Some people have home security systems some have handguns, and if they are wealthy or important enough, bodyguards… we have Ray. It doesn’t take you long to see how well respected Ray is among his dozens of peers, feared even. When I’m jogging and glance down to see Ray by my side i breathe deep my invincibility. It takes only one moment of vulnerability to bring me back to reality, the moment when you glance up realize Ray is gone (distracted by a rice field or a dirty diaper in a trash heap) and the fox (a reddish brown dog with a pointy face and large mouse like ears) is quickly closing in… you pick up a rock, brace yourself for the worst…. and then there he is like he knew all along that was the exact moment you would need him, good ole Ray. I think I’m gonna buy him a bag of jerky next time I’m at the store.

Our room at the orphanage is larger than i had imagined, not large enough however that you can’t hear Eve chew each bite of muesli 53 times every morning. We are living in ‘community’ a term that i don’t think i ever truly grasped til now. With the help of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Life Together, we are learning to truly appreciate one another… to celebrate that God made the others in His image and not as we would have made them. To minister to the others by being helpful, and by considering ourselves the most frail; by bearing one another in love.

It is funny how we think we need what we want. If we are hot, we need to cool off. If we are hungry, we need to eat. If we are in pain, we need an aspirin… this is not the case here and i can’t help but realize how comfortable we think we must be. It is most refreshing to have needs that cannot be met. There is a little girl, Ning, who lost her mother to AIDS last week, Loisawon very badly needs all her rotting teeth pulled, and daily lives with the pain. Siriporn needs a very simple surgery on ruptured ear drums, and waits patiently to hear again. I came here to teach these young women, and they have taught me. They understand that this world is not their stage, and that the peoples of the world are not here to entertain them… they are here to serve their villages, us, and Jesus(for those of them who have decided to give Him their lives). They are very strong and yet very meek. They don’t worry about tomorrow (they trust that their portion of rice will be on the table three times daily and ask for nothing more), they don’t hoard up belongings… they give freely of what they have, they work when it is time to work and when it is time to play they do so with hesitation. They love others unabashedly as if the rejection that has shaped their lives never occurred. In this way we should all strive to be a little more like the girls who live at Brenna’s House of Joy. Thank you again for your prayers and words of encouragment, they have come to mean more to me than i ever imagined possible. I love and miss you all.

The NY Times reports on recent advances in isotope hydrology that will allow scientists and government agencies to track the path of water and develop localized plans for sustainable development and conservation of water resources.

After more than 25 years of cooperative work, the agency has gathered so much information that it is now fashioning a detailed portrait of the planet’s water resources that could help prevent future crises and reduce regional friction that may erupt in water wars. “We’re talking about food security, sustainable development,” Dr. Aggarwal said. “If it’s based on unsustainable water resources, you jeopardize everything.”

Full article : With a Push From the U.N., Water Reveals Its Secrets

Bob Geldof at Live Aid

James Suroweiki has a fantastic piece in this week’s New Yorker, “A Farewell to Alms” -

In 1985, when Bob Geldof organized the rock spectacular Live Aid to fight poverty in Africa, he kept things simple. “Give us your fucking money” was his famous (if apocryphal) command to an affluent Western audience—words that embodied Geldof’s conviction that charity alone could save Africa. He had no patience for complexity: we were rich, they were poor, let’s fix it. As he once said to a luckless official in the Sudan, after seeing a starving person, “I’m not interested in the bloody system! Why has he no food?”

Whatever Live Aid accomplished, it did not save Africa. Twenty years later, most of the continent is still mired in poverty. So when, earlier this month, Geldof put together Live 8, another rock spectacular, the utopian rhetoric was ditched. In its place was talk about the sort of stuff that Geldof once despised—debt-cancellation schemes and the need for “accountability and transparency” on the part of African governments—and, instead of fund-raising, a call for the leaders of the G-8 economies to step up their commitment to Africa. (In other words, don’t give us your fucking money; get interested in the bloody system.) Even after the G-8 leaders agreed to double aid to Africa, the prevailing mood was one of cautious optimism rather than euphoria.

As Suroweiki notes, American aid in Asia, particularly South Korea and Taiwan played a major role in revitalizing the economies of those countries. Not only have they emerged from third-world levels of poverty, but they have become productive trading partners and manufacturing hubs for high-tech enterprise. Foreign aid has had some stunning successes in recent years, not to mention the overwhelming effect of the Marshall plan on Germany and the restructuring of the Japanese economy after WWII.

One of the assignments for the St. Anthony’s team members who went to Mexico was to read Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty in order to guide our discussions of the role St. Anthony’s could play in the communities in which it is active.

There are a lot of wonderfully well-meaning people out there who give sacrificially to important causes, but there is a difference between charity and investing in community with the expectation of tangible improvements in quality of life and economic development. While many economists treat problems of economic development with the clinically detached interest of someone performing an autopsy, Sachs’ approach is that of a doctor (his wife is a pediatrician) underlining this approach by making a differential diagnosis for each country in which he works. If you’re interested in getting informed and involved in charitable activity in developing countries, this is a great place to start. A number of Sachs’ articles are available through Project Syndicate.

James Surowieki is the author of the Wisdom of Crowds, which I’ve just downloaded from Audible and am listening to on my ipod. Yay, technology!.

Update: Just as I mention Sachs, I see John Cassidy’s review from the 18th - “Always With Us“