Workers, Not Master Builders

Twenty-five years ago today, on May 17, 1991, two World Vision leaders were gunned down on the streets of Lima, Peru as they stepped from their vehicle to enter the national office that morning. Though the crime was never prosecuted, all evidence pointed to the then-notorious guerrilla group, Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path.

It was a dark day.  Canadian Norm Tattersall, acting Director of WV Peru, died on the spot. Colombian National Director Jose Chuquin, who received 22 bullets, died of his wounds on May 28.

Not long before that, Norm taught an adult Sunday School class that Janet and I attended for a year, at a church across the street from our kids' high school. As I recall, his wife later moved back home to Canada.  I don't know what became of Jose's wife and family of five younger children. But without question, both families were shaken to the core, if not broken.

Two months later, World Vision lost three more staff, Peruvian nationals whose bodies and vehicle were never found, and for a few months we closed the office there in order to not put the staff at further risk.

In World Vision's Seattle-area office, there is a small Visitor's Center that contains a memorial to those staff members who have lost their lives in service to the poor and God's Kingdom. Their names appear translucently as images over running water, scrolling slowly down with the silently spilling substance, a reminder of the transcendent yet transitory nature of our existence. Norm and Jose Chuquin are remembered there, along with the others. For me, it's a sobering and silencing experience to pause with prayer and thanksgiving as I read dozens of names from disparate cultures yet who share this common distinction. And my breath always stops a bit when those two names appear.

It's a sobering reminder of the price some of our colleagues pay... not only World Vision workers pay this price of course, as we've seen lately in Syria with deaths from MSF (Doctors Without Borders) staff and from other groups.

In addition to their lasting individual contributions to World Vision's work and ethos, Norm and Jose teamed up a year before they were killed to propose more intentional work be done in economic development. This was only months after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumbling of communism, and a time when market capitalism threatened to leave the global poor behind.  World Vision leaders in Latin America approved their recommendation and hired a leading expert in the new innovation called "microfinance." This eventually helped lead to the creation of VisionFund, World Vision's wholly-owned microfinance subsidiary, which today creates or sustains well over 1,300,000 jobs annually and makes small loans to over one million borrowers each year.

Reflecting on this part of Jose and Norm's legacies, I'm reminded of the wonderful poem attributed to Bishop Oscar Romero, a tireless advocate for the poor and a vocal critic of violence, social injustice and state-sponsored repression. Bishop Romero was himself gunned down, as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.  The poem-prayer reminds us: "We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders..."

We are only the workers.  But the Master Builder takes our humble efforts and can accomplish amazing things over time which we may never see.  In fact, the older I get, the more my faith clings to this.

  

In honor of Norm, Jose and the many others over the years and even centuries, as well as those to come, I close with the full poem:

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view; the Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything,

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the

Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen.

Fading Memories

Some photos, a few faces, are still etched in my mind.  After 30-plus years for some, I'd like to say they are there "forever", permanently burned on the pixilated screen of my memory. But I know better now.

In some darkened file folder, I still have the photos of my first and only visit to India in 1984, where we had an audience with Mother Teresa, and of my first-of-many trips to Ethiopia, in 1986, shortly after the devastating drought and famine there wiped out an estimated one-million souls.  As I flip through those photos now, I am ashamed at how little I remember about the vast majority... the names, the stories, why I chose to keep a certain memorable photo with an “unforgettable” story behind it that I can no longer remember.  

Memories fade.

I've damaged some of those photos by writing on the backs of them—names, stories, details—and others by adhering stickers with similar information. But those notes help me remember and honor the experience.

Last evening, my neighbor Brad told me that his father had served as a paratrooper in World War II.  As half Native American, bearing a Germanic name, he came under plenty of abuse.  Since his father’s death, Brad now possesses quite a unique collection of war memorabilia: the lapel pins, cuff buttons, or coins his father removed from each person that he or a soldier in his unit had killed during the war.

His father’s comrades-in-arms would get very angry, afraid that he might get into harms' way simply in order to "collect a souvenir." But for Brad's father, that wasn't the driving purpose at all.  How could he explain? His Native American heritage compelled him to always carry with him a memento of each life. He felt responsible to keep something of that person “alive” as a way to honor the sacredness of each unique human being, wartime enemies included.

What a beautiful extension of the spirit we ought to carry when we encounter other cultures. I usually travel for my work, so it’s true that I need to be able to faithfully share those experiences with others afterwards.  But another large part of my motivation has to do with stewardship—that same responsibility Brad’s father felt, to treasure those people and encounters that God puts in my path.

My methods have changed considerably--from illegible journal entries hand-scribbled onto a notepad, to blazing thumbs speeding across my smartphone keypad, edited on the plane home. Someday soon this method too will be arcane. I've gone from having a few precious rolls of film to unlimited photos on a memory card... far more than I could ever remember the stories behind. Culling and curating those few best photos for others to see and absorb is sadly becoming a lost art. 

Sometimes, I'm tempted to forget that photos are stories, too. Exceptional photos need no words to have their affect, but you can be sure those are the rare exceptions. And in the quest for the perfect picture worth those thousand words we can easily lose any personal connection with the human dialog and connections happening right in front of us.

I suppose I learned to be a chronicler from my father.  When I was five-years-old and our family of 6 was crammed into a two-bedroom cracker-box house, my dad frustrated my mother by purchasing a console reel-to-reel tape recorder. This clumsy device, with its giant spools of fragile exposed magnetic tape which were regularly getting mis-spooled, broken or eaten by the machine, became a nearly-buried treasure in the attic. 

Back then for a few years, my dad would gather us around the recorder on some cold, dark North Dakota winter's night to interview me and my three younger brothers. When we quickly ran out of anything to talk about, he'd start singing a song or would ask us to sing one.  Then afterwards he would rewind the tape and we would "listen to how it sounds" and laugh at hearing our own voices. Tape was expensive, and often he would record over parts of past recordings with new material, losing the old forever and leaving mostly snippets for posterity. 

My young father was only 25 years old then, but amazingly prescient: he died as a young man of 40 years in his sleep, from an undetected brain aneurysm. For the four decades since then, those few recordings have been some of my clearest and dearest glimpses into my dad. He was funny, he was an organizer, and he was a closet crooner in the Frank Sinatra era.  We all learned to sing the old songs thanks to my dad, and my brothers and I still sing a few of them when we get together.

Last year, my wife Janet gave me one of the most meaningful gifts I've ever received, albeit with considerable effort on my part. Janet's amazing gift was the chance to record something "with" my deceased father, using one of those old reel-to-reel fragments, now digitized. I was able to compose three harmony parts around the largest fragment, thanks to what I've been learning about Barbershop harmony, to create an a Capella ‘quartet’—with a bonus.  On the new recording, there are five voices: I'm singing three parts as a 60-year-old, while harmonizing behind my 26-year-old father and my 6-year-old self.  

What an honor!  For a couple of months, I’d focused all my attention on how to approach the project and do it justice, working on it in my spare time, mostly late at night. So it wasn't until I was on my way to make the recording that the incredible holiness of the experience washed over me.  

Had my dad not captured those memories in the first place, as they were happening, none of it would have been possible. He had the foresight to see the preciousness of the memories we were making back then, and to capture them as best he could. Fifty-five years later, his chronicling provided me the chance to relive some of those experiences and to receive one of the greatest gifts I'll ever get.  And now my children and grandchildren, my siblings and my dad's siblings, all have both the old and new recordings.  I believe that I was able to honor my father’s memory in his way... and that it will help mark my own life.

When people in disparate cultures give us the gift of their time, attention and interactions, we owe them something back. Our experiences are not intended for voluntourism or prophylactic voyeurism. They are not for our entertainment or for the “Temp” file on our brain’s hard-drive. They are for our transformation.

Can we believe that? …that God and the universe want to tell us something, that our experiences are not accidental? Rather, they are gifts to be received, treasured, remembered and contemplated.

For me, honoring and stewarding those gifts is what note-taking and journaling, chronicling and recording are all about. I’m so grateful to my dad for modeling that commitment. And, much as Brad’s father willingly made great efforts to honor the sacredness of each life, we all have the opportunity to honor the sacredness of each encounter and person along our own journey.

Away, In a Manger

It was our team’s final weekly prayer call of 2015, just a couple of days before Christmas Eve.  I dialed in a few minutes late, expecting to hear a cheery devotional, or the infancy narratives from Matthew’s or Luke’s gospels being read. Instead, in seeming rapid fire were a succession of three scripture-plus-reflection-plus-prayer meditations concerning some of the world’s toughest places, reflections on the Prince of Peace juxtaposed against conflict and war and refugee migrations… Syria, South Sudan, the Central African Republic.

I’ve had a couple of very busy weeks, and frankly I wasn’t terribly excited to get morose at the start of my day… And at this point you’re probably weighing whether or not to keep reading this, for the same reason. But there is something very right about taking off our cheery veneer of the idealized Christmas, nothing allowed that’s not merry and bright.

That’s the Christmas where everything is magical and perfectly ordered for our children, or else we consider ourselves to have failed them.  Last week, a colleague who is also a mom said that she’s been thinking about the mothers living in Syrian refugee camps, especially the Christian moms there who might also be feeling this pressure to “produce” Christmas for their own children amidst the insecurity and discomfort of life in a relief tent. She said, “I look at my nativity scene at home, and the roof over the manger reminds me of a tent. So I’ve decided this year to remember those refugee moms whenever I look at the scene, and I pray for them that they might get beyond their surroundings and all that they are not able to provide for their children, to find the comfort and joy in the Christmas story despite their circumstances.”

We were with a World Vision supporter at the time, and in the holy silence afterward, all he and I could say was “Thank you.”

I extended a similar thank-you today to the colleague who led our somber devotion time.  Thank you for reminding me again that it’s not about tossing a plastic Baby Jesus on top of the pile of Christmas gifts and raising a glass in thanksgiving to our comfort.  I cringe inside every time someone says, “When I look at all the problems around the world, all I can think is how thankful I am to live here.”

The Incarnation is the exact antithesis, a complete repudiation, of that sentiment… Jesus proactively giving up all power, comfort, and fellowship with the Father in order to come live with us, to be where we are. And not just to ‘we the privileged’—probably least to we the privileged. Perhaps most to those living in tents and constant insecurity. After all, he chose a poor teenage girl living in occupied Palestine as his mother. If the Incarnation tells us anything, as those who claim to be followers of Jesus, it tells us the proper way to respond to suffering: “When I look at all the problems around the world, I have to ask myself: What am I really doing to be in solidarity with those who are hurting—like Jesus was?”

---

The mystical night approaches quickly now, full of mystery and wonder. And so it is that a boy, a young Palestinian Christian boy, prays to Jesus that Santa will be able to cross the border checkpoints this year and come to visit even them.

There's something very special about children's prayers--their immediacy, practically, innocence...faith. 

I invite you to read this short prayer slowly, perhaps at the pace it would have been written, as it would have been felt. I could imagine it being prayed by candlelight, after darkness falls on Christmas Eve, this Night of Nights.  May we pray it in our hearts this Christmas for all God's children…

   O Lord Jesus, protect us from danger, and distance the bombs away from our homes, because they have been destroyed and we are forced to leave our homes for the street.

   O Jesus, distance the evil from us and the missiles and the rockets so that we can go back to living peacefully and so that Santa Claus can come to us. Our teacher told us that at the military checkpoint, the soldier did not allow Santa Claus to enter Bethlehem. We want Christmas to come and want to decorate the tree like the rest of the children in the world.

   O Jesus, give us courage and strength to overcome fear and to live in peace and tranquility and freedom in our beloved land and precious Palestine.
Amen.  

Peace and tranquility and freedom on earth; goodwill toward all.

Cory

Christmas Eve 2015

Prayer written by Bisan Mousa, aged 7 from Talitha Kumi Lutheran School in the West Bank

Treasuring Our Debts

“Forgive us our debts,” we pray. But may we never forget them.  There is one type of debt I hold tightly in my mind and heart: my debt to others along my journey.  The past few years, I've had some amazing opportunities to honor some debts (I can't possibly repay them), and the other day I suddenly became overwhelmed with gratitude for the reward of doing so…

I've never forgotten Ned, my manager at IBM in 1980, who looked me in the eye one day and said, "I'm not sure this is really where your passions are." I was young and insecure, so I took his words as a challenge and a character deficit, and I worked extra hard to prove him wrong.  But over the ensuing weeks and months, I also lowered my guard in quieter moments and pondered his comment.  Eighteen months later, I walked into his office and told him I was leaving IBM to join World Vision and serve the poor.  Ned was gracious and understanding, and he even arranged a modest severance to ease my transition into a nonprofit salary.

Ned has been in the “supporting cast” of my life’s story for over three decades now, though we never spoke again; we moved from Kansas City to Chicago for WV, and he left IBM a few years later. But about 5 years ago, I realized that maybe I could find him through social media. Sure enough, I tracked him down: retired and living on Puget Sound near Seattle.  I was thrilled to connect and thank him via email, but a few months later on a trip to Seattle I rode a ferry out to take Ned to dinner.  I told him what had transpired in the quarter-century since his challenge, and how much meaning I've found in following my passion. We talked about former colleagues, our families, computers... and I made sure to tell him how transformational his honest-but-difficult words had been for me.  I rode the ferry back that evening and stood out on the deck, gazing at the Seattle skyline, feeling unusually full of gratitude and satisfaction.

During that 18 months between Ned's stinging honesty and my resignation, one career coaching book played a major role for me: What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles. The book exudes a gentle spirituality in reminding readers we are designed by a Creator with certain gifts and passions which we need to discover. I credit that (and World Vision magazine—we were already donors) with helping me realize that living for the Designer and embracing my unique design were critical to finding true meaning and satisfaction.  I recall sitting in a church pew one day, asking God once again for direction and guidance, and suddenly being overwhelmed with the possibility that God might actually tell me--what would I do then!  I realized right there that, if I wanted God to guide me, I had to commit to God beforehand to actually obey the guidance. For me, true commitment to God's Kingdom agenda started then and there.

Parachute has a wonderful exercise for readers: Write your life's story, and highlight what you’ve done well or really enjoyed. Then re-read it and look for common threads to discover your gifts, skills and passions based on your actual past choices, not just hopeful thinking. (I can't do the exercise justice here: buy the book or find the exercise online before trying it.)  As I re-read mine, I realized that even before my teen years I consistently chose jobs in business and sales, yet I was often involved in meeting human need, from UNICEF to hunger walks to volunteering with autistic children. Could those two threads have anything in common? I suddenly had an epiphany: Might organizations that do what I care about deeply use someone with my gifts and skills? I started exploring that question with humanitarian organizations and eventually found myself walking into Ned's office to resign.

Fast-forward 33 years: In 2014, I attended a very energetic conference on social innovation, and a friend introduced me to Gary, who turned out to be Parachute author Richard Bolles’ son! I gushed how much the book had meant to me, how I'd wanted to thank his dad for 30-plus years. "My dad's still alive and living here in the Bay Area. He'd love to hear from you!"

I wrote a long email to Dick, thanking him for his book and the impact of my career change.  Would he ever let me take him to lunch? Just a few months ago, I had that distinct pleasure.  Dick is a colorful character and still working actively on new projects into his 80's. He and his wife were delightful, and I was able to expunge the debt of gratitude I've had in my heart for so many years. 

A year after joining World Vision and moving to Chicago, I became lifelong friends with Mark, who died of cancer three years ago. We were both young and intense in our faith, and we fell in love with singer-songwriter Bob Bennett.  Over the decades and miles, Bob's music formed the soundtrack of our affection for one another.  I never met Bob, but I signed up for his email updates at some point, and as I was planning my final Chicago trip to see Mark before his passing, I read that Bob was now offering "house concerts." I found myself phoning Bob: Is there any chance he’d be in Chicago soon? No, but he had an extra day during an East Coast trip that actually overlapped with my trip to see Mark. For no charge but his plane ticket and a hotel room, Bob flew over to Chicago and gave Mark one of the surprises of his life, Bob sitting five feet from Mark and playing for two hours.  Mark alternated freely between shock, tears, worship and singing along with Bob. None of us witnesses will ever forget that evening, nor Bob's kindness.

Some months later, I invited Bob to lunch to tell him what he already knew: he'd given an incredible gift to my dear friend, and to me.  I couldn't possibly repay it, except that I knew how blessed Bob had been to freely exercise his own gifts for two life-long fans he never knew.

Some "debts" are not burdens to us at all. They are causes for great thanksgiving. They mark a life. To have been able to thank, bless, encourage (why would I ever try to repay?) four men who have played—willfully or unwittingly—such important roles in my life… Priceless.

With gratitude for you,

Cory

November 2015

Empathique

"Choose a word, no more than two syllables."

That was our instruction for doing a session of Centering Prayer.

It’s the perfect day for this retreat, in light of last night's horrific attacks in Paris and the beautiful weather.  Plus, it doesn’t seem right to be cheery or chatty or ‘productive’ this morning. I've never visited Paris, but who is not broken-hearted this morning at their tragedy, which in many ways is our shared tragedy.  

At this hosting church, a conglomeration of small buildings is interleaved with humble gardens and walking spaces. I'm writing while sitting around a small prayer garden with a single rose plant, a small statue and a circle of seasonal plants that apparently, given the "past their prime" condition, will never be rescued from the plastic pots in which they were purchased to be properly planted into the ground. But the informality and nearby freeway traffic don't seem to bother the busy bees and flitting butterflies.

Earlier, in our opening session before the silence began, we were instructed to experience Centering Prayer. One word would become your personal touchstone for the next 20 minutes, “a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.”  Whenever the mind wanders, return it gently to the word.  Words were suggested, such as God, Love, Abba, Peace. All seemed useful, but I wasn't happy with all of them. What's stirring in my heart? Empathy. Empathie. With a word that cuts so close to the nerve of my feelings, my wandering mind was easily returned to its reflection.

Empathy... envisioning the Bataclan concert hall and the other sites in Paris, where so many innocents were mowed down. Young people, couples, lovers, families out for a final balmy autumn evening.  It's hard to imagine a more idyllic setting, akin to Mozart saying that ‘it is in the evening after a good dinner, riding home in a lovely carriage that I am at my most creative’... when all seems well with the world and our guard is most down. A hospital leader was interviewed...'We tried to save as many of the injured as possible.' Meaning, more deaths in the hours that followed. And some survivors will no doubt offer lifelong disability. Les misérables.

Empathy... for parents, spouses, children, friends mourning such tragic losses.  Today, the day after, trying impossibly to make sense of all of it.  Politician and pundits having the unenviable task of both comforting and assuring the world's citizenry; pretending to have answers, fighting against rash decisions, the beginning of sleepless nights of worry to come, pushing to clarify their thoughts and accelerate their actions and reactions. US presidential candidates hoping for advantage by how they position themselves between toughness and wisdom, balancing between playing to the public mood and saying something meaningful.

Like the proverbial pebble cast into a pond, the ripples of empathie continue to expand as I “consent to God’s presence and action within.”

Empathy... for the Syrian refugees, already caught in such an intractable military and political crossfire, who will undoubtedly now have fewer options, be more distrusted for events not of their making, and who are surely destined to now become bit background characters in this drama.

Empathy... for the huge majority of Muslims worldwide who find the attacks abhorrent, personally and religiously. The West largely bifurcates Islam into two monolithic but equally incomprehensible camps: Sunni and Shite. It's much like thinking all of Christianity can be understood by focusing on the Catholics and Protestant factions of Northern Ireland. Muslims, including those who are our neighbors in the West, will not find life easy in the coming days, because of these actions of a radical fringe. I fear that many of the post-9/11 animosities will return.

Empathy??... for eight young men with automatic rifles and explosive belts who sprayed death, judgement and hateful destruction down on the City of Love last evening? God, does empathy extend that far? Isn't my 20 minutes up yet? What did they hate so much? Is it hate? One of the hostage takers at the Bataclan "explained" to a hostage that the attack was happening because of French involvement in Syria.  Why bother explaining anything? Was he suddenly struggling with the deaths he had caused, trying desperately to justify his actions now?

I don't know how far my empathy can extend. I do know that God's extends further. And I'm compelled to be like Jesus, who was trying to reflect who God is. 

The world could quickly return to its footing in the aftermath of 9/11, and whatever else is true or false, I know that things didn't turn out all that well after 9/11. The world doesn't seem a lot safer, because the underlying animosities and inability to truly understand are not resolved. Any peace we currently have seems simply the momentary absence of war, a near-illusion exploded in spasms such as last night’s.

I do remember back then, in my own rush to "respond decisively," feeling this nagging nudge that perhaps there is another way, a middle way, a via media that we collectively did not find, whether we tried or not. I for one, do not want to repeat those days and those decisions reflexively.

The prayer session ended, and we each wandered the campus silently. I went into the sanctuary at one point, sat and contemplated. Then I saw the stand of candles near the front and went up to light one for Paris.  Words flooded in: “A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Amen.

Whether we’ve been there or not, we all need Paris, the City of Light. Oh, that we might have light. And oh that we might seek ‘God’s presence and action within’ to truly know how to properly be empathique.

Vive la France.

Cory

November 2015

Getting MADD

"It's great that you are helping children recover after they have been trafficked. But what will you do to keep it from happening in the first place?"  

I was having lunch this week with a supporter who is very passionate to address the huge issue of child trafficking in India, and we had just started discussing World Vision's strategy for a project to address this issue.

I'm actually thrilled when someone asks this question, moving the focus "upstream" from the high-profile programs that provide recovery, healing and restoration for girls sold into sex slavery and children forced into bonded servitude. Those are great efforts, but tremendous damage has already been done, and the per-person cost is very high, as well; truly a penny toward prevention is worth a dollar of cure.

Yet it's easy for most people to envision and be touched by the stories and hidden-face photos of children in these recovery programs. Donors can give toward a halfway home, they can visit the facility, maybe even have it named for them with some organizations. This is vital work, and it is part of any holistic solution, but it's the part you want to drive out of existence by shutting off the valve that produces such damage to children in the first place.

But the stuff of prevention, of community empowerment, of “systems strengthening”; ahh, that’s the critical piece, yet it sounds so theoretical and process-oriented. So it can be very hard to raise the funds to do the very things that need most to be done. 

So instead, I answered his good question by showing him some photos from my recent trip to Uganda, where we visited a child protection project to fight "child sacrifice", that hideous witch-doctor practice of using the blood and vital organs of young children for good luck, incantations and healings. [See my earlier meditation for more on this.]

Because of our prevention project there, the number of children killed has dropped by an astounding 84% in less than two years.  What catalyzed this change? An intolerant and empowered populace!

Almost everyone believed that child sacrifice was a terrible tragedy, and they had prayed fervently that their own children would never be snatched.  But they also felt there was nothing they could really do about it—the problem was embedded in their society, it was bigger than them.

How this changed is a story that has direct parallels to our own communities, in our own lifetimes.  Remember when there was no such thing as a “Designated Driver?” When you first heard the term and thought, "Oh, how nice... and completely unrealistic!" Yet today, having a Designated Driver is almost a given with many young people, and the idea of taking your turn by not drinking for an evening for the safety of your friends is something not only accepted, but expected.  It’s an amazing social change in one generation!

What changed? A group of mothers got mad at the wasted deaths of young people from drunk driving and formed MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers). Over time, their tireless efforts completely changed the landscape. Prior to MADD, we all shook our heads and shrugged our shoulders at the tragedy of drunk driving deaths... and assumed there was almost nothing we could personally do about it.  MADD gave us the will, and the tools.

My first day home from Uganda, my phone vibrated with an AMBER Alert text message.  A child had been abducted within 100 miles, and I now was being made personally responsible to be on the watch for a black sedan with a specific license number. What?! How did that happen? I didn't ask for these texts (or did I?). Either way, as of 2013, every U.S. warning-enabled phone is automatically enrolled!

Twenty years ago this was impossible, not only technologically, but societally. We would all read about abductions in the newspaper the next day or even later; we'd frown, maybe pray for the child and her parents; and we would hope the authorities (those people we pay to do all the good things we wish we could do ourselves) could find the child before it was too late. 

Once again, tragedy was the mother of invention and intolerance. The family and community of Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996, decided that more could be done if everyone, not just the authorities, were quickly informed and deputized in the search for a missing child in the critical first hours, which could be the difference between life and death.

World Vision has implemented an urban AMBER Alert program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and in Uganda we now have this successful rural version, complete with drums, cellphones, megaphones, and motorcycle taxi drivers who block the roads.  As a result of quick action by everyone in those first few hours, abductors get scared and often run away before the child is harmed.  

I'm preparing to lead a panel discussion on scalable innovation within large humanitarian organizations next month in San Francisco, and a colleague created a flier.  On the front, she included a photo of a loving mother and son. But they were dressed nicely, smiling, with him sitting peacefully on his mother's lap, and the photo didn't "speak" to me.  I asked Perri why she used it. 

"That little boy was saved from child sacrifice as part of the Innovation Fund project in Uganda," she emailed back. "His name is Junior. They were able to use drums and megaphones to sound the alarm after Junior was taken to be sacrificed." Perri sent me the story, which explained the photo completely: "Junior’s mother was ecstatic when she was reunited with her son.  'It was the happiest moment of my life,' she says."

There is a value in getting mad, and there’s a type of intolerance that can lead to great good. In every society, there are issues which we too once felt were completely beyond our control.  It turns out, we often simply need the right tools. And equipped with those tools, we find the courage to get MADD.

Or, as in the case of my lunch companion: After he reviewed the India child protection project plan, he looked up and said with quiet determination, "Let's get this done."

Cory

September 2015

Zumba!

It was the ragtag collection of broken and discarded mirrors leaning on the walls surrounding us that first captured my heart and imagination. 

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of spending a half-day visit to World Vision's program in Tijuana. It's been a few years since my last visit, so I was very glad to be back.  

The program has grown in numerous ways: It has continued to expand, from the original 2 communities to 18 today! Some 7-8 years ago, a total of $300,000 had been donated into the microcredit program there. Today that portfolio is more than $1.2 million. And 3185 active borrowers are actively involved, more than double the micro-entrepreneurs they served on my last visit.

Numbers like this are nice, because they represent the people served; numbers provide a way to empirically measure progress. But the fun is in meeting the actual people who are involved and benefiting from the program. And Thursday was no exception.

We met a group of women running their own businesses who were attending their weekly loan repayment meeting. These meetings also provide their opportunity to learn from each other, wrestle through business challenges, and be inspired by their fellow members.  

Marisol is the president of this “Community Bank" group.  She explained that she personally now owns and operates three separate businesses. We were impressed; but she shrugged it off. "All Mexicans work hard," she volleyed back with a wry smile. "That's why you hire us up North." 

These women joked and parried with us toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye. We didn't need to see any other proof of the loan program's impact. This in itself was major progress. These were not women who averted their faces, who were afraid that they'd be deemed uneducated. They were business owners. And they were empowered.

We asked if we could visit one of their businesses, and Tere raised her hand.

The first thing that surprised me about Tere is that she jumped into her car. Her car? This was the first time in all my trips I'd seen a borrower in a car.  We followed her and parked on the precarious hillside by her home. Across the ravine was a wooden home made from plywood and old American garage doors. But neighboring homes had cinder-block sides or bricks stacked next to them--signs of major progress and commitment.

During the short drive, we'd noticed a cardboard sign nailed to a pole: " Zumba con Tere." Yup, Tere had used her loan to open a ZUMBA! studio. The front door opened onto a smooth concrete floor surrounded by a potpourri of has-been mirrors: detached dresser mirrors, broken wall mirrors, used closet-door mirrors... all of them leaning tightly against three of the walls: voila!, instant dance studio.  It was entrepreneurial and scrappy, and I loved it. 

A few second-hand workout clothes hung on display for sale in one corner, each neatly on its own hanger. On the other side, a couple of steps led down to a counter with a few refreshments and nutritional supplements for sale. Beyond that was tucked a cozy nursery and children’s play area.

All the "elements" were there, and her entrepreneurial spirit brought it together with flair, on a shoestring. And Tere told us that, while her husband’s income helps, her business provides for most of their family’s needs.

It was also quite encouraging to realize that there were some people in this community who could spare the disposable income for Zumba classes!  

On our way back to the border, we made a surprise visit to Marta, a single mom who operates a tiny beauty salon. But we squeezed in, and she made a quick apology to her customer (whose hair was right then chock full of something sudsy and gooey) to talk briefly with us. 

“I live for hair!” she announced. “Today, I own this whole shop. I had three small daughters when I divorced my husband 10 years ago because he was a drug addict. Then I had to support my kids with only my income.  I was asking God to help me get a place like this. For 15 years I’ve wanted a shop like this. Now that I have this shop, I don't need any more.  I’m content.”  

I commented that we might call that a “dream come true,” but that for her it was more “a prayer come true.” She replied, “Yes, that’s true. I started believing in Christ 25 years ago. I'm very happy. I love life!”  And she proudly introduced her youngest daughter, who now plans to attend college and study Criminal Justice… surely the first ever in their family.

If I hadn't had a walking cast on my leg last Thursday, and using my elders' cane from Kenya for balance, I would have begged Tere to give us all a 5-minute Zumba! lesson. Then again, maybe I should have simply thrown off the cane the way these women are throwing off their shackles.

They are learning to dance; making progress far beyond what numbers could measure.

Cory

August 2015