wanted to crawl into a hole, but in order to keep on schedule I had to get through 5-6 more proposals after that, as my role was to write an executive summary and analysis of each one for the donor committee who will award the winners.

The goal of the Innovation Fund is not simply to identify and address specific, horrific social issues, but to identify innovative new solutions to these intractable problems; and my task is to help the Grant Committee determine which are the most important new ideas and those most transferable to other contexts.  So whereas the normal person is able to be moved by a specific need or location and support a program which might address that need effectively, we have to temper our emotional response to the specific need and find the "best overall investments."  Without question, this makes it difficult to do my job--I feel a very human or humane urge to sit and weep, to plant a flag on these dark corners of the globe and rally support to bring light and hope to that place, to those specific children.  That urge makes my usual daily work of connecting needs and donors very rewarding, and it's often the key to supporters finding great meaning in their giving: There is a specific place where I'm making a specific difference in addressing a significant issue.  We all need that--me included!

But, for the sake of other people and other needy places, we sometimes also need to look beyond those horizons to people we can't yet "see" in our mind.  If we want to increase the pace and the effectiveness of poverty alleviation and its myriad related issues and evils, a portion of our attention and our investing of time, talent, and treasure must look with clear eyes of vision into new ways to address as-yet-unsolved issues and to find faster, better, less expensive ways to impact more people quicker, people whose lives surely hang in the balance, too.

It's a HUGE privilege to be in this situation.  Clearly, the Innovation Fund and our call for concept papers has struck a chord and "unearthed" some of the risk-takers and the courageous among World Vision field staff around the globe.  Of these 28 proposals, surely half or more are worthy of funding today.  Yet with the amount of money we have currently, we'll be lucky to be able to underwrite 3-5.  What will happen to the rest?  I now feel the burden of having in effect raised expectations, given hope to staff and national offices.  They've perhaps been chew-boning on these ideas I’m reviewing for years, or perhaps only a few months, having been newly spurred to creativity by the possibility of money actually being available to carry out a dream that turns a old problem into a new opportunity, turns it on its head, or leveraging new realities.  

They are in effect eagerly volunteering to be risk-taskers, which means facing the very real possibility of "failure."  More and more often (this year is Round 3 of submissions), the papers carry a plan to disseminate "lessons learnt" whether the innovation works or doesn't work, an attitude of learning faster--even from our "failures"--in order to succeed faster.  Attempting more, to learn faster, to get better faster--that's been the key to Silicon Valley's success, and the success of our most relevant industries.  And turning the fear of failure into an eagerness to try and to learn was perhaps the most important attitude shift (a.k.a. "software") needed to open those floodgates of creativity.

A few years ago a colleague frustrated me greatly. I was looking for ways to "feed the winners and starve the losers" in allocating funds to some existing projects.  But he protested paternalistically, "We have to feed all our children."  It sounded so sappy, so egalitarian, as though "fairness" was the most important virtue, trumping even our stewardship of resources to help the most people.  His argument didn't carry the day, and I'm glad it didn't.

But I've got an odd sense of the same feeling right now with these 28 proposals.  There are several in here that are very strong and deeply meaningful, but some don't really fit our unique criteria of being a "test", or widely replicable, or highly innovative.  They'll simply save real lives and rescue real children in real need.  And they DESERVE to be funded.

And I don't know what to do about it.  I can't rescue every child.  But I have to do something.

These were the feelings inside me as I woke up early last Saturday, my back hurting, to face the task again.  I felt I'd be wise to first do my morning stretches and spiritual readings.  Nothing seemed to "stick", but the last devotional I read started with the statement that St. Francis used to spend whole nights praying the same prayer: “Who are you, O God? And who am I?...”

When I was done reading I still felt heavy, so I dropped to my knees and slumped over the couch.  It was then that St. Francis' prayer came to mind and I prayed: "Lord, in light of this heavy task in front of me, Who are you, O God? And who am I?"

And a beautiful thing happened.  God seemed to immediately answer: I am the one who doesn't just read about these disturbing subjects.  I witness them.  I'm there when children are abused, sickened, sacrificed. I live with this reality every minute of every day.  I know the name of the every victim and those who hurt.  I know them as much as I know your name, know where you are as you pray and how you feel right now.  

It was such a mercy for me.  A dialog continued, or perhaps an internal recalibration, where I was reminded not only that I do not carry this burden, but I cannot carry it.  I am not capable.  I am not able.  And I am not required.

I am required to do my bit, to the best of my ability, and only my bit.  And leave the rest, and the results, to God, the only One capable to carry such a burden.

It feels that somehow when the Innovation Fund sent out the Call for Concept Papers it was as if we yelled into a deep cavern waiting to hear an opposite and equal force echo back.  But instead, a legion of voices erupted back at us from the blackness of the cavern, an overwhelming force that knocked me off my feet.  What kind of Pandora's Box had we opened from the depths of despair, voiced by those colleagues eager to make an assault on Mount Doom, armed only with a Frodo's sword?

But the word of the Lord, the sword of the Lord, came to me, calmed me down, put me --thanks be to God -- back in my place. In light of this mountain before me, Who are you, O God? And who am I?

Now perhaps I understand why St. Francis might pray this all night long. Yes, perhaps he was open to hearing a new word from God, of not taking for granted his understanding of the Holy.  But more than that, it's a beautiful tool for being reminded where I fit and where God fits in the constellation of time and eternity, of remembering who I am not, and more importantly, who God is.