5 Reasons You Should Go to the Acton University

Acton University is all about promoting a Free and Virtuous Society through describing the often sticky blend of religion and politics.

1. Solid Foundation economically, theologically, and socially. Acton makes new conference goers participate in foundational courses to ensure they are on the same page for the more advanced lectures. I found each of the ones I went to (including one on Christian Anthropology, Limited Government, Economics, and one on a Free and Virtuous Society) really helped refresh people with foundational truths key to the Judeo-Christian worldview.

2. Meet a wide variety of people. My roommate is from France, and one morning I had breakfast with people from six different countries. It is also to step outside of my normal life of evangelicalism to dialogue with Catholics, members of the Orthodox church and others.

3. Strong social focus. This morning I had a lecture called "Market Economics and the Family" and had "Fatherhood, Work, and Economics" explain to me the key role having a father plays in economics and the lives of children. I will surely write blog posts about each of these individually....so that's why I'm not going further here :).

4. Great courses to choose from. Some of not mentioned courses include "Poverty in the Developing World" and "Breaking Dependency" that talked about how foreign aid can be a detriment to the development process. For an internationally minded person, this is cool!

5. Great scholarships for seminary students. I could not go without the generous donation of a major company that sees the benefit of aiding evangelical students come to this conference. Thanks!

I plan to blog more about Acton but it will most likely be at The Young Evangelical which is currently under construction. Check back for more information in the near future.

Compassion International Visit

Two days ago I had the privilege to visit the boy I have sponsored through Compassion for more than five years now. His name is Yunior and he live with his family just north of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. I brought him a Cubs hat as a gift for him and some towels for his family.

I got a little tour of the Compassion site and saw that they have a few hundred kids who take part in their program on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. They have them divided based on age groups, and each group was very excited to see a visitor! It is nice that since I speak Spanish I was able to communicate with them. When I got to the Compassion office early that morning, I was greeted by my translator--pretty ironic because I was a translator the two days preceding that. I kindly told her in Spanish that I would not need a translator (I guess the office didn't get the email).

I think I was different than most sponsors (patrocinador in Spanish) because I am young, have lived in the DR for 3 months, and speak Spanish. I can only imagine that 90% of the sponsors who visit their children are elderly and instead of speaking Spanish just talk really loud and slow to try and fight the language barrier. "HI MY NAME IS KEVIN, WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

Ironically the Compassion office where I needed to meet in the morning was literally two blocks from where I was staying, and in Santo Domingo, a city of around 2.25 million, that is very convenient.

After my tour we went to Yunior's home. Yunior is on the quiet side, and it took many questions for him to start talking. He is 13 and lives with his mother, her parents, his brother and cousins. They share a small house and do not own very much. His mom works from time to time as a housekeeper but at times is without work.

My conversation with Yunior's family was a little short and was mainly the Compassion guy talking with Yunior's grandfather, but it was still really good meeting the family and seeing their living situation. Yunior told me that in his free time he likes playing sports and spending time with friends. He likes to play baseball at the local baseball field which made me pleased to hear. I know that God is allowing Compassion and myself to give him an opportunity he would not normally have, and I am thankful for it.

In my time at Compassion, I told a woman that I am a volunteer with Esperanza International, and it turns out that not only does she receive a loan from us, but her bank meets in the very room we were in! I filmed a little interview with her for the video I am making, and when I am done I will post a link on my blog.

One of our loan officers at the Puerto Plata Esperanza office was a Compassion kid when she was younger and said she is so very thankful for the opportunity she had with Compassion. Compassion gave her a scholarship up through the end of high school. She is very thankful for all Compassion gave her, and she even remember her sponsor's name! I am going to help her try and contact him too.

I am very thankful that I could meet Yunior and see his family. Another plus for this trip was that I made a connection with a few Compassion workers and told them about our ministry in Puerto Plata, and they seem eager to help.

Translating onboard the USNS Comfort

I had the great opportunity to serve as a translator on the US Navy medical ship called the Comfort. I stayed two days and translated for doctors and nurses asking patients how they were feeling, where the pain was, and giving them instructions with their medications.

At first, we weren't sure that we would be able to board the boat due to bad organization and confusion caused by both DR stuff and the Navy (government inefficiencies...why I believe a small-government is the way to go. If you are reading this Barack Obama, take note).

I was stationed in a post-operation room and got to befriend some people there because in down time I would usually talk to either the doctors or the patients. I was actually woken up one night at 2am because no translators were awake and a doctor needed to see how a patient was doing.

Some highlights from my time were:

• -Learning a lot about the Navy and life at sea. We got a tour of many parts of the ship, and a Chicagoan serving in the Navy showed me where the servicemen sleep and hang out.
• -Meeting with a Navy coordinator about Esperanza and making connections
• -Getting the question asked me by a doctor, "Where did you learn your English?" Because she thought I was a native Spanish speaker because of how well i spoke. That made my time.
  
• -Having some interesting conversations with medical students we spent a decent amount of time with
• -Telling a couple of Mexican-American Navy guys that I was Domincan, and having them believe me
• -Probably speaking the best Spanish of my life (practice helps!)
  

The little girl pictured is one of the patients I translated for. She was really funny and told me there were two mice living in her little cabinet thing and wanted me to bring food for them.

A Tribute to Buddy

Buddy will be remembered as a timid momma's boy but also a very loving cat.

If you have ever seen the movie "Benchwarmers" (which isn't a good movie, so don't rush out to rent it), the character Howie (pictured below) is memorable because he is agoraphobic and scared of everything. He lived in a closet and did his business in a 2-liter bottle.

This is basically the legacy Buddy left (he used a litter box though).

So Buddy,

Thanks for a good 10+ years, and if cats can go to heaven, please come out from wherever you are hiding and say hi. I mean I wrote a whole blog entry on you, seriously.

PS Buddy forgive me for accidentally kicking you in the face that one time. It was your fault peeking out behind the chair when you did.

Check this Out

Here's another thing I contributed to the Esperanza website. Enjoy!
Below is a picture of me and some sweet graffiti that I saw and had to get a picture with.

"...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6)

Kids United in Christ

If you guys didn't know, a loan officer and I from the Esperanza office have been going to a rural neighborhood and spending our Saturday with the people teaching English and preaching from the Bible. So far it's just starting up but we hope and pray that God would use us to help these kids know and grow in Christ. We also hope and pray that the English lessons we are providing will be a great opportunity for them. Check out our site.

We would greatly appreciate your prayer and support.

Since I am going back to the States in a month or so, I only have 3 more weeks to teach and we are looking for other teachers or organizations that could help us in any way. If you or someone you know could help us, let us know!

Poverty and Disease

I have had the chance to interview some people who are facing big medical issues in their lives.

The woman I wrote about in this article and her family all have tuberculosis. It is really hard for them to get buy and to have enough money for food and treatment. One of her sons recently died.

Another woman I interviewed has a daughter born without the necessary cavities to urinate or defecate. Her daughter had a doctor that performed many operations for free and helped them out a lot until the doctor died after battling cancer.

There is a child of one of our associates who is crippled and will be able to get free medical treatment later this month when a medical missions trip comes to the DR so that is pretty exciting.

Yesterday I met a woman who fell and is injured. She was wearing a neck brace and laying in bed when we went to go visit her. She is now unable to work and therefore unable to provide for her family and payback her loan.

It is sad how poverty can really hinder people in life; especially people with treatable medical problems who cannot afford treatment.

Esperanza International Featured in Readers Digest

The company I am interning with* was recently featured in Reader's Digest magazine. You can read the article here and find out about how it got started.

*I am technically interning with HOPE International, a partner of Esperanza. I work extensively with Kiva, a website that raises funds for microfinance. You guys should check out HOPE's website as well as Kiva's and Esperanza's. This picture is a random one I took today that I thought I'd add to spice things up.

Bad moves made by the Cubs this offseason

• Ryan Dempster getting $52 million for four years.
Dempster had a good year in 2008 (17-6 with 2.96 ERA) but did not play great on the road. That is really the only dazzling season of his career and I think it will probably be his career year. I expect his stats to be W/L 14-11 with an ERA of around three and a half.

• Milton Bradley getting $30 million for three years.
Don’t even get me started on this guy. He had a good year last year until he got injured. In his one “full season” of 146 games with the Dodgers, Bradley batted .267 with 19 homers and 67 RBI’s. Nothing dazzling. Last year he tore it up in Texas batting .321 with 22 HRs and 77 RBI’s but has had injury troubles his whole career. My question is this: why give an unproven guy so much money? 10 mil a year? And we traded Mark DeRosa to free up salary room. The fact that there is a Youtube video called “Milton Bradley Suicide Bombs His Teams” should throw up a red flag.

• Trading Mark DeRosa. He is one of my favorite players in baseball today. He’s my kind of player, can play anywhere in the field and is a good hitter too. Back in my playing days I played a wide variety of positions (Senior year I played 3B, 1B, 2B, C, LF and RF) and batted and ran decently enough to be an asset for my coach because of my versatility. I like the fact that you can give DLee, ARam, Soriano, Fukudome, and Fontenot days off and not have to worry about filling their gap in the lineup because DeRosa fit it.

Last year he batted a solid .285 with 103 runs, 21 HRs, and 87 RBIs with a .376 OBP. Those are stinkin’ good numbers for anybody, let alone a “utility guy”. Not to mention he was a team leader and a fan favorite and a clutch player (his HR in the 08 Division Series is the only good thing that happened that series). Granted, that was probably a career year for him too, but to trade a guy making only $5 mil a year to free up salary room? And you go and pay Bozo Bradley how much?

Heck he played in the World Baseball Classic with his beloved USA, so he is a true American not like Alex Rodriguez.

And the guy the Cubs signed to replace him will make only about $3 million less than him.

My suggestions for the Cubs:
• Get DeRosa back (can you tell he's my man-crush?)
• Have Zambrano be the pinch hitter for the Cubs on his days off. I’m totally serious and it lets me watch him bat without converting him to an outfielder which takes years (just ask Rick Ankiel).
-Sign Henry Rowengartner to a long term deal. just kidding, had to give him a shout out.
• Win the World Series, and then hire me for a job in the front office. GM would be great but at this point I'll take anything...

Stuff coming up and a couple of random stories

Something Fun
I don't know if you guys know, but during TU's Spring Break I was able to meet up with the Taylor Spring Break team in Jarabacoa which is in the central part of the DR. We went white water rafting and had dinner together. It was fun to reconnect with fellow TU people and hear what is going on in Upland. Krista the other HOPE International intern who happens to be another Taylor Grad from Chicago was there too and it was cool. I took one picture the whole trip and it was of myself at a bus station on the way back. Lame I know

Some highlights for the rest of my time here are:
-This month I am going to visit the kid I have sponsored through Compassion International for the last several years. I'm pretty pumped about it and it should give me a new perspective on the sponsorship.
-The end of April I will be serving as a translator on the US Navy's medical mission boat Comfort for a couple of and am pretty pumped. I will be spending the night there and I'm really excited. I'll probably post something about that after it happens. The ship in the picture is the Comfort.

Random Story time:
-An elderly Haitian woman slapped me in the face a while back. I had just taken a picture of her microfinance group and she walks up to me, looks at the picture, and then slaps me right in the face. It turns out there was a mosquito biting me, so I was grateful, or at least tried to seem grateful.
-Last week at church there was a high school from Florida group doing missions down here on their Spring Break. One guy from the trip recognized me and said he met me while visiting Taylor last fall (he stayed with Schooler). What a small world...

Some things I would appreciate prayer for here in DR:
-That I could continue to develop relationships here in the DR in my remaining weeks.
-That I would continue to progress in Spanish
-That I could be a light and a spiritual

Prayer for my life when I get back:
-That I would be led to a job that will help me get good experience in a field I am interested in

Something I'm learning here:
In my job here, I have been blessed to interview some of our associates all of whom are really poor. I am always reminded of their worth in God's eyes even though this world may look down on them. Hearing about their faith and joy in Christ is an encouragement and humbling. This verse is something I'm reminded of constantly:

James 2:5
Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?