"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
  • Sunday, March 12, 2006

    Invisible Children

    There really aren't words for what I've just seen. But I need to try, so at the very least you will click on a weblink -- and hopefully do a lot more.

    Reynolds Whalen, Gary Cartwright and +John Lipscomb have introduced me to what is happening in Northern Uganda. The Lord's Resistance Army has been waging a 20-year war against the Ugandan government ... but more truthfully it has been waging the war against its own people, particularly the children. (they also are being funded by the Khartoum government in Sudan and have been taking their war across the border into Southern Sudan).

    The LRA gets soliders by abducting children between the ages of 5-13, brutally conditioning them and training them to be killers through desensitation, abuse, torture, manipulation and murder. A lucky few escape.

    In the small villages of Northern Uganda, children live in continual fear. Every evening, while their parents stay to protect their meager land and belongings, the children walk for miles into the city, where they are safe from the rebels. They by the hundreds and thousands in parking lots, bus depots and anywhere they can find space. Before dawn they begin their journey back and the cycle continues.

    Three Americans in their early 20s went to Northern Uganda in 2003, documented the stories of these children and turned it into this film: Invisible Children. It's a little less than an hour and it may be the most amazing and powerful film I've ever seen. It lays out very plainly, very truthfully, the lives of these children.

    I could describe the film beyond that, but it would do such an injustice to it that I won't even try. Go to the website and you can see many clips and read the story and learn about the movement to put pressure on the U.S. government to bring an end to this conflict.

    There is no reason for this conflict to continue. No moral reason and, frankly, no political reason. When you try to argue for intervention in Darfur, you at least get the (weak, IMO) argument that the combination of China's oil dealings with the Khartoum government and their seat on the security council makes it impossible for any U.N. resolution or peacekeepers to be dispatched. There is not even that kind of block in Uganda. All that keeps the U.S. government from having a coherent policy of putting pressure on the Ugandan government to stop the LRA abductions -- and for leading the way for international intervention -- is lack of political will.

    I'm coming home with several DVDs of this. Reynolds and Landen, I've got one earmarked for you and ECM. This directly relates to our relationship with Southern Sudan (and Reynolds can continue to help us connect those dots), so as a diocese, this is important for us.

    I'm thinking we also need to include this in EGR's General Convention presence. Have a screening of the film. Have the bishops from there, who have worked with Bishop Lipscomb and others, be available to tell their story. Certainly the fourth Millennium Development Goal: Reduce Child Mortality doesn't just have to do with disease but with children who are being slaughtered and live in death's fearful shadow.

    Please take 10 minutes right now and go to the Invisible Children website and just poke around. Especially look at the ways you can help. (and check out Human Rights Watch for advocacy resources) And tell your friends, your coworkers, your fellow parishioners. Tell anyone. Tell everyone.
    |
    Mike at 3/12/2006 12:53:00 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