Ethiopia and Somaliland, May 2017

Part of my preparations for project travel is to spend as many hours possible researching the lay-of-the-land in those nations and regions where I will be serving. I want to begin formulating a sense of place and circumstances before I hit the ground.

• ·      What is the poverty rate? Are people poor … or destitute? In other words…
• ·      Are people struggling to make ends meet … or are they experiencing severe sufferings with no resources to bring to bear?
• ·      What is the mortality rate, especially among children 5 yrs old, and younger?
• ·      What are the medical conditions: malnutrition, diseases, etc.?
• ·      What are the environmental challenges: drought, food distress, access to clean water ...
• ·      What are the people doing to make a living, where possible?
• ·      What is the average person’s level of education?
• ·      Are there any reports from other Government Agencies and NGOs regarding this area in the last 2 years? (The charities I represent pretty much only go where no other charities or NGOs have been.)
• ·      What are the political conditions? Are we welcome or seen as threats? Are there particular sensitivities to which I must pay attention while working? 

Another reason for the research is that, while I learned long ago that I can never fully prepare myself for what I am going to witness, such research does give me points of reference to keep my nauseous-self focused on “why we are here” and “what will be useful knowledge and pics for our donors.” 

I also spend a few weeks before each trip, making sure my mindset is conducive for being effective while on the ground. I don’t care how seasoned an aid worker is, my experience is that we are always a nanosecond from losing sight of all the good we are doing by allowing our minds to focus on what is being left undone.

What if we had had more food and water: we could have helped so many more people.

What if we had been here only a month earlier … then this child would have survived, that pregnant mother wouldn’t have lost her baby …

Such questions are best resisted by focusing on the people whom we are helping: we have brought in x-tons of food, so many meds, so much water, that results in helping x-amount of people. It also helps, of course, if you remind yourself that you aren’t a savior much less a god: we are humans doing our absolute best with what we have, for as many people as we are able, wherever and whenever possible.

Daka, Ethiopia

I had hoped to post pics on Facebook of our work here on a daily basis, but the government has shut it down. I was told that part of the reason for this is it doesn’t want pics of malnourished babies going viral. There is a concentrated effort to discourage or delete any mention of the word “malnourished.”

The government there is also making it difficult to distribute food to villages where people from the opposing political party – the majority of people - reside. Charities who do so have to pay over $5,000 for a special audit of its distribution.

You guessed it: the villages where we served were on the audit list.

Ethiopia is the second poorest country in the world, after Niger. In the best of circumstances, the average family makes around $50 a month.

Our team was able to distribute bushels of flour and salt, along with cooking oil, to 400 families. 

Typical home 

Sool, Somaliland 

When the camels are dying, how in the world are humans going to survive?

 

We are the only charity that has ever been to this region. Why?

“Too difficult to get to…too dangerous to be here.”

This area  - Sool – has not seen rain for almost 3 years. 

Only 3 decades ago, this area was covered with forests … there were actually herds of horses running wild. People began chopping the trees down for firewood and not replanting what was cut down. Denuded the land. 

• ·      80% of people in this region make their living via livestock. Because of this drought, 90% of livestock has died.  
• ·      Starvation and malnutrition have spread across this region with a vengeance.
• ·      People here are suffering acute water crisis, which is sorely affecting pregnant women, children, and the elderly.
• ·      Even in those villages where there is water, it is unsafe to drink.
• ·      Without water, there is a huge problem with sanitation and personal hygiene, resulting in cholera and UTIs, and other diseases. 

                                   Those trucks are filled with 16,000+ gallons of clean water!

 

Note the tennis ball in the boy’s hands. We bring along around 100 of these on most every trip to pass along to the children – who go nuts, laughing, kicking it around like a soccer ball, throwing them at each other. Their mother’s smiles are priceless 

If it were not for this team of soldiers and police, we would not have been able to deliver aid, here. 

Maintaining rapport with the soldier who chose to give me close protection: he is from Atlanta!

I am so grateful to be serving the suffering in Ethiopia and Somaliland, as well as for all the supportive prayers and emails sent my way while there. (Lake Awasa, Ethiopia)

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017

Money, Capitalism, and Morality

Earn all you can, give all you can, save all you can.

- John Wesley

Capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid.

-St Bono of U2

Jesus’ Parable of the Talents A man is headed out of town for an extended journey. He calls his three servants together and gives one of them $5,000, another $2,000, and the third $1,000.  When he returns, he calls the servants for a confab and asks them about his return on investment (ROI). The guy who received 5 grand had doubled his master’s money. The master told him that, from now on, they would be partners. The guy who had received 2 grand had also doubled his master’s investment and, therefore, was promoted to being a partner. However, the guy who was given 1 grand, being risk averse, decided to bury the money so that he would still have it when the master returned. His master told him that, at the very least, he should have put the money in a savings account where he would have had some ROI. This guy was fired.

The moral of the story: The God who gave you your gifts, talents, capacities, and opportunities expects a ROI.

Your Money

It is telling that Jesus used money as a means for conveying his message. There is nothing here about giving all your money to the poor, and nothing about sacrificing your wealth for the good of society and being rewarded in heaven. On the contrary, the two men who doubled their master's money were rewarded in-this-life, while the man with no ROI for his boss’ money is fired.

Money is a symbol of productivity. Money represents your labor, your talents, your skills, your time, your faithfulness, and your aptitude for decision-making. In a free society, where men and women of good will exchange their best efforts in mutual self-interest, your wealth is based on the degree of your productivity, how well you manage your resources, and upon the value of what you have to offer in the marketplace.

One of the reasons I believe a free market economy – capitalism – is so critical is that it gives us optimal freedom for being good stewards.

Capitalism

Capitalism respects your right of ownership. “You shall not steal,” says God. Socialism, believing in its own omniscience and omnipotence, does not regard this law as having any application to the state.

Capitalism respects your individuality and the inalienable rights with which you were born. Socialists only respect the will of the state, the will of the ruling elites. As they see it, life and death (both literally and metaphorically) are not in the hands of God, but, rather, are in the hands of the Omniscient State.

Capitalism, rightly understood, supports human dignity: to wit, Yes. You. Can. All other systems treat the individual as an idiot, a slave of the state, or a victim who is incapable of making his own way. Ever. How in the world people think that treating individuals in such a demeaning manner as evidence of compassion or respect is beyond baffling.

Capitalism allows you to enjoy the rewards of your labor, as well as to learn from your failures. Socialism decides who best deserves the rewards you’ve earned, and whether or not you will be allowed to succeed or fail.

In other words, socialism interferes with your stewardship before God.

Morality

As opposed to all other economic systems, capitalism allows you to make as much money as you are able for your own sake, for your family’s sake, for love’s sake.

It’s this last attribute - for love’s sake - that makes all the difference in the world between being consumed by money and possessions or by love: whether the blessings that come our way are being stewarded as blessings from God or being used to degrade our selves and others: whether we are pursuing our own selfish ends or a life well-lived, which includes pursuing virtue’s such as love, goodness, and justice. *  

Freedom comes with rights and duties. Our nation’s founders never envisioned democracy as a morality-free zone, where, exchanging liberty for licentiousness, everyone runs around doing whatever is right in his own eyes. They understood that, without a moral people, democracy would degenerate into anarchy or tyranny. The same goes for free markets. If we remove love for God and others from the marketplace and our individual economic pursuits, then all we will be left with is not a marketplace but a den of thieves.

* Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. - Proverbs 31: 8,9 

Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life. - Proverbs 22:22-23

If you love me, keep my commands. – Jesus, John 14:15 This includes not making money an idol (e.g., living for self-aggrandizement), no bearing of false-witness regarding your product/skills/ competition, no stealing or cheating, no coveting, as well as honoring –protecting, caring for - the family.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? – I John 3: 16,17

(All passages taken from NIV)

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017

The Visciousness of Envy

I am Envy...I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.

- Christopher Marlowe

Capitalism is brutally honest. By this, I mean that, in the arena of achievement, you cannot hide your shortcomings and failures. You contribute or not. You produce or not. You cannot sell or trade hopes and fantasies: you have something of value to contribute in the marketplace, or not.

Consumers are interested in meeting their needs and desires. The entrepreneur who does this with a quality product and at a cheaper price than his competitors is rewarded. I may be a wonderful upstanding guy who people really like, but if I have nothing of value to offer in the marketplace, I am invisible to the consumer.

Today, however, people are acting like the aristocracy of old, demanding to be rewarded without having produced much, or demanding equal rewards for unequal production. Fifteen-dollars per hour for the French Frying Queen! These are the envious people who want what the successful person has earned and, if not, they don’t want anyone to have such rewards.

Envy is vicious.

It is one wrong thing to be jealous of the success of another. For example, I am jealous that you have a new BMW and I drive a ’92 Buick. Envy, however, goes farther, believing that, if I can’t have a Beemer, you shouldn’t have one.

The Envious: I deserve to be wealthy but I am not. However, successful entrepreneurs are wealthy. This is wrong, immoral, unfair, blah, blah, and blah. Confiscate their wealth!

Really? The product is not illegal or immoral and the consumer was neither defrauded nor coerced. Tell me at what point, then, did the profits become immoral? If you are saying the product should be illegal, then make your case. However, when your recriminations are solely against the wealth produced, all you are doing is demonstrating your envy. (Reference: Productive Christians in An Age of Guilt Manipulators, by David Chilton.)

To the envious person, the damnable thing is that the market has placed a different value on his contribution than he believes is “fair.” “Someone must do something about this miscarriage of justice!” and by “someone” he is referring to state and federal governments that must join him in declaring all out war on the producers of wealth via confiscatory taxation … that, of course, is to be redistributed to the poor … after the state and federal governments take their 80% handling fees.

The deal is, however, it is not “justice” the envy seeks: it is retribution and destruction.

Such is the damnable viciousness of envy that, if it becomes the majority voice in a culture and, consequently, the inevitable happens – i.e., poverty and unemployment rates skyrocket – and all then become equally poor, you will see a smile of satisfaction on its twisted face.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017

Prophets Against Profits

In the capitalist system of society’s economic organization the entrepreneurs determine the course of production. In the performance of this function they are unconditionally and totally subject to the sovereignty of the busying public, the consumers. If they fail to produce in the cheapest and best possible way these commodities which the consumers are asking for most urgently, they suffer losses and are finally eliminated from their entrepreneurial position. Other men who know better how to serve the consumers replace them.

- Ludwig von Mises, “Planning For Freedom”

A (very) brief primer on where profits come from in a free market economy and then a few observations regarding the idiocy of any notion of profits being “too high.”

In a capitalistic economy, sellers (entrepreneurs) compete with other sellers while consumers compete with other consumers.

The seller competes with other sellers in forecasting the consumer’s needs and desires and providing their product in a timely manner at a price the consumer will pay.

The consumers compete by bidding against other consumers via how much each is willing to pay for the product, if anything at all.  

The seller wins or loses (profits or losses) according to how accurate his forecast was regarding consumer demand and how the consumer evaluates the quality and cost of the product.  

If the seller nails it, his risk (investment) is rewarded. By the way, when other entrepreneurs see his rewards, they are motivated to compete for these profits by producing the same product at a cheaper price … and the cost for us consumers is driven downward. Nifty, eh?

So, riddle me this.

What in the world are “unjust” or “ungodly” profits? Where did the profit come from? Satisfied consumers. So what is actually being asserted is that the consumers are wicked.

“No, no, no, Wilson. The seller obviously charged too much for his product.” Maybe it was “too much” for you or you simply didn’t want the product. Fine. For all those who wanted the product, however, the price was juuuust right.

“Well then, the consumers were duped into buying the product by advertisers.” So you’re saying thousands upon thousands of consumers were all too stupid to resist the ads? Can you say … condescending? Anyway, if advertising was that powerful sellers would never have to worry about the demand for or the quality of their product. Just pour a zillion dollars into ads and success is assured.

Question: By what standard do the accusers condemn a certain level of profits as “unjust?” Their. Subjective. Opinions. That’s it. Contrary to Mises’ comment that the consumers are sovereign in a free market, what these self-appointed judges are asserting is, “I am sovereign.” Of course, when our governments make side deals with corporations, deciding winners and losers, or enact price controls, or place higher taxes on products they deem a “luxury,” and etc., they too are asserting their sovereignty over the market place, but that’s a topic for another day.

When I was younger, I never understood the prophets against high profits. Didn’t they see they were railing against their neighbors who purchased the product or who own stock in Too-Wealthy, Inc.? At first, I chalked it up to ignorance. People simply do not understand capitalism and the free market. But then the motive for so many others’ condemnation of high profits dawned on me: it is unabashed envy, seasoned with hatred for the common man.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017

Westminster Cathedral: Where Time and the Timeless Intersect

The first time I was in London was in 1982. I had gone there for entrance exams for a college I wanted to attend. However, after I had applied, I discovered that Rachel and Monte IV were on the way and knew I wouldn’t have the finances to support a family of seven, in London. The reason I still went for the exams was that I wanted to know if I would make the grade. I did. The joy of the twin’s birth washed away any regrets that might have lingered.

After the exams, thinking I would never again be in London, the next day I went on a walk about. I saw the Changing of the Guard, the Crown Jewels, Parliament, walked through the parks smoking Habana’s I had bought on Bond Street, sipped beer where Samuel Johnson had gone for libations, visited St Pauls’ Cathedral to pay homage to one of its most famous poet-priests, John Donne, and, of course, visited Westminster Cathedral.

Westminster It was like stepping into the very stream of history.

Authors and poets I revered were buried in the Abby and Nave, as were Kings and Queens.  Poets Corner was like walking into the Holy of Holies, for people like me. Chaucer, Browning, Dickens, Dryden, Kipling, Tennyson and so many others were laid to rest there. 

At one point, I sat in one of the pews in the Cathedral and basked in the magnificence of it all. While sitting there, an a cappella Boys Choir began practicing. They were hidden behind the apse and the high altar, which elicited a sense of mystery. “Ave Maria … Ave Maria.”

The historian Christopher Dawson wrote that such places as Westminster gave us a greater understanding of the magnitude of the religious element in our culture and the depths of its roots than anything we could learn in school. I know this was true for me.

Westminster Where time and the timeless intersected and, for a brief moment, it was numinous. All of us have such moments of grace. The trick is to be paying attention when they happen.  

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017

When Everyone Else is Screaming

It is relatively rare for me to engage in debates, any longer. My 40+ years of experience in mouth-to-mouth combat is that we rarely win over people’s minds and hearts by arguing with them. Typically such debates merely polarize the combatants (telling word, eh?), rather than winning over those with whom we are speaking. I am not suggesting that I do not have strong convictions for which I am ready to passionately defend or explain; only that I rarely see an opportunity to actually have a conversation where we seek to persuade, rather than browbeat.

My experience is that people have come to many of their convictions and positions via fear and anger or past hurts and disappointments. When this is the case, deductive logic, philosophical arguments, theological assertions, and history lessons, aren’t of much use. If there is to be a meaningful conversation in such a situation, it usually must begin at the psychological level, and most people just don’t want to go there, as they are convinced their emotional reactions are logical arguments. Maybe if we sought to first befriend others, or at least to develop an authentic rapport, there would be more possibilities for getting down to their real issues. Anyway-

What do we do when everyone around us is screaming?

A soft answer turns away wrath. –Solomon

If you believe you must speak with those whom are screaming, remember the Wisdom of Solomon. Trust me. If you will keep speaking softly (or hold off on using caps lock), 7 out of 10 times the decibel levels will fall and you just might have an opportunity for a conversation.

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you. -St Paul

If you’re finding that most every day you are lobbing mouth-grenades on Facebook, at the office, wherever, you may want to reflect on your ambitions. If your life is defined by arguing with others, how about taking a break from “Tongue-fu!” and spending time on making your life the argument for what you believe. You will be amazed by the conversations your life will elicit.

 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. –St James

Tell me exactly how peaceable we are when spit is flying out of our mouths and you can see our pulsating jugular from 10 yards away? How gentle are we when everything about our demeanor and words scream. “I want to throttle you”? (There’s a difference between being stern and being mean-spirited.) Is there anything about us that says, “I am truly listening to you,” or “I am easily entreated”? Which all begs the question: What is the source of our wisdom? Is it from above or from elsewhere?

When someone urinates on what you hold sacred, pleasantries are idiotic and disingenuous. Got it. But think about this: Do we want to win this person over, to disabuse them of illusions, to help them come to the truth? Or do we wish to make sure they see that they are numbskulls? What is our intended outcome? If you want to fight, have at it. But if we want to win people over, we may want to change our communication strategies … and our attitudes.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2015

Stop the Anecdoche

Anecdoche (pronounced: ANEC-doc) is a conversation where everybody is talking but nobody is listening, which begs the question - if nobody is listening then is it a “conversation” or simultaneous monologues? If all we are doing is tossing back a few and having a word-fest, maybe anecdoche is okay. When the discussion is centered upon a disagreement or conflict of some sort, however, anecdoche will get us to places worse than nowhere.  

You think that adults would have enough life experience to realize that until The Other senses that he has been heard then all of our talking and arguing is a waste of energy and oxygen. But, for example, when you consider our present national political debates, you realize ... Silly me. 

“Come on Wilson. I prove I have listened by answering every question and rebutting every assertion with facts and logic, and he still won’t listen.”

While you may have dealt with his spoken questions and disagreements, my experience is that people often only reveal the outer layer of their conflicts and issues. Sometimes this is because they want to see how you are going to react before going deeper. Sometimes this is because they are only aware of the immediate breakdown but not the underlying issues that led to the breakdown; issues such as past offenses being smuggled into the present conflict, conflicts of belief systems and mindsets, as well as unspoken expectations. To get at these requires active listening, which means asking questions that take us deeper.

Another issue that clogs up our ears is where we pigeon hole the person(s) with whom we are seeking to communicate. Because you are x, you believe and feel y, which makes you a z. Really? As you haven’t asked me a single question and taken the time to hear me out, how would you know? You don’t want to talk with me; you want to talk to your projections.

I am an individual, not a sociological statistic. I am me - not “them.” Sure, generalizations can be a handy short cut in conversations. However, when we fail to test them for accuracy, we run the risk of projecting onto an individual beliefs and attitudes he doesn’t possess. You don’t like it when people do this to you, so don’t do it to them. (See The Golden Rule.)

There is no communication and, therefore, no potential for resolution, for a coming together of minds, or for healing where The Other doesn’t see, hear, and feel that we are listening to him … and visa versa. If we’re not going to go there, not take the time to truly listen to each other, then we need to keep quiet.  If not, if we choose to barge forward and let loose a barrage of words at each other, all we are doing is creating possibilities for further misunderstandings and relational breakdowns.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017