"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
  • Friday, March 09, 2007
    Dinner and Dancing with the Anglican Communion

    Most of what I have done the last two days is sit in rooms and listen to people talk. And so I've spent a lot of space reporting what they have said. And a lot of it has been really good stuff. And so it was today. Today we heard from Salil Shetty, director of the UN Millennium Program; Helen Wangusa, the Anglican Communion's official observer at the United Nations; and Steve De Gruchy, a really cool professor of religion and theology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. I also went to a workshop on attaining the MDGs in local communities led by Grace Phiri from Zambia.

    Most of it was really good and I have plenty of notes that I could just pour into this blog (as I did with some of the presentations yesterday), but that just seems way too dull. Mostly because what the MDGs are about for me is relationship ... and the healing and transformation that comes from really living a Gospel life together. And even though some of the stuff I heard was pretty compelling, as I lie here in bed on a Friday night it all just seems, well, pretty dry.

    And so I keep coming back to the people I meet. Breakfast with a bishop from Burundi. An ongoing conversation with a woman from Yei in Sudan (not too far from Lui) about the continuing struggle with the Khartoum government's trying to eradicate anything that isn't Arab and Islam from the south. Dinner with some folks from Ghana ... two of whom were from Accra and knew my friend Emmanuel Quartey who I met several years ago when I (and Robin) visited.

    In chapel, I sat next to a woman from Sri Lanka and we struggled to communicate because her English was below functional and I don't know her language so she was forced to struggle with mine -- we did OK, I guess. During a tea break, had a great conversation with Maureen, who teaches at CDSP. Tonight I had a chance to talk with the young adult group about EGR and pump them up to dream about what they could do for God's mission of global reconciliation -- and then got to hear Odwa (whom I'd met at General Convention) talk about the Anglican Student Federation, for which he works here in S. Africa.

    Everyday is this abundance of riches of relationship. Some of it is easy. Some of it is more difficult. Most of it is probably just scratching the surface. Some of it I'm sure is just politeness ... but some really gets below the surface and goes somewhere.

    And then something clicked. It happened when Janette O'Neill, who is ERD's director of Africa Programs, was introducing one of the afternoon speakers and she mentioned what an honor it was to be here ... and that bishops got to get together with people from all over the communion every 10 years at Lambeth but that this was a unique event for everyone else -- a chance for people of all orders and sorts to get together from all over the Communion.

    It was kind of one of those V-8, knock yourself upside the head moments for me. Maybe it's because I've been at places like General Convention and traveled in places like Ghana and Sudan that being around people from different lands is nothing new ... but having us all together in one place is something new. We don't do this all the time. In fact, we hardly do this ever.

    Maybe that's why as good as the presentations and everything is, and whatever pronouncements or plans we come out of this meeting, maybe the really great thing this gathering is is sort of a first or second date for the Anglican Communion. Sure lots of people here seem to know lots of others (the people who come to something like this are the kinds of people who have traveled a lot and tend to know one another) ... but having us all together is different.

    Maybe the best thing that can come out of this is another date. A chance to do it again. A promise to call the next day that we all actually keep. Maybe more than the wonderful theology and praxis of ministry and missiont that's being shared here, maybe that's what's really going to last.

    I think of this especially with the young adults -- particularly since they've been joined by some others from S. Africa and Mozambique. And even today they're talking about projects they can share. That's the future.

    Tomorrow I'm ditching the TEAM conference and going with the young adults to Pretoria on site visits (AIDS hospice & AIDS orphanage). I can't wait. Mostly because I love hanging out with them and because I really want to get out and see some stuff. But I have to admit, part of my joy is realizing that I won't be spending the whole day sitting behind a table listening to someone talk!

    So ... something to look forward to tomorrow. News from Pretoria!
    |
    Mike at 3/09/2007 01:46:00 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