Still Alive

Well, I haven't posted in a longer time than I would have liked, but I am still alive. I am currently working at Lincoln Christian University, acting as their Missionary-in-Residence, which, roughly, means that I am "in charge" of helping students understand their role as ministers and missionaries. I am also helping lead a worldview class, which is immensely fun.

In the meantime, I am working on the several pilot programs IRI has scheduled for the next 12 months. The closest up is the one in December in South Africa, which seems to be progressing well. The other three are in Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Myanmar in 2014. I am working with our board member in Hong Kong on the pilot there, and Al is setting up the other two. In addition, I have at least two leads I am working on which may result in pilot seminars in the U.S. sometime in the next 8-12 months. If all goes well, I can use these seminars to train some additional presenters to help us cover the increase in work we will experience when the pilots we have scheduled provide us with proof-of-concept for educators in South Africa and Hong Kong.

So things are going well, and I am busy. Speaking of which, it is time to get back to grading - it turns out my students actually want to know how well they do on their assignments. Imagine that.

Back in the U.S.A.

It's been a long, crazy trip, but after an unexpected two-month extension, I am back from Hong Kong. Much has happened in the last few months, but our recent rapid-fire change of schedule has probably been the most difficult to weather.

Things started getting complicated when I was asked to fill in preaching at Ken's Fairview Park church after his death. I was happy to help out, and the experience was enjoyable (for me, at least - others tell me they enjoyed it, too). The church really has some great people, and everyone was very welcoming and interested in learning, which makes it much easier to teach. Unfortunately, the sermons ended on a bit of a sad note, with news that the preacher Ken had chosen to replace him, Cody, was denied a his visa to come to Hong Kong (Cody is from the Philippines, and is a very intelligent and energetic man - I met him in the Philippines, and have been very impressed with his friendly energy and his dedication). I don't know what the church will be doing now that I am gone, but hope to keep in touch and remain updated on their doings.

The second major work that I was able to be a part of was helping our newest board member, Kitty Ho, put together some training materials for local HK schools based on our Insight principles and theories. The classes were three hours long, and covered the importance of critical thinking and building positive relationships in an educational environment. There were three sessions in three different schools that taught children with intellectual disabilities. Participants were mostly teachers, though we also had some physical therapists. The classes were generally well-received, with several inquires about when we would be able to do follow-up, so I believe our prospects for developing our programs in Hong Kong are definitely positive. Kitty and I are now working on the official pilot program for HK schools that will take place in the Summer of 2014.

Overall, this was a great trip - I was able to meet some fantastic people, and work on some really engaging and edifying projects. I look forward to going back next year. Until then, however, I have some new work to accomplish: I will be working at Lincoln Christian University for the next school year, as well as preparing for a community development pilot seminar in South Africa this December. Busy times!

On a final note, Al was forced to come back to the U.S. early due to some serious dental issues (the doctors found a growth in his mouth which had been causing him extreme pain - he needed to return to the U.S. for his medical insurance to cover the procedure to investigate/remove it). As a result, our purchase of a vehicle for Mozambique has been delayed until he can get back. The money we have raised will remain in a separate fund  until we can purchase the vehicle as planned.

Incoming From the Philippines

Finally, in the last two days of my trip to the Philippines, I am able to get online to make a post. It has been an exciting, traumatic, exhausting, and enlightening time here. I will post more specific details once I get back to the U.S. (and no longer have to borrow other people's computers to make a post), but for now, let me sum up:

Arrival and 1st Stop:

Al, Ken (our host), and I arrived in the Philippines on the 20th of March, just exactly five weeks ago. We were met by Marie Panti, one of Ken's associates here. We traveled to her home, which would serve as the venue of our Insight Seminar. Between preparation and execution, the seminar lasted about two and a half weeks. We had delegates attending from the Philippines, Myanmar, and Hong Kong. When the seminar was over, the group from Hong Kong returned home, and the rest of us traveled north to our next scheduled stop.

2nd Stop - It All Breaks Down:

Our second stop was the home of Glo - one of the delegates who attended our seminar at Marie's home. The trip north took around eight hours by bus, and was fairly comfortable for a bus trip. Upon arrival, Ken and several nationals began preparation for the retreat they were running. Before the retreat began, however, there was the matter of a wedding to attend (and participate in - more about that in a later post). After the wedding, we kicked off the beginning of the retreat with Ken and the others.

Then Ken died.

The Aftermath:

Ken's death was both unexpected and traumatic. Everybody at the retreat loved and respected him, and he was liked by many people in the community as well. Everything came to a halt, until we could get his family there and determine how to handle memorial services and transportation of his remains. I will give additional information in a later post, but suffice to say it changed everything.

After all the arrangements were made and the funeral was conducted, Ken's family left with a few of the nationals for Manila. From there, the family took Ken's remains back to Hong Kong. Al and I remained behind, our previous plans cancelled, and spent our time working with the local people setting up a week-long community program. Al coached the locals to identify and develop solutions for their local issues, and by the time the remaining nationals returned from Manila, the program was being led by local leadership.

Now:

Now the extended community development program is winding up (the locals decided to extend the program an additional week to cover all the issues they were uncovering), and Al and I are getting ready to head back to Hong Kong on Friday. I plan to post another quick update as that leg of the trip winds up, then set up a more detailed account (with pictures, even!) once I get back to the U.S. and have easier access to the Internet.

That's it for now - stay tuned next month for details of the Hong Kong experience!

Back From Africa

I'm back in the U.S. after my time in South Africa and Mozambique. I've already posted about
the seminar in Mozambique, but there were a few other things that have happened in the
meantime.

More Breakdowns

Our car broke down again...and yet again! Upon our return to South Africa from Mozambique, our first stop was the repair shop to pick up our newly repaired car. We then went to SARS to extend the permit to keep the car in the country for another two weeks, at which time Al planned to head back to Mozambique with Leonard. Unfortunately, during a trip to Potchefstroom the next week, the car broke down again. Moreover, it turned out to be the same problem as before - no financial worries there, as the transmission (gearbox, in South Africa) was under warranty, but it really put a dent in our plans. As a result of the breakdown, Al had to stay in South Africa longer than planned. Leonard went back by bus, while Al waited for the car to get fixed so he could drive it into Mozambique. Just before our extension deadline was about to expire, the car was repaired - only to have the transmission blow again as it was transported from the shop! It turns out something other than the transmission was broken - and since that isn't under warranty, we will have to pay for those repairs.Al is still in South Africa, and will remain there until his return to the U.S. in mid-August (his return date was moved up once we realized he wouldn't be able to make it back to Mozambique before returning, regardless of his departure date).

Contacts

We have made several contacts in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe who are interested in our work. Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned car troubles and the accompanying time and budget impact, we don't know when we will be able to follow up. We are hoping we will be able to meet with some of the interested organizations when we...

Return to Africa

Al and Vel are currently planning to head back to Africa in December, while I am currently scheduled to head back in January. I will spend about a month in South Africa, then head up to Mozambique to help with presenter training again. I don't have a scheduled return date yet.

Cancellations

Unfortunately, we have had some disappointments beyond the car. Due to low enrollment, the seminar we had planned for OK this month was canceled. In addition, our seminar in Haiti has been postponed a year, as our hosting organization is undergoing a restructure right now. We do plan to be in Haiti next year, but I don't know when our next seminar for the U.S. will be scheduled.

Disappointed?

All this could seem pretty disappointing, but honestly, these are simply setbacks, not defeats. The time that has opened up as a result of the cancellations gives me a chance to meet with supporters and other interested organizations in the U.S. Currently, we are in the process of setting up my fall schedule, so if anyone would like me to come out and speak at your local organization/church/group of friends/multimillion-dollar IRI charity concert, please feel free to contact me (via my e-mail, through our website, or even by leaving a comment below), and I will be happy to try work out a time to visit.

Since I didn't post last month (sorry about that!), I plan for a few additional posts this month - keep an eye out!

My Enemy: The Internet?

When I started writing these blogs, I had the idea that they would account some of the more interesting parts of my adventures in working for Insight Resources (then Safari Insight Mission). Recently, the entries have been more along the lines of news shorts and not insights into what is going on. So here's a change back to my original idea - explaining why, despite evidence to the contrary, the Internet does NOT hate me.

The story begins when I received word that the donation buttons on our main website were not working. This caused slightly more concern than had I found out the website had crashed completely - after all, no donation buttons means no donations...something vital for our nonprofit organization. Our previous webmaster, Doug Berry, had just passed away, and he had asked for a memorial donation to be set up, so this was even worse than normal - lack of donations plus a PR mess, as there were many people who were visiting the site to donate.

I did some checking, and found that PayPal (who we use to handle our donations) had a very simple setup for installing donation buttons. The site had pre-generated code that would tweak itself based on our account information. Thus, all I had to do was copy the code and paste it into the appropriate part of our website - easy!

Or...not so easy, as it turned out. I copied the code as instructed, only to find that my administrative interface for the website would delete the newly-imported code as soon as I published the change to the internet. So I could copy the code all I wanted, and it would paste normally, but when I hit "save" part of the code disappeared, causing the buttons to malfunction. Clearly, I was doing something wrong - time to call the experts.

I contacted our web page provider, who also doubles as my impromptu tech support for all things internet. Amy, who helps us with our webpage troubles, politely explained that the solution was quite simple...and then walked me through the exact same series of actions I had been performing. I explained that I had tried this, so she tried it herself. It worked. After much consternation, discussion, and head-banging, we discovered that while I could not paste the needed code without it imploding, Amy could do so without trouble. Clearly, there was something in my interface (read, my Firefox browser) that was messing up the code. No problem - I could switch to another browser and make the changes that way, instead. So I switched to another browser and tried again...and failed.

To make an already long story short, it turned out that every time Amy updated the code, it saved without trouble. Whenever I added the code, however, part of the code would delete. This persisted across multiple browsers and even multiple computers! Eventually, Amy just updated the page for me and we called it done, but the experience left me with an odd feeling...the feeling the Internet (or at least, my website) was out to get me.

I'm sure this is a pretty common occurrence for many of us - something bad happens, and some part of us gravitates toward the idea that, somehow, it is a conspiracy by something to cause us frustration. In our seminar, we address this issue as an example of a type of poor thinking.* Still, habits are what they are - even though I know that the internet is not alive, intelligent, or vindictively trying to make me look like an idiot, I still tend to think like it is. This led me to wonder why we do this...if I know the universe isn't out to get me, why do I sometimes want to think it does?

This is an important question for me, because I routinely interact with cultures whose belief systems do hold that personal forces in our universe are constantly guiding, manipulating, or even disrupting our lives. Note that I am not talking about God causing a miracle - I'm a Christian, I believe that can happen. Miracles are a disruption of the natural order, which otherwise functions in a predictable way (that's why we recognize them as miracles - they don't fit the pattern). What I am talking about is the idea that some kind of power - be it gods, demons, angels, or CIA conspiracies - exert control over everything we do. Because of this, we do not have any real control over our lives - we just spend our lives being manipulated by others. If I am going to claim that the universe is an understandable, predicable, controllable environment, it is not unreasonable to ask why we sometimes act as if it is a person (who is often out to get us).

I think the main reason for this feeling stems from two primary factors: 1) we are intelligent, thinking beings and 2) we all, to some degree, desire justice. Item 1 contributes to this phenomenon through the process of personification - attributing human characteristics (e.g. personhood) to non-human things. We do this all the time: we talk about our dogs, cars, computers, corporations, and other non-human things as if they were persons. We assign them personal thoughts and motives, because we ourselves have such thoughts and motives, and it helps us connect with them. Nevertheless, this is a mistake. Even in the case of animals, treating them as people is a mistake that can harm both the animals and ourselves (read some literature on animal psychology or just go listen to the Dog Whisperer talk to learn more). Most of the time, however, this is harmless - but it gets us into the habit of thinking of non-human things as personal, which contributes to my sense that the internet is out to get me (a personal goal), even though it really cannot have such a goal.

On to item 2. Now by "justice" I simply mean we want to see retribution for evil done - especially when that evil is done to us. We like to see the "bad guy" get "what's coming to him" in stories. We like it when criminals are caught and punished. I am not going to make any statement here about why we have this feeling or even if it is right - I only point out that we do, in fact, feel this way. Given that this is a fairly common desire, it makes sense that we would want to think of the universe as a person - people can do evil and be punished, where simple causal forces do not have any intent - evil or otherwise - and are not something we "punish." Punishment requires the person being punished understand they are being punished (otherwise it can never rise above cruelty). An impersonal reality cannot understand punishment (or anything else, for that matter). Thus, thinking of reality as personal helps us cope with trouble by giving us "someone" to blame and direct our desire for justice upon, even though we are really only dealing with natural cause-and-effect.**

These two factors together are enough, I think, to explain why we tend to personalize the universe - be it the universe in general, or specific items like computers or cars. One last note needs to be made here - I am not arguing against the existence of spiritual forces (as a Christian that would be a bit inconsistent), but simply noting that, under normal circumstances, the universe just is a place of cause-and-effect relationships unless something acts to interfere with that process (like God or us). In all cases, I believe that the first avenue of investigating any event is to check for natural causes, unless there is immediate evidence that the cause is personal (for example, if someone leaves a note). This does lead to a third reason that we may personalize impersonal things in the universe, however - if we believe that personal but invisible forces really do exist, then there is a question of possible intent even if there is no human responsible. For me, however, this is similar to the difference between knowing that the CIA exists, and believing that they are at the core of a global conspiracy that controls everything I do. Yes, the CIA can (and will) act in certain cases, but that does not mean everything that happens is an act of the CIA.***

I don't know if this has been helpful to anyone - it has probably enraged someone - but I thought I would actually start adding my observations to this blog, like I said I would some time ago. This was related to the work we are doing, so it seemed a good place to start.

Oh, and our donation buttons are working now - but you should go test them to make sure.

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* The seminar emphasizes the causal nature of our universe and our need to investigate causes for events, not simply jump to investigating persons who we think are responsible
** Note that this argument doesn't necessarily apply to animals, as they do seem to understand punishment in some sense - how and to what degree are a matter of debate, and not something I will get into here
*** Given the number of times I've used CIA, I can't shake the feeling that someone at the agency will eventually end up reading this...

What do the Seminars Do?

One question that many people are understandably interested in is: what, exactly, do the Insight Seminars do? The problem answering such a question is that there are many things the seminars do; there are also many ways to explain what they are and different people are interested in slightly different aspects of what happens. So for this explanation, I will try to keep things at their most basic. That is, I want to explain what we think is the core of what the seminars do.

First, some background. We have all heard how our environment shapes us. Various studies, researches, papers, articles, and our own experiences make this clear. What we don't often realize is how much we are shaped by our environment. In our early development, nearly everything we believe is determined by outside forces—we are told what to wear, where to go, what to say, how to behave, even how to eat and drink (properly). In addition to everything we are told, we absorb even more by example. From watching other people and through personal experience, we learn how to really act, what is real and make-believe, what things are dangerous, and just generally how the world works.

As we get older, we pass this knowledge on to others in our community, which both reinforces and refines the ideas we have about the world. It is human nature to want to be right and comfortable, so we tend to spend time with those who have similar views to us; this puts us in a situation where everyone around us strengthens our views. Over time, it seems to us (and those around us) that our ideas are just “the way things are”, and we think that such things are “common sense” and “everyone knows this.” The truth, however, is that we are often wrong on all three counts. This is what gets us into trouble. Because our view of the world is restricted to our own community, we are unable to see certain aspects of reality. Thus “the way things are” may not actually be the way things are. “Common sense” is only common in our community, and everyone most definitely does not know “this.”

Once we have a community consensus, it becomes difficult to recognize where our ideas don't match up with the way the world works. In certain cases, this can produce terrible troubles, such as cultures of poverty and the self-reinforcing fatalism found in communities which have suffered long-term social and/or economic hardships. These cultures create self-reinforcing systems of thought which accept or even encourage negative or destructive behavior. Because the ideas behind these systems are shared throughout the community, they are considered “the way things are,” and are treated as “common sense” within the community.

In order to break out of these self-destructive systems of thought, new ideas need to be introduced. That's where the seminars come in. The seminars introduce new ideas and concepts which help people to identify how they can take control of their environment and change their lives and the world around them for the better. Introducing ideas isn't enough, however. It is important that people understand how these ideas apply to their own lives—this way, people can use these new perspectives to improve their lives on their own terms, without having to fit another culture's paradigm into their system.

Long lead-in for a quick explanation, I know. Next time, I want to explore a bit more about what these new principles are and why they are so effective.