Humanitarian workers among dead in Guatemala crash

from the Tri City Herald

Utah mission workers were among those found dead in this plane crash. - Kale

By PAUL FOY

SALT LAKE CITY A small plane that broke apart in Guatemala as the pilot attempted an emergency landing, killing 11 of the 14 people aboard, was carrying members of a Utah-based humanitarian group who were on their way to help build a school in a remote, impoverished area of the country.

Seven of the dead were Americans, including the wife of Chris Johnson, acting chief executive of CHOICE Humanitarian, a West Jordan, Utah-based group that arranges relief missions around the world, according to Lew Swain, a board member for the group.

The three survivors also are Americans, including a Utah businessman who was pulled from the wreckage by farmers shortly before it exploded Sunday in a field lined with palm trees.

"We only know the engine had problems and they did not make a successful landing," Swain said Monday.

The single-engine Cessna Caravan, also known as a Cargomaster, broke apart and scattered burned wreckage across a barren field where the pilot made an emergency landing about 60 miles east of Guatemala City, Guatemalan civil aviation director Jose Carlos said.

Johnson was prepared to fly to Guatemala when he got a message from the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City that his wife, Liz, a leader on the expedition, had died, Swain said. Liz Johnson died at 3:15 a.m. Monday, said William Diaz, general manager of Hospital El Pilar in Guatemala City.

Johnson decided to stay in Utah, where he remained in mourning Monday.

"There's not a thing he can do at this point. We're working with the U.S. Embassy to have all of the arrangements made for the repatriation of those who are deceased, and medical flights for those living," Swain said.

The embassy did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

CHOICE Humanitarian is aimed at helping people in poverty around the world improve their own lives. CHOICE stands for the Center for Humanitarian Outreach and Inter-Cultural Exchange.

The group relies on help from volunteers who pay their own way on trips to countries including Guatemala, Mexico, Bolivia, Nepal and Kenya. The volunteers on the flight that crashed were on their way to a Guatemalan town called Sepamac.

Among the dead were Roger Jensen and his son, Zachary, of Amery, Wis. A daughter, Sarah Jensen, 19, suffered minor cuts and bruises and survived along with her mother, April, who had burns and contusions, Sarah Jensen told the AP in a brief hospital interview.

April and Sarah Jensen were expected to return Monday to the U.S. by air ambulance, said Diaz, the hospital official.

The Guatemalans who died in crash include pilot Fernando Estrada; co-pilot Monica Bonilla; and two CHOICE Humanitarian representatives in Guatemala, Javier Rabanales and Walfred de Rabanales, according to civil aviation authorities and Swain.

Utah businessman Dan Liljenquist survived the crash with a broken right leg and broken left ankle.

"There were farmers in the field where they crashed. They pulled my husband out of the plane 30 seconds before the plane exploded," Brooke Liljenquist told the AP in a telephone interview from her home in Bountiful, Utah.

"He has constant pain he says he can deal with. He's just grateful to be alive," she said.

Dan Liljenquist is president and chief operating officer of Focus Services of Roy, Utah, which handles customer service calls for other companies. Brooke Liljenquist said the crash killed four employees of his company, two from Utah and two from another call center in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

The other U.S. passengers who died were Cody Odekirk; John Carter; Jeff Reppe and Lydia Silvia, according to Guatemala's civil aviation authority, which didn't list their hometowns. Swain declined to provide that information.

Roger Jensen, 48, was the maintenance manager at Smyth Companies in St. Paul, Minn., for 12 years, Chief Executive Officer John Hickey said Monday.

"He did everything. He was a carpenter. A multipurpose utility player. He was a very popular employee, forever upbeat," Hickey said. "He was very giving. I think he was in Africa last year."

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Teamwork helps Kenyan village to arise from abyss

from the Courier Post

This story profiles a mission called the Rabuor Village Project, that has targeted a specific community in Kenya that has gone without international aid for years. - Kale

By BARBARA BORST

Loyce Mbewa-Ong'udi was late. Family and friends milled around her parents' house in the green hills overlooking Lake Victoria, waiting for the daughter from America to return home.

At last the taxi bounced over the ruts and made a sharp turn into the compound of small brick and stucco houses. Loyce sprang out to a shower of greetings in the Luo language, hugs, helping hands for 12 enormous suitcases crammed with anti-AIDS medicines, asthma inhalers, storybooks, pencils and sharpeners, recycled eyeglasses.

The supplies were for the Rabuor Village Project, which Loyce runs. In the crowd, she sought the woman who started it all: her mother, Rosemell Ong'udi.

This is the story of a village, spurred by two extraordinary women, rising from the depths of the AIDS epidemic to build a future for itself. In 10 years, with hardly any international aid, this poor farming community has founded a nursery school and feeding program, a pharmacy, a youth group and income-generating projects. The work touches more than 10,000 people in 10 villages and keeps growing.

But it's not just a list of projects; it's a change of heart. Rabuor's work embodies what experts consider the most effective approach to development: "community-owned" programs in which residents, not just donors, set the priorities, and change comes from the bottom up.

District Commissioner Godfrey Kigochi, senior Kenya government official for Kisumu West, says he wishes he had a project like this in every village. Organizations that give money or lend expertise to the Rabuor project -- Slum Doctors, Lift Kids, Pangea, Architects Without Borders -- say the group is unique for its pragmatism and deep community roots. The Rev. Charles Ong'injo, who blessed the work from the start, is helping other congregations launch similar projects.

Kenya's AIDS rate has fallen since the 1990s, and far more people today are willing to go for testing and treatment. Still, about 14 percent of the district's 160,000 people are infected, double the national rate.

The Rabuor project is about a lot more than AIDS prevention: It's about people learning that they can better their own lives. Loyce, 52, bounds into a meeting and revs up the team, with the energy of the field hockey and track competitor she used to be.

Rosemell, 69, tall and sturdy, brings a quiet wisdom instead. She speaks in a girlish voice, and her laugh is soft and low.

She began back in the 1990s, when AIDS was ripping the heart out of almost every family here. Yet people barely whispered about it because prostitutes and truckers were the early conduits of the disease.

Rosemell didn't talk about AIDS either, but she talked about the orphans it left behind. She recalls that the children were "very bad in their bodies" because they didn't have enough food.

She grew up without a father, helped raise her siblings, sometimes went without food herself. In 1998 she began giving the kids food from her own home. Then she turned to a women's group she had founded to see "what we can do for these children, now we are their mothers and fathers."

Worried about the orphans, Rosemell cut short a visit in 2001 to Loyce in Seattle. On her return, she asked Ong'injo if the women could use a room at the Rabuor church. She asked her husband, Wesley, a retired school headmaster, for money to hire a teacher. The women launched a nursery school.

When Loyce visited her childhood home months later, she saw how much had changed. "I had a first-class community and village to bring me up. Everything a child could dream of, I had it," she says. "People rarely died. The first one I knew, I was 18."

So many were dying that villagers spent much of their time and resources on funerals. Loyce, who once worked for the World Bank and the Gates Foundation, looked for a way to help.

She sent her salary. She asked people in her Seattle church to contribute. Then she and supporters founded Rabuor Village Project in 2003 as a nonprofit under U.S. law. The money trickling in helped buy land, build classrooms and hire teachers.

AIDS hit the Ong'udi family directly. Rosemell and Wesley -- parents of 10, grandparents of 19 -- buried two of their children, in 2004 and 2007, AIDS victims who each left behind a healthy child. Another of their children is HIV-positive but taking AIDS drugs.

But people were not ready to discuss AIDS; their focus was on feeding their families.

The first step was to increase crops, starting with corn. Next came projects to earn income, keep children in school and train adults in agriculture, nutrition, vocational skills. Conditions still remain basic: no running water, no electrical service, no cars, but a few cell phones.

Loyce, who calls her mother the Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. of Rabuor, credits Rosemell's political savvy for finding patrons. Ong'injo says the church's backing shields the work from corrupt politicians. Rosemell's son Kennedy helps navigate bureaucracy and politics as assistant chief.

Rosemell is stepping back, because she doesn't want the work to be seen just as "Ong'udi's thing." The new "chair lady" of the 100-member Karateng Rabuor Women's Group is Yuanita Ong'udi (not a relative). Projects include sunflowers for cooking oil, goats whose milk feeds the children, a donated truck they rent out and, always, help for the poorest.

The nursery school serves two hot meals and a hearty snack every day to 160 students. The Rabuor project pays 25 salaries, including four teachers, four cooks, a nurse and two pharmacists -- people who volunteered before there was money for salaries. Community health workers survey 10 villages.

The youth group was born out of a meeting between Loyce and 150 angry youths in 2005, who felt the Rabuor project wasn't helping them. The group now runs a beekeeping project, raises chickens and makes bricks. In a cultural breakthrough, young men and women teach school and adult groups about HIV prevention, AIDS testing and treatment, including condom use, abstinence and responsible sexuality.

Dawnson Owuor, project manager, says the projects interconnect. For example, the youths rent land from the women's group for their brickwork; when the women's group builds a classroom, it buys bricks from the youths. The projects also help many of the 60 families who fled here during the violence after Kenya's disputed presidential elections in December.

In Seattle, Loyce is the only person the project pays; the team relies on volunteers, including Carol Kinney, a nutritionist who conducted a feeding survey in Rabuor. Treasurer David Anstine, another volunteer, says money sent to Kenya rose from about $39,000 in 2005 to $165,000 in 2007.

Loyce is driven and admits to driving others. Early on, she chided people for wallowing in misery, as if they were saying, "I love the face of poverty. Darling poverty, live with me forever."

But Loyce doesn't own land or live here, and she recognizes the project can only succeed if villagers are involved. Kigochi, the district commissioner, says too many anti-AIDS groups offer training in hotels, at high cost; the Rabuor group works in the villages and "everyone appreciates it."

In May, Rabuor registered an organization called Village by Village to link existing groups and expand into other communities. In June, Loyce launched a project, with Rotary Clubs, to pump drinking water to the village and for a vocational training center to teach tailoring, metalwork and computer skills.

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Adopted girl helps family in Guatemala

from WTOP

A touching story of Lily Mackley, who helped another little girl in Guatemala.

By TIFFANY ARNOLD

Her name is Veronica Par. She is 10 and has five siblings. The youngest, 1, sleeps in the bed with the parents while the rest of the children sleep on cardboard pallets on the concrete floor. Her father earns $16 a week as a gardener. Her mother earns $2 a week by making beaded jewelry.

"It's easy for (us), but it might not be easy for them to earn up that money," said Mackley, who begins her first year at Smithsburg Middle School this fall.

Thanks to Mackley, who lives in Smithsburg, Veronica's family has one less thing to worry about. In April, Mackley used her birthday money to help offset Veronica's school expenses.

Mackley said she did it because she felt obligated to help her people. She was born in Guatemala but was adopted and has lived in the United States since she was an infant. She lives with her sister, Anna, 8, who was also born in Guatemala, and her sister, Vanessa, 15, who was adopted from Canada.

In Guatemala, school can be an elusive dream for families who can't afford the supplies, said Dwight Poage, director of Mayan Families, a nonprofit charity group that helps raise money for low-income Guatemalans, especially young girls.

"Usually boys are sent to school, girls are sent to work," Poage said in a recent phone interview.

Mackley donated $120 through Mayan Families. The organization has sponsored more than 700 children, Poage said.

More than half of the country's 13.3 million inhabitants are descendants of the Mayans, the native people who flourished in Guatemala long before Spanish colonizers arrived.

Today, Guatemala is characterized by wide income disparities. Violent crime because of widespread poverty remains a serious concern, according to the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, part of the U.S. Department of State.

Mackley's mother, Kathie Mackley, said she looks for opportunities to keep her Guatemalan daughters in touch with their culture. All three girls attend a cultural camp in the summer. They eat Latin cuisine and attend ethnic festivals, though they are usually held in and around Washington, D.C. The girls are also being tutored in Spanish.

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Book Review: a story of inner city work

from the Daily Chronicle

A new book chronicles an inner city mission in Dallas. The author says the time there taught her how wrong judgments or prejudices can be. - Kale

By BENJI FELDHEIM

Dorothy Moore was afraid, but it didn't stop her. The Sycamore native, now 73, has spent the better part of the last 25 years ministering troubled youth and adults in the slums of Dallas. After living affluently for most of her life, Moore set out to intervene in the lives of people plagued by poverty, drug use and violence.

While the tribulations she's faced were difficult at times, Moore said her faith kept her going.

Moore's efforts with the Crusaders and Reconciliation Outreach ministry often found her in danger. She's dodged bullets and fights, and also talked straight to drug dealers in her efforts to bring people religious guidance.

Earlier this year, Moore published the book “Lady in the Hood.” The book is a chronological telling of her experiences in Dallas as she and other determined workers tried to set up outreach programs in the poverty-ridden areas of the city.

The story is a poignant description of Moore's carefree upbringing juxtaposed with a great deal of tragic circumstances she found herself a part of after her religious faith manifested in a desire to help others.

Moore spoke with the Daily Chronicle about what led her to write the book, how she dealt with the dangerous efforts and how she had to be honest about herself.

D.C.: Why did you decide to write the book?

Moore: I have kept a prayer diary for almost the last 40 years and I've entered into it almost daily. When I began to see some of this had long-term value, I started compiling the information - pulling out things that were most significant and putting it in some kind of book form.

The biographical part wasn't difficult. But the rest, I felt there was a lot of need in the church community for people looking at faith to understand what did it cost you, and did what did it bring you to do. That's what I learned working with the poor in the inner city.

People are generally looking for answers and hope.

D.C.: Were you in danger at times during this work?

Moore: I took children home one night and dropped them off in their neighborhood. I realized a gang war was going on. The first thing I thought to do was intervene. I got out in front of the car, yelled at the kids to come with me, and pulled them away because shots were fired and a boy was down. You could hear the sirens.

When I went home that night, I began to realize the relative security of my own life. I do this during the day but they live it all the time. It gave me a boldness to get out there. If they have to live it every day, and they're just kids, why can't I step out there and let the Lord do what I can't fix?

I honestly believe God is in charge of life and we will live and die according to his direction. He's not going to allow me to be taken out if I'm not ready.

I've been afraid not just for myself but for others. There are those risks. But there's the sense of destiny. You're there because you're supposed to be there and when you die it's when you're supposed to.

D.C.: Was it difficult to be honest

about your upbringing and your personality?

Moore: The truth is the truth. When you begin to understand who you are and how you think, it's only fair to be honest about it. I can't help anyone else without being honest about who I am. Then I'm just a do-gooder without any understanding of the real pain and problems. I had to go through a lot of testing to have anything to say to anyone else.

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Giving hope to Haiti's children

from the Curry Pilot

A story of a US family taking in children from Haiti.The McMillan family children look forward to meeting their new brother and sister.

By Marjorie Woodfin

Why would a Brookings couple with four young children of their own, living in modest financial circumstances, travel to Haiti to adopt of two Haitian children?

"It's about Haiti. They need help, the children need help, and there is no hope. The only hope for the children comes from adoption," said Clinton McMillan.

"We have a heart to be a voice for children," added Clinton's wife, Emma.

There are millions of children around the world who are victims of child trafficking and worse, but Emma said she and her husband chose to adopt Haitian children because there are approximately one million orphans in Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western world – and it is only a 90-minute flight from Miami.

The McMillans moved to Brookings from Crete when Clinton was separated from the military in November 2000. He currently works at Pelican Bay Prison. Emma is the director of the Haven of Hope women's shelter on Chetco Avenue.

"Children in Haiti are treated worse than animals," Emma said. She said Haiti doesn't have a nurturing society and children are considered an undervalued commodity, to buy and to sell. She said, "African babies are swaddled by mothers, but you don't see mothers carrying infants in Haiti."

The adoption process has been frustrating and sometimes frightening, but also rewarding. Emma said the unstable administrative process in Haiti means it will take 12 months or more before they can adopt two children and bring them to America.

The couple have seen evidence of children procured illegally for $300 within 10 hours, but she said it will cost them at least $25,000 to legally adopt the two children they now consider part of their family and call their own: 5-year-old daughter Lovley Destiny McMillan, and 3-year-old son Maicourely Justice McMillan. The middle and last names will be added at the time of the adoption.

This spring the McMillans traveled to Haiti to meet their new children. E

Emma said, "On May 14 we drove away from home down our country road. I remember telling Clinton, ‘The next time we drive down this road we will be changed people.' He nodded in agreement, with a contemplative look on his face."

Their first impression of Haiti? Incredible poverty.

"When we got off the plane we saw poverty," Emma said. "I have seen a lot of poverty, but it was a horrific drive for hours; miles and miles without a break in the poverty. We had to have a driver… it's not a safe environment for a tourist."

Prior to their trip to Haiti, the McMillans found Lovley and Maicourely in an orphan village run by a woman from the U.S. Emma said that in the village 30 to 40 children are cared for in 10 small adjoining houses with a nanny in each house.

Clinton and Emma were able to take the two children for several days. She said that the children were fascinated when they saw the bathroom in the motel with running water and a flushing toilet.

They also had an opportunity to spend one day in a part of Haiti that is the complete opposite of the extreme poverty seen on most of the island, Wahoo Beach. Emma said it is a paradise, and one of the most expensive vacation spots she has seen.

The 10-hour drive on roads filled with potholes and frightening traffic, with windows down in the 95-degree heat, left them so soot-covered and dirty-faced that they had to take two showers.

Other impressions of Haiti beside the desolation, poverty and hopelessness, were $8 per gallon gasoline and a day's pay between $1 and $2. Add to that mosquitoes, heat, and a country of dumps filled with goats running loose. Emma said the goats are not discouraged from eating garbage even when the trash is being burned, and watching the fire-eating goats is a Haitian spectator sport.

She said that so far God has provided the required $12,000 to proceed with the adoption, however they now need to raise another $8,000 within four months.

"I know God's going to provide it," Emma said. "My prayer is our kids will come here and we will love them and deposit enough love in them so that they can go back to their country one day to help their people. We will educate them about their country and their culture."

Clinton and Emma were right about their trip to Haiti: It was lifechanging.

Emma said, "Once back in Oregon, on the way back home we were driving down our country road in the middle of the night completely exhausted from our adventure, I looked over at Clinton and said, ‘I knew we'd be changed, I just didn't know it would be so much.'"

She said that they fell instantly in love with their Haitian children.

On the trip to Haiti in May they took approximately 150 pounds of donated items to the village, including children's toothbrushes, medical supplies, clothing, and other supplies donated by Dr. Richard Edmiston, Oak Street Health Care Center, and the Brookings Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Emma's photography, "Haiti, Her Beauty and Her Sorrows," will be displayed at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, 102 Park Ave., in August. Emma will be at the church from 4 to 7 p.m. Aug. 9 and is hoping Second Saturday Art walkers will find their way to the church to meet her, view her photographic art, and talk about Haiti.

Anyone who would like to contribute funds or items for the November trip is encouraged to contact Emma at mcmillan4him@yahoo.com.

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Americans finding purpose in hopes for Africa's future

from USA Today

This article examines the many ways that US missions help to fulfill people. People are finding that fulfillment in Africa. - Kale

By Rick Hampson,

KIGALI, Rwanda — On the last day of spring, Tom Wheeler left home in Southern California with his wife, his two kids and two audacious dreams.

As a civil engineer, he hopes to bring standard, nicely paved sidewalks to a city with almost none.

As a follower of Rick Warren, the evangelist who wrote the bestseller The Purpose Driven Life, Wheeler dreams of making Rwanda the world's first "purpose-driven nation." That means spreading the Gospel and helping this tiny African country, which 14 years ago endured the worst genocide since the Holocaust, continue its unlikely journey toward peace and prosperity.

"Rick challenged us all to go out," Wheeler says. He and his wife, Lori, "wanted to serve God, and we wanted to be part of something big."

The Wheelers are part of a generation of Americans for whom Africa has become the place to try to make a difference. Their dreams vary: to end poverty, to stop AIDS, to make a fortune. Whatever the motive, Africa has united celebrities, missionaries and politicians like few other causes.

"Never has the U.S. been so engaged with Africa," says Peter Pham, director of James Madison University's Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

The effort extends across the nation, from the high school students in Downingtown, Pa., who raised $47,000 for homeless kids in Uganda, to the average Nigerian immigrant in Illinois who sends 10% of his pay back home, to President Bush, who has probably done more for Africa than any U.S. president.

The continent's infamous problems — genocide in Darfur, anarchy in Somalia, tyranny in Zimbabwe — provide an opportunity for Americans to do good when U.S. popularity is sagging just about everywhere else. "People feel there are obvious solutions" to what ails Africa, says Eric Hartman, who runs a program to introduce students to Africa. "It holds that attraction."

Sen. John McCain's wife, Cindy, is here this week on a bipartisan trip with Republican and Democratic leaders. Former president Bill Clinton is due in a few weeks.

Outsiders professing good intentions are regarded with some suspicion on a continent that has seen its share of failed Western interventions: colonialism in the 19th century, exploitation of natural resources and Cold War meddling in the 20th. But many American programs are paying off with declines in AIDS deaths and poverty rates. African governments also are doing more to encourage peace and economic development.

Nowhere has the transformation been as dramatic as Rwanda, where in 1994 as many as 1 million people were killed in a horrific 100-day spree of ethnic violence.

The economy is still recovering — the average wage is less than $1 a day — but visitors to the capital, Kigali, are often shocked by the strides Rwanda has made. The airport is orderly and clean; the streets are safe to walk; and a tourism boom has led to several restaurants opening.

Warren told USA TODAY he believes that, the way things are going, within a few decades, Rwanda could be an oasis of prosperity — "the next Singapore," he says.

That vision helped lead Tom Wheeler, 42, to quit his job as public works director of Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., to spend a year working for the city of Kigali. The move has been a shock for his kids, Hannah, 12, and Zack, 10. But the work is heady stuff for a guy who says his biggest accomplishments in Rancho Santa Margarita were building a skate park and synchronizing parkway stoplights.

"Sidewalks all around a city where 90% of the people have to walk — that would be huge!" Wheeler says. "I'm really getting in on the ground floor. … This is like a brand-new country. You can actually make a difference here."

Slow start to 'hyperdrive'

Since Warren launched the program in 2005, more than 1,100 volunteers from his Saddleback Church have come to Rwanda. Though some are professionals like Wheeler, others come with good intentions and limited technical skills.

Working in small groups, they spend about 10 days per trip at a church, listening, praying, teaching subjects such as English or basic hygiene and, as any Saddlebacker will tell you, hugging.

They have given Rwandans livestock, rabbits, corrugated metal roofs, soccer balls and Bibles. They have helped them set up a grist mill bakery. They have steered local parishioners into hospitals, where they give meals to AIDS patients and make sure they take their medicine on time.

Bob Bradberry, who supervises Saddleback's training here, says the point isn't to give the Rwandans things. It's to train them to do things for themselves. That starts with "purpose-driven training," in which parts of Warren's book (such as Chapter 20 on reconciliation) are applied to problems (such as the bitterness that lingers from the genocide).

About 100,000 copies of The Purpose Driven Life in the Rwandan dialect have been handed out. Bradberry says that if Rwandans really hear the Gospel, they'll have no choice but to forgive each other.

Results were discussed at a meeting of ministers last week. Churches reported increased baptisms, marriages and church attendance, according to Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini, who is the Anglican primate of Rwanda. In an eastern province, a woman who had been hired by a witch doctor to poison someone had a change of heart during a small group meeting, Kolini said.

Can that spiritual growth translate into material progress? In an interview last week, Warren said that although his program in Rwanda "was quite slow for the first few years" after its launch, it's gone into "hyperdrive" with projects such as an AIDS treatment program in the western part of the country.

"There's been a flat-out climate change in the country," Warren said, adding that he has been approached by other nations such as Kenya and the Philippines who want him to start similar programs there. "The dominoes are starting to fall."

Some Rwandans agree. The Rev. Emmanuel Mugiraneza of St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral in Bhyumba says the program's small groups promote reconciliation in a nation where people talk about the future but think about the past.

"We have been in a bad situation since 1994," he says. "These people are helping us to learn to forgive each other."

Concerns about movement

Some worry that programs such as Warren's prevent African leaders from solving problems on their own. Americans "seem to be on a crusade to 'save Africa,' " says New York University economist William Easterly. He says Africans don't want to be regarded as charity cases.

The alliance between Warren and Rwandan President Paul Kagame — sealed at a rally in 2005 at Angels Stadium in Anaheim, Calif., when the two stood side-by-side and Warren urged 30,000 of his followers to "change the world" — has also generated some concern.

It was Kagame who invited Warren to Rwanda after reading his book. He sent him a letter telling him "I am a purpose driven man" and asking him "to help rebuild our country."

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticized Kagame's human rights record. Paul Rusesabagina, the former Kigali hotel manager whose attempt to save lives during the genocide in 1994 became the basis for the film Hotel Rwanda — says Warren has become too "friendly" with Kagame's government.

Warren rigorously defends his alliance with Kagame. "He is going to be more important to Africa than (Nelson) Mandela," Warren says. "He's the George Washington of Africa. I don't state that lightly."

The relative prosperity that foreigners have helped bring to Rwanda also poses new problems. Dave Holden, a member of Saddleback's team, recently looked out from the open patio at Bourbon, a hip chain of coffee houses. The next hill had one-room concrete block houses at the bottom, and big new $400,000 ones at the top.

The disparity led Holden to remember something a local priest told him: If there's a next time, the priest said, the killing won't be about ethnicity. It could be about the rich and poor.

Favorable views

On balance, though, Americans' affection for Africa seems to be reciprocated. According to a Pew Global Attitudes Project survey of world opinion, nine of the 10 nations most favorable toward America are in Africa (the other is Israel). Residents of Kenya, Ghana and the Ivory Coast regard Americans more favorably than Americans do.

The Bush administration has more than doubled aid to Africa — the largest expansion of foreign development assistance since the Marshall Plan. Bush's PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) is the largest health initiative in history to fight foreign disease.

Thanks to the United States, more than 1.3 million Africans get anti-AIDS drugs. That compares with 50,000 before PEPFAR. And last week, despite the nation's fiscal woes, the Senate voted to triple spending over the next five years to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

More African kids are living to see their fifth birthdays, more girls are going to school, and more farmers have a road to market. The number of poor has leveled off — debt relief by the world's richest nations has helped lift millions out of poverty — and the poverty rate across Africa has dipped 6 percentage points since 2000.

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'Real responsibility, real work'

from The Watertown Daily Times

Summer time is when kids are out of school, and they have time to taketrips and lend a helping hand. This one is for building houses in Mexico. - Kale

MEXICO MISSION: Local teenagers brave variety of challenges to build houses for the poor

By GABRIELLE HOVENDON

The 10 adults and 34 teenagers who signed up for the fifth annual Watertown First Presbyterian Church Mexico Mission Trip found themselves faced with poverty and tough conditions when they arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, on July 1.

The group, led by the church's associate pastor, the Rev. Matthew D. Schultz, partnered with a San-Diego based organization called Amor Ministries to build three houses for Mexican families.

The ministry was founded in 1980 and has built more than 12,000 homes in poverty-stricken Mexico since its inception.

The two-room structures measure just 11 feet by 22 feet and lack both electricity and plumbing. However, to the 800,000 Mexican families that Amor Ministries says lack basic, secure homes, they represent a big improvement.

The teens and adults alike were struck by the number of tiny, ramshackle dwellings that passed for houses in Tijuana.

Jillian R. Sanzone, a June graduate of Watertown High School who is the only person to have participated in all five First Presbyterian Mexico mission trips, said that seeing the poverty is still overwhelming.

"Every year just makes you realize that none of our problems really matter that much compared to what they face every day," Miss Sanzone said of the Mexican families' living conditions.

The houses constructed by the Watertown group were designed to improve the poor living conditions for three families chosen by Amor Ministries and local Mexican parishes. The structures were built by hand from the ground up with the most rudimentary materials and no power tools.

Teams of students and adults from various churches in Watertown worked together at three separate locations to level ground, mix and lay concrete foundations, and construct wall and roof sections out of two-by-fours. They then covered the roofs with plywood and tar paper and the walls with layers of baling wire, tar paper, chicken wire and stucco.

The work was difficult, at times backbreaking, and challenges were faced by each of the three building teams. Blisters and bruises abounded as muscles ached with the physical demands of shoveling gravel, lifting lumber, mixing concrete and pounding nails.

"The first day was extremely tough. It's some of the hardest work I've had to do in my life," said Stephen A. Hirst, a rising senior at Watertown High School.

Mr. Hirst's team faced the unusual dilemma of having an uneven base to begin with. To solve the problem, they were forced to add enough shovelfuls of dirt and rocks to raise the ground 3 feet, a process that delayed the laying of the concrete foundation for hours.

Miss Sanzone, one of the leaders for Mr. Hirst's site, agreed that this was a difficult year. In addition to the problem with the uneven ground, she said, a mismeasurement made the entire roof bow sideways and led to hours of extra work when fitting plywood.

"The other houses have been pretty smooth for me," Miss Sanzone said about her previous experiences in Mexico. "I'd say this one was one of the more challenging years."

In addition to the demands of construction work, the builders dealt with less than luxurious living accommodations.

From July 1 to 5, the group slept in tents and showered with buckets at an Amor Ministries campground in Tijuana. The steep, bumpy roads to the work site were difficult to navigate and often unpaved, and outhouses at the campground and work sites could be counted on to add an interesting flavor to daily life.

Dehydration and sunburns were major concerns, as was the issue of safe drinking water. Average temperatures for the week ranged in the mid- to high-80s.

And yet, despite all the hardships, it would have been difficult to find someone who regretted going on the trip. Mr. Hirst, a newcomer to Mexico mission work, was completely satisfied with his decision to come to Tijuana by the end of his first workday.

"It's a great experience, and I'm already getting from it, being here, what I wanted to get from it. It's fulfilling my expectations," he said.

The Rev. Mr. Schultz agreed that it is the chance to have these experiences and make a difference that attracts many of the students. Adults chaperone the trips and oversee projects such as the mulch-sale and spreading fundraiser held in Watertown, but the students participate fully in the building of the houses.

"I think that young people go on the trip frequently because they see they're being given real responsibility and real work to be done. Every nail that goes in is done by the young people, and every single job is accomplished by the young people," said Rev. Mr. Schultz.

Students also join the mission trip for an experience that transcends the physical actions of building a house, added the pastor.

"They have the chance to actually engage in the lives of the people that really live there, and that affects them on an emotional, personal and spiritual level," said the Rev. Mr. Schultz.

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Johnston girls help others, learn value of home

from the Des Moines Register

The great thing about lending a hand is when your done, you want to do it again. This story profiles 3 girls from Iowa who helped the people of Appalachia. - Kale, Poverty News Blog Editor.

By JULI PROBASCO-SOWERS

Three Johnston High School students have returned from a trip they say makes them look at life more realistically, appreciate family more and be less materialistic.

Haley Johnson, 17, and Kara Highfill, 15, both of Johnston, and Caroline Byrd, 16, of Urbandale just returned from a mission trip to Kentucky.

Three crews totaling 12 people from Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Urbandale repaired and improved houses for families through the Appalachian Service Project.

"I just had such a great experience last time," Byrd said. "I learned so much from it, and it is something I want to continue doing."

That's why she went along on this year's trip, leaving for Barbourville, Ky., on July 5 and returning on Saturday. "You learn that everything is not how it is in Johnston. Johnston is a different community and a lot more fortunate than a lot of places, even places in Iowa," she said.

Last year's trip was to a remote location in the mountains in Virginia, she said. This time the destination was less secluded and she had cell phone service so she could talk to her family daily.

Byrd and Johnson worked on the same team, installing drywall and doing a little plumbing with the other crew members.

Johnson said she got to know the family she was working for better than in the last three mission trips because they had children at home.

"I just thought this family was really cool," she said. "The lady of the house, she used to live in the Philippines and I think that when she lived there she had a lot of things, but not so much since she moved here. But she said she is getting to see her boys grow up and be with her family. It just shows you don't need a lot of things in life to make you happy."

The woman cooked for the crew every day.

Highfill, who was on her second mission trip, worked on a separate crew. Her group scrubbed the walls, primed and painted the kitchen and did other work on the roof of the house.

"I think when I come back from these trips I have a sense of renewal and what is important in my life," she said. "The culture down there is a lot about family and when I come back I understand how important family is."

Byrd said she also bonded more with the family she was helping on this year's trip.

"When we sawed drywall, the little 4-year-old would blow the dust away so we could see the lines. He also would hold a flashlight for us when we did plumbing work."

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Simple, spiritual life luring more to mission work

from the North Jersey Record

This shows that there are benefits to doing charity work. This article from the North Jersey Record profiles a man who has had enough of the rat race. - Kale

BY JOHN CHADWICK

During his days working in corporate America, Doug Garofalo may have seemed an unlikely candidate for the Franciscan religious order and its embrace of voluntary poverty.

But even as Garofalo worked as an accountant for chains like Saks Fifth Avenue and Aeropostale, the River Edge native maintained a strong connection to his hometown church, St. Peter the Apostle, and kept a decidedly modest lifestyle.

"I had a very modest house in Hackensack," Garofalo, 46, said. "I was living as simple as possible in the retail world of Bergen County."

His preference for simple, spiritual living and his yearning for a new direction led him in 2002 to the Franciscan Mission Service, part of the Catholic order founded by St. Francis of Assisi.

But Garofalo, who by his own description is a good dancer who enjoys dating and maintaining a wide social network, didn't see himself as a priest.

So he became a lay missioner - a role in which he wouldn't have to take religious vows but could embrace the Franciscan ethic and participate in overseas projects to help poor communities. Lay missioners are prevalent in the Catholic Church, and function like missionaries, though they typically travel to Catholic areas and focus more on relief work than evangelization, Garofalo said.

"I felt I was called by the Holy Spirit," Garofalo said during a recent telephone interview from Washington, D.C., where he now lives. "I knew I was being called to do something more concrete for the church. I knew it was not a call to the priesthood."

A growing number of Catholics are hearing a similar calling.

Jim Lindsay, executive director of the Maryland-based Catholic Network of Volunteer Service, said the number of Catholics participating in some form of lay mission work in the network has steadily increased and is now at about 10,000 per year. There are some 200 organizations, from religious orders to universities, offering lay mission work, up from about 160 a decade ago, he added.

The missions can range from one week working in an inner-city soup kitchen to spending several years overseas in an impoverished nation. The common element is that volunteers leave their homes, work full time and frequently live communally.

"Certainly priests and sisters and brothers have been doing this work over many, many years," Lindsay said. "Laypeople now have a greater realization that they are part of the mission of the church itself."

One of the people Garofalo consulted with about his decision was Julie Burkey, an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University who runs a program called Christian Employment Outreach, or CEO.

"I'm seeing people all time who reach a level of success, in terms of the how the world defines it," Burkey said. "Then they turn around and say, 'Is this all there is?' "

Garofalo signed up for a three-year program that included two years in Brazil, where he lived with Franciscan friars, worked in a day care center and helped administer a micro-credit loan program for the working poor.

After returning last year, he has been serving as the development director of the Franciscan Mission Service.

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Orphanage offers chance at success for Mexican youths

from the Statesman Journal

This is a profile of an orphanage in Mexico. Churches in Oregon work with this orphanage sending volunteers and donations their way. Info on how to donate is at the bottom. - Kale

by Dick Hughes

Mario kept his promise: He was graduating.

Now we had to fulfill our part of the bargain.

So last week found my family 2,594 miles from Salem in the steamy rainforest of southern Mexico.

We joined the rows of proud parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and guardians as the middle-school students marched in formation to receive their certificates and grades.

Yes, middle school. With elaborate ceremony, Mexican schools celebrate success at each stage — primary, middle and high schools.

Making it through middle school was a big accomplishment for 16-year-old Mario.

His mother died several years ago. He and an older brother are among 80 youths at Hogar Infantil, an orphanage in Ocozocoautla de Espinoza, Chiapas.

My wife, son and daughter started volunteering at Hogar several years ago. I was a belated convert.

Initially a skeptic — why volunteer at a Mexican orphanage when there are so many pressing needs right here in the Mid-Valley? — I'm now an apostle.

Hogar Infantil is the difference between a life of opportunity and one of crushing poverty in Chiapas. All the kids learn useful job skills while performing their chores around Hogar, which is known as the ranch. About one-fourth of the residents go on to college.

A young woman who was raised at Hogar returned to the orphanage last week to encourage the youths to work hard and stay in school. She's now a doctor.

Another resident will finish her industrial-engineering degree in September.

One young man gets up at 4 a.m. to travel by foot and bus to his computer-science classes. He'd tried living with a relative but returned to Hogar — "this is my home, my family." To help pay for college, he spent a year in national service as a teacher in indigenous villages so remote that he had to hike two or three hours to reach them.

A man who became a university professor, having grown up at Hogar and coached soccer there, has his eye on politics.

These stories are in sharp contrast to the countless children of Chiapas who toil long hours in fields or stores — or, in tourist areas, beg on the streets.

That likely would have been Mario's fate if academic or behavioral issues forced him out of Hogar.

Many children wind up at Hogar simply because their parents can't afford to take care of them. Some kids were removed from abusive homes; others are orphans.

But that sanctuary from societal poverty comes with high expectations: Residents must fulfill their responsibilities in school and at the ranch. With school out for a short summer vacation, the older boys, including Mario, arose before 6:30 a.m. Sunday to plant corn by hand. The previous days had found boys of all ages wielding machetes to cut grass and weeds. The girls made tortillas and did household chores, including helping prepare the simple meals.

And, of course, there were the goats, pigs, chickens and other animals to tend to.

For all the hard work, Hogar is a caring, supportive environment that builds a lifelong commitment among the residents. Kids look out for one another. They've learned to share, to get along, to resolve disputes among themselves instead of running to adults for solutions.

Even in that environment — still economically poor by U.S. standards but immensely rich in friendship, love and family values — some kids can struggle.

Free-spirited Mario was one.

Donations from Americans provide most of the operating money for Hogar, which receives no government funding.

Contributions are tax-deductible, as Hogar is 501(c)(3) non-profit.

You can help by sending a check to Hogar Infantil, P.O. Box 7049, Salem, OR 97303. Or go online to www.mygiftoflove.com.

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Woman builds houses in Grenada

from the Marshfield News Herald

MEDFORD -- When most people head to the Caribbean during Wisconsin's coldest and dreariest months, it is to relax on a beach. For Heidi Serrano, the trip offered an opportunity to do some good for others while honoring her late father.

For nearly two weeks, Serrano and 11 other individuals from the Good News Project built homes for the underprivileged on the island of Grenada in the West Indies.

"The people in Grenada are living in such poverty that they can't afford to rebuild after the devastation of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 that basically leveled the island," Serrano said. "It felt good to know we were helping them start to get their lives back."

Serrano helped build two homes: one for an elderly woman and another for a family of seven who were living in a partial structure.

"The father worked side-by-side with us to learn the building techniques so he could build onto his home after we left and help others rebuild their homes," Serrano said. "It was wonderful seeing him want to give back that way."

Serrano, who did much of the "nitty-gritty dirt work" and house painting, discovered the trip evolved into a fitting tribute to her own father who passed away in October.

"My dad was a builder in Medford. This trip was a great way to remember him and use what I had learned from him."

Meanwhile, Memorial Health Center (Serrano's employer) honored her goodwill with some charity of its own, donating medical supplies for the people of Grenada. Medical supplies like those donated by Memorial Health Center are in great demand in Grenada and its surrounding islands.

While the focus of Serrano's trip was to provide humanitarian supplies and support to the people of Grenada, she did find time to enjoy the tropical weather and the scenery. In addition to sightseeing, she went on a snorkeling trip and visited the rainforest where she got to hold a monkey. Serrano especially liked the vivid colors present everywhere on the island, from the clothing to the flowers.

"The flowers were so beautiful and bright, they almost didn't seem real," she said. "To see so much beauty next to so much poverty was somewhat shocking."

Contributed by Stephanie Dray, marketing communications specialist, Memorial Health Center.

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Fostoria youth serve in poverty stricken Boston suburb

from WTOL Toledo

By Shelley Lee,

FOSTORIA - Mission service in the suburbs. Sounds like easy work, help a few kids at a Bible school program, serve in a soup kitchen. No problem.

Not quite.

Just seven miles from prestigious Boston neighborhoods, working in the town of Lynn, Mass., where 11 Wesley United Methodist youth travelled last week was anything but easy.

With 53 percent of the population listed as low income, 80 percent of the school age children on the free lunch program, and a ranking of the fourth highest percentage of homeless in the state, this place was no walk in the park. Healthcare is also mandatory in Massachusetts which creates a serious financial problem for many.

Jenny Miller, youth director at Wesley U.M. for nine years, led the group with Paul and Krista Harrison, and Neil Ickes.

"Lynn has the highest number of shootings in all of Massachusetts," said Miller.

Why not then, the highest number of murders? Because the shooters are often inexperienced 9- and 10-year-olds recruited by gangs.

"That whole thing is just so horribly wrong!" says Miller about the heartbreaking lives of the city's children. "It was very eye opening for the [Fostoria] kids."

The week-long trip that began June 29 brought the group through a myriad of cultural experiences.

The high school youth went on this trip aware of certain restrictions. They were not allowed to bring cell phones ... at all. Gasp.

They could not bring curling irons, flat irons, etc. Deep breath.

ipods were allowed for the drive only. Phew.

Girls had to wear one piece swimsuits if they swam. OK, it is just for a week.

Two children of Brian Jones, the Wesley pastor, were part of the group. His wife, Kelly, laughs about one of the youth members not wanting to go on the trip. Yet, at the end of it she was one who did not want to come home.

Youth Works Community Ministry is the organization they worked with. This Lynn, Massachusetts 501(c)3 is housed at Washington Street Baptist Church. They invite youth groups from anywhere to volunteer for week intervals.

This particular week, seven groups came from Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and a Chinese Bible church in Boston.

The 70 youth served alongside eight chaperones at eight different sites, divided and mixed in with the other youth from around the country.

The five sites that Fostoria youth served at were varied and challenging (and did not have air conditioning).

My Brother's Table is a soup kitchen that feeds over 300 people daily with no federal funding, therefore, no restrictions on who can come to eat. The youth had to take stock of the pantry and prepare a meal that would serve 150 people the exact same meal for lunch.

Another group helped clean at Northshore Christian School. They take in children from the extremely overcrowded public schools at low tuition costs.

In the city of Lynn preschool is scarce and kindergarten is non-mandatory. Both are run on a lottery system. So, most children come into first grade not knowing basic letters, sounds and colors.

The Boys and Girls Club of America Camp was another location, this one 30 miles away from Lynn, getting inner-city kids away from it all.

The Youth Works Kid's Club located at their home base church is where another group served. They would run a mini vacation Bible school-type program providing free lunch and activities for needy children.

"The kids would just flock to this," said Miller, adding that there would be 4-year-olds wandering in on their own from blocks away.

The Wesley Youth will share a PowerPoint presentation and stories from their trip July 27 at 10:30 a.m. during the church service at 1200 Van Buren St.

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Peddling 'Sea to Sea' to raise money for the down and out

from the Seattle Post Intelligencer

By NOEL LYN SMITH

Clad in yellow and blue jerseys, 144 bicyclists gathered among the usual walkers and beachcombers Monday morning on the shores at Golden Gardens Park.

Each dipped their rear tires in the cool waters of Puget Sound before departing on their 3,881-mile journey. For nine weeks, the group will ride from Seattle to Jersey City, N.J. -- then dip their front tires in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Sea to Sea 2008 Bike Tour aims to raise $1.5 million to help those in poverty, and is sponsored by the Christian Reformed Church in North America in cooperation with the Reformed Church in America.

"It captures people's attention when you have 20 people riding in a group," local organizer Doug Houck said. "But over 100 people riding, that will make an impact."

Bicyclist Corinne Smienk of Alliston, Ontario, said Monday she joined the tour because it offered a unique way to help those less fortunate.

"I wanted to make a bit of a dent in the cycle of poverty," said the 23-year-old.

For Bill Marble, 61, of Modesto, Calif., poverty was an issue as he was growing up in India. "It may have decreased a little bit, but it's still an every-day phenomenon," said Marble, who had attached a traveling billboard advertising the tour to his bike frame.

Participants can ride either the entire tour or one of its three regional stages -- west, central or east. The west stage runs between Seattle and Denver; the central portion is from Denver to Grand Rapids, Mich.; and the east section goes from Grand Rapids to Jersey City.

Each cyclist is raising $10,000, or $4,000 if they ride regionally.

This is the first time the Christian Reformed Church of North America, which is based in Grand Rapids, has sponsored a U.S. tour.

Funds generated will assist the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, Partners Worldwide, and Christian Reformed World Missions, which target poverty domestically and internationally; each one receives 25 percent of the proceeds.

The remaining funds go to the Christian Reformed Church Foundation for grants to combat poverty in local communities.

Organizers expect the tour's operational costs to be covered by corporate sponsors.

Leanne Talen Geisterfer of Grand Rapids works with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee and plans to ride from Seattle to Jersey City.

"I'm scared, I'm thrilled -- it's a mixed bag of emotions," she said about her participation. "It's exciting to be a part of this group of people that have the same vision."

Every three seconds, a child dies from poverty-related illness, Geisterfer, 50, told the audience during a rally Sunday in the Husky Union Building at the University of Washington.

It takes her three seconds to complete four pedal strokes, she said, and in that time, a child has died.

Preventing that loss is why she is riding, Geisterfer said.

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Different times, same mission

from The Columbus Dispatch

After 150 years, the Sisters of Mercy still dedicate their lives to serving the needy

By Meredith Heagney

CINCINNATI -- In 1858, they were a group of 11 young immigrant women who came to America to live in poverty so they could help others who had it even worse.

Today, the local order of the Sisters of Mercy operates a range of services that includes schools, hospitals and countless one-on-one contacts.

The past 150 years haven't changed the order's mission: to serve the poor, sick and uneducated, particularly women and children.

Sister Louise Huitink is one of the sisters carrying on the work of her predecessors. Her specialty is caring for the elderly poor, bringing them groceries, managing their finances and taking them out for their birthdays.

She and the other 261 sisters in the Regional Community of Cincinnati, which covers Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Jamaica, follow the path of those original women who emigrated from Ireland to serve southwestern Ohio.

Today, the sisters sponsor two high schools for girls and a Montessori school, offer job training for formerly homeless women and deliver food and medicine to the elderly poor.

Sisters help low-income people find psychological help and offer transitional housing to women and children in need.

"We're still helping poor women and children," said Sister Elaine Charters, a member of the order for 52 years.

"You just retranslate it for the times," said Sister Kathy Green, an administrator.

Much of the nuns' work has been handed off, by necessity, to laypeople.

In 1961, there were about 800 sisters in the Cincinnati-based regional community, said Sister Marjorie Rudemiller, president. The median age of the remaining nuns is 75. The youngest is 48.

The original members of the order who crossed the ocean were barely more than girls. Many of them never saw their families again after boarding a boat to America.

The 18- and 19-year-olds had been recruited by Sarah Peter, a wealthy Cincinnati woman who had gone abroad to find religious people to serve the city's missionary needs.

The nuns lived in a run-down house with a board set on barrels serving as a kitchen table.

"They were really pioneers, young women of great faith who didn't know where they were going, didn't know where they were going to stay," Green said.

Those early sisters opened a night school for young Irish women and a shelter to keep them from falling into prostitution. They taught them domestic skills so they could work as maids.

In the 1860s, they opened a laundry and paid destitute women to work there. Soon after, four sisters took over an elementary school for girls, laying the groundwork for the many teaching sisters who would come after them.

In 1892, sisters with no medical training opened Mercy Hospital in Hamilton, the forerunner of what is now the 30-hospital Catholic Healthcare Partners. Today's Sisters of Mercy are co-sponsors.

For the order's first century in existence, the sisters opened or staffed 46 schools, one college and eight hospitals. Sisters of Mercy nuns once taught at the now-closed Holy Family elementary and high schools in Franklinton.

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Rafters help keep church's Malawian mission afloat

from the Allentown Examiner

Community encouraged to support Allentown Lake events June 26-29
BY JANE MEGGITT Staff Writer

ALLENTOWN - Not many rafts float on Allentown Lake, which makes the one that will be launched on Thursday evening even more special.

Four team members planning a mission to the African nation of Malawi in August will launch the raft to raise awareness about their trip. They plan to spend 72 hours on the lake from June 26-29.

Those interested in learning more about the mission of the Allentown Presbyterian Church can visit the information table that will be set up near the lake. The rafters have also planned a variety of other events to spark community interest and participation, including a wine and cheese tasting at a lake house, music at Pete Sensi Park, a water balloon catapult aimed at the raft and a Sunday morning sunrise worship service.

Allentown's Robert Rhoad, who will float on the raft, said the event aims to raise awareness of the intergenerational team of seven people from the Allentown Presbyterian Church that will depart for Malawi on Aug. 2 and return on Aug. 15. The team members are Rhoad and his father, Ed, and 13-year-old son, Ethan, Ann Darlington, Charlie Lyons-Pardue and Hal Boston and his son, Hal Jr.

"Also, Karen Collins is a member of the team and will be on the raft with us, but is not able to go on the trip with us to Malawi," Rhoad said.

The team going to Africa plans to work with village leaders and members to assess their needs and implement long-term, sustainable programs designed to help address the effects of the crushing poverty that exists in Malawi.

"With the help of the larger Allentown community, we hope to make a difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe," Rhoad said.

The mission team will follow the footsteps of the church's pastor, the Rev. Stephen Heinzel-Nelson, and his family, who went to Malawi in January and will remain there through December.

"The Heinzel-Nelsons have been hard at work, developing relationships with local leaders and charitable organizations and determining which programs have proven most successful in helping to alleviate the poverty and other multi-faceted needs that exist in Malawi," Rhoad said.

Located in the southeast quadrant of Africa, Malawi is considered to be one of the four poorest countries in the world, with unemployment estimated at 60 percent or more, nearly half the population surviving on less than $1 per day and approximately 65 percent of the population living below the poverty line, according to Rhoad.

He said the statistics about medical conditions in Malawi are hard to fathom, with the average life expectancy less than 40 years old and more than 13 percent of children not reaching the age of 5. With rampant HIV/AIDS, Malawi has a staggering number of orphans and child-led households. He said there are more than 500,000 children under the age of 14 who are orphaned as a result of their parents dying from HIV/AIDS.

In addition to the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS, Malawi is also plagued by malaria and malnutrition. Throughout Africa, 3,000 people die from malaria every day, which is tragic as the disease can be prevented relatively inexpensively with the use of $10 mosquito nets, he said.

With regard to malnutrition, Rhoad said most Malawians consume about 1,400 calories per day, which is far below the amount necessary for living a normal, healthy life. The resulting malnutrition stunts the growth of children and has other far-reaching impacts on the health and welfare of the Malawian people, he said.

The severe medical issues combined with food insecurity caused by severe economic conditions in Malawi make it extremely difficult for Malawians to pull themselves out of poverty. According to Rhoad, the Allentown Presbyterian Church has a vision to have the Allentown community partnerwith and adopt a Malawi village to provide broad-based
assistance designed to enable the village to lift itself out of poverty.

"We will be partnering with the DevelopmentOffice of the Presbyterian Church in Malawi, and with them have identified a rural village an hour outside of the city of Blantyre, near the town of Zomba, which is currently not receiving outside assistance," he said. "Further meetings with leaders from the village need to occur before our plans are finalized, but we hope that this opportunity will become a reality."

The church intends to provide a variety of forms of aid, including constructing a mission center that will serve as a preschool/ feeding center for orphans and a training center for agricultural and other programs to enhance the food supply for the village. The church would also like to purchase and distribute mosquito nets for children and families, provide funding for fertilizer and seed to enhance next year's harvest, purchase needed materials and supplies for orphanages and the preschool and establish programs to provide sustainable sources of food.

For more information about the Heinzel- Nelson family's mission in Malawi, visit www.apcmalawi.blogspot.com.

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Nurse Gets Worldly View

from Nurse dot com

Maryland RN and Doctors Without Borders leave their stamp on global poverty

Don Vaughan

Jane Hannon, RN, BSN, MPH, knows what poverty looks like. It's the swollen bellies of infants who are slowly starving to death because there's no food to feed them. It's the hollowed eyes of adults afflicted with diseases that were eradicated long ago in more industrialized nations.

As a healthcare provider, Hannon felt compelled to help such victims of global poverty. Between 2005 and 2007, she spent 10 months in Mussende, Angola, and six months in Teknaf, Bangladesh, working for the international relief agency Doctors Without Borders (DWB).

"I had worked for the Peace Corps from 1997 to 1999, so I knew I wanted to do international health work," says Hannon, who works as a research nurse coordinator at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. "I had heard about Doctors Without Borders, and the more I researched them and talked with people, the more I realized that this was the path I wanted to take in continuing my work overseas."

In Angola, Hannon worked with an international staff of three plus a contingent of Angolan healthcare workers providing essential health care for local villagers and others living in outlying regions. "We provided training to local nurses and treated patients, some of whom had complicated issues," Hannon notes. "We also implemented information, education, and communication programs regarding HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases."

In addition, Hannon helped train local nurses in patient assessment and related nursing skills. Because Angola still is recovering from decades of brutal civil war, many of the local nurses have less than a high school education, but possess basic "medic" skills, such as suturing. "A lot of them had trained in the bush with one of the two warring factions," Hannon says.

Safety was an ongoing concern during Hannon's 10 months in Angola. As a result of civil war, the nation contains more buried land mines than any other in the world, so the medical staff was instructed to never venture off established, safe paths. DWB workers are able to go home without repercussions if they feel their safety is in jeopardy, but Hannon says everyone on her team stayed through their contract periods on both missions.

In Bangladesh, Hannon assisted in a basic healthcare program for Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar and local villages. Hannon, her seven international colleagues, and a local staff of almost 100 set up and maintained a therapeutic feeding center, a basic healthcare clinic, and mobile clinic sites.

"I trained a group of health educators who provided health education sessions within the refugee camp," Hannon says. "We also trained hygiene promoters who would monitor and try to stimulate community ownership of water and sanitation facilities because the [hygiene] situation was less than ideal. They were also our eyes and ears. If there was any kind of disease outbreak or other unusual occurrences, they would tell us."

The majority of health issues Hannon saw were typical of Third World countries, and included malnutrition and infectious diseases. "Just the daily treatment of basic health problems made a huge impact," she notes.

When her missions were over, Hannon says, she returned home with the comforting knowledge that her service had been worthwhile. "It was the day-to-day things that really made a difference," she says. "For example, children who were brought to us severely malnourished and completely lethargic and who, two weeks later, had plumped up and were chasing their brothers and sisters around. It's amazing how resilient kids are. They can go from being severely ill to recovered in such a short time with relatively simple interventions."

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Holy Cross students see Third World poverty up close

from the Worcester Telegram and Gazette

By Bronislaus B. Kush

About two years ago, Nicholas Campolettano, a student at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester who was studying religion and sociology, began developing an interest in the plight of some of the indigenous people of Africa.

He researched issues affecting Africans and carefully monitored news developments from the world’s second-largest and second-most populous continent.

Last year, Mr. Campolettano, a resident of Hicksville, N.Y., on Long Island, even worked with U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, and state Sen. Edward M. Augustus Jr., D-Worcester, to organize a program on the genocide in Darfur.

“I did a lot of studying, but you can only read so much,” said Mr. Campolettano, who will be a senior next fall. “I wanted to expand my understanding, and the only way I could do that was to get some firsthand experience.”

He got that chance.

Mr. Campolettano and 13 other Holy Cross students recently returned from Tanzania, an East African nation on the Indian Ocean. The trip was arranged through the school’s faith-based Arrupe International Immersion Program. A second Holy Cross group is visiting the country now.

“The trip certainly made an impression on me and it provided me with a special perspective that I didn’t have before,” Mr. Campolettano said.

The program is named after Pedro Arrupe, a Jesuit missionary who aided those injured in the 1945 atomic blast at Hiroshima and who later became superior general of the Jesuit order — or the Society of Jesus, as it is formally known.

Holy Cross spokeswoman Kristine Maloney said the program has been offered at the school for 22 years and hundreds of students have participated in trips to Mexico, Jamaica and Appalachia, as well as to Africa.

She said the program’s aim is to make participants more aware of the privileges they have and encourage them to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate.

Students get a real feel for the country they’re visiting because they have direct contact with inhabitants in natural social settings.

Ms. Maloney said some students are so affected by the trips that they decide to study a discipline that trains them for career fields geared toward aiding the needy.

“A lot of the participating students are transformed by the experience,” Ms. Maloney said.

Rebekah C. Linga of Douglas, a junior, said she was struck by the poverty most Tanzanians live in.

“I knew we were going to a Third World country but I didn’t expect that things would be that bad,” said Ms. Linga, an English major. “We realized we were in another world as soon as we got off the plane.”

Slums dominate the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city and its commercial center, she said.

“The homes were basically made up of sticks in the mud with roofs of hay,” said Ms. Linga, daughter of Eileen and Boleslaw Linga. “They were about the size of a Holy Cross dorm room.”

Many street people tried to sell visitors jewelry, trinkets and other items, she said. One woman even offered to pose for a picture in order to get a Tanzanian shilling or two.

Many people had no shoes.

“There was a young boy who walked around in pink flip-flops,” she said. “Boys don’t like pink, even in Tanzania, so you knew he had nothing else to wear.”

Ms. Linga said things aren’t much better in the countryside, where there is no electricity in many places and where some residents must walk a mile or two for water.

Holy Cross students were humbled by the trip and wanted to reach out to the Tanzanians they were visiting, she said. Some, she said, wanted to donate some of their clothing or toiletries, which are considered luxury items in Tanzania.

On some nights, the students gathered to reflect on what they had seen or experienced with Marty Kelly, the assistant Holy Cross chaplain, who accompanied the group.

“Personally, I wanted to do whatever I could to help these people,” said Ms. Linga, who hopes one day to become a magazine writer or editor. “I wanted to get my hands dirty and to do some kind of work.”

Despite the obstacles they face, Tanzanians work hard to improve their lives, said Ms. Linga.

She and Mr. Campolettano said Tanzanians realize the importance of education and noted that many students in rural areas walk miles to go to school.

“The people have a great spirit,” said Ms. Linga, who brought home some jewelry, a small tribal mask, and some animal figurines from her trip.

Mr. Campolettano, who also took part in an immersion group trip to Mexico, said there’s a mounting effort to fight AIDS in Tanzania. Previously, many Tanzanians refused to deal with the issue because of the stigma associated with the deadly disease, he said.

Mr. Campolettano said he particularly remembered a small clinic staffed by three doctors — one from Wisconsin — and some nurses who provided AIDS prevention counseling to the 50 or so patients treated daily at the clinic.

He also noted that women are working to empower themselves within the framework of a patriarchal Tanzanian society. For example, he said, cooperatives have been organized, some by the Sisters of Notre Dame, in which women pool their financial resources for the betterment of all.

One such group is saving money for a cow, said Ms. Linga.

She added that more and more Tanzanians seem to think tourism might bolster the fortunes of their country.

Tanzania’s economy today is mostly based on agriculture: About 80 percent of the work force is involved in some aspect of farming. But Tanzania, with a population of about 40 million, is home to a dozen beautiful national parks, such as the Serengeti, and some see tourism as a means to expand the national economy.

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She battles disease, poverty in developing countries

from the Boston Globe

By Billy Baker

Dr. Joia Mukherjee really wants to be a singer. That, she has already decided, will be her second career, and she just has to finish her first career, this minor business of "getting all the world's HIV and poverty squared away," before she can get started in earnest.

"I brought a karaoke machine to Haiti last week," Mukherjee said recently in her office on Huntington Avenue, though her smile turns into a smirk when she notes that she never got to use it. She was too busy saving lives as the medical director for Partners in Health, a Boston-based organization dedicated to fighting poverty and healthcare inequality in impoverished countries.

In one single hour in Haiti, she said, the organization saved the lives of five children who would have died of malnutrition had they not been there to feed them some specially fortified peanut butter. Karaoke had to wait, though her face brightens again when she adds that she did get to lead a song for the president of Haiti.

Mukherjee is almost impossibly laid back as she tells such stories, a quality that, she says, is often maddening for her staff.

"It drives people crazy to see how low-key I am," she said. Her temperament is constant - playful, curious or, in her words, "quirky" - whether she's talking about fighting malaria or how unfair it is that she's too old, at 44, to be on "American Idol."

"Whenever I see her," said Jack Bryant, a former dean of the school of public health at Columbia University who has been doing work in Haiti for decades, "she has this intriguing quality of being both light-hearted and profound. She's an important person in the field of international health and development, but at the same time she doesn't grumble all the time."

Mukherjee says that she can be so pleasant about the unpleasant because the fight has been with her so long that it's just a part of who she is now. In 1972, when she was an 8-year-old girl growing up in suburban Long Island, her family took her to India. Her father, from Bangladesh, is a refugee from the India-Pakistan partition in the mid-50s (her mother is Irish-Catholic with red hair and freckles), and they arrived in the country at a time of great turmoil, when Bangladesh was separating from Pakistan and millions of people were being displaced.

She saw the squalid conditions of poverty. She saw kids her own age dying