"I'm what the world considers to be a phenomenally successful man. And I've failed much more than I've succeeded.
And each time I fail, I get my people together, and I say, "Where are we going?" And it starts to get better." - Calvin Trager

With Ya, my Ga tutor in Mallam
The Rev. Mike Kinman
Executive Director
Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation
Age: 38



Check out Forsyth School ...
where Robin teaches and
the boys attend.

Since you're already blowing time surfing,
why not do some cool stuff

  • Watch the Make Poverty History videos
  • Watch Sara McLachlan's "World on Fire" video
  • Take a seat at Oxfam America's Hunger Banquet
  • Look at the "Eight Ways to Change The World" photo exhibition
  • See how rich you are on the Global Rich List
  • Make a promise to do something cool -- and get people to do it with you
  • Use your computer to fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases

    While you're at it, do these things
  • Join the ONE Campaign to Make Poverty History
  • Join the Episcopal Public Policy Network
  • Join Amnesty International
  • Subscribe to Sojourners Online newsletter about faith, politics and culture
  • Sign the Micah Call and join other Christians in the fight against poverty
  • Subscribe to a great new magazine about women and children transforming our world

    People who show us What One Person Can Do
  • Liza Koerner (Teaching soccer and doing mission work in Costa Rica)
  • Erica Trapps (Raising money so Tanzanian children can go to school -- check out her photo gallery)

    What's happening in Sudan might
    surprise (and shock) you

  • Episcopal Diocese of Lui
  • South Sudanese Friends International
  • The Sudan Tribune
  • SudanReeves -- research, analysis and advocacy
  • Save Darfur
  • Darfur: a genocide we can stop

    For your daily fix on the irreverent...
  • Jesus of the Week
  • The Onion

    Interesting People Who Are Great To Read
  • Beth Maynard's excellent U2 sermons blog
  • Global Voices Online
  • Neha Viswanathan - poetry, commentary, humor, reflections

    Some interesting organizations and programs
  • Borgen Project - poverty reduction through political accountability
  • CARE
  • Center of Concern
  • DATA: Debt, AIDS and Trade in Africa (Bono's site)
  • El Circulo de Mujeres/Circle of Women
  • Engineering Ministries International
  • Episcopal Peace Fellowship
  • Episcopal Relief and Development
  • FreshMinistries
  • Global Campaign Against Poverty
  • Global Ministries
  • Global Work Ethic Fund -- Promoting philanthropy and fundraising in developing and transition countries.
  • Karen Emergency Relief Fund
  • Magdalene House
  • The M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
  • Natural Capitalism
  • NetMarkAid - Humanitarian Entrepreneurs
  • North American Association for the Diaconate
  • Peace Child International
  • People Building Peace
  • Project Honduras
  • Results - Creating political will to end hunger
  • St. Paul's Institute
  • Stop Global AIDS
  • TakingITGlobal -- connecting youth for action in local and global communities
  • Tanzania Educational AIDS Mission
  • TEAR (Transformation, Empowerment, Advocacy, Relief) - An Australian Christian anti-poverty movement
  • Working For Change
  • Xigi.net -- an open-source tool to aid discovery in the capital markets that fund good.

    Some Episcopal churches and dioceses doing cool things
  • Companions of Swaziland - Diocese of Iowa's Companion Relationship
  • International Development Missions -- St. Paul's Church, Sparks, NV
  • The Malaria Villages Project - St. Paul's Church, West Whiteland, PA

    Must-read books and websites about them
  • What Can One Person Do: faith to heal a broken world -- Sabina Alkire & Edmund Newell
  • The End of Poverty -- Jeffrey Sachs

    Learn more about things you really should know more about
  • UN Millenium Development Goals
  • The Millennium Campaign
  • AIDS Matters - a resource for global AIDS professionals
  • Christian Aid's in-depth report: "Millennium Lottery: Who lives and who dies in an age of third world debt?"
  • Foreign Policy In Focus
  • Poverty Mapping
  • Solutions for a water-short world
  • Transparency International: The global coalition against corruption
  • UNICEF's State of The World's Children report 2005

    General cool and/or goofy stuff
  • Alicebot chat robot
  • Bono Quotes -- but what's really wild is that it's from a page on Boycottliberalism.com!
  • Buffy Slanguage
  • Big Bunny

    Useful web tools
  • Gcast - make your own podcast
  • Podzinger - podcast search engine
  • Orb - streaming digital media


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    Listed on Blogwise
  • Monday, June 14, 2004
    It's Monday night in Mallam.

    Yesterday, I preached and celebrated at Christ the King Church (and also led a Bible study group when I sat down to it and asked "who's leading this?" and was told "you are!"). The church is basically a shelter with a dirt floor and a roof held up by posts with bricks around it up to your knees but the rest open air. That was actually the best thing because it's kind of up on a hill and the breeze was GREAT.

    We got there a little after 8 and things didn't start until 8:40 because we have to get all the benches, altar, and everything else either from the villa or from another house about a block and a half away. Then we have Bible study (three groups -- one for english speakers, which I led, one in Ga and one in Twi). Then a lay pastor leads Matins (the whole service is VERY British Anglican ... 1928 prayer book is the most similar thing for Americans) and after that we had the Eucharist -- Anglo Catholic with incense (thank goodness for my experience at Christ Church, New Haven. Somewhere Jerry Miner is smiling).

    Preaching was a pretty surreal experience. You preach a sentence or half-sentence and then have to wait while it gets translated into two different languages ... and then sometimes the translators would slip into the wrong language and they'd laugh and correct each other. You really just had to kind of go with it because it was impossible to get into any kind of rythym. I think in normal time, my sermon would have been about 10 minutes, but it ended up being more than a half an hour!

    The music was really cool. Some native stuff, but a lot of it was hymns out of our hymnal (the C of E hymnal, actually), that would start out all staid on this casio keyboard they have and then about the third verse, the drums and clapping would start and they would really start to jam with it. Really cool.

    We were welcomed so warmly. No surprise there. Oh ... Frieda dressed Mackinnon up in authentic Ghanian garb -- got a great picture, which I hope I'll be able to post. Anyway, everyone was so welcoming. after the service, we had to pose for pictures with every different consituency group in the church.

    The liturgy was pretty much Rite I, but just different enough to consistently trip me up. They were very gracious and said it was fine!

    Last night, I went with james to the board meeting of a local independent school. Being here with James is absolutely amazing. I get to do things like this that no tourist would ever get to do and see real slices of life.

    The meeting wasn't dynamic by any means. In fact, it was ample evidence that board meetings are pretty tedious in any culture. But what was interesting is that we have many of the same problems in our schools that they have in theirs -- lack of parental and community involvement, trying to stay up-to-date technologically but struggling with costs, hoping their students do well on standardized tests, etc.

    Tomorrow, I'm heading back into the Gameshi neighborhood (where we saw Theatre for a Change) to see some vocational training programs and some of the peer-to-peer education things that CENCOSAD is doing. Wednesday, I'll be heading up to Ho in the Volta region (about two hours away ... I finally get to leave Accra. HOORAY!) for a meeting with stakeholders in the reproductive health ministry there. Thursday it's back to Gameshi to do more filming. Friday it's going to Budruburam, the Liberian refugee camp that has basically become a permanent Liberian city in Ghana. Saturday and Sunday, it's back to Ho to spend time at a facility for people with HIV/AIDS and (I think) preach at a local church and meet the bishop of that diocese.

    Not a lot of rest time, but then again, even though six weeks seems like a long time sometimes, in reality it's not and there is so much to see and so much to learn. When Robin gets here, we'll take a MUCH more leisurely pace. I've already got some things planned and Lisa, Rachel and Anne have been great helping me plan stuff.

    Then there's always days like today where everything was Ghana Maybe Time and we sat around and didn't accomplish much (though I did get in a good conversation with one of the practicum students about American foreign policy. The attitude here pretty much seems to be that the American government is arrogant and does whatever it wants but the American people are wonderful and they love them.) I'm saving some interesting editorials from the Ghana newspapers to bring home!

    Going to sign off now. Night has fallen and the A/C is out at the internet cafe, so bugs are starting to pour in through the open door. Good thing I got my DEET!

    Love you all.
    |
    Mike at 6/14/2004 01:32:00 PM

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    Episcopalians for
    Global Reconciliation

    EGR is an organization resourcing a grassroots movement of spiritual transformation in the Episcopal Church to end extreme poverty on this planet.

    The structure for this movement is the Millennium Development Goals -- 8 goals committed to by all member nations of the UN and a unique partnership of governments and civil society to:

    *End extreme poverty
    *Achieve universal
    primary education

    *Promote gender equalty
    *Improve maternal health
    *Reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
    *Promote environmental sustainability
    *Build a global partnership for development

    EGR resources and connects the church to embrace what one person, one congregation, one diocese and one church can do to make this mission of global reconciliation happen.

    Want to find out more ... check our our website at www.e4gr.org.

    "Christ's example is being demeaned by the church if they ignore the new leprosy, which is AIDS. The church is the sleeping giant here. If it wakes up to what's really going on in the rest of the world, it has a real role to play. If it doesn't, it will be irrelevant."
    - Bono








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    What I'm Reading
    Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
    by Doris Kearns Goodwin