Insights from Hong Kong

It appears I have not made it back to the U.S. after all.

Originally, the plan was for Al and I return to the U.S. after spending a few weeks in Hong Kong to follow up with people and work out some plans for next year. While we did accomplish these things (and more), I was given the opportunity to help our host's church. Ken had been the preacher at a church in Hong Kong and after his death, the church needed someone to take over the preaching. Fortunately, Ken had already made plans for a successor - unfortunately, that successor was from the Philippines, and the immigration procedures were not complete. As a result, there was a gap between Ken's death and when his successor could make it to Hong Kong that required an interim preacher.

Al volunteered me to fill in.

I'm not at all upset with his presumption - in fact, this has provided me with an opportunity to get to know several of the friends we made on our trip better, as well as get to know Hong Kong better in general. I am currently working on plans for next year, meeting new people, working with our new board member (who is a Hong Kong national), and even investigating job opportunities so that I can support myself when I return next year as part of our ongoing plans for developing programs here, in the Philippines, and in Myanmar. This is a tremendous opportunity, and I am grateful for Al's timely suggestion to the church here. I am also grateful for the people I have met so far, and look forward to working with everyone here for the next two months.

The current schedule now has me returning to the U.S. in late July. I will be posting more about my U.S. plans as my return date approaches.

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!

Philippines Log: Friday, 3/22/2013

We have made it to the Philippines! I arrived in Hong Kong a little over a week ago after a 23-hour flight. We stayed over the weekend at Ken’s church (Ken is hosting us in Hong Kong), and picked up a few final supplies before heading out for Manila on Wednesday. Compared to the flight to get to Hong Kong, the flight to Manila was fairly quick – only about an hour and a half in the air. We (Al, Ken, and I) arrived at the Philippines and were picked up by our host here, Marie, and Dave, an IRI board member who had arrived the day before. Marie took us south, stopping by a mall (to pick up a few more things we managed to remember only after getting on the plane in Hong Kong) and eventually crossing a lake to arrive at her home, a concrete and metal house on a mountain overlooking said lake.

Currently, we are preparing for the Insight Seminar next week. We arrived early, so only those of us from Hong Kong, a national minister named Cody, and Marie and her family are here right now. We expect the rest of the group to arrive today and late tomorrow. In total, there should be about 24 of us.

A Late Arrival in Feburary

It's been a while since my last post. Preparations for the trip to the Philippines are underway, and I have just finished my battery of vaccinations to get ready for the trip. I will be traveling first to Hong Kong, then on to Manila, where Al and I will be for about a month - a week for the seminar, and three for follow-up coaching with the participants and sponsoring organization. On the trip back, I will be staying in Hong Kong for about three weeks for more coaching.

While our main focus remains Africa (there are plans for me to head back as early as August), our long-term goals have always included Asia, so it is exciting to get a chance to see what kind of impact our seminar and coaching program can have in a completely different cultural context. I expect everyone this trip will learn quite a lot.

Ideas From The Seminar: Generalizations

January’s Insight Seminar was a lot of fun for me (and, I hope, for the participants). During the sessions, we would get into various discussions about some of the concepts and ideas we are exploring. Even relatively simple ideas like generalization can generate some interesting ideas. One such idea was the idea that governments, by necessity, are generalists. That is, at the governmental level, things tend to be handled in terms of “big numbers” as opposed to dealing with individuals. There are a number of implications of this phenomenon, and I recently found one particular article that serves as a good example of the difference between thinking generally and thinking in terms of specific individuals.

Check it out here.

To sum up, the article talks about government efforts to use “crime prediction software” to determine the level of supervision a particular prisoner should have upon probation or parole. By analyzing the prisoner’s environment, history, and other factors the crime-prediction software creates a statistical probability of that person committing a crime.

From the government’s general perspective, this is a great idea—it saves time and expenses by allowing parole officers to focus on the more likely cases of criminal relapse. It is easy to see how a government would love such a system. From the perspective of an individual, however, this can represent a terrible system, as an individual is being judged, not by the type of person he or she is, nor by the actions that person takes, but by environmental and social factors that may be outside of his or her control. Thus, the system becomes, from the perspective of an individual, an example of profiling which demeans the individual by taking the sentence the government has required and adding conditions to it on the word of a computer.

Ultimately, questions regarding the appropriateness of such software focus on finding a balance between the government’s need to manage by numbers (where all citizens are, by necessity, regarded as statistics), and the need to maintain the dignity of the individual. At the heart of this debate is a very simple concept: generalizations are generally true (but by no means universal in application). This is the major struggle we see in many debates about policy—to make governing easier for the government, or to make life more free for the governed.