Mission's Conference Update 2

I've gotten another update from Desi. This one a bit less emotional:

Today was more the vision casting for the church & a call to get to work. Hands is once again restructuring their methods of reaching the 100,000 by 2010. It is a lot of good information to bring back for the missions committee as we need to begin being much more focused & intentional with our teams.

The plan now is to begin focusing on 3 essential services being education, food & basic health care. Each of these were broken down into 4 levels. Hands is going to begin focusing the majority of their time & resources on the first 2 levels of these 3 items.

What I feel this means for Westside is that our teams will need to be specific & intentional within these 3 items. I believe this means that we will have to make a more conscience effort to stay away from "pet" projects & one of projects.

It must be understood that this information is all being presented as such due to the fact that Hands is wanting to move from an 80:20 model (80% outside agencies : 20 % church & individual) to a 20:80 model, as George believes this work needs to be driven by the church & committed individuals. People & churches who in essence have bought into the Hands model/philosophy of caring for the widows & orphans.

We also had the opportunity to sit with the country representatives of our choosing in order to have a little more intimate small group discussion time with them. Kind of a chance to hear what is on their hearts, what are their dreams & needs for the next year & what each of them envisions themselves doing to reach 100,000 OVC's (orphans & vulnerable children). Of course Brian & I sat in on the Malawi conversation....just kidding. We went DRC all the way. It was another awesome time to spend an hour with what can only be refered to as giants.

The DRC has a population of 55 million people with a rapidly increasing orphan population of 4,200,000. There are also 3.5 million children lacking access to primary school. The work that Margaret & Dominic have been doing there is still somewhat in it's beginning stages. The biggest reason for this is due to the state of affairs plagueing the country. The DRC has become internationally known for it's devastating civil conflicts, the most recent lasting since 1998 & claiming more that 4 million lives, making it the deadliest conflict since WW II. This has lead to a system run on bribery & corruption in an attemt to survive. Understandably this has made things extremely difficult for this couple & yet they are now caring for 565 OVC's & 347 patients with 35 committed volunteers. I cannot remember their targets for next year(I will send them tomorrow) but could use as much support as possible.
As you can see it is a worthy effort that we have been priveleged to be a part of.

On another note Brian & I have the greatest of intentions to be up for 6 tomorrow morning in order to go on a game drive. I will update more tomorrow.

Dez