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Lynn - I am excited about this opportunity to return to Kenya. We will be able to see some of the people we met last time and see more of the work of the Africa Brotherhood Church and Canadian Baptist Ministries.
Darren - The reason I am going is to reconnect with the Africa Brotherhood Church and support them in their work.
In the world’s schema of things, survival of the fittest is the rule. In God’s schema, survival of the weakest is the rule. God always stands on the side of the weak and it is there, among the weak, that we find God.
Given the truth of that, we might occasionally pray the Lord’s Prayer in this way:
Our Father . . . who always stands with the weak, the powerless, the poor, the abandoned, the sick, the aged, the very young, the unborn and those who, by victim of circumstance, bear the heat of the day.
Who art in heaven . . . where everything will be reversed, where the first will be last and the last will be first, but where all will be well and every manner of being will be well.
Hallowed be thy name . . . may we always acknowledge your holiness, respecting that your ways are not our ways, your standards are not our standards. May the reverence we give your name pull us out of the selfishness that prevents us from seeing the pain of our neighbour.
Your kingdom come . . . help us to create a world where, beyond our own needs and hurts, we will do justice, love tenderly, and walk humbly with you and each other.
Your will be done . . . open our freedom to let you in so that the complete mutuality that characterizes your life might flow through our veins and thus the life that we help generate may radiate your equal love for all and your special love for the poor.
On earth as in heaven . . . may the work of our hands, the temples and structures we build in this world, reflect the temple and the structure of your glory so that the joy, graciousness, tenderness, and justice of heaven will show forth within all of our structures on earth.
Give . . . life and love to us and help us to see always everything as gift. Help us to know that nothing comes to us by right and that we must give because we have been given to. Help us realize that we must give to the poor, not because they need it, but because our own health depends upon our giving to them.
Us . . . the truly plural us. Give not just to our own but to everyone, including those who are very different than the narrow us. Give your gifts to all of us equally.
This day . . .not tomorrow. Do not let us push things off into some indefinite future so that we can continue to live justified lives in the face of injustice because we can make good excuses for our inactivity.
Our daily bread . . . so that each person in the world may have enough food, enough clean water, enough clean air, adequate health care, and sufficient access to education so as to have the sustenance for a healthy life. Teach us to give from our sustenance and not just from our surplus.
And forgive those who trespass against us . . . help us to forgive those who victimize us. Help us to mellow out in spirit, to not grow bitter with age, to forgive the imperfect parents and systems that wounded, cursed, and ignored us.
And do not put us to the test . . . do not judge us only by whether we have fed the hungry, given clothing to the naked, visited the sick, or tried to mend the systems that victimized the poor. Spare us this test for none of us can stand before your gospel scrutiny. Give us, instead, more days to mend our ways, our selfishness, and our systems.
But deliver us from evil . . . that is, from the blindness that lets us continue to participate in anonymous systems within which we need not see who gets less as we get more.
Amen.
Want to donate to any of the projects we're going to work on or to help us get there? Contact a member of the group and we'll let you know what to do next.
Can't donate but you really want us to know you care? Commit to praying for us in the time leading up to the trip and while we're there. Your prayers are invaluable to us!
Not so much into the praying thing? Commit to telling one friend about what we’re doing and how important water is to communities. We’ll post stats soon to help you spread the news.
Each of the team members have contributed a reflection for our devotional book. For our reflections on travel days and Sundays, we have included excerpts from several books. Our prayer is that through the daily reflections during this trip to Kenya, each of us will have an opportunity to grow closer to God and listen to what He has to say to us. We thank you for your faithful support and for sharing these reflections with us during our journey in Kenya.
Our intent is to gather together as a team in the evenings and consider together what God has shown to us on that day. By preparing these devotions in advance, each of the team members has had an opportunity to consider what God is saying to them before we leave for Kenya. As we meet in Kenya, each of us will have an opportunity to learn more of what God has to say to us through our experiences.
The devotions will post daily here on the blog.
Nearly one billion people lack access to safe water and 2.5 billion do not have improved sanitation.
SOYSAMBU, Kenya — A senior Kenyan wildlife official says about 7,000 zebras and wildebeests are being moved to one of the country's premier game parks to restore the balance of predators and prey disrupted by last year's drought.
A senior scientist with the Kenya Wildlife Service says the animals are being taken from areas where they are abundant in an effort to replenish Amboseli National Park's population. Charles Musyoki says more than 60 percent of the park's zebra and wildebeest population died during the drought.
KWS staff have moved 137 zebras this week from the privately owned Soysambu Conservancy.
Musyoki says 4,000 zebras will be moved within three weeks. The wildebeests will take longer because many have or are about to give birth to newborns, he says.
by Tom Evans, CNNJanuary 8, 2010 -- Updated 0141 GMT
(CNN) -- Every eight seconds, somewhere in the world a child dies from waterborne diseases because the parents cannot afford clean water, according to Maude Barlow, founder of the Blue Planet Project.
"When you add the for-profit motive into water supplies, some people are going to die," Barlow told CNN's Christiane Amanpour Thursday. "Water must be declared to be something that belongs to all of us, which is not that it's a free-for-all, but that it must be equitably divided and shared -- and only government can do that."
Barlow, who is one of the most outspoken advocates of what activists call "water justice," said water is a public trust and must not be privatized.
"The reality is that there is more demand than supply, and the increase in demand and decrease in supply is growing, so it makes a big difference how we're going to decide who's going to allocate water."
A third of the world's population is suffering from water shortages, according to the International Water Management Institute. The United Nations estimates that by 2025, two-thirds of the population will be affected by scarcities.
Those shortages are already the source of local and regional conflict. In Yemen for example, which is at the center of the current al Qaeda terrorist scare, researchers say up to 80 percent of rural disputes are related to water.
The debate over how to alleviate those shortages has intensified in recent years, pitching advocates of privatization programs against those who say water is a public good and that its collection and distribution should remain in the public sector.
A recent United Nations Human Development Report said, "The dialogue has generated more heat than light."
"Some privatization programs have produced positive results" the U.N. said, "but the overall record is not encouraging. From Argentina to Bolivia, and from the Philippines to the United States, the conviction that the private sector offers a 'magic bullet' for unleashing the equity and efficiency needed to accelerate progress towards water for all has proven to be misplaced."
But the U.N. also said many publicly-owned utilities are failing the poor, combining inefficiency and unaccountability in management, with inequity in financing and pricing.
The head of Aquafed, the International Federation of Private Water Operators, told Amanpour that purifying water and transporting it to each individual house has a cost.
Gerard Payen said, "The government has to decide who should bear this cost. Should it be borne by taxpayers or by water users or by both, by a mix?" He said different countries have different answers to that question.
"We only serve 10 percent of the world's population. But we are in those countries with the most needs. In developing countries in the past 10 years, we were able to provide access to water for more than 25 million people," he added.
But leading environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, told Amanpour the privatization of water supply -- what Kennedy called "the commoditization of water supply" -- is morally wrong.
"It's intrinsically a government function. It has to remain in the hands of the government. The government has a responsibility to all the people, and that this is part of the commons," he added.
"And the law of the commons is that whether you're rich or poor, everybody has the right to the public trust asset," Kennedy said."Nobody has the right to use it in a way that will diminish or injure its use and enjoyment by others."
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