Special Blog UPdate

 

This prayer request came from the C&MA President – please pray!

 

November 4, 2009

 

I received word this morning that Richard Herring (regional director) and Pieter Theron (Mongolian field director) were injured in a bizarre accident on Wednesday afternoon (Thailand time). Participants of the Asia Pacific Regional Conference in Bangkok attended an elephant show as an outing for the team. While the team was taking pictures, an elephant grabbed Pieter and Richard and threw them about 10 feet into the air. Pieter has a fractured skull and is in critical condition; Richard sustained a broken hip and possible other injuries less serious than Pieter’s.

 

Please put out a call to prayer for Pieter and Richard in your circle of influence. Additionally, pray for all the participants at the Regional Conference as they respond to the needs of the families of our injured colleagues. I expect, but am not sure, that the final days of the conference will be cancelled. As we get more information, we will communicate with you.

 

Below is a more detailed account of the accident from Brent and Lisa Liberda, Alliance workers in Mongolia.

 

Praying with you for Pieter and Richard, Gary

 

 

Here is an account from one of the people who was there:

 

Members of the RLT (regional leadership team) were on their one free afternoon outing to an elephant and crocodile zoo near the Rose Gardens. We all went to the crocodile show and later attended the elephant show. Everyone was sitting in the grandstands as the elephants performed in a field in front of us.

 

At the end of the show, the park staff brought out bananas, and about 10 elephants lined up at the fence where people could feed the elephants and take pictures in front of them. After most of the crowd was beginning to leave, some of us from the RLT started to feed the elephants and take pictures. Richard and Pieter were getting their picture taken in front of one of the biggest elephants when suddenly the elephant with his trunk threw them both about 10 feet up into the air. Richard landed on the cement, and Pieter fell on his head. It was very serious. A number of us started administering first aid and praying. There wasn’t even a first aid box in the entire park, so we used our shirts and other cloths we could find for compresses and pillows and kept the two men immobile. Both were conscious. Some Christians from other countries who had been there stayed and prayed at a distance. It took about 30 minutes for the first of two ambulances to come, which seemed like an eternity. Two or three from the RLT group went with the ambulances to the hospital.

 

The two men are currently in a hospital outside the city and will be transferred at 10 p.m. tonight to Vitchayut as the traffic is too bad now. Word from the people at the hospital is that Richard is stable and has a fractured hip. Pieter is in ICU with a fractured skull and is bleeding internally near the brain. He may also have fractured shoulders. The hospital is working on getting a neurosurgeon to the hospital to assess the situation so that Vitchayut will be ready to receive him. The latest news, which is good, is that Pieter’s vital signs are stable and the internal bleeding is minimal.

 

Please pray for God’s healing touch in the lives of these two men. Pray especially for Pieter, that God would stop the internal bleeding and that he would be able to receive the help he needs in the shortest amount of time. Pray for his wife, Haniki, as she is at the hospital with him and several others. Dr. Benedict in Colorado has been notified of the situation.

 

Many thanks for your prayers,

David Strong

 

Thank you for praying for this situation with us!

Brent and Lisa

 

P.S.

This just in! As we were preparing to send this e-mail we received the following news. Peter does not need brain surgery. He has some blood on the brain but not enough to require surgery. He has a fractured skull, both shoulders seem to be fractured, and a broken wrist. He is in ICU and will be closely monitored. His internal organs appear to be good and his vital signs appear to be good.

 

He is in the care of good doctors and in one of the nation’s best hospitals.

 

Praise be to God. Please thank all who have prayed and are praying.

What I think everyone should know about government, pt 2.

1. Money doesn’t REALLY work differently on the national level. First off, I am far from an economist. I don’t always get how things work, but at one time in my life my family was really, really far in debt compared to our income level, and here’s what we learned. First of all, you can live beyond your means – just not for long. There’s enough credit available, even to people who don’t have money, to give us the opportunity to live beyond our means. If we can’t afford something, we can delay payment by putting it on credit. It works! You can even, manage to amass debt that goes beyond your annual income. Sometimes, for us, the debt that we amassed was because of we bought things that we really didn’t need. Other times, we ended up with emergencies that caused us to have to put necessities, things like groceries and gas on the credit card. Either way, our debt continued to grow until we had reached a debt level that was simply unmanageable.

   A couple of things eventually got us. The first was that our income didn’t increase enough to keep up with our growing debt. This wasn’t anyone’s fault. We really weren’t even expecting higher income to pay off the debts, but quite simply, we needed to make more money to keep paying off our increasing debt, and we didn’t. Secondly was interest. As both our debts increased and our interest rates increased we couldn’t pay down principal. At one time, I mismanaged things so badly that I went over the limit on a credit card. That generated a fee. That month, I couldn’t afford to make the minimum payment, which meant I was also, technically, “late” on a payment. Between those two fees (late payment and overlimit) and the interest, I couldn’t afford enough to bring the credit card under the maximum, which kept adding fees, month after month. That was the breaking point for us. We had to talk to a credit management company and negotiate for lower interest rates, and work hard for years living below our means to put all we could to debt. We’re still not debt free – but what we have is manageable, and there’s an end in sight.

   So how does it work on a national level? The government has income, not money that they make, but money that they collect from taxes. The money they collect goes to a wide variety of things, and I won’t get into debating what’s worth spending on and what isn’t worth spending on, that gets all sorts of ideological debates happening, and that’s not the point here. The point is that in 2008, the government collected 2.52 trillion. They spent 2.98 trillion, meaning that we added 455 billion dollars to the national debt. That national debt, like personal debt, has a level of interest connected to it. In 2008, interest payments were the fourth highest expenditure in the budget. (Following medicare and Medicaid, social security, and defense). In 2008, 15 cents of every dollar collected in taxes went to pay just the interest of the national debt.

   Over the last 40 years, we have run deficits – spending more than we collect – in all but 4 years. Our national debt is over 11 TRILLION dollars right now (compare that with income of 2.52 trillion, and our debt is over 4 times our income). On the path we are on now, the national debt will increase by over 1 trillion dollars each year for the coming 10 years. By 2015, our debt will be 100% of our GDP (market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year). That means that if every dollar from all the goods and services were collected from every American citizen for an entire year, it would “just” pay for our debt.

   The difficult part now is that as people lose jobs, the government’s tax base decreases. In the face of decreasing tax base, the government is spending more. Spending is not bad, it’s necessary. The problem always becomes (just like it is for people personally) can we spend less than or the same amount as we collect.

   The breaking point for us will come when we can no longer afford to pay the interest on our debts. Historically, nations have printed more money to make the payments (Germany, pre WWII). When that happens, the money is actually worth less (inflation), so nations increase interest rates on the debt to get the same value.

   What’s the solution? The same as it is for people personally! We can hope for the US to grow out of the problem. If there’s a sudden reversal in the economy, jobs come back, and income levels skyrocket, tax income may increase enough to no longer have a deficit. Even if that’s not the case, we must spend less than we collect and pay down our debt. The only way this will happen is if we change our expectations for government and make fiscal responsibility a high value. Unfortunately, that’s not valued. Our expectation for government often becomes a desire for them to provide for us – without understanding that the money comes from somewhere.

   Will we ever get it? Apparently not, because we keep electing people who think spending more than we collect is the best answer…

What I think everyone should know about government, pt 1.

Right from the top, I’m going to say that I do tend to be occasionally opinionated (on most occasions, in fact.) I don’t really fit into any of the standard political parties. I think we should take care of the earth we’re living in, and feel that people are important and that we should be compassionate – but also think that government is too big. I think that healthy businesses make for well-paid workers, but also think that businesses need to be responsible about the things that they’re doing and look to more than JUST profit.

Saying that, I just thought I’d share some things that I think people should know about government. You don’t have to agree, in fact – if you don’t – great. I’m open to hearing new opinions and am always willing to evaluate my preconceptions about the role of government in society. I don’t do a great job of daily posting, but as I have time and when I think of it, I’ll add to the list.

Here is the number one thing I wish everybody understood about government:

1. The Government Does Not Make Money. It may print money, it may distribute money, but the government does not make money. It’s not an industry. It produces no goods. There is nothing that it sells to collect income.

   Someone said recently that they like it when a certain party is in office because that party provides more programs – and I had to just shake my head, because the mindset seems to be that when one party is in office the government suddenly makes more money. No, it doesn’t. This year the government will spend almost $1.5 TRILLION (that’s $1,500,000,000,000.00) more than they will collect, which is a good segue way to how the government gets money.

   Government COLLECTS money. I work in the nonprofit industry. I don’t have anything that I can sell to make more money. When our church makes up a budget each year, we have to find the delicate balance between faith (“We believe that God is going to provide”) and stewardship (“This is what was provided in the past.”) We have to anticipate what the changing job market is going to do and trust that as people mature in their faith they will also support God’s work more. For us to increase our budget, we either need people to give more or we need more people to give. I can’t sell more widgets or introduce a new product line at an increased cost to increase revenue.

   The government is similar. It collects money from taxpayers. The only way the government can get more money is to collect more taxes. They tax income, tax purchases, tax certain purchases more than others, tax you when you make money selling something, or when you gain interest on your investments, or when you die and leave money for those you care about. They can charge “fees” for not complying to their standards, make you pay to drive your car on an annual basis, and charge you for use of things by making you have a license to enjoy certain privileges. The government doesn’t have anything to sell, though, because the government is NOT a business. Government’s role is to govern, and governing has some implied expenses that are paid for through collection of money, which we call taxation.

   Simple enough, right? It would be – except that people don’t seem to get it. They love programs but hate the costs. They think that we can keep adding programs, providing “free money” in bailouts, stimulate the economy by buying or giving large sums to banks, automobile manufacturers, and insurance companies and then also fund a war on two fronts, manage the infrastructure of our own country (police, roads, etc.), provide better education and add a health plan paid for by the government but not pay more taxes. That’s insanity! You can’t get it for free, the only way the government is going to have the money to pay for all the things that people are asking for is if they take it, through taxation, from the people they are providing the services for (or from those who aren’t receiving the services themselves so others can afford it, which is a topic for a different time.)

   There is no free lunch, and government will collect money to pay for the services it is providing, if not now – they’ll collect it later, from our children. There are no “widgets” for sale.

The movie Taken…

Ok, I’m really not a movie critic, so it’s not meant to be a commentary on the movie itself. In a strange, “me man, protector of me family” way, I did enjoy the movie – so there, guilty pleasure out.

I did feel, by the time the movie had ended, and I’d seen my quota of killings for 123 lifetimes, that move ratings sure seem to have changed. I’m not sure that the same movie would have skated under an R rating 10-20 years ago.

Secondly – ever since Bourne identity there’s a fascination with a film quality that just about leaves me motion sick. Seriously – why do we have to have so much bouncing around on the camera and flashing to different strange angles. I have a headache.

Third – the movie is an interesting way to bring a really serious topic more into the limelight. Sex trafficking is a real problem. I’m not sure the best take-away is to think that the answer is killing everyone, but we do need to raise the level of awareness on this. It’s truly a serious issue.

Anyway, if you don’t mind some of the cheesy things that come along with the style of movie that it is – bad guys have lots of guns but can’t aim properly – good guy only needs one shot, etc. – a decent movie – but don’t let the PG-13 rating fool you.