New Orleans Communita's in Haiti

This is a blog post from Mike Brantley, a freind of mine who has been setting up a community in Post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. He and four others are heading off to help Haiti to be part of the releif effort that is occuring. Pray for Mike, his family, his crews family and thier community as they offer support. Pray for Haiti in this time. If you want to know further information about what they are doing in Haiti, check out Mikes blog - www.out-on-a-limb.blogspot.com


Dear Friends and Family,

If you're reading this, you support us here in New Orleans, or pray for us, for are friends, family and those in our lives here. Due to time constraints, we're sending a mass email to all of you. So here goes...

We're deploying four of our team/community here in New Orleans to Haiti in 24 hours.

Why: You've seen the news - 200K dead and climbing. There are 20K/day dying from injuries, infection, etc.
How: We got a call from a sister team/community in Miami. They were approached by people in Haiti and The Dominican Republic to help. Our team there has been able to get in a couple of convoys of fuel to two field hospitals on the verge of running out of fuel for their generators. But the needs are so immense they need more boots on the ground.

BUT it got the attention of the UN and the US Army's 82d Airborne Division. The Army is supplying security and the UN is looking for fuel trucks.

What: We're going to establish a marshaling point, hopefully a warehouse. From there, some people can purchase supplies (Medical, Rx, Food, Water and Fuel). We'll then convoy it and while they are gone, begin marshaling supplies for the next run. The convoy will make the 12 hour trip to Port au Prince, and drop it to a distribution point we're setting up. We expect a couple of us to be in Port-au-Prince running that site.

Expect Chad and Kyle to be in Santiago operating the logistics point and Adam and I in Haiti (for the French speaking and liaising with the US Army). BUT that can change when we hit the ground. We could all four end up in the Haiti distribution point. We'll see!

Tonight, we spent several hours getting poked with the tropic regimen for deployment to a disaster zone... Ouch! Sore! Now it's time to wash, pack and get ready to go.

When: We deploy Friday 22nd, and return a month to six weeks later. For many, this will be huge. For our own families, for our work here in New Orleans and for the kids we coach...

...Look, we don't really "want" to go. We have lives here, families and responsibilities. Yet, the need is compelling and our Miami team is begging us for help. This is what we're about - Christ with flesh here and now. We don't feel like heroes or special. We don't know what to expect. We simply got a phone call. Your friendship and support is so appreciated. Your prayers are coveted.


Love always,
Mike Brantley

Photos from St Arnaud

As promised, I have a few photo's from my time down in Nelson Lakes. As usual, I'm running late on that promise
Dawn at Coldwater hut, if this hut wasn't in a national park it would be prime real estate for an expensive batch.
Sabrina (Left) and Marina (Right) after we crossed the swing bridge.

Another Picture from coldwater hut.



Lake Rotoiti (St Arnaud)


Me looking adventurous before heading off on the tramp.

Haiti - part 3

Haiti destabilised before quake

By Patrick Cockburn

The US-run aid effort for Haiti is beginning to look chillingly similar to the criminally slow and disorganised US government support for New Orleans after it was devastated by hurricane Katrina in 2005. Five years ago President Bush was famously mute and detached when the levees broke in Louisiana. By way of contrast, President Obama was promising Haitians that everything would be done for survivors within hours of the calamity.

The rhetoric from Washington has been very different during these two disasters, but the outcome may be much the same. In both cases very little aid arrived at the time it was most needed and, in the case of Port-au-Prince, when people trapped under collapsed buildings were still alive. When foreign rescue teams with heavy lifting gear does come it will be too late. No wonder enraged Haitians are building roadblocks out of rocks and dead bodies haiti destabilised quake natural disasters earthquakes us run aid effort beginning look chillingly similar criminally slow disorganised government support orleans devastated hurricane katrina five years ago president bush famously natural disasters earthquakes us run aid effort beginning look chillingly similar criminally slow disorganised government support orleans devastated hurricane katrina five years ago president bush natural disasters earthquakes us run aid effort beginning look chillingly similar criminally slow disorganised government support orleans devastated hurricane katrina five years ago president bush famously.

In New Orleans and Port-au-Prince there is the same official terror of looting by local people, so the first outside help to arrive is in the shape of armed troops. The US currently has 3,500 soldiers, 2,200 marines and 300 medical personnel on their way to Haiti. Of course there will be looting because, with shops closed or flattened by the quake, this is the only way for people to get food and water. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. I was in Port-au-Prince in 1994, the last time US troops landed there, when local people systematically tore apart police stations, taking wood, pipes and even ripping nails out of the walls. In the police station I was in there were sudden cries of alarm from those looting the top floor as they discovered that they could not get back down to the ground because the entire wooden staircase had been chopped up and stolen I have always liked Haitians for their courage, endurance, dignity and originality. They often manage to avoid despair in the face of the most crushing disasters or any prospect that their lives will get better. Their culture, notably their painting and music, is among the most interesting and vibrant in the world.
So much of the criticism of President Bush has focused on his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that his equally culpable actions in Haiti never attracted condemnation. But if the country is a failed state today, partly run by the UN, in so far as it is run by anybody, then American actions over the years have a lot to do with it.

Haitians are now paying the price for this feeble and corrupt government structure because there is nobody to co-ordinate the most rudimentary relief and rescue efforts. Its weakness is exacerbated because aid has been funnelled through foreign NGOs. A justification for this is that less of the money is likely to be stolen, but this does not mean that much of it reaches the Haitian poor. A sour Haitian joke says that when a Haitian minister skims 15 per cent of aid money it is called "corruption" and when an NGO or aid agency takes 50 per cent it is called "overheads".

Many of the smaller government aid programmes and NGOs are run by able, energetic and selfless people, but others, often the larger ones, are little more than rackets, highly remunerative for those who run them. In Kabul and Baghdad it is astonishing how little the costly endeavours of American aid agencies have accomplished.

"The wastage of aid is sky high," said a former World Bank director in Afghanistan. "There is real looting going on, mostly by private enterprises. It is a scandal." Foreign consultants in Kabul often receive US$250,000 to US$500,000 a year, in a country where 43 per cent of the population try to live on less than a dollar a day.None of this bodes well for Haitians hoping for relief in the short term or a better life in the long one. The only way this will really happen is if the Haitians have a legitimate state capable of providing for the needs of its people. The US military, the UN bureaucracy or foreign NGOs are never going to do this in Haiti or anywhere else.

There is nothing very new in this. Americans often ask why it is that their occupation of Germany and Japan in 1945 succeeded so well but more than half a century later in Iraq and Afghanistan was so disastrous. The answer is that it was not the US but the efficient German and Japanese state machines which restored their countries. Where that machine was weak, as in Italy, the US occupation relied with disastrous results on corrupt and incompetent local elites, much as they do today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti.

Disaster in Hai calls for our response part 2

Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world and is ranked no 153 on the Human Development index (the lowest ranking in North/Central America). It is paramount that developed wealthy nations help and it is encouraging to see that countries are supporting the aid effort there. We as individuals can help support the aid effort.

There are a number of agencies who have campaigns for aid to Haiti:

The NZ Red Cross

Tear Fund

World Vision

Disaster in Haiti calls for our response

Poverty the root of Haiti's high quake death toll

RICHARD FLEMING

January 14, 2010 - 5:22PM

Last night the Prime Minster of Haiti estimated the death toll of yesterday's earthquake to be more than 100,000. Reports today suggest the death-toll could soon rival that of the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004.

It is my firm belief that we could have done more to minimise the magnitude of the loss.

Neither you nor I have the ability to play God and predict a quake or even lessen its power but what we do have is the ability to alter the death toll from such a horrific disaster.

More than 78 per cent of Haitians live in poverty, which is defined by the World Bank as living on $US2 per day, and it is these conditions that are responsible for the saddening predictions from the Haitian Prime Minister.

We often hear enormous death tolls coming from natural disasters in countries such as Haiti, India, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, yet we never call into question why this is the case. When we look deeper we see that:

* Japan and California have had much stronger earthquakes in more densely populated areas than the one that hit Port-a-Prince yesterday, yet the death tolls have been relatively minor.

* Last year's floods in North Queensland rose just as much as the heavy flooding seen in India and Bangladesh in 2007, however, few deaths were recorded in Australia compared with more than 2000 deaths in India and Bangladesh.

* The intensity of the droughts in Australia in the past decade has been just as strong as those experienced in Ethiopia two decades ago, but one failed food crop in 1984 led to about 1 million Ethiopians starving to death.

With poverty, comes vulnerability. And nothing exposes the vulnerabilities of people living in poverty more than natural disasters. A Haitian has greater vulnerability in an earthquake as he cannot afford quality housing; a Bangladeshi is vulnerable to flooding due to her family living and farming on flood affected land; and an Ethiopian has no food security to protect his family against a failed crop.

For the Haitian, Bangladeshi, Ethiopian and the other 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty we need to do something. We cannot just come to the aid of countries such as these when a disaster hits.

The solution is not to put a Band-Aid on the symptoms exposed by the disaster, but to fix the root problem – and in Haiti's case it is to alleviate the nation's poverty.

If you're going to take action and lend support to those devastated in the aftermath, please ensure that your money is providing the right kind of support. It is imperative that the needs of the people are met as quickly and effectively as possible and the best way to do this is to place your donations with organisations already working in Haiti, or with community-based organisations that already have teams and infrastructure in place. (See the Global Poverty Project website for effective agencies to donate to).

Please consider one of the following ongoing actions that will allow you to impact the root problem of extreme poverty:

* Join the campaign to see Australia keep its global commitment to provide enough ongoing aid to developing countries.

* Email Australia's aid agency (AusAID) and ask them about the impacts of the aid that they deliver to the poorest and most vulnerable.

* Tell our Trade Minister, Simon Crean, that you want to see a successful end to current trade negotiations, which will benefit not only developing nations, but also Australia.

* Change your consumption habits, buy Fairtrade products that ensure that farmers get a fair price for their product and their families become less vulnerable.

* Learn more about extreme poverty, its causes, effects and solutions.

* And, most importantly, talk about extreme poverty, its issues and what you and your friends can do.

Richard Fleming is Australian general manager of the Global Poverty Project to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action to end extreme poverty.

Fun Times in S.A

St Arnaurd that is. Spent four days down in Nelson Lakes National Park with a couple of mates from my work. The aim of the trip was to do the Traverse-Sabine track (an 80 k track), but due to some issues we didn't get as far as we hoped.

We headed on the first day to John Tait hut, and ended up camping on the flat after one of the swing bridges. It was three guys to a small to person tent. The rain then decided to bucket down on us that evening, so we decided to head back to one of the huts (lakehead hut) to repack and reorganise ourselves. Peter, one of our party decided it was a good idea to go for a dip and ended up getting his pack soaked through. So we decided to dry off at Lakehead hut for the afternoon so we could dry off.

We met up with a number of interesting people. A brilliant young man from the Chezch Republic who was quiet but very nice. Michael, a bird watcher from the states, Melina (from Belgium) and Sabrina (from Germany.) We ended up spending time getting to know this motley crew of fellow travellers. Playing Uno, Scum and other cardgames with them. It was a good time for getting to know some interesting people.

We then headed off the next morning for the Bushline hut with my two mates, and Melina and Sabrina. The plan of attack was to cross the river. This managed to be an adventurous experience for the Crew, and needless to say, peters sleeping bag got wet through again.

We then decided to stop at the Coldwater hut and dry our clothes, our packs, and ourselves. Me, my mate Greg, Melina and Sabrina headed off to the swingbridge. This was a fun time of talking about our respective lifes, discussing our passions and where we were heading in our lives.

We arrived back at the coldwater hut. Where we had dinner and met up with two teachers, these teachers were a real crack up and were taking the Micky out of each other the entire time. We played more cards and hung out with Melina and Sabrina.

The next morning we headed back out to St Arnaud for a good feed and our trip back to nelson. We farewelled the girls - who went up to bushline hut for New Years eve.

If this last year has taught me anything - it is to try new things. I have not done much tramping and want to do more, get fitter and continue to grow my self awareness and reliance.

Photos to come on monday....

Church Online in Real Life

Enyoy

For Everyone Who Has Ever Missed A Deadline...

The Ladder Project - shaping the future

This monday, the ladder project will be holding our final speakers series event.

We will be workshopping two proposals with Paul Vink, a researcher and implementer of development projects. We are hoping that we can crystalise some of the ideas that we have been working on for the last few months and have a real passionate and creative time together.

If you have a passion for changing humanity and a passion for the world around you and want to be inspired about how to change the world, please join us at 8pm at Ramsey House, 8 Kelburn Parade.

Lets get the creative juices flowing, and lets make a difference in this world.

Be the change...

The Ladder Project - Rubber Hits the Road

We met Shirwin from the Phillipines on friday night, and he told some of his story about living in the slums of the Manilla region.

As many of you will know, the Manilla region was hit by a number of Tropical cyclones in the last few weeks. Read some of Shirwins story below.

Sherwin enjoyed his time with the group.

Just to let you know some updates with his situation, that night on Friday as we were heading home he received news that Labas Bakod (the slum he lives in) was set for demolition the next day (Saturday) and people will not be allowed back. He was shell shocked, he so wasn't himself that night and the next morning. He contacted his friend in the council to confirm the news. So 4 days on since the news, the situation at present is that the friend has managed to prevent demolition by force, people in LB will be relocated to an area 2.5hrs away (Laguna) from Metro Manila (which is not ideal for Sherwin and his sibilings who are still studying).

People have till Tuesday (13th) to register to obtain a spot in Laguna, where housing will be a skeleton structure and I suppose people will have to find material to complete it.

Registering in time would mean that people will be allowed to take down their house (or rather what's left of it) where they can use the existing materials to complete the skeleton structure at the relocation. Those who do not register will have their houses demolished for them. Sherwin has told his family to register for a spot in Laguna, but will explore alternatives to continue living in Marikina (for the sake of work and siblings who are at school).

Sherwin's much better now (since receiving the news on Friday night). Last night he was laughing and joking while having dinner with his hosts and myself. Very much himself (well, at least it's the Sherwin I know). God has been encouraging him lots especially yesterday. We hold on to the promise that God works for the good of those who love Him.

Just keep praying for Sherwin as he needs wisdom and strength.

We continue to search for hope, to be the hope, to be the change in the world that people need.

Where am I at?

As another week winds to a close, what a ride, what an adventure, questions providing no answers, answers providing more questions. Learning to live, figuring out how to become, venturing forward in the hope of new horizons, wondering what is around the corner, and enjoying the adventure.

Capital Mosaic

Capital Mosaic is making an important step this week. We are moving into a new venue, New Crossways. Mosaic is now around 30 adults strong and continues to grow its relationships with those around us. This week have been a struggle for a number in the community, and as we go through our personal struggles, we realise that this step is essential to the growth of Mosaic, character wise, faith wise, numerically wise. We continue to play to our strengths and grow.

The Ladder Project

The ladder project is a joy to be part of, it provides many challenges. We have found our stride and are working on fueling the fires for the next steps. This is a real venture into the unknown. We have come with fresh eyes, learned alot and grown in passion. Our group of journeyers has doubled in size and we are figuring out that many can bring new strengths.

Its great to be journeying on a road where you can make signicant change. I think thats a life worth living. A life that Jesus wants us all to find. Do not beleive its easy, but it is good.

Love = Acceptance but can I accept Love?

Love, what is it, so intangible, unexplainable, unknown.

Love is to be known truly, and to be accepted when you are known for your deepest darkest secrets, your highs and your lows, your dreams and your nightmares. Love accepts you and provides true equal opportunity.

Love will sacrifice its time, resources, its all so, you will come to know it truly.

Love transforms a dry parched land, broken and eroded by the passing harsh seasons into a beautful abundant garden with the lushest fruits every know.

If to be love it to be known fully, to be accepted in the knowedge that it knows you, do I have the courage to allow this love to engulf me to transform me into something new, and to journey in the reality of this idea. That I am chosen, no matter what I have done.

Only when we accept love, can we truly know true love, but during this journey, we can pass on the idea of true unbreakable love to those around us who need to know the power of love. As we do this we journey into accepting true love.

The happendedness of the Christ Event

All the world religions have been developed through history in a continuing tradition of rational argument. No religion exists apart from such a historical tradition. And all religions appeal to the authority of great teachers in the past. Nevertheless the distiction is real. The truths which Buddhism teaches would (as Buddhists understand them) be true whether or not Gautama had discovered and promulgated them. But the whole of Christian teaching would fall to the ground if it were the case that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus were not events in real history but stories told to illustrate truths which are a valid apart from these happening....

... The issue is this: Is this relationship with God seperate from your involvement in the ongoing life of the world, your family, your neighbourhood, your nation in the family of nations. Or is your relationship with God necessary bound up with your acceptance of the part God assigns for you in his purpose for his world? If the latter is the case, then your relationship with God cannot be seperated from those acts in which God has revealed and effected his purpose for for the world. Your devotion to God will be expressed in and through your involvement with history as you are now part of it. You will understand your own life as part of a story which is not a story made up by you, not just the story of your decisions and actions, but the story which is being enacted under God's creative and providential control in the events of contemporary history.

Lesslie Newbigan - The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society

Loving Like Jesus Loved

I know this feels kind of cliche, but this is where I am at at the moment, hopefully the thoughts may lead to action...

Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you’ve done it to me. And this is what I’ve come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they’re just wrong. They’re not bad, they’re just wrong. Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken ' - Rich Mullins

Unrelenting love

I could sense very deeply that God wanted a relationship with Laura. Ultimately, I beleive that God wants a relationship with every human being, but with Laura I could feel Gods urgency. Laura, however wanted little to do with it. She never brought up the idea of God, so I didn't either. - Donald Millar - Blue Like Jazz.

I read these words today with a strong sense of conviction. Lying on the ground, soaking in the sun, these words went off like a bomb in my soul. It shocked me to my very core again. God is unrelentently seeking relationship with us. God is seeking to know you, to dance in the dance of life with you once again.

You and I are broken, we seek to live good lives, but our fear, of lack of conviction holds. We seek to be great, but when we look back at the successes they often feel hollow. But, there is a greater plan.

God has been recklessly seeking out humanity. He came into human history 2000 years ago, as a man, Jesus Christ. Lived amongst us, us broken eikons, eating, living, serving, joking, caring, being with Humainity. He showed what it means to be truly human, to be truly love through and through. He would do anything to show that what we thought was living the good life was really not the good life but was just a bad imitation, a scribble compared to the great movie in vivid colours that we were meant to live in. He showed that we are to love and serve everyone, no matter thier convictions, no matter thier past actions. He showed that God loves everyone, no matter thier convictions, no matter thier action and wants to know them know matter what the cost.

Jesus showed that God loves all, and is passionately wanting to know you by going through severe beating, being spat on, becoming the most despised, and slowing aspixiating on a Cross so that you may come to know him and live a life of joy, grace, peace, wholeness.

God loves you, what are you going to do about it? God loves you, what am I going to do about it?

Posts with the Most

My good mate Benn has a great post on how to live a life in search of God given dreams and aspirations that you should read and my mate Justin has a great poem posted on his blog. Both these guys are much better writers and thinkers then me.

The Journey up the Ladder

I recently heard my mate Justin speak about the process of learning, and how it is as important as the destination of our journey. He talked about how we often we fail to go after something because of our lack of character and our inability to man up.

We also forget the joy of the journey, and to fail to stop in the moment and take in what we are to learn from this occassion.

At the moment, me and a group of other four mates are on a journey of discovery. We have a lofty goal. We want to find the best wheel at tackling poverty. The last few months have been a journey first of all is problem definition. We have had to define poverty, and at the moment we are defining just where we should help and what we should do. We have gone up some of the rungs and can see a larger horizon, the climb is still far, but it is teaching us a lot.

Then there is our speaker series, where we have had to figure out the best ways to promote and get people along to the events we are holding. We have made mistakes on the way, the most memorable was that we did not organise a sign up sheet so we could communicate with those who wanted to be connected with us.

The journey is long, but as we go along, we are learning more about each other, growing in community and in passion for what we are doing. I can not wait to see what we do, whatever it is.

Twitter

I have finally given in and set up a twitter. This is because I naturally say what I think in short sharp bursts and I have lost the ability to write in long boring prose.

Anyway my twitter is http://twitter.com/Nathanael_Baker and the R.S.S feed is http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/70362211.rss. I have put a feed up on the blog so you can follow my wise and unwise thoughts online.

Lauryn Hill on The Gospel and her Journey

One of the little gems in my music collection is the Lauryn Hill MTV Unpluged. The album is basically the story of her struggle with fame and the music industry and her discovery of herself and God.

Listen to this interlude...

District 9 Preview

I went to the preview screening of district 9 tonight. This is Peter Jackson's latest production, done alongside rookie director Neill Bloomkamp. This film is the brainchild of Neill Bloomkamp, who was given the chance to direct the film alongside Jackson after thier joint Halo film project failed to receive major backing.

The premise of the film is that a alien spaceship entered the earths athmosphere 28 years ago at Johanasberg. These aliens have become refugees in a slum called district 9 and most if not all humans see these refugees as unwelcome guests.

The film is set both as documentary and home video and is very intense. This is created through the use of handy cam and fast camera changes.

Stand out role goes to the actor Shartlo Copley, who had never acted in a major role.

This film is likely to become a major cult classic in the next few years but may not gain the same major popular appeal as other films by Jackson. The film also highlights Jacksons courage and ability to back other budding directors and fund projects which are high risk.

Coincidentally, Peter Jackson made an appearance at the beginning of the film to thank those who had come and seen the premier. Awesome to see him take the time to come and thank the fans and supporters of his work!