Video and thoughts on Haiti, from those who truly know.

1.

Within hours of hearing about the Haiti quake last week, I was amazed and mortified to learn that the president of the RCA (my church family)'s General Synod (our big annual gathering), James Seawood, was in Haiti at the time of the quake, scheduled to be in Port-au-Prince at the time, alongside an entire delegation of RCA lay and ordained leaders. (I had the privilege of meeting and conversing with Rev. Seawood just before the Synod meeting last year, after he had met with the Seminarian Seminar of which I was a part. I believe I also met there Rev. Andres Serrano, a Dominican pastor who was also part of the Haitian delegation.) Soon word got out that the delegation had survived and had made its way to the Dominican Republic, and was en route to return to the U.S.

The RCA has posted video and thoughts from Rev. Seawood accessible from their main web page... he had taken video footage just moments after the quake... it is remarkable footage of the confusion, fear, and anguish that survivors felt in those initial moments... and it also places you into the shoes of the delegation as they struggle to try to find a route amidst the chaos.

Moments after Haiti Earthquake from Phil Tanis on Vimeo.

Read his reflections on the entire ordeal here, also found on the RCA website. Amazing stuff.

2.

Wyclef Jean, one of the world's most famous Haitians, has an organization called Yele Haiti through which he has long been trying to provide hope and healing to a nation devastated by poverty. Now devastated by the erratic and inexplicable forces of nature (no, NOT by a curse, Mr. Robertson...), Yele Haiti and Wyclef are leading a public charge to take necessary action to bring hope and healing yet again.

Earlier today Wyclef hosted a live press conference... it's being recast right now, and they might play it a few more times, so see if you can catch at least pieces of it....

"This is the only time people are going to see my country"

"We (Yele Haiti) has always been on the ground..."....

"There's a problem that we have to solve...in the next few days... the security issue amongst the people... where the communities are hostile because of the (lack of) food... so on Saturday...we'll be leaving again for Haiti....the reality is that you have at least 400,000 people underground ..... for every success story that you see, there are another 40,000 that are buried..."

He calls for a massive exodus outside of Port-au-Prince, to facilitate the cleaning process of the city and to take care of the people... and calls for another countries to help lead this, and to provide tents that will eventually develop into new, 21st-century communities... fascinating stuff.

3.

Sojourners' blog today features a post from Kent Annan, co-director of Haiti Partners--another organization committed to helping Haiti for years, and has lived for many years himself in Haiti. He addresses the feeling that many of us have... "Why Haiti? Why a country already devastatingly poor?, suffering for years already...." He even references the psalmist who famously addresses this sentiment with the words, "How long, oh Lord?"

His response to this is both difficult and wise-- we (as those who do NOT know what it is like to be there, to be from there, or to have lived there) would do well to hear it:

"Finally, I’ve been asked often, when working in Haiti and then during these past few days, how do you keep any hope? My answer, which is burrowed deep in my bones through the privilege of living with, being friends with, watching the courage of, and working alongside many Haitians, is that if they haven’t given up hope, we have no right to. Today I saw on CNN Haitians walking the streets of Port-au-Prince singing hymns and praying.

We’re people committed to be on the side of God’s hope, even on seemingly hopeless days. We’re people committed to be on the side of people in Haiti–not just right now, but for the longterm. "


Ways to spread the hope:

1) Text donations: Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele Haiti
Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross
(no, neither of these are scams.)
2) Donate:
-to Red Cross
-UNICEF
-World Vision
-To Reformed Church World Service

3) Make medical and hygiene kits and submit them to the RCWS. Find a guide on how to make them here. Right now relief and life-saving are still the focus, and water and medical supplies are among the biggest needs... but as Annan reminds us, we also need to think about how we can CONTINUE to help Haiti head towards recovery in the months and years ahead... so let's not forget about them. Just as people in Louisiana are still recovering from Katrina in many instances, so it will be in Haiti, only on a much larger scale.

The (not quite) new Advent Conspiracy Promo.

Um, two more. ... this time re: slavery and fair trade.

1. Article on Cadbury's recent move to increase its fair trade cocoa commitment, now extending into its Australia, Canada, and New Zealand markets.

Get a load of this paragraph:

"Cadbury’s move’s expected to quadruple Ghana’s fair trade cocoa sales. Of course, if you live in the U.S., you may be wondering why Cadbury bars here aren’t going to be getting the fair trade certification mark. The reason: Hersheys. Explains the Labor Rights Forum blog: 'In the US, Hershey owns the license to produce most Cadbury chocolate here and unlike many companies, Hershey has not committed to any certification programs to improve working conditions for cocoa farmers.'"

Read the article in context here.

2. Check out this trailer for a new documentary coming out Sept 15 in NYC... Hopefully it makes it onto the big screen out on the West Coast, too.

two quick articles that I find exciting today.

1. The Gloves Come Off Against Western Theology... Short article quoting a podcast from Eastern Orthodox thinker Clark Carlton, with some food for thought re: how we Westerners think about God.

follows this up with some thoughts; my favorite quote from them follows:

Postmodernism, in its approach to any academic study, including theology, is often lambasted as cutting out the foundation of Truth with a big huge capital T. More accurately, what postmodernism in the West or theology as usual in the East does is infuse humility into spiritual and theological conversations. What modernist theology does in it's insistence that everything can be proven 100% true given enough propositions, logical arguments, and scientific reasoning is to refuse to be humble concerning the nature of humanity and language. For what its worth, there is great irony in the arguments of Piper or Carson who so adamently insist on the depravity of humankind while at the same time putting forth that we can know all things absolutely. Those two ideas cannot exist together.

2. A New Day at Rolling Hills Baptist Church in Fayetteville, GA... This seems really cool!.... a church selling its property in order to become more truly missional.

Where is the fight on chocolate now?--> Target on Nestle's chest.

Here is a list of the recent progress made in the STOPTHETRAFFIK campaign against slave labor currently used in harvesting over 35% of the world's cocoa beans. (Can be found on their website here.)


WHAT WE'VE ACHIEVED SO FAR
Six weeks after launching STOP THE TRAFFIK's March on Mars campaign, Mars made an announcement.

They have promised to make their GLOBAL product range traffik free by 2020, starting with Galaxy bars in the UK and Ireland next year.

Mars are giving us a short term commitment with Galaxy bars while we keep asking for evidence of long term, global change.
STOP THE TRAFFIK chocolate campaign developments:

* July 2008:
Verkade committed to 100% fairtrade cocoa and sugar in their chocolate bars in Netherlands from autumn 2008
* February 2009:
Swiss Noir committed to fairtrade cocoa in their chocolate bars in Netherlands from March 2009
* March 2009:
Cadbury committed to fairtrade Dairy Milk in the UK and Ireland from autumn 2009
* April 2009:
Mars committed to Rainforest Alliance cocoa in Galaxy bars in the UK and Ireland from 2010 and across their whole product range globally by 2020

STOP THE TRAFFIK congratulates Verkade, Swiss Noir, Cadbury and MARS.

By continuing to call upon chocolate manufacturers to only use Fairly Traded cocoa in their products and by only buying Fair Trade chocolate ourselves, we can create a world in which chocolate doesn't leave a bitter after taste.



Great progress has been made!... but the chocolate industries' LONG history of broken promises is well documented...

Read a fact sheet PDF here about this.

Read the "short-and-sweet" version here.



Note that Nestle'... the world's largest food company, one of the major chocolate suppliers.... is not listed as making ANY progress here.

Not surprising, given Nestle's ATROCIOUS human rights record over the years... their negligence in the past and present has led to millions of deaths and human rights violations.

Nestle got in big trouble in the 1970s and 80s for pushing formula in the developing world when they KNEW it was directly causing malnutrition in infants... this website shows that even though Nestle was punished, they have not improved much at all. (scroll half-way down to see a list of their human rights violations.)

Nestle has been the subject of boycott and documentary, and (possibly as a result) they have an extensive section on their website committed to "current issues." (Found here.)

Look for a mention of forced and child labor. Go ahead, look for it.

That's because it's not there.

I even downloaded Nestle's "Around the Globe" PDF, to see if they make any mention of their harvesting practices at all. This was all I could find, on page 40 of the PDF:

We source our agricultural raw materials – principally
milk, coffee, cocoa, cereals, vegetables, fruit, herbs,
sugar and spices – either through trade channels or
directly from farmers.
Although we don’t have control over the farms, we
support sustainability in the supply of agricultural raw
materials and agricultural best practices. To put these
words into action, we have over 800 of our own
agronomists, technical advisers and field technicians.
Their job is to provide technical assistance to more than
400,000 farmers throughout the world to improve their
production quality, as well as their output and efficiency....


It goes on to emphasize how these "specialists" have helped farmers create better yields of coffee and milk, thus, according to them, Nestle is "contribut(ing) to improving their standard of living." (caption on page 40).

What a snow job. Better yield doesn't mean better pay, if you're only paying farmers peanuts in the first place. It just means that you end up with more coffee and milk to sell.

And they don't mention cocoa there.... except in the one highlighted instance.... and is sure to emphasize soon after that "we don't have control over the farms."

Um, sure you do. You buy from them. You can refuse to purchase cocoa harvested by slave labor. Mars, Verkade, and other companies have begun to do this (in part); you can too.

The annoying part to me was, as I read this corporate statement, how much Nestle claims to be a "human" company, how much they claim to care about employees and the people who use their products....

To misquote Shakespeare: Methinks they doth protest too much.




Everyone, click HERE to download a letter provided by STOPTHETRAFFIK to send to Nestle.

To email them, go to this web address (send enough to crash it!):

Their US address is: 800 North Brand Blvd. Glendale, CA91203

Here's a "child-friendly" version.

If you get a response, use THIS template for a second letter.


THEN--- STOP BUYING ALL NESTLE PRODUCTS. That means Nestle, Cherrios, Shredded Wheat, Enviga, Gerber, Nespresso, Nescafe, Nestea, KitKat, Dreyers Ice Cream, Friskies, Purina, Coffemate, LeanCuisine, Stouffers, Carnation, and Alcon.

Holy and Ridiculous.

In the last two years as a new youth pastor, I have developed a saying: "Youth ministry is a mixture of the holy and the ridiculous." If you're a youth or volunteer at New Life, you've heard me say it, undoubtedly.

In that spirit, I offer you today my findings based on a 5 minute perusal of Facebook...

A 'holy' video: a short clip of Empowering Lives: Ilula's Children's Home in west Kenya, where I spent three weeks in the summer of '05 that absolutely changed my life.

A 'ridiculous' video: ummm... well, you'll just have to watch. :)

Todd and Norah's voices are getting heard.

Thanks to everyone who's sent letters; they've been making a huge difference. I hear from Amy that Todd and Norah's quest to bring back their adopted child from Guatemala is catching the ear of various House representatives and they're asking us to stop sending letters. I also hear that some news sources might be reporting on the story soon in Texas, but we'll have to wait and see on that one.

At any rate, keep sending letters!

Click here to get the story of what's going on, from my wife's blog.

Click here to read from Todd and Norah's blog.

Both above sites have copies of the letter to send to your representative, that you can copy and paste into an email box, accessible HERE. All you have to do is find your rep by typing in your zip code, and there will be a link to send them an online note.

It's making a difference, so keep it coming! (And it takes 1 minute, literally. )

at the center.

A principle being applied to business that should be applied to the church... connection with real beliefs and values. A fascinating read to the business-mind and the spiritual mind: gapingvoid.com

I find it a little disturbing.

Cool new way to discuss consumption and consumerism with others.

It speaks for itself. Runs 20 minutes. Very well done.