Through Orange Colored Glasses

It’s been hard to get malaria off my mind this week. Since World Malaria Day was this week, it has been one of those messages that I have heard over and over again. Malaria bothers me. I’m told nearly 3000 a day die of it. But it is not like AIDS where there is no cure. There was a cure over 100 years ago.

But it got personal with me a few weeks ago. A young girl in Kisumu that I know died of malaria. Her name was Vera . She was nine years old. She lived right in the area of the slum where we started a clinic to help with all kinds of diseases including malaria. But we ran out of medicine. She is one who went without. And she didn’t make it. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.

But this story isn’t uncommon. Nearly one million children every year do not make it to their 5^th birthday because they die of this disease. Over 90% of these deaths will happen in Africa. Malaria is the biggest killer of young children there. Another 30 million women who are pregnant and their unborn children are also at high risk. The infection may cause death, stillbirth or spontaneous abortion. Most of these mothers simply can’t afford the medication needed to help with their malaria.

The best way to control malaria is with mosquito nets. People get malaria because they are bitten by a mosquito usually at night while they are sleeping. Most would not get bitten if they only had a mosquito net treated with insecticide. It is a pretty simple solution. And most mosquito nets are only $10. In fact, mosquito nets will reduce by 90% the transmission of this deadly disease.

Nets, medicine, and more facilities where nets and medicine are available are the answer. Nearly anyone could do something. And together we could save millions of lives.

If you want to buy a net, go to mosquito net

The last seven months have totally changed my view of churches. I no longer go to the same church every week. And I don’t preach weekly to the same people in a congregation. No, I have been on the road. I now travel for Christian Relief Fund bringing a message from God’s Word focusing on compassion and justice especially where it relates to children. So I no longer evaluate or judge churches as I have most of my life.

In his insightful and convicting book, Radical, David Platt gives a history of how churches in America have tended to follow the pathway of the American success story rather than the example of Jesus. He exposes how the goals of most churches today tend to be the marks of an American success story much more than the pattern of Jesus who was walking around with twelve guys telling stories about the kingdom and helping the weak.

Platt gives the ingredients needed for church success. There are usually four of them. First of all, you need the dynamic deliverer of the message who attracts people to him. Secondly, you need someone who can really provide contemporary and experiential music. Then, you need a great facility where people want to come. And lastly, you have to have a bunch of innovative programs to engage everyone’s interests. I’m not saying this is always the case, but it has been a pretty consistent formula. Platt proposes that these criteria may have more to do with the American success model than that of Jesus and discipleship.

I have to admit that I have evaluated churches in this way. I can’t tell you how many times that I have left a church and my likes or dislikes of the congregation had to do with how good the preacher was or how perfect the music was. In fact, I have to admit that certain congregations were immediately judged by the coolness of their building. And if they didn’t have the cutting edge programs, they just seemed out of date or irrelevant. That’s not how I see things now. It’s not that those things are right or wrong. It’s just that I’m noticing something else. And those that have all the criteria that I used to look for are sometimes very good at this other deal. And sometimes they are not. And those that seem to miss all these criteria that seem to make churches grow are often very good at this other deal, and other times they are not. Continue reading →

I just received another update from Marlin Ray who is partnering with CRF to help in the Japanese disaster.  -Milt

Hi,
We just came back from another trip to the Fukushima area.  Some of the roads that were lined with rubble have been cleared, mostly in the lightly damaged areas.  The areas hardest hit are still like piles of junk.  Most of the hardest-hit houses near the beach were not second homes or beach houses, but where the workers lived with their families.  The count of the dead keeps climbing and the missing list still doesn’t go down.
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I thought I would have Marlin Ray share his experiences in Japan this week as a guest blogger. Marlin is partnering with CRF to help in the Japanese disaster. He and his wife, Jean, have served there as a missionaries for decades and are long term friends of Barbie. -Milt

Hi,
We are back in Tomobe!  We had a “good” trip to the earthquake and tsunami area.  I had my van loaded with food, water and clothes.  It was slow going at first as many people had been helped and electricity and water had been turned on in many areas.  As we reached Onahama area, we could see more damage.  The rivers were covered with wood, plastic boxes, and all kinds of debris, all along the banks.  We then went to the ocean front and it was terrible. Trucks were lifted up onto walls, cars inside of houses that were precariously standing, houses were pushed off their foundations and onto roads or into other houses.  Most of the ones that took the force of the tsunami were splinters, literally.  Sometimes the roofs were sitting on the ground with splinters here and there of the house.  Huge gas and oil tanks were smashed and oil smell was strong.
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The other day someone called me because they wanted to donate some goods to help a really needy person in a developing country. I told them not to do it. At first, they thought I was heartless, but they didn’t understand what would happen to the contribution if it were sent.

First of all, it might never arrive. Oh, it would arrive but when it got there, someone could take it for himself if they wanted to do so. An abundance of well-intentioned gifts are simply stolen. Secondly, to get the package through, bribes have to be paid. And the bribes are very discretionary. Also if the package came from the United States, the needed bribe to move the gift along might be substantial. And how can a poor, destitute person who needed immense relief in the first place come up with a bribe? And if this isn’t enough, there are the postal workers there. They open the package and determine what it is worth (in a totally subjective way). Then they tax the recipient based completely on their appraisal. As you can guess, it is always higher than it is worth. As a result, the poor person cannot pay and the gift is left for someone to take it.

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Melanie Fullerton, an American teaching at the Meyson Academy which teaches Christian values in Sendai, personally went through the recent tsunami in Japan. She wanted to share with me her experience and how you can help. If you would like to help her school, follow her link or send money to Christian Relief Fund and we will help them. We are so thankful for Melanie’s faith, bravery, and safety. Keep praying for all the victims of Japan’s enormous disaster.

Milton,

I really don’t know what to tell you about everything. It was definitely the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had just being in the earthquake. I feel extremely blessed and lucky that all my friends and I are alive and safe. Our school was built with great structure and so no buildings fell. We suffered some structural damage that will take time and money to fix but everyone was okay. I can’t say the same for others though. We have more than 2300 students at our school. We have been able to contact most and those we have contacted are alive. The same can’t be said for all their families. Some father’s died in the tsunami and many members of extended family are gone as well. I can’t imagine what they must be going through. It’s so hard not to be there with them and not to have gotten to say goodbye.

Here is my story from what happened:

When the earthquake hit it was 30 minutes after school had ended. I had sent my kids home or to daycare and then cleaned my classroom. At 2:40 I went upstairs to the office that all the teachers share. I was standing by my Japanese friend, Anna’s, desk. She is very scared of earthquakes and always feels the slightest earthquake. I’ve never been scared and always found them somewhat exciting. At 2:45 she stood up and grabbed me and said, “Is this an earthquake?” Before I could even say “I don’t feel anything” we both looked at each other and screamed “RUN!” I really don’t know what it was that made us immediately run from the office… we had never done this before. We started sprinting down the stairs with the other teachers. By the time we reached the stairs we could barely stand because the shaking was so violent. We have a fish tank in the hallway right at the bottom of the stairs. It exploded and water was going everywhere. At that point I really wasn’t sure if we would even make it out of the building before it fell down (I had no idea how strong these buildings were!) Right outside our building is a large soccer field. All of us teachers (About 10 in our building) ran to the middle and squatted down. We were all hugging and squeezing so tight. Many of us were screaming and crying. It seemed to last for hours even though it was only 5 minutes. Most earthquakes last about 10 seconds so this was extremely long. I remember praying “please God please!! Make it stop!! I don’t want to die in Japan!” I don’t know how to explain what it was like. The sound alone I will never forget. Usually shaking is just slightly back and forth but this was also rolling and up and down. The building I was in sank a foot into the ground. The field is next to two buildings. Our building (the Immersion building) was shaking and waving in and out. The other building is almost all glass doors surrounding it with some small tiles at the bottom. The windows looked like water going in and out. Luckily non of them shattered but some fell off and onto the ground. We also have two huge poles (about 3 stories high) in the field. They were swaying so bad I thought for sure they would fall and crush us. I finally had to stop looking at everything and just close my eyes. About half way through the earthquake got even stronger and by that point we were falling all over each other because we couldn’t even squat. When the earthquake finally ended it took us a few minutes to be able to stand up. I looked at Anna and we just hugged for a long time. She then looked at me and said “Daycare”. She has 2 of her own children that are in daycare and I had 4 of my students in daycare that day. 7 of us started sprinting to the daycare building at the other end of the campus. When we got there they had about 100 kids and 6 teachers. Many of the kids were crying. I grabbed my students and we all huddled together. By then many big aftershocks were hitting and they were so scared. One of my students just kept crying and saying, “Is my mother okay?” It was so heartbreaking! None of the kids had coats or shoes on because they were all napping when it started. Some of the teachers ran in the building to grab coats and shoes. One of my students was so cute… she was trying to stop crying and so she started making little jokes. Her coat was the last one to come out so she said, “where’s my coat? Is it scared? Maybe it is hiding under the table!” She got all the kids laughing which was so good since they were so scared too. After a few hours we went back to the school to see the damage. The office was chaos. Furniture had fallen on it’s side, computers were thrown about, everything from our storage area was on the ground and all the shelves were bent up, everything from the cabinets was just all over the place. Then we ran to our apartments to see the damage. I was truly one of the few lucky ones in that area. My contract was ending in 2 weeks and so I had already packed most of my belongings. That meant there was nothing really left to fall over. My friends apartments were total chaos though. We were too scared to stay in our apartments for long so we grabbed extra clothes to put on, our blankets, food from our fridge (power was out), and ran back to the school to spend the night. That night many of us slept fully dressed. I slept in my coat, boots, gloves, and I had my cellphone and passport in my pocket in case another one hit and we had to run. At this point we had heard something about a tsunami but since all communication lines were down we had no way to know the devastation others were going through.

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The following is a guest blog from my wife, Barbie, as she travels through Kenya helping children.

Hello, Gang!

Amy, Elaine and I took the shuttle from Nairobi to Kitale today.  That was definitely an African experience.

We had great visits in Mombasa and Malindi.  We have been SO busy.  We flew in from Nairobi to Mombasa, went to the school, and saw most of the children, all in one day.  We did some home visits too.  On our way to the home visits we took two siblings with us to drop them off at their home.  We arrived to find that the landlord had decided to evict them, so all their meager belongings were out in the dirt… all the neighbors were there for the excitement.    Their mother is very thin and sick, and can hardly walk. Mike Mutai convinced the landlord to let them stay a few days longer.   I talked with Mike about the church helping them find a better place to live and helping them pay their rent (he was already planning it, I learned), and gave him some back rent money to make sure they could stay in this house until then.

The two homes we visited were one room “apartments” – dark, miserable concrete rooms about 10×10, with no kitchen or bathroom, behind a butchery. There was a small common area about 12×20 for several of these rooms, where the residents cooke their meals on what is more or less like little habachi. The bed that one of the families slept on( three people on one bed) was dilapidated, and the foam mattress was rotten.  It pretty much filled the room except for one bureau and two side chairs.  The chairs were rotten, so they stored stuff under the seats so that you could sit on them.  On the wall was a sign that said “With God, all things are possible.”

The next day Tim & Rebecca Talley drove us to our hotel in Malindi and we were off to a running start.  We visited 5 – 6 schools a day, for 5 days.  The schools were out in the country, and each required a long, bumpy, dusty, very hot and humid drive. The children are healthy and happy.  We talked to them about the importance of writing letters to their sponsors, and about how special each child is to God.  Amy Beagle gave a tremendous talk at every location about how they need to be working hard in school now to become what God wants them to be.  Dama Gona, the HIV positive girl, looks wonderful and was very happy to see us.  We also got to visit her house.  Nyale Charo, the boy with the cancer on his neck, is healthy also.  And Priscilla Kalua, the girl who swallowed the caustic soda and had a stomach tube for over a year, is very healthy now too.  Amy took child photos at every site and they are BEAUTIFUL.  We saw about 3/4ths of the Malindi children.  The drought here is really bad.  We passed one lake that is totally dry.  I looked like a sunken dirt baseball field.

This program is being run beautifully. Mike is a wise steward of the money and cares deeply for the children.

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Popular blogger Saundra Schimmelpfennig of “Good Intentions are Not Enough” has blogged some things to consider before giving money to help in Japan. With the desire of people to help after the devastation of the Japan earthquake, good hearted people are going to be making a lot of choices on how to help. Saundra has some do’s and don’ts of helping in a disaster. They were good for me to consider. I will share the points with you and make a few comments on them.

1. Do determine if the country is accepting international assistance.

With all the horrible pictures that you see in the media of the devastation of the disaster, you would think that a government would want help and aid in any and every way possible. That is not always true. Most governments want to personally direct the relief efforts. As a result, before sending donations, you should make sure that the government is actually allowing the kind of assistance you are proposing. If you are giving to a relief organization, make sure that what they are doing is what the government is allowing.

2.  Do look at a variety of nonprofits before giving.

Thousands of organizations will be responding to this disaster. It shows the great hearts of so many people. But wouldn’t it be wise to take a little time to evaluate some of them before you give? Is this nonprofit one you know and have trusted in the past? Or is it possibly someone who has just jumped in there and may not distribute a great percentage of the money given? On the other hand, just because you know an organization doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be good helping everywhere. Have they ever worked in this country before? Have they ever helped in this kind of relief before? Are they willing to partner with strategic workers that have expertise that they don’t have?

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The question asked was this, “Who is rich?” I quickly thought of Bill Gates since I lived in his community for so many years. But then I knew that anyone who lives in the United States is incredibly wealthy in comparison to the rest of the world. If you live on welfare in our country, you have more than most people in developing countries.

But the answer to the question, “Who is rich?” was far simpler and so much more indicting than I thought it would be. “Anyone who has water.” In other words, if I have water that is clean enough and healthy enough to drink, I can count myself among the rich in this world.

Of all the water on the earth, 97.5% of it is salt water. Of the remaining 2.5% fresh water, 70% is frozen in the polar ice caps. The other 30% is mostly soil moisture or lies in aquifers underground. All in all, less than 1% of the world’s water is now accessible for direct use.  If you put all the water in the world in a gallon jug, clean drinking water would equal a tablespoon. Perhaps this will be the source of future wars not oil.

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Food prices have never been higher. Why? The World Bank tells us that these record high food prices have brought even more people into poverty. Wheat has been leading the way with the price of this commodity doubling in the last year. During the last eight months, 44 million people have dropped below the poverty line. Their study shows a 15% increase in food staples during this time frame. So what is causing this?

In a developed country, this increase may seem insignificant. But for those who live on around a dollar a day this is extremely difficult. This price increase for food has meant that people in developing countries are skipping meals or having no food at all. The reasons for all of these shifts in prices have been difficult for me to understand. Let me share with you some reasons that perhaps you haven’t considered.

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