DaySrar Academy

The pictures are a view gotten from the campus of DayStar Academy. I spent the weekend with the staff there and interviewed a couple from Chattanooga for leadership. The weekend was wonderfully restful even though I had to drive seven hours to get there and seven hours back.

I'm impressed with the young couple, Chris and Faith Anderson. They seem to have their act together. They also are pretty well sold on the place. I look for a very positive experience when they come in May.

All in a Day

All in a Day’s Work

By Janet Fournier

It seems, after working hard all day, that there is always someone waiting at the house to have a tooth pulled or a wound cleansed and bandaged. After one of those days, I crawled into bed dog-tired. At 11:10 PM I heard voices outside. I got up to see what was happening. Baraza, my Bible worker, met me at the door to tell me someone needed a ride to the hospital.

“They are near the village elementary school,” he said.

“Ok,” I said, “I’ll be right out.”

I manoeuvered the Mitsubishi through the village roads (foot paths, actually) and stopped where we could go no further. Bag of gloves in hand, I led Baraza down a narrow path. Finally, on a little patch of grass, we found a 17 year-old girl. A lady supported her back and between her legs was her grandmother, holding a baby. They were desperate. The placenta was not fully delivered, the girl’s uterus was partially out, and they didn’t know what to do. (As far as I can tell, they had been on the trail for as long as two and one half hours.) Soon after I arrived, a man came by making his way from the bar to his home. I asked if anyone had a new razor blade. He had bought two that day and one was still in his pocket. So I tightened the knot around the umbilical cord, freed the baby, and gave instructions to wrap it up warm.

The placenta followed nicely and I managed to push the uterus back in. Someone helped the girl into the pickup, and we were off to the hospital. Well, not before we stopped to get food, a cooking pot and a wrap for the baby. (The hospital doesn’t supply these things.)

At the hospital we faced another obstacle—they wouldn’t answer the door. We rang the door bell over and over again. Finally, a security guard came to tell us he had called inside and they were coming. (I guess they have no emergencies in this hospital. It seemed like forever before they let us in.) After pushing the stretcher to the delivery room, the baby was put under a warmer and seemed to do well. The mother also did fine after some very rough prodding and poking and stitching. The baby even tried to suck, but the girl was not in the mood for mothering.

Two days later, I went to the girl’s house to see how things were going. Both mother and baby were home and doing well.

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This is life for young people in the villages. The girl’s grandmother had wanted her to take our sewing course, but she claims she was tricked into letting her granddaughter become a house girl in Dar Es Salaam. Not long after, she came home pregnant. Sad, but all too common. Hence, the burden God has given me for these youth.

Praying For You

Beautiful day. The sun is shining, the air is warm, the snow is clean and six inches deep. I went up the mountain to pray. The atmosphere couldn't have been more conducive. I'm praying for you.

Help Needed

The weather's been nice in Colorado, but it is turning to snow today. Tomorrow I am scheduled to preach in Copper Mountain, high in the mountains. I expect wintery roads and danger. I am going anyway. I have been going there for several years now, and I don't recall ever failing to arrive or return. Praise God.

The Swine Flu claimed the life of the daughter of one of our church members, this week. The poor lady lost her son to a motorcycle accident this year and now, this. I feel for her. Her daughter was 53. Apparently, thirty four people have died from the Swine flu, in Colorado, and more than four thousand, nation wide. So far, no one has so much as a cold at Eden Valley. Again, I can only thank God. Julie and her kids have the flu, over there in the Yukon, but it looks like they will pull out of it alright. In Africa, my little Shiloh, who burnt her hands badly, now needs help. As far as I can tell, Shiloh is not able to extend her thumb, or thumbs outward. The scarring is going to cause her problems later in life. Janet is trying to find someone to help us with this. I'll do what I can, as well.

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A young man is trying to help my wife with her orphan project. His heart is in the right place, and he works in important circles, as far as I can tell. He and I are having an interesting conversation. He would like my help in encouraging OCI to receive donations for Janet's project, but the donors are not to know we are religiously affiliated. The idea is to get more donations from non-religious people. I resisted the idea softly.

He wrote, "I am motivated because this is the right thing to do, and because the risk of a "lost generation" growing up in Africa is so large, not because I view it as just another channel to do evangelism. Not to diverge, but because so much of our aid work is just a means to evangelize, I don't think we can point to having any large impact on actually solving world problems. I subjectively feel that the Gates Foundation is doing way more to solve world problems than Adventists are."

What follows is my response.

I appreciate what you are trying to do. I can even understand the logic behind your argument. We all should do what we can to help "the world and the lost generation". I am torn, actually. I know you are trying to do a good thing, but if you don't mind my saying so, your view is short sighed, as far as I am concerned. Your vision to help poor orphans will only be half effective. It may be, in the here and now, that the Gates Foundation may help the world more than can the Adventist Church. (That's an exaggeration, in my opinion.) I say that, because, at best, what the Gates Foundation accomplishes will be nothing more than a band-aid fix. If Bill Gates solves more problems than Christianity and doesn't lead anyone to eternal life, what have they actually accomplished? Zipp! What is the point of "actually solving the world's problems" if we just extend life and up its quality, only to delay the inevitable? Everyone is going to die. We should engage in humanitarian work, but not just to make healthy, happy sinners. Rather, we should work to extend life and its quality eternally. That's a goal worth pursuing, don't you think? I really doubt the church could do less than Bill Gates in this respect. Like it or not, the Gospel is the only answer to the world's problems. Have you lost faith in the Gospel? Will you put more faith in what men and money can do? Dear ______, you will end up wasting your life on that program. Jesus wants us to do all we can to help people be healthy, comfortable and happy, but not apart from salvation. Doing all the rest apart from the greater goal is a humanistic waste of time. "Just another avenue to do evangelism," as you phrase it, is not a negative. It is the only approach that does a thorough job of truly helping the "lost generation". I agree that the church is not good at it. It breaks God's heart, and mine, but there is still no other real solution to this world's woes.

The Preacher's opinion . . .