Friday, March 23, 2012
To God be the Glory
Thank You Andrea Couch for your great testimony and worship of our Great God and Creator! I love this song!
How can I say thanks for the things
You have done for me?
Things so undeserved yet You gave
To prove Your love for me
The voices of a million angels
Could not express my gratitude
All that I am, and ever hope to be
I owe it all to Thee
To God be the glory, to God be the glory
To God be the glory for the things He has done
With His blood He has saved me
With His power He has raised me
To God be the glory for the things He has done
Just let me live my life and
Let it be pleasing Lord to Thee
And if I gain any praise, let it go to Calvary
With His blood He has saved me
With His power He has rasied me
To God be the glory for the things He has done
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Fixing it American style!
Posted on March 4, 2012 by Tom Walsh writing for Six Seeds
I recently returned from a work trip to Africa. It was an excellent trip and one that provided me a great
deal of food for thought. I’ve also been in discussions with friends about projects they are undertaking
in developing countries in Latin America. I’m using the trip and conversations as a launching pad for a
series of posts here, on topics both heavy and light.
To start: I’ve been confronted quite a bit lately by the challenges faced by people in developing countries,
and the role we as outsiders – and Americans in particular — have in supporting them.
Part of our American birthright is a baseline expectation of things working, people trying hard,
corruption being a rarity. Certainly, things fail, but we see those cases as exceptions, and expect them
to be fixed – in fact, we often take it on ourselves (as individuals or communities) to rectify perceived failures.
If you spend your whole life learning the opposite lessons, you see the world in a very different way. In many countries, even if they know competence/honesty exists, people have also internalized that ‘these are qualities
we don’t have.’ It is, tragically, part of their birthright. It’s easy to underestimate the gulf between these
two perspectives, and thus to be surprised when they come into conflict.
So when we go in and ‘fix things,’ the good news is that people are benefiting – which in the case of HIV/AIDS,
for example, means they are staying alive rather than dying. Staying alive is rather fundamental for any
success in development! Yet our efforts can reinforce the deeply-held understanding in the recipient population
that outsiders are capable, while they themselves are helpless.
One expression of the difference between the outsider perspective and that of people inside a community is
the following: as outsiders, we have the ability to define the scope of our engagement. We can choose to
focus in our ‘can do’ way on this development issue or disease, and define metrics of success in terms of
that alone, and describe other concerns as ‘not our issue.’ And finally, we outsiders always have the ability
to leave, perhaps when we feel we’ve met our goals, or have despaired of meeting them, or simply because
things changed at home and we lost our funding.
Defining the scope of engagement is a luxury that a recipient community (or country, or person) doesn’t have.
They have to deal with the entire range of issues at play in the place – they don’t have a choice. It’s
their world.
Every society has its dysfunctions. But when the context is a place where most people are living in poverty,
disease, and despair, we can’t simply shrug off incompetence and corruption that preserve the status quo.
But going in and ‘fixing it’ American-style can do little to change the unhappy dynamics in a lasting way.
Friends from one of these countries described the pervasive corruption of public life there, the expectation
that anyone who obtains a government job will steal for the benefit of their family, home village, tribe, etc.
This theft from public health programs literally costs lives. Yet the norm of corruption is so widely accepted
that my friends said that for the foreseeable future, they believe that only programs run by outsiders should be funded. What a tragic commentary.
In our engagement with such situations – as individuals or communities who want to help, or even as a nation –
it is so difficult to truly understand the dynamics at play. Deep relationships are part of the solution,
as is a commitment to build capacity and an understanding that it will take a lot longer than we think it
should. But even with a lot of experience, strong relationships, and every other advantage, it will never
be easy to overcome norms and perceptions that are often held at a subconscious level. It took a long time
for things to get this way, and it will take a long time to reverse the situation.
A good starting point for engagement is a spirit of humility. That starts with admitting that we don’t
even know how much we don’t know.
I recently returned from a work trip to Africa. It was an excellent trip and one that provided me a great
deal of food for thought. I’ve also been in discussions with friends about projects they are undertaking
in developing countries in Latin America. I’m using the trip and conversations as a launching pad for a
series of posts here, on topics both heavy and light.
To start: I’ve been confronted quite a bit lately by the challenges faced by people in developing countries,
and the role we as outsiders – and Americans in particular — have in supporting them.
Part of our American birthright is a baseline expectation of things working, people trying hard,
corruption being a rarity. Certainly, things fail, but we see those cases as exceptions, and expect them
to be fixed – in fact, we often take it on ourselves (as individuals or communities) to rectify perceived failures.
If you spend your whole life learning the opposite lessons, you see the world in a very different way. In many countries, even if they know competence/honesty exists, people have also internalized that ‘these are qualities
we don’t have.’ It is, tragically, part of their birthright. It’s easy to underestimate the gulf between these
two perspectives, and thus to be surprised when they come into conflict.
So when we go in and ‘fix things,’ the good news is that people are benefiting – which in the case of HIV/AIDS,
for example, means they are staying alive rather than dying. Staying alive is rather fundamental for any
success in development! Yet our efforts can reinforce the deeply-held understanding in the recipient population
that outsiders are capable, while they themselves are helpless.
One expression of the difference between the outsider perspective and that of people inside a community is
the following: as outsiders, we have the ability to define the scope of our engagement. We can choose to
focus in our ‘can do’ way on this development issue or disease, and define metrics of success in terms of
that alone, and describe other concerns as ‘not our issue.’ And finally, we outsiders always have the ability
to leave, perhaps when we feel we’ve met our goals, or have despaired of meeting them, or simply because
things changed at home and we lost our funding.
Defining the scope of engagement is a luxury that a recipient community (or country, or person) doesn’t have.
They have to deal with the entire range of issues at play in the place – they don’t have a choice. It’s
their world.
Every society has its dysfunctions. But when the context is a place where most people are living in poverty,
disease, and despair, we can’t simply shrug off incompetence and corruption that preserve the status quo.
But going in and ‘fixing it’ American-style can do little to change the unhappy dynamics in a lasting way.
Friends from one of these countries described the pervasive corruption of public life there, the expectation
that anyone who obtains a government job will steal for the benefit of their family, home village, tribe, etc.
This theft from public health programs literally costs lives. Yet the norm of corruption is so widely accepted
that my friends said that for the foreseeable future, they believe that only programs run by outsiders should be funded. What a tragic commentary.
In our engagement with such situations – as individuals or communities who want to help, or even as a nation –
it is so difficult to truly understand the dynamics at play. Deep relationships are part of the solution,
as is a commitment to build capacity and an understanding that it will take a lot longer than we think it
should. But even with a lot of experience, strong relationships, and every other advantage, it will never
be easy to overcome norms and perceptions that are often held at a subconscious level. It took a long time
for things to get this way, and it will take a long time to reverse the situation.
A good starting point for engagement is a spirit of humility. That starts with admitting that we don’t
even know how much we don’t know.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Messy is a Good Word
A man recently mentioned that ministry is most difficult when it is up close and personal. It is messy. It is diffucult. But ultimately, we must be thankful that Jesus Himself did ministry up close. He did messy ministry. As His followers, we are called to do the same. Thank you for partnering with us to minister the the "least of these"!
Scattering Christ together!
Scattering Christ together!
Monday, February 6, 2012
Tebow
A Maze of Grace by Trish Ryan
Before last week, all I knew was that Tebow is a Christian who’s exceptionally open about sharing his faith. I was surprised by how much attention this received here in Boston because in this town, it takes a move of God to divert the sports media’s attention away from Tom Brady. So if Tebow was getting all the press it was clear something BIG was happening. As I witnessed the hoopla, it opened my eyes to some cool aspects of how Tebow lives, and how he illustrates what is possible with God. Not just in football, but in any life of faith.
Three things in particular stood out:
1. Tebow works really hard to make the most of his talents. He is diligent.
2. He responds to the unique opportunities God makes possible via his talents to love people, share what he knows about God, and bring encouragement and inspiration to those around him. He’s alert and resourceful. (Not to mention bold!)
3. He stays in his lane. He doesn’t seem to talk much about other peoples’ choices, or whether he agrees with them. He’s busy doing his own thing. Which appears to give him a rather happy experience of life, whether his team wins or loses. He’s reverent.
In this, I saw things could be possible in my life: not pro-football, obviously, but a way of living where I’m working at full capacity to make the most of the talents and abilities God has given me, sensitive to the unique opportunities He provides to use those gifts to love people, happily staying in my lane rather than swerving in reaction to the cars around me. That sounds like a fun way to live. - Trish
What if we were all as bold as Tim about our faith? -- How many people would turn their heads or at least contemplate the possibility of a relationship with our Creator? Think about it!
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
PeasGreensCornbread
If you are planning to celebrate the New Year in the Southeast USA, it is most likely that you will be offered black-eyed peas in some form, on New Year's Day. According to Southern folklore, these beans are to be eaten on New Year's Day for luck and prosperity throughout the year ahead.
The practice of eating black-eyed peas for luck is generally believed to date back to the Civil War. At first planted as food for livestock, and later a food staple for slaves in the South, the fields of black-eyed peas were ignored as Sherman's troops destroyed or stole other crops, thereby giving the humble, but nourishing, black-eyed pea an important role as a major food source for surviving Confederates.
Today, the tradition of eating black-eyed peas for the New Year has evolved into a number of variations of the luck.
Including:
Served with greens (collards, mustard or turnips) the peas represent coins
and the greens represent paper money.
Cornbread, often served with black-eyed peas and greens, represents gold.
Yep, all three (greens, peas and cornbread) made the menu today at our house, but only because we live in the South. Our daily lives and heartbeats are controlled by our Heavenly Father, our Creator, our King, our Redeemer, our Protector, our Everything!
This Southern Tradition sure was good! Lord, direct our minds, hearts and paths as we begin this New Year following You.!
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