Trying to follow

Page 1: I will donate today and help this child.
Page 2: I will donate later.

I’ve recently started reading the book A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne. I’d highly recommend it to anyone (but particularly those who work with or live in poverty situations).
I’ll be posting a lot of my thoughts on what I read in the book over the next few days or weeks (it helps me to process information). Today, I want to talk about a definition for poverty.
Commonly when we talk about poverty we usually focus on finances. The national poverty line is measured solely on the income of an individual or family and takes nothing else into account. The first thing Dr. Payne does in her book is lays out a working definition of poverty: “The extent to which an individual does without resources.” This is a clear and simple definition which she goes on to further explain by defining resources as the following:

Financial: Having the money to purchase good and services.

Emotional: Being able to choose and control emotional responses, particularly to negative situations, without engaging in self-destructive behavior.

Mental: Having the mental abilities and acquired skills (reading, writing, computing) to deal with daily life.

Spiritual: Believing in divine purpose and guidance.

Physical: Having the physical health and mobility.

Support Systems: Having friends, family and backup resources available to access in times of need. These are external resources.

Relationships/ Role Models: Having frequent access to adults who are appropriate, who are nurturing to the the child, and who do not engage in self-destructive behavior.

Knowledge of the Hidden Rules: Knowing the unspoken cues and habits of a group.

Already, she has done such a crucial thing in expanding ones understanding of poverty and how it functions. I often point to the lack of support and relationships the poor have to help meet their needs. More specifically I usually point to the support structure that I have in place (family primarily) that would keep me from being out on the streets no matter what good or bad decisions I make.
Hidden rules are another section that speaks volumes to understanding the barriers one has to overcoming poverty. My dad works with people who are chronicly-unemployed and he talks about the need to teach some of the “hidden rules” of being and staying employed. These are things many take for granted and others simply never learned growing up.

This is an excellent book, and I got all that from just the first page!
Lot’s more to come.

I figured I needed to get this posted sometime soon. This is my friend, Peter. He’s some what of a celebrity in China these days. You see he went to South Africa and saw first hand some of the ravaging effects of AIDS in that country. Then he went back to China and started telling folks about it. He’s taught his classes about it (He teaches English at one of the Universities). He’s talked to lecture halls full of doctor’s and nurses.
All that to say, Peter really cares about helping fight the pandemic of AIDS. I’m hoping to help him do that. Sometime this summer or fall we’ll be launching a non-profit focused on addressing just that issue.

Currently, the website is just for collecting email addresses of those interested in our progress. If your interested, please stop by and sign up.

http://petersaidsfund.org

It’s over a week since the Easter holiday, so I feel safe venturing some critiques about it. My friend Bryan pointed out that there hasn’t been much outrage around Easter about the bunny and eggs.
During Christmas there was so much outrage at the idea of calling the evergreens people where buying “Holiday Trees.” When my mom was growing up they had a Hanukkah Bush. My family had decorations for Christmas and Hanukkah (as well as a strange assortment of other family ornaments). Mindy and I have not had a tree in our living room since we’ve been married, and yet I don’t think we missed out on anything essential concerning the birth of Jesus. Celebrating the birth of Jesus is a good thing, but his birth is not what is central or pinnacle to the Christian faith; it’s his resurrection.
I wonder then, where is the outrage at Jesus’ resurrection being taken over by a giant bunny that hands kids pastel eggs full of candy? If you ask me, that’s what people should be upset about. I think it’s probably because nobody’s trying to trump the word “Easter.” Maybe they’d be bothered if someone decleared it the Buddha Bunny? Or what about just “The Bunny” leaving “Easter” out all together?

My point in saying all that is not to incite outrage over the Easter bunny or to start a boycott of pastel eggs. I think I’m just bothered by the lack of consistency and focus on such unimportant things. Let other’s call the evergreens what they want, maybe you should be ditching the Easter bunny altogether. Probably we should be spending a little more time trying to explain why some old guy dying and then rising from the dead is so important to our children. Believe me, you’ll have your work cut out for you.

I can’t believe I’m actually making a post of this. I’ll start by saying most of the time I find forwards very annoying. If it’s got an “FWD:” multiple times at the beginning of an email I usually delete it. There are all kinds of real life sentimental stories out there, I don’t need to hear another cheesy forwarded one. On top of that, these forwards usually come from folks I barely ever email with at all, they come as a forward with no personal greeting or note on how this little story has impacted their lives, nothing of that nature. The only thing you can hope for is the good luck charm at the bottom if you send it to five friends before you delete it.

Yet, even after all of that, I sometimes take a minute and read through a forward or two. Usually it’s because I miss the person who sent it, and if that’s all I get from them, well, at least that’s a start. And as I get about three lines into it I can already guess the incredibly obvious and cheesy way the story is going to end. After one line you can tell if there is a political bias or agenda to the story at all.
I keep reading though, just to see if there is a twist to the story I didn’t expect, and rarely is there, it’s usually just the cheesy ending I expected.

And yet, even though I know how it’s going to end, and I know it’s probably a made up story just to tug at my emotions…
I still cry.

Here’s the most recent culprit.

(note: I think what I find so moving about the story above, is that it shows humans capable of an understanding of love being a more important motivating factor then winning. I long to see that more often.)