Daddy, Papa and Me

Being only 2, I don't think she knew exactly what she was doing, but I 'helped' her navigate OfficeMax and buy 250 pens for children in Afganistan as suggested by a civil affairs officer to Atrios (my old MOS in the Army). She had a lot of fun pushing >return< keys, and though she probably doesn't realize that she just helped a bunch of children learn in school.. it is never too late to start the habit of service to our fellow travelers, is it?

The following is a letter I wrote, and not yet sure I will send, to a member of Guy's family. The family member has recently 'called Guy's family to repentence' concerning their 'acceptance' of his lifestyle and choices and has suggested that the way that we have to be dealt with is to 'walk away' from us. This is my response. I wrote it more to answer my own inner questions and theological musings, than to answer the family member directly. It is what I perceive the teachings and example of Jesus to mean when it comes to 'loving thy neighbor'. I post it to record a bit of what the history of our family is (This whole journal is part of that) and perhaps to give you a bit of insight. Be forewarned if you are neither Christian or Mormon and aren't 'into' reading that sort of thing. This is heavy in scripture and Mormon doctrine :). It is also very long.

the letter...

Visited Chookooloonks today. She had a post up about a new store she's created of Chookooloonks stuff :) and the proceeds go to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. I have a few things to say about that.

The devastation that Katrina brought has me speechless. I know I'm writing this days late, but I just don't know what to say. Just help with cash and even open your home to refugees if you can. The number of dead will reach the thousands and the number of homeless is in the hundreds of thousands and that number will remain high for weeks, perhaps months.

Microcredit is a kind of giving that follows along the lines of "Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish...". As the article in wikipedia I linked to states;

Microcredit is the extension of very small loans to unemployed, poor entrepreneurs and others living in poverty who are not bankable. These individuals lack collateral (finance), steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimum qualifications to gain access to traditional credit (finance). Microcredit is a financial innovation which originated in developing countries where it has successfully enabled extremely impoverished people [mostly women] to engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate an income and, in many cases, begin to build wealth and exit poverty. Due to the success of microcredit, many in the traditional banking industry have begun to realize that these microcredit borrowers should more correctly be categorized as pre-bankable; thus, microcredit is increasing gaining credibility in the mainstream finance industry and many traditional large finance organizations are contemplated microcredit projects as a source of future growth. Although almost everyone in larger development organizations discounted the likelihood of success of microcredit when it was begun as pilot project by Muhammad Yunus in the mid 1970s, the United Nations has declared the year 2005 as the International year of Microcredit.

For the longest time microcredit was the realm of agencies and charitable banks. But now you too can give microcredit loans to the poor...

So, the splitter worked (so far). Had a dilemma: someone taking our water from the front faucet. Put in a irrigation system, they took it apart and left on ground to get to the water. I put in splitter to allow irrigation and to allow them to take the water. The irrigation is intact. Still taking our water.

Why did I come to this solution? There is the altruistic reason and the selfish/practical reason. Which do you want to hear first?

This has hit home. Though we do not know this man personally, several of our good friends are his personal friends. The 'degree of separation' is very small. He is missing and wandering the streets of San Francisco since last week. His name is Jerry Tang. He is the father of two boys and described as a great father and husband, neighbor.

If you have seen him, or you want to help searching for him PLEASE visit this page or click (here for more information and for the SF Chronicle about his disappearance

This really has struck me...

If you remember from two month ago, I found a great way to give in the way of microcredit and loaned a small some to two Ugandan small businesses. A pharmacy and a hair salon.

10% of the microloan to Faith Salon has been repayed. It's not the repayment that is so 'cool', but being able to watch the small company grow and become successful. Kiva is such a great idea.

I 'invest' some microloans into two companies through Kiva. The whole concept got me to thinking about something that can be done in the way of 'microloans' here in the US.

the things that got me to the idea...

We are trying to do a few things with Emma around 'giving' and charity, but we had some criteria we hope to match at least for some.

1. Had to be concrete. I think at this age (heck, even at my age) it's nice to see who you are giving to and what you are doing. Just giving money doesn't work, I'm not sure she would completely understand, so we wanted some interaction, some concrete giving.

2. It last a while. We'd like the giving to be something that extends beyond this 'season of giving'

So, here were some of the ideas:

What is this?

My heart and prayers go out to the students and families at Virginia Tech.

I have no real connection to The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University except that I visited the campus once for grad school interviews. Great school, students and beautiful area.

Such a tragedy.

Just almost 2 years ago we started loaning 'microcredit' through Kiva. It's been a rewarding (for Emma and us) and interesting way to give back. And so far we've had the microloans we've made either paid back completely, or still in the loan term but making payments.

Today, I got some news that I had 50 dollars refunded...

A category 5 cyclone (hurricane) is headed straight for Bangladesh and Eastern India. Based on past experience, a storm this size hitting low-lying, densely populated Bangladesh could kill thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.

Strangely, it's not on the CNN, NYTimes or even BBC].

Here is a link to the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society for donations. They are going to need them.

A Laptop that is. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has developed a laptop that is under 200 dollars for education in disadvantaged areas of the world. They have a program going on right now (you've got about 10 days) where you can buy one (usually reserved for development projects), if you buy one to be sent to one of those areas. Why would you?

Saw this recently. Brad Pitt is building houses for Katrina victims in NOLA's 9th ward. You can go to the site, Make It Right 9, and choose a part of a house to sponsor. A perfect interactive way to 'build a house for someone' as Emma decided to do for an Advent activity.