1. The future of aid
Reuters AlertNet has a really cool multimedia feature running right now with stories, videos, polls, infographics and more exploring the future of humanitarian aid. I could spend hours exploring everything there.

2. New US military bases in Latin America
The Just the Facts blog (focused on Latin America and US foreign policy toward the region) has a Google Map showing all the new military bases the US built in Latin America in 2009-10, paid for with money from the counternarcotics budget. Seeking to curb the drug trade may be necessary, but given the region’s history (and US military involvement behind the scenes and otherwise), this is something worth keeping an eye on.

3. The GOP and the Hispanic vote
Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida and current brother of W, has an op-ed in the Washington Post, encouraging Republicans to consider how they might earn the Hispanic vote - something none of the GOP front-runners seem particularly interested in doing:

[W]e need to think of immigration reform as an economic issue, not just a border security issue. Numerous polls show that Hispanics agree with Republicans on the necessity of a secure border and enforceable and fair immigration laws to reduce illegal immigration and strengthen legal immigration. Hispanics recognize that Democrats have failed to deliver on immigration reform, having chosen to spend their political capital on other priorities. Republicans should reengage on this issue and reframe it.

4. 100 best companies to work for
Yesterday I went to hear Christopher J.H. Wright speak on the topic of “Saints in the Marketplace.” In a nutshell, he emphasized the fact that God created work, that he audits it, governs it, and redeems it. I’ll post full thoughts on the talk next week, but in the meantime, here are some great examples from Fortune of businesses that create great places to work. When thinking Christianly about business, this certainly isn’t the only indicator to look at, but it's one worth highlighting and affirming for sure.

5. Faith-work distortions and possibilities
Lukas Naugle, who I recently met over a cup of coffee here in Phoenix to discuss business and the common good, has an essay in Comment about the integration of faith and business, and some of the common pitfalls of those trying to connect the two. It’s a great read, and a hugely important topic, specifically taking a look at two books on the subject.

[I]t can be tricky for an average businessperson to figure out how he or she should do business for the glory of God and the common good. Folks who run into this problem exist in many places—I have met them over coffee, investment pitches, and at conferences. Of course, there are some very positive stories and examples out there, but those who haven't gained a full-orbed view of the integration of faith and business are still the majority, and they come in various shapes and sizes. Here are some of the faith-work Frankenstein's monsters I've met.

6. Accord Network’s forum videos now online
The Accord Network, serving Christian groups working in the fields of relief and development, has posted videos from a number of the presentations at its Developing Excellence Forum, held last November in Baltimore. Main session speakers include Scott Todd (Compassion International, 58: Campaign), Peter Greer (HOPE International), and Tony Hall (former US ambassador). Additionally, videos from the Transformational Development Summit, sponsored by my friends at Eastern University, include Bryant Myers (Fuller Seminary, World Vision International), Stephan Baumann (World Relief), and others. It’s a wealth of good stuff.

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Photo credit: cnrc.navy.mil]

Five months ago, scandal engulfed a guy from Montana named Greg Mortenson.

He'd made a name for himself through a book called Three Cups of Tea, which is his story of accidentally becoming one of the world's most inspiring humanitarians. Through the book, which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for four years, Mortenson inspired tens of thousands -- if not millions -- of people to support his nonprofit organization, the Central Asia Institute. He even managed to get himself nominated on more than one occasion for the Nobel Peace Prize. President Obama himself donated a hundred grand to the cause.

Then came April of this year, when 60 Minutes aired a report suggesting that this seemingly unanimous enthusiasm might have been misguided, citing allegations from well-known writer Jon Krakauer and others that some of the most impressive and inspiring stories in Three Cups of Tea were either grossly exaggerated or completely bogus, and that Mortenson was responsible for appalling misuse of his organization's funds. Here's the 60 Minutes segment, in case you'd like to get up to speed that way:

Mortenson responded to CBS with a short statement and a longer statement, and the CAI board issued a response to the accusations as well; you can read them for yourself if you'd like. I didn't blog about any of this at the time, partly because deep down I wanted to believe Mortenson was being falsely maligned (honestly, who didn't love Three Cups?), but also because about a million other bloggers suddenly took it upon themselves to publicly crucify him, rendering my two cents a bit redundant.

Recently, however, with Borders going out of business and selling books at steep discounts, I came across Krakauer's 70-page exposé Three Cups of Deceit, and decided to give it a read. For those who have seen the 60 Minutes report, the gist of the accusations come as no surprise. Krakauer arranges the book into three sections which are, broadly speaking, the three problems he sees with Mortenson and Three Cups. First, the problem of fabricated stories presented as fact. Second, the problem of lack of financial accountability. And third, the problem of lackluster results in the places where Mortenson claims success.

The accusations do seem fairly damning, and I don't think that Mortenson's or CAI's responses sufficiently defuse them. So in the midst of profound disappointment and disillusionment it's only natural to want to demonize the man, to throw out your copy of Three Cups, and to distance yourself by pretending you never liked it in the first place and would never fall for such deception. But I think there are at least three big lessons we can all learn from this.

First, it is good to be reminded of the need for organizations and their leaders to be held accountable. Charity Navigator is one of the leading nonprofit watchdogs, and while it isn't perfect (it failed to flag CAI's shady accounting ahead of time), it has been evolving to become a more accurate measure of financial accountability and program effectiveness. There are good places to put your money to use for the common good, so please resist the two extremes: either donating on a whim just because someone asked you to, or refusing to donate at all because scandals like this exist.

Second, it is good to be reminded of the seduction of power and money, to which none of us are immune. Mortenson discovered a formula for pulling on people's heartstrings, for enlarging his personal bank account, and yes, for helping a lot of people at the same time. Mixed motives are hardly foreign to any of us, so while it does seem that Mortenson has engaged in manipulative, greedy, and deceptive behavior and has taken advantage of people's generosity and goodwill in the process, we simply cannot say that we'd be immune to these temptations were we in his shoes.

Third, and finally, it is good to be reminded that we live in a messy world full of complicated people and conflicting reports, and that a nuanced perspective is almost always helpful. Krakauer himself is quick to affirm the good that Mortenson has done -- and the good he has done is considerable -- and that is perhaps what I most appreciate about the book. While obviously first and foremost an exposé, Three Cups of Deceit demonstrates that for those confident in the facts, we can afford to be honest about the good, the bad and the ugly. And that's what separates Krakauer, a true journalist, from so many bandwagon bloggers: in lambasting a man who misled people through looseness of facts, it's all too easy to disqualify our critiques by doing the same.

[W]hen aid types whine about new NGOs “crowding the field” and spreading scarce resources too thin, I say balderdash. If your NGO isn’t getting funded because another NGO is, then you need to make your NGO faster, smarter, leaner, and more effective. And, even if there is a short reduction in the overall effectiveness of the NGO sector in a particular country because there are too many, it is offset by the long-term improvement that competition and innovation will bring. But that’s for the aid industry. Not for humanitarian relief. It is called humanitarian relief for a reason. Short-term relief, to save the starving for example, is a public service not an industry.  The immediate threat to life outweighs the long-term need for competitive innovation.

2. Social justice and evangelism
Maggie Canty-Shafer writes for Neue about a theme I’ve explored from time to time here as well:

Social justice is a complex subject for Christians. No one can disagree that Scripture commands to love the poor and oppressed, but what that looks like practically today is largely debated and at times ignored. As the world becomes increasingly more globalized and information more accessible, awareness along with responsibility has grown. This responsibility comes multiple fold. Why, how and even if we combine social justice with evangelism is an ever-evolving discussion that must be considered from a local and global level. Both the individual and the church must play a role for the Body to have the impact Scripture intended—an impact we’re capable of but nowhere near.

3. TV archive from 9/11/01
As we all know, the tenth anniversary of the tragic 9/11 attacks is this Sunday. Here’s an amazing collection of TV coverage from that Tuesday morning and the hours and days after it (HT @brettmccracken):

The 9/11 Television News Archive is a library of news coverage of the events of 9/11/2001 and their aftermath as presented by U.S. and international broadcasters. A resource for scholars, journalists, and the public, it presents one week of news broadcasts for study, research and analysis. Television is our pre-eminent medium of information, entertainment and persuasion, but until now it has not been a medium of record. This Archive attempts to address this gap by making TV news coverage of this critical week in September 2001 available to those studying these events and their treatment in the media.

4. 9/11 and the ‘Christian nation’ question
Gideon Strauss from the Center for Public Justice tackles this issue for the ThinkChristian blog, and he’s astute as always:

9/11 changed many things, but it did not make America a more or less Christian nation. America is not the New Jerusalem. America is not the Whore Babylon. It is a nation among nations. Called, like all nations, to live its political life in pursuit of public justice. Mixed, like all nations, in the composition of its citizenry with regard to religious commitments and convictions. For Christians, this means that we should not seek political hegemony in America, but that we should seek to live faithfully: proclaiming the gospel in word and deed, pursuing public justice and the common good alongside our neighbors who do not share our gospel faith.

5. Intercontinental ballistic microfinance
Here’s a really cool video from Kiva, showing the rise in its total loans and paybacks from the time it started until today, represented by dots bouncing across the globe. What’s especially cool is what happens when Kiva is featured on Frontline in 2006 (HT A View From The Cave).

Some people talk about Haiti as being the graveyard of development projects. Our own experience has been very positive working in Haiti — building health facilities and working with the public sector and creating jobs — but [we are now thinking about] how we can now make these other, more ambitious projects also effective on the implementation front.

2. Haiti: 18 months later
Roseann Dennery, a good friend of Katie’s, has a new piece in Relevant Magazine on Haiti as well, focusing on the country’s tragic orphan crisis. She has been living there for the past year, working with Samaritan’s Purse along with Justin, her husband. Her first-hand experience of the crisis has led her to a unique perspective:

It is one thing to read statistics about Haiti’s expanding orphan crisis, but it is quite another to witness it; to walk down a squalid dirt road and visit several overrun orphanages within a few minutes of one another, each with greater need than the last. Wide eyed, hungry, soiled. Each humble face tells a different variation of the same story. It is unsettling and overwhelming. And it feels harshly unjust. What does it mean, then, to be a Christian in the midst of a swelling sea of abandoned children, a trend that shows no sign of slowing?

3. Snapshots of Suffering
My friend Chris Horst, who works for HOPE International, has a great personal reflection on dignity and suffering, based on experiences in the Dominican Republic. He concludes:

I’m thrilled to serve a God who truly knows me. A God who does not define me by my weaknesses. A Creator who made me in his image. A Father who “exults” over me, his child. These truths convince me that If God and I sojourned across the Dominican together, his pictures would look strikingly different than mine.

4. Are humanitarian groups doing the media’s job overseas?
This was an interesting one for me, since I’m a communications specialist for a large NGO not unlike the one featured in this post. It is an interesting observation Tom Paulson makes about this trend of NGO communicators doing something very similar to journalism and what this means for mainstream media.

5. Is baseball becoming Latin America’s game?
NBC Sports has an interesting piece on the rise of Latino players in the MLB:

Much like the recent influx of immigrants from Latin America into the general U.S. population, MLB has seen a remarkable shift in it's demographic over the last 20 years. Ozzie Guillen, the outspoken manager of the Chicago White Sox, said last year that within 10 years "American people are going to need a visa to play this game because we're going to take over." And while Guillen's comments can be taken as a humorous exaggeration, there is an element of truth to what he says. Baseball might be America's pastime, but the sport is becoming increasingly Latino at heart.

6. Trailer for :58 film
I highlighted the new :58 campaign here on the blog a month ago today. Now here is the trailer for the campaign’s feature length film, due for release this fall.

58: THE FILM Trailer July, 11 2011 from LIVE58NOW on Vimeo.

The video I came across on the blog was focused on faith-based aid. It features interviews with missionaries in Mozambique who live among very poor people. Using my own very unscientific methods, I'm not sure these missionaries are in any sense representative, but I think the questions raised and the answers given do provide some good food for thought, especially for those like me -- and maybe you -- who believe that faith and development do belong together.

Is what we're doing really working?
Are we really doing what we say we're doing?
Might our actions have unintended consequences?
Can we do better?

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