WEALTH IS NOT STUFF

As a culture, we have opted to believe that the wealth of an individual can be measured by how much stuff he or she has accumulated and can put on display. Accumulation of icon items surely proves beyond a doubt that we have prevailed in the race to riches and are obnoxiously successful, doesn’t it? If we possess stuff we are considered wealthy; therefore, we are to be considered valuable people in society.

As an economist, I want to soothe your soul and give some consolation. That prevailing presumption always has been and always will be this world’s belief. Little consideration has been given throughout history to the simple fact that the idea is an unfounded lie. Portugal and Spain raced to the New World in the sixteenth century, stole enormous amounts of gold, and took it back home. About the only thing they accomplished was to force the prices in their respective countries up by 200 percent while believing the false notion that having more money in their society would make them wealthy.

In 1917, the Bolsheviks in Russia believed that if they could just get their hands on the golden egg held by the czars, they could divvy up the riches amongst themselves and live happily ever after. When they ran out of the czars’ assets, they had to expand into Central Asia and rape and pillage the people there. They had bought into an untrue myth. It doesn’t really make any difference how big a pile of stuff you accumulate or how much diversity is included in the pile, wealth is not stuff. You consume stuff. It deteriorates, depreciates, and ultimately disappears. And everyone else, especially the government, wants to take it away from you because they too believe the pile is wealth.

So, what is wealth? Wealth is production. Wealth is the opportunity to participate in enterprise. Wealth is the phenomenon that converts resources into sustainable enterprise and additional production. Cultures that allow and encourage enterprise are wealthy. Cultures that do not allow and encourage enterprise are poor! The result of successful enterprise and production is stuff, not the other way around. Cultures that do not understand the difference and greedily go after the pile of stuff and the golden egg, end up in revolution or bankruptcy, killing enterprise and production in the process.

History is disgustingly full of examples of consequences where cultures mistakenly went after the acquisition of the golden egg at the expense of enterprise and production. With my own eyes I watched the tragedy of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe unfold as I traveled there over a thirty-year period. One of my first economic consulting assignments was to Robert Mugabe’s “new Zimbabwe.” Under enterprise and production, Rhodesia had become the breadbasket of Africa. Beautiful, well-run farms with concrete irrigation ditches, modern equipment, and up-to-date technology produced abundant crops to feed the entire country with tons left over for export.

It was simply too fine an egg to go unstolen. The tragic misunderstanding was that if there were some way to grab the pile of stuff, the wealth would be miraculously transferred to the politicians in charge of the transfer. Not so. There was total disregard for the economics of enterprise and production. In subsequent years when I returned to Zimbabwe, my heart would ache while driving the roads outside Harare, Chitungwiza, and Bulawayo. The houses had been stripped of valuable items. In the fields were broken pieces of farm equipment, and the silos stood empty of crops. Farm prices were manipulated by government, and people were going hungry.

A decree went out to the last of the hold-out farmers that they were to surrender their farms to the “people” of Zimbabwe and leave the country by August 8, 2002. I arrived in Harare on Wednesday, August 7. I could not have visited Zimbabwe at a more potentially explosive time. One of my acquaintances from a previous trip had refused to leave his farm. An ambush had been set for him. He was tied to a tree, beaten, and shot fourteen times. The murderous villagers then left the dead farmer in the road, where his dog faithfully laid by his side for three days until some of the other farmers found him.

Another farmer, whom I had met at a church in Harare on an earlier trip, was visited in person by a high-ranking official in the government. He had been told, “I know you love this farm. It has been in your family for three generations, so let’s solve this problem in the easiest way: (1) You deed all your farm, livestock, and equipment to me personally, and I will keep it out of the hands of the hostile masses; (2) then you stay on and run the farm for me, as you now are, and you will not get hurt. That’s a wonderful solution for everyone.”

On August 9 the media reported that there were approximately two thousand farmers still on their farms. By midnight another six hundred had left. Because greed had trumped sane economics, the robbers presumed that the farms would simply run themselves, and the pile of stuff would always be there. In their rush to grab the golden egg, they had sadly stepped on the neck of the goose that had been laying the golden eggs. They only saw the golden eggs and wanted the pile of stuff for themselves. But the stuff vanished. They had killed the phenomenon of enterprise, and as production stopped, wealth disappeared. The food to feed Zimbabwe had come off those farms, and the people who were once employed by enterprise were jobless.

There’s a very high price to pay when the greed of a culture violates basic economic principles. But there is one economic principle about which we need not get confused: Wealth is not stuff    

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PARKER BROTHERS, POKER and the MYTH

Parker Brothers made millions of dollars marketing the table game Monopoly. It takes two to three hours to play a round of the game. Its history can be traced back to 1904, when it was developed as a teaching tool to explain the single tax theory.

Poker is a game where betting begins with some form of forced bet by one of the players. Each player is betting that the hand he has will be the highest ranked. Each of the other players must either match the maximum previous bet or fold.

Both games include one striking similarity: one player ends up with more only as another player ends up with less. They are zero-sum games. The only way one can gain is at the expense of someone else. It is like an apple pie: if one person eats more, another person gets less. Over the years many well-intentioned folks have swallowed this analogy as an axiomatic factor of life. If you have something, it is because someone else does not. You took it away from someone else, or you wouldn’t have more. It becomes very easy to deduce that the reason we have an abundance of poor people in the world is because we have a few other people who have grabbed a huge portion of the pie and left everyone else without. Before careful examination of the issue, I used to swallow that reasoning hook, line, and sinker.

One day I was doing some research for a paper I was writing. The material I was reading raised the fact that the three richest men in the world control more wealth than all six hundred million people living in the world’s poorest countries. I was tempted to embrace the seemingly obvious point that the reason there are six hundred million impoverished people in the poorest countries is because the three men had snagged all the money before it got to the six hundred million. At that point I had to ask myself the realistic question, “How much additional money would those six hundred million persons have in their pockets today had Bill Gates and his two other buddies not earned all that money?” I was forced to answer, “Probably not one additional penny,” because wealth is a different myth. It is not a clump of something; it is not a zero-sum game. The gains of the winners are not simply products of theft. People can grow wealth if they are allowed to do so. People can create successful enterprise and thus create wealth and enrich all who are associated with the undertaking. Production is the wealth. At the end of my research, I was faced with a different question: “Just why have the six hundred million people in the poorest countries not been able to produce more than they have?”

I have walked this world’s slums and have become acquainted with the locations of abject poverty. I wasn’t on a luxury tour bus—poverty was the location of my work for twenty-five years. I have been driven by the belief  that something positive can be done to reverse poverty. Strong economies cannot be built on sick people. So, for more than twenty-five years, Project C.U.R.E. has been dedicated to taking health and hope to over 125 developing countries of the world.

A most delightful and encouraging phenomenon crossed my pathway while trying to deal with ingrained poverty. The United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit. And in 2006 the Nobel Peace Prize went to Muhammad Yunus for his work providing microcredit to the poor.

The idea germinated in Bangladesh in 1976 with the Grameen Bank delivering small loans at low interest rates to rural poor. The program became a popular tool for economic development throughout the developing world and sparked a revolution in micro-entrepreneurship. The newly created enterprises generated employment, and the efforts began to create and grow real wealth. Today 75 percent of all microcredit recipients worldwide are women who are now given a chance to establish a sustainable means of income. Growing the enterprises increases disposable income. That leads to more economic growth and development.

The new business owners of the microenterprises don’t have more because someone else in the village has less. Others in the village, in fact, also end up with more. Everyone starts to become better off. What a glorious experience it is to see the power of debilitating poverty being reversed, and people who have been held down by governments and tradition being given an opportunity to become part of the solution rather than the problem.

Using zero-sum thinking is acceptable at the Parker Brothers’ Monopoly board or the challenging poker table, but please, don’t succumb to the temptation of applying zero-sum thinking to the economics of real life.

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INDIA JOURNAL 2004 (Part 6)

Tuesday June 22, 2004: Madras, India and Osaka, Japan: A lot of the mornings on the India trip included getting up at 4:30 a.m. or earlier, including the one at home when I was headed to the airport and had to leave our guests from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, at our guest house.
                     
 Tuesday was another one of those mornings.  We had to be out of Miraj and all the way to Kolhapur in order to catch the return leg of the Deccan Airways flight back to Bombay. Dr. Bidari was up and saw me off before he trudged over to the hospital to start his long list of surgeries for Tuesday.

Once in Bombay I had a substantial layover before I proceeded on to Madras on Indian Airways.  Likewise, I had another layover in Madras before catching the Thai Airlines flight #TG774 at 12:05 a.m. on Wednesday, June 23.  That segment took me back to Osaka, Japan, and then another leg carried me into Los Angeles.  Eventually I made it back to Denver International Airport and home.
 
We were now cutting a pretty wide swath through India.  We were joining with some good global partners like the Nazarenes, Presbyterians, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, International Rotary, the state department and even Congress. 

God was seeing to it that His plan for helping needy and sick people all over the world was taking form through a simple little organization called Project C.U.R.E.  He had arranged for Project C.U.R.E. to become presently the largest supplier of donated medical goods around the world.  That was pretty awesome and exciting.
 
I have to admit something here as I call a halt to the India journal entry.  I really missed Mom Jackson and her prayers for Project C.U.R.E. and for my personal safety.  She was such an enthusiastic fan of what was happening.  Every morning of her life I knew that she was up early praying for me and for the work of Project C.U.R.E., and sometimes even in the middle of the night when I was off in some crazy unsafe place,
 
She had been gone now since October and several times on this trip I caught myself wanting to hurry home, sit down on the sofa with her while I sipped some tea, and tell her all about the exciting things we were getting to do now in over 100 countries around the world.
 
I knew the look she would have in her eyes and the rapid-fire questions she would have asked about the people and the places.  Then she would share with me the answers to some of the prayers that had taken place since I had been gone.
 
I had mentioned recently to Anna Marie how much I was missing Mom lately and especially her prayers, and Anna Marie simply shot back, “Well, I wouldn’t worry a lot about that, she’s closer to the ear of God now than she ever was in her life here.”  I liked that.
 
I’m a happy man, thankful that God entrusted to us these years with this funny organization called Project C.U.R.E.

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INDIA JOURANL 2004 (Pt. 5)

Monday June 21, 2004: Kolhapur and Miraj, India: I was happy that I had not jumped to a false conclusion about Dr. Bidari over the airline tickets to Miraj and simply headed home after finishing my work at Reynolds Memorial Hospital in Washim, India.  That would have been a mistake.
 
Upon arriving at the Wanless compound I was ushered to another missionary guest house called the “Fletcher Hall.”  I had previously met Dr. Fletcher, for whom the building was named, on one of my trips to Houston to hold meetings with the board of directors of MBF.

I dropped my luggage off at room #4 and smiled broadly when I realized it had an air-conditioning unit in a back window.
 
Dr. Ebenezer R. Bidari, M.D., MS, surgeon, FACS, FCAMS, etc. had spent his entire 35-year career at the Wanless Hospital.  He had grown up through the ranks of the outstanding hospital and college of nursing, practicing his surgery there and teaching too.  They could not have chosen a finer director to run the hospital than Dr. Bidari.  I learned to respect him from the moment I met up with him at the dining room of Fletcher Hall ten minutes after I arrived in Miraj.
 
As soon as I had finished lunch, Dr. Bidari escorted me to the administration building where he had assembled his medical administrative team for our introduction meeting.  Our needs assessment study began just that fast.  By six o’clock we had not finished the study, but we were finished with the day.
 
I had a dorm room to myself and took my meals at the Fletcher Hall dining area.  The small beds were equipped with mosquito nets so, along with that and the AC, it was very comfortable.
 
The rainy season had not only started back in Washim but had started also in Miraj.  Oh, how it rained!  Washim area had been semi-arid, rolling countryside.  Miraj was more tropical with some mountains nearby.  The fresh rain had turned Miraj into a spot of Indian beauty.

Sunday, June 20
 
Dr. Bidari lived in a stone house just across the small road from Fletcher Hall within the compound.  On Saturday evening he had invited me to attend the Presbyterian church service with his family on Sunday morning, after which we would go to their home and share lunch.
 
The original stone Presbyterian church was still being used after almost 100 years of continued service.  I couldn’t help thinking, as I sat in the old grand building and listened to the minister preach a sermon on stewardship, just how many lives had found their way across the oceans and across India to help and influence the Christian work there in Miraj over the past 110 years.  So many, many lives had contributed to God’s work there over the years that only eternity would reveal the good that had been made possible there.
 
I needed Sunday in Miraj.  During the afternoon and early evening I was able to read and write some and catch up on my paperwork and reports. By 7:30 p.m., we went to the chapel on the hospital campus where we attended evening worship services conducted by the students and chaplain of the nursing college.

Monday, June 20
 
The previous 13 years of dry climate and especially the past four years of drought had really brought hardship to that part of India.  They had borrowed money to plant their crops and had gone deeply into debt to purchase food to keep their livestock alive.  In the years 2002 and 2003, the banks had to simply quit loaning money to the deeply indebted farmers.  So the farm families were, of necessity, forced to sell or kill off their holdings.  It had been an extremely tough time for the entire region.
 
But now, the rains had come.  I could lie in my bed and listen to the thunder roll across the thirsty plains bringing with it the life-giving moisture they all needed there.  The people I met were even optimistic and the common topic of conversation was about how good it was to smell and feel the rain again.
 
But, of course, the rain brought the mosquitoes.  I was glad that I had started on my malaria medicine before I left home.  The once-a-week prophylactic was well into my blood stream and liver by the time I encountered the pesky pinheads.  You can bet I still used my mosquito netting over my bed each night, however.

I attended the early morning chapel service on the compound Monday morning and drank in the words of a wise old Indian speaker who brought the devotions.  His talk centered on John 21:15-19, “Peter, do you love me?”  It vividly brought back to me the memory of my own encounter 30 years ago when God rode in the front seat of that big, dark-blue Mercedes 600 limousine that I was driving and starkly confronted me with the “do you love me?” sequence.  Oh, what wonderful years I had enjoyed since that March 12th night in the snow-covered hills of Colorado!  It was worth the trip to India just to be energetically reminded of that life-altering experience.
 
The program that Dr. Bidari had laid out for me for Monday was to finish my assessment at the hospital and college of nursing, then together we would ride to several of the outlying clinics to observe the work that the staff, nurses and students were doing for the communities served by Wanless.

The first outpost was located in the village of Bedag.  The structural facility was very adequate but the pieces of equipment and supplies were pretty “slim pickin’.”  We talked about taking some of the present assets from the Miraj Hospital out to the clinics once they were replaced by items sent from Project C.U.R.E.

In the afternoon we drove back to Kolhapur, then beyond to a city called Nipani, where the Presbyterians had operated the Lafayette Hospital under the umbrella of Wanless Hospital.  It was a 45-bed facility under the directorship of another able surgeon, Dr. Sunil Sase.  He was prepared for me.  He did a wonderful job of presenting his projects and his lists of much-needed things for Project C.U.R.E.
 
He was bright, articulate and had great plans for his hospital.  His father had been the director there before him and was dedicated to seeing the institution continue in its successes.
 
All along the roadway between Kolhapur and Miraj there were groups of people walking and clanging cymbals and playing sitars and carrying orange banners of silk.  Most of them were dressed in white.  I inquired as to who they were.  Dr. Bidari explained to me that they were pilgrims who, having admitted they were sinners, were making treks to the temples to pay physical and financial sacrifices to be cleansed of their sins.  They would take three or four weeks out of their lives and travel about 15 to 20 miles a day across the country, sleeping out in the fields or in some sympathizer’s farmyard until they reached their destination.
 
They also punished themselves along the way to enhance their likelihood of being cleansed of sin once they attended the temple.  Some were walking on sharp stones and carrying their shoes.  Others were fasting, taking in no food along the way.  One man impressed me especially.  He would stand, then fall the length of his body.  The length of his body determined where he would stand up next to proceed with his next fall.  He would cover about a five- or six-foot distance with each fall.  That was the way he traveled, five or six feet at a flop.
 
I studied the folks as best I could as we approached and passed them.  They were mostly middle-aged men and women.  The men always led the group, which counted from about a dozen to 30.  The women walked lock-step at the rear.  I could see that it was a very solemn occasion for each.  The sincerity and determination etched in their faces convinced me of their seriousness.
 
Dr. Bidari told me that the system was quite a temporary thing in that as soon as they completed the ritual they would head right back into whatever indulgence it was from which they were trying to be cleansed.  So, the next year they would have to take off another three to six weeks from their regular duties and proceed on another walkathon for cleansing.
 
As we bumped along beside one group, the words and melody line from a church song we used to sing when I was a kid flashed onto the monitor of my mind:
 
            Lord Jesus I long to be perfectly whole
            I want you forever to live in my soul
            Break down every idol, cast out every foe
            Now wash me and I will be whiter than snow
            Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow
            Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
 
For evangelical Christians and strong denominations to have been in India for as long as they had, we sure hadn’t gotten the simple message of Christ’s plan of salvation, sacrifice, and forgiveness across to the hurting population of India.  Less than 5% of all the population of India claimed to be Christian. 
 
We didn’t get back from our road trip to Nipani until well after 9 p.m. Monday night.  The chef at the Fletcher Hall had dinner waiting for me.
 
Next Week: I miss my Mom

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INDIA JOURNAL - 2004 (Part 4)

Friday June 18, 2004: Bombay, India: I had been dealing with the disease in the places I traveled over the past couple years.  In many countries, 50 to 65 percent of the population had contracted HIV/AIDS, and they were expected to die within a period of no longer than five years.  I had been visiting hospitals in Malawi, Zambia, Congo, etc., where every patient occupying a bed had HIV/AIDS.

They were there dying of tuberculosis, malaria, intestinal disease or acute infection, but the cause for their never getting well was because they were infected with the AIDS virus.  They would never leave that hospital alive.
 
Dr. Douglas Jackson and I had visited Rwanda together in December 2003.

There, we had talked to different groups of health care workers who had been contracted to deliver the antiretroviral “cocktail of medicines” to AIDS victims.  The workers confirmed the high percentages of the population who were infected, but they told us that they were greatly worried because the sick people were doing nothing about changing their lifestyles or sexual habits.  In simple English, that meant that even if the AIDS victims really took the medicines that were given to them and did not go out and sell them to someone who did not want to admit they had the virus, and even if those immune-enhancing meds might keep them alive for another five years longer, they still figured that they were now under no obligation to change their habits.  Instead they could continue in their promiscuity, and what you accomplished with the medication was keeping them alive and sexually active so they could go and infect another 25 people in their next five years of bonus time.
 
There was no cure for AIDS.  People were viewing the meds as an inoculation and remedy, which they simply were not.  We discussed that the touting of the availability of the antiretroviral medications could actually increase the spread of the disease.
 
My fears regarding the AIDS epidemic were confirmed by an International Herald Tribune article that I read while in India.  The reporter emphasized:  “A group spearheaded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is warning that the push to expand access to AIDS treatment could actually fuel growth of HIV infections if treatment isn’t paired with efforts to prevent the spread of new infections.”
 
The article continued:  “Access to lifesaving drugs could lead to resumption of risky sex in poor countries just as it has in rich countries of the world” and there was being recognized now “the potential for a huge backfire.”
 
India was one of the countries that continued to greatly bother the global health watchdogs.  It appeared that India, like Africa and China, was heading for an unprecedented epidemic because the high occurrence of newly infected victims in areas of port cities, along major cargo transportation routes, as well as bus and train lines, had been ignored or hidden in earlier months and years.  But the growth was taking place in those areas in exponential numbers.
 
The Reynolds Memorial Hospital in Washim was at least ahead of the curve with their testing facilities and blood bank.
 
We said our “goodbyes” at the Washim Hospital and compound and loaded into a van about 1:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon.  Dr. Noah cleared his surgery calendar and insisted that he accompany me all the way back to Bombay.
 
Our vehicle bounced along the Indian countryside for about four hours on our way back to the airport at Arangabad.  Because of the rains, the farmers were out enthusiastically working their fields.  Just during the time I had been in Washim, there was a definite “turning of green” in the countryside.
 
Only occasionally would I ever spot a motorized tractor in the fields.  All the plowing and planting and tilling were being accomplished by oxen pulling crude equipment through the fields.  The farmer driving the team of two oxen would adjust the depth of the plow into the ground by riding the wooden plow and tilting the wooden tongs forward or backward as the plow went through the dirt.  The more vertical the tongs, the deeper the cut made in the soil.
 
The soil in that region of India was dark and rich and looked as if it would grow anything planted in it.  I was amazed at how high a percentage of the land was under cultivation.  Maybe they weren’t quite as efficient at using every square inch as the Vietnamese rice growers would have been, but I think the farmers were every bit as dedicated to the soil.
 
I guessed that in India’s situation with a billion human mouths to feed, plus all the holy animals, they had better be pretty efficient with the terra firma allocated to them.
 
As I traveled throughout the 135 countries listed in my passports, I enjoyed observing the people.  Not just their customs, but also their character.  There was a certain dignity and nobility reflected in the Indian people. 

They might live in a rural hut or a squalid urban ghetto, but they care about being clean and the women are always dressed in proper and colorful clothing.  Even as they walked along the country roadsides you could look deeply into their Jacobean brown eyes and sense dignity and confidence.
 
We pulled into the parking lot of the small airport at Arangabad with a comfortable amount of time to check in and board our Jet Airways flight to Bombay.  I was still trying to adjust to the fact that Dr. Noah was traveling with me all the way back to Bombay and would stay overnight at the Avion Hotel so that he could properly take care of me and officially see me off on the airplane Saturday morning.  His deep concern about details and his capacity to care let me know what kind of a surgeon he was without ever putting on scrubs and watching him perform a procedure in his operating theater.  It also let me know that Project C.U.R.E. had found a conscientious partner with impeccable integrity.  He would take what we donated to him and multiply it 100-fold.
 
Our plane rattled down the runway and lifted off about 7:55 p.m.  We arrived in Bombay about 10 p.m.  I already knew the Avion Hotel would have a warm, clean shower and some clean sheets on the bed.  What the personnel did not have were my tickets from Dr. Bidari for my next morning flight to Miraj, but his promise to “have everything well under control” had been given seriously,  and later that night a man arrived at the Avion Hotel in the middle of another downpour of rain.  He not only brought the tickets but also had an auto there from the Miraj Hospital to drive me back to the Wanless Hospital in the event that for some reason the morning flight would not fly.  Dr. Bidari was really making up for any lost time.  There was no way he was going to let me leave India and go home without seeing his hospital.  It would be a 10- or 11-hour drive in that auto if my flight did not go the next morning to Kolhapur, India.

Saturday, June 19
 
I was up and already at the airport by 6 a.m. Saturday morning.  Deccan Airways was a new carrier to me.  They had been organized to fly within India just the past year.  Their fleet of planes consisted of some old Folker craft with two propellers and the body hanging under a big wing.
 
I watched them weigh my two pieces of luggage and grin as they soaked me for excess baggage.  I protested, “Just let me carry my one piece of hand luggage onto the airplane, and I won’t be over your arbitrary limit for checked luggage.”  No way, the upstart fliers needed every chunk of revenue they could muster, so I had to go get some US dollars changed into rupees to pay them the excess fee.
 
The Deccan Airways group made up for that inconvenience by not serving any breakfast and trying to charge for even a cup of tea on the plane.  You can know that I was happy that I didn’t have to fly with them further than to Kolhapur, India.
 
When we landed at Kolhapur, I did give thanks that I did not have to bounce around like a marble in a tin can for the 11-hour ride I would have endured if not for the puddle-jumper airline that Saturday morning.
 
At Kolhapur I realized that the airport had only been open for the past year, so if I had traveled last year to Miraj it surely would have been by auto.
 
Another of Dr. Bidari’s assistants was waiting to pick me up and whisk me off to a local restaurant for breakfast before we started on our two-hour trip from Kolhapur to Miraj.
 
Some 110 years before, Presbyterian missionaries from jolly England had traveled to Miraj and Dr. Sir William Wanless and his wife Mary, who were actually from Canada, decided to concentrate their efforts on building a medical dispensary, then later a hospital.  They had arrived in 1891; the original cut-stone hospital was constructed in 1894.

Over the years to come, the Wanless Hospital in Miraj had grown into a large hospital containing 500 beds and offering all specialties, including open heart surgeries.  It also housed a nursing college, training nearly 200 new professionals annually in a very impressive program.
 
Medical Benevolence Foundation (MBF) had been the Presbyterian church’s medical arm with whom Project C.U.R.E. had been working in Africa (Cameroon, Congo, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) for about six years.  Project C.U.R.E. had partnered with the group to set up our warehouse and volunteer center in Houston, Texas.  Now, they had requested that we go to India and begin helping the Wanless Hospital in Miraj.
 
Next Week: Dr. Bidari and the Wanless Hospital 

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INDIA JOURNAL - 2004 (Part 3)

Wednesday June 16, 2004: Washim, India: It was into the shower at 4 a.m. and back to the airport where Dr. Noah and I were scheduled to fly on Jet Airways from Bombay to Arangabad.  It was almost tragic because we nearly missed our final boarding call while we were intently discussing a man from Phoenix, Arizona, and how he had almost totally messed up Nazarene Compassionate Ministry’s and the Reynolds Memorial Hospital’s fragile relationship with the Indian government and customs.  In the recent past, he had totally ignored protocol and shipping regulations, sent inappropriate items, and botched the official paperwork so badly that the Indian government had nearly concluded fraud or smuggling.
 
We agreed that we would work closely together to try to help rebuild the government confidence and heal the relationship with the Indian customs officials in order to mend the situation for the hospital.
 
The rain was pouring in Bombay as we left.  India’s rainy season had just begun and the people were eagerly welcoming the moisture.  Our arrival at Arangabad was delayed by the rain, and the sky was heavy and very dark as we loaded into a car and traveled another four hours to the city of Washim.  Washim, with a population of 65,000, was in the heart of the rural farm belt of the state of Maharashtra.

The Reynolds Memorial Hospital was established in 1936 by efforts of Nazarene missionary and lay personnel.  There had been a medical mission presence in Washim as a result of the Methodist denomination’s efforts.  But, over nearly 80 years, the Nazarenes had built a strong facility, “all as a part of service to man in the name of God and to show all people the love of God by treating them as well as we can and as kindly as we can by love, compassion, and sympathy.” 

Dr. Noah was a very effective administrator, as well as a skilled surgeon.  The hospital was a 210-bed facility.  The Nazarenes had previously handed over the organization to be managed by indigenous leaders but stayed in the relationship to donate about 7% of the hospital’s overhead.  The hospital was doing a remarkable job of reaching out and serving a catchment area of over a quarter million people.
 
The missionary guest house, where I would stay, had been built in 1906.  It was quite a stately old manor house with high ceilings and large rooms.
 
We started the hospital needs assessment study almost as soon as we drove into Washim.  The rain came in wind-driven cloud bursts, but the people all smiled and cheered on the moisture.
 
The Reynolds Memorial Hospital had, over the years, been frequented by Nazarene denominational work groups and medical teams.  It also had enjoyed some kind of relationship between the nurse-training schools of the US Nazarene universities and the hospital in Washim.  In fact, there was one nurse intern, Meredith Carroll from Point Loma University, also at the guest house with another team to follow a few days later.

Thursday, June 17
 
Thursday was set aside to visit the countryside surrounding Washim and observe the hospital’s medical work that had been established in the rural villages. In 1987, Reynolds Memorial Hospital and the Nurses Training School had reached out to ten villages, then to 36 in 1993, and 111 in 1998.  By 2001 they were taking their “community-based health project” to 145 villages and reaching over 200,000 people in the rural communities.
 
Their program became very successful in meeting the needs of preventive, as well as curative, medical service and included areas of:  (l) immunization, (2) under-five (years of age) clinics, (3) nutritional rehabilitation, (4) antenatal clinics, (5) HIV/AIDS testing and (6) mobile clinics.
 
One of the villages that I visited on Thursday was home to 1,500 people.  Many women and children had gathered into a make-shift clinic.  When I entered, one of the Reynolds Hospital nurses was teaching nutrition to the group with the help of charts, pictures, and other visual displays.  When that was completed the mothers and children all lined up for their monthly checkup exams.  Then when finished they sang some simple songs, had a scripture reading, and prayed.
 
Dr. Noah told me that when they first started in the villages the kids and mothers would all run away.  Now they eagerly awaited the team of about seven nurses and students.
 
He also related to me how the hospital had embarked upon a very ambitious plan whereby they were endeavoring to immunize every child and mother in all 145 villages in a three-month period of time.  No one in the government health offices thought the plan to be possible but they were happy to supply the medicines anyhow.
 
Somehow Dr. Noah’s team was able to accomplish 100% of their goal within the three-month period.  “We even chased some women and children down in the fields to give them their shots,” he told me.  To their knowledge there had never been a program to accomplish such a feat, either in India or the United States.
 
At 3 p.m. on Thursday, I was scheduled to meet at the hospital board room with Dr. Noah’s entire hospital and school team.  Their excitement and commitment was contagious.  They were eager to tell me all about their future goals and plans.  They had become a very successful unit.  The two hours I spent with them flew by quickly.
 
Upon leaving the team meeting, where I was given lists of prioritized department needs, we stopped for a cup of good Indian chai (tea).  Dr. Noah decided to contact Dr. Bidari in Miraj, India, on his cell phone and make sure my airplane tickets from Bombay to Kolhapur had been left off at the Avion Hotel in Bombay.  Anna Marie had carefully instructed Dr. Bidari that the connection tickets needed to be at the Avion Hotel so that I could continue on my trip to his hospital in Miraj.  Dr. Bidari’s assistant had not a foggy idea of what Dr. Noah was even talking about.  It was looking like Dr. Bidari had completely spaced out his need to get my ticket purchased and delivered.  Dr. Noah was upset because he had just talked to Dr. Bidari the week before and was assured that everything was “being well taken care of.”
 
Eventually, Dr. Noah got Dr. Bidari on the phone and he was very unsure of things in his responses.  Finally, I had Dr. Noah put me on the line.
 
“Hello, Dr. Bidari,” I greeted him cheerfully.  “I understand we have had some miscommunication.  I just need to tell you that I’m sure you have everything under control.  However, if those flight tickets are not at the Avion Hotel when I arrive in Bombay late Friday night, I know I will not have time to go and purchase the tickets needed for the 6 a.m. flight on to Kolhapur. So, I would then have to go ahead and board a flight directly back to the US and not visit your hospital in Kolhapur.”
 
Dr. Bidari assured me that everything would “be well taken care of.”
 
I tried to contact Anna Marie in Colorado by e-mail but was never able to make any connection with AOL in the US.
 
Thursday evening, Dr. Noah invited me to have dinner with his family in their home on the compound.

Friday, June 18
 
I had become accustomed to having some institution official in some foreign country just suddenly inform me that I would be speaking to some large group of people gathered in some building somewhere.
 
Friday morning I was delegated and informed that I would be speaking for 30 minutes at the campus church building for the hospital staff and Nurses Training College’s weekly chapel service.  I swallowed twice and commenced to speak.  It turned out to be a good time together; God really blessed the session.
 
We had been able to accomplish a lot at the Reynolds Hospital in a very short period of time.  I was very impressed with Dr. Noah and his team in Washim, India.  They were certainly proving that the quality, efficiency, and community impact of a missionary hospital need not diminish when the sacred missionaries with all the answers went back home.  My guess was the hospital was in better shape than it had been during the ten previous years when they were still there.  Of course, that was just one humble man’s opinion.
 
One feature of the Reynolds Hospital that greatly impressed me was the fact that they had effectively operated their own blood bank with full storage and investigative facilities for HIV/AIDS, as well as hepatitis A, B and C.
 
As you have read my previous journal entries, you have become aware of my deep concern for the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic around the world.  It would frighten me when I visited any part of Africa, India, China, Vietnam, Thailand, and even Russia, to realize that hardly anyone in the world had truly grasped the magnitude of the rampant killer disease.  Everyone still seemed to be in denial of the fact that over 40 million people in the world were proven carriers of the disease and that over five million more were proven to have contracted the disease for the first time in just the last year.
 
No one seemed to think that it would affect them.  And even if they did, they assumed there would be a magic cure developed by the American doctors to take care of them.
 
But the ugly truth had passed up fiction a long time back.  There was no cure presently, nor was there even one on the horizon.  But, the world had quickly and silently entered into the dying stage of the disease around the world.
 
Next Week: Can we make it to the Wanless Hospital in  Miraj?

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INDIA JOURNAL 2004 (Part 2)

June 13, 2004: Destination: Mumbai (Bombay), India: Just one day after our return from Idaho, Project C.U.R.E. hosted a grand golf tournament at the prestigious Sanctuary Golf Course, a private and very exclusive venue.  We had been allowed to hold the tournament as a fundraiser for Project C.U.R.E.’s worldwide efforts.  Doug and his staff planned the event so well, and it ended up a smashing success with many important supporters of Project C.U.R.E. in attendance.
 
Every year it had become more and more necessary for us to push, push, push to raise more and more money.  In our endeavor to give away the medical goods and equipment, the simple mathematics proved that as our freely donated materials flowed out of our six warehouses around the USA, our costs for doing business increased by a similar or higher percentage.
 
Project C.U.R.E. had given away over $30 million US worth of wholesale medical goods in just the past year … that’s $30,000,000.00!  That was a far cry from the first load that Anna Marie and I donated to Brazil in 1987.
 
Now then, if we weren’t selling any of the goods but rather giving it all away to the desperately needy people around the world, where in heaven’s name were we getting the money to stay in business?  Great question!
 
We were running the most efficient humanitarian organization in the world, and had simultaneously become the world’s largest supplier of donated medical goods.  All this we had accomplished in less than 18 years of pressurized existence.  Indeed, we were the epitome of frugality.  Our audited financial statements proved that we were running a multimillion-dollar business on less than 2% overhead.  That’s unheard of in a world where charity organizations are smiled upon if they can keep their overhead down to 60% or 70% of their revenues.
 
Project C.U.R.E. had become a living example of a financial miracle of God being lived out in the 21st century world.
 
But, in reality, it was taking more and more cash to run our organization.  Each time we opened up in a new collection or distribution city in the US, we had to have trucks, gasoline, buildings, insurance, as well as funds for paying for utilities, health and protection insurance for our workers, brochures and other materials, and travel and … and … and.
 
We had worked very hard to procure overstock medical goods from manufacturers, wholesalers, and end users such as hospitals, independent doctors, and out-patient clinics.  But those gifts in kind did not cover our overhead expenses.  And we were just starting toward our goal of having Project C.U.R.E. centers in 25 major US cities.
 
Just to cover our current overhead expenses we had to raise $2 million US.  This was just to stay alive.  Even being the most frugal charity in existence, that was still our need for cash in one year.
 
On the surface that was impossible!  How could that happen?  Hardly anyone could believe that we were still in existence after nearly 18 years.
 
But God had performed miracle after miracle and had sent the right people to us at the right time to not only help us with the cash infusions, but also with expert advice and insights on how we could run our organization better.
 
The grand golf tournament had been one of the simple ways to make it fun and easy for our donors to get together and be reminded of how they could get involved and partner with Project C.U.R.E. to keep us going.
 
Another phenomenon that was taking place was that the more friends we were making within the US and also around the world, the more those friends wanted to come to Colorado and spend time with us.  Our home had become a grand central station of international dignitaries from the top leaders of North Korea to heads of state throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America.
 
Anna Marie and I had just hosted two of our Project C.U.R.E. NGO board members from our organization in Accra, Ghana, in West Africa.  They had spent the best part of a week with us between two of my international trips.

Less than four weeks earlier we had hosted the president of Rwanda in our home, along with an entourage of over 60 staff and cabinet members, for dinner.  Anna Marie had done all the cooking and had done a marvelous job as hostess.  Then another delegation from Nigeria had come, including the governor of Imo State.
 
In May, one of our major recipient partners from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, had called me to see if they could visit the second week in June.  I had to tell him that the Friday following the fundraiser golf tournament, on a Thursday, was completely booked with our own all-day board meeting at Project C.U.R.E. headquarters.  But, if he would schedule to come to Denver on Saturday, June 12, I would pick him, his wife, and grown daughter up at the airport.  We would spend the day together, and they could stay the night with us.  But on Sunday morning I would be getting up at 3:30 a.m. to start my trip to India.  It was agreed.
 
On Thursday, Dr. Ekwim from Port Harcourt left a very excited and happy message for me that all arrangements had been made.  The three of them would be flying into Denver from London on Saturday, June 12.  “Please pick us up at Denver International Airport at 10:45 p.m.”
 
My forehead was promptly flattened when I heard the message.  My hand went to my forehead with a slap!  Ten-forty-five P.M.!  They won’t clear out of the airport until after midnight!  I guess Saturday doesn’t mean Saturday during the daytime in Africa!  But there was no time or place for contacting them. They were on their way.
 
Our Project C.U.R.E. executives from our operation in Phoenix, Arizona, had come to Denver for meetings during the week.  Jason and Sheila Corley were doing a terrific job running the Project C.U.R.E. operation in Phoenix.  Part of the reason they had come to Denver was to watch and learn how to run a charity golf tournament so they could duplicate the effort in Phoenix.
 
Since our friends from Port Harcourt would not arrive until midnight, we decided to invite Jason, Sheila, and their three kiddos up to our Evergreen home for a waffle and strawberry breakfast.  We wanted to show them just how much we appreciated all their good efforts in Phoenix and encourage them in their teamwork.
 
At 10 p.m., Anna Marie and I headed for DIA.  As expected, our guests did not collect their bags and clear the airport until after midnight.  Then we still had an hour drive from DIA to our home in Evergreen.
 
When they arrived I asked if they had misunderstood that I would only be available on Saturday.  He looked at me with a quizzical look and said, “But it is Saturday!”  I just smiled and we got into our car.
 
By the time we got our guests settled into our lovely guest house it was 1:30 a.m.  And I still needed to pack and get ready to leave at 4 a.m. 
 
It was nice to see them and renew our friendship even if it was a quick visit for me.  Anna Marie would spend Sunday entertaining them and showing them our offices, sorting centers, and warehouse.  Then on Monday she would introduce them to the Project C.U.R.E. people at our headquarters facilities.  I was gone!

Back at the airport (where I had been what just seemed as minutes before), I boarded United flight #857 from Denver to Los Angeles.  I then shuttled to the Tom Bradley International Terminal and transferred to flight #775 on Thai Airlines to start my 18-hour flight travel to Osaka, Japan, then on to Bangkok, Thailand.
 
Monday, June 14
 
Sunday had disappeared, and Monday along with it.  It was midnight on Monday when our Thai Airline #747 touched down in Bangkok.  Fortunately, I had hotel reservations at a spot close to the Bangkok Airport.  After a flight halfway around the world I was ready to lie down and rest a bit.

Tuesday, June 15
 
I wasn’t really pleased with having to fly Indian Airways flight #732 from Bangkok to Calcutta on Tuesday morning.  But there were no flights going directly from Bangkok all the way across India to Bombay where I needed to ultimately go.  Every time in the past, the Indian air service had managed to lose my luggage … every time!  Somehow, when I made the intermediate stop in Calcutta and went through customs as the entry point in India, they couldn’t get the luggage back on the connecting flight.  Of course, they couldn’t care less!
 
I recalled one time that it was actually necessary for me to fly all the way back from New Delhi to Bombay to collect my bags because the India folks simply refused to fly my bags on to New Delhi as they were required to do.  Their curt reply to me had been, “Well, Mr. Jackson, it makes no difference to us.  If you want your bags you will return and claim them.  If you don’t we will, to be sure, dispose of them as if they contained a bomb within.  It matters to us not a bit if you hold a piece of paper signed by one of our offices that we should send your bags on to you.  We know that we did not get your bags on to your connecting flight, but we also know that if you value your bags at all you will return to Bombay and retrieve them!”
 
I valued them and I returned all the way to Bombay and collected them.
 
In Bangkok, the Amari Hotel wanted to charge me $15 US to eat breakfast.  My Scottish/Irish frugality revolted and I headed to the airport where I ate for $2.50.  I was scheduled on Indian Airlines flight #732 from Bangkok to Calcutta (Kolkata), where I had a brief layover before hopping on Indian Airlines on to Bombay (Mumbai).
 
It was well after 9 p.m. when we arrived at Bombay airport.  But, Dr. Arun Noah was right there to pick me up and we hustled to the Avion Hotel close by to stay for the night.
 
Dr. Noah had traveled all the way by car and airplane from Washim, India, to pick me up.  I told him how very much I appreciated his being there because “the most vulnerable segments of my trips occur at airports when no one shows up to fetch me.”  I opted to skip dinner since it was so late, and instead try to catch some sleep.
 
Next Week: Bombay, to Arangabad. to Washim   

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INDIA JOURNAL - 2004 (Part 1)

June 13, 2004: Destination: Mumbai (Bombay), India: I had, quite honestly, lost track of the number of times I had visited India.  Traveling to the populous subcontinent was always an adrenaline rush and always proved to be an exciting adventure, but I had to admit that India was not my most favorite place to visit.
 
I did recall my very first trip to the city of Madras on my way to Salem, India, and how it was expedient for God to perform a miracle to get me where I needed to go when no one showed up at the airport to meet me in the middle of the sweaty night.
 
I also recalled how my heart had been broken as I visited the tragic “rock breakers” in Rajahmundry, and how on that same trip some desperate evildoers had tried to smoke me out of my hotel room in order to rob me.
 
And there had been no way to forget my trip from the Kulu Valley in northern India over two scary Himalayan mountain passes to China’s border and watching our “jeep” tilting with the left front wheel high in the air, teetering dangerously, ready to roll down the face of the rocky precipice to a bottom that was barely visible from the site of our mishap.
 
Then, there was the vivid memory of being in Imphal and getting caught in a military vs. insurgent uprising in that part of the country, to the west of Bangladesh, where we struggled to get back to our hotel only to find it surrounded by military tanks and all efforts to lift us out of the mess by helicopter had failed.
 
Oh, my goodness!  I did have some wild and crazy memories of India.

Perhaps one of the reasons I shuddered at the realization of my returning to India was the inner conflict I always experienced when I knew I had to again deal with the unjust and unholy caste system.  Just maybe it remained as the most sinister form of repression and slavery still in the world.  And the confusing thing was that almost no one ever spoke out against it.
 
Even Mahatma Gandhi, whose life was revered and his unorthodox practices admired and touted, never did speak out against, to my knowledge, the deplorable guise of servitude.
 
I had asked individuals of the Brahmans caste to please help me bring aid and assistance to the Dalits and untouchable folks.  Their answers to me had been, “Why would you want us to help you do that?  If we helped you help those people we would be doing them a most terrible disservice because, due to the things which they committed somewhere in their past, they are now in the position to learn their lesson in their present life.  They have done something so bad in their past that they have screwed up their karma and have the present to learn their appropriate lessons.  Should we endeavor to remove them from their lesson-learning positions we would be cheating them from that experience.  And enhancing their karma without having learned those lessons during their present lives, they would be relegated to come back to another life just in order to learn the lessons and be able to move on up the ladder.  If we helped those miserable people now they would not learn what they are supposed to learn in this lifetime, and it would take them another lifetime to fix their karma.  Just leave them be.”
 
And my many trips into the culture had likewise allowed me to hear the logical defense from the higher caste individuals to the wretched untouchables.  “Look, you don’t know the system.  You want to be where we are one grand day in the future.  Just do right and in due time you will arrive.  Wouldn’t it be terrible if you upset the system?  The glorious position that I now enjoy would not be even available to you in a future life.  Just be patient and stay the course.”
 
I had studied the drivers of those huge TATA trucks on the back roads and highways of India.  In my opinion, the most dangerous place to be in India was the open highway or winding mountain roads.  In my travels I had seen so many horrific traffic accidents where the bodies of people would be strewn like blood-soaked confetti after a ticker-tape parade.  I witnessed where one TATA truck loaded with steel had simply sheared off the top of a crowded public bus like the action of opening up a can of sardines.  I had seen the results of three TATA trucks racing side by side around a blind curve in the highway only to plow into ox carts, bike riders, and pedestrians who had no chance to scramble or escape.
 
I had observed that most TATA truck drivers and bus drivers were of the Dalit caste or were untouchables.  Walking down the road or in their communities they were powerless.  But once behind the steering wheel of the massive vehicle they experienced a power otherwise never known to them.  They would mix that feeling of power and pent-up vengeance with the strange reality that the only thing they would have to lose would be their wretched life.  This produced a situation much like a live hand grenade in mid-air with the pin already pulled. They could exert intimidating and lethal power and the only thing possible for them to lose would be their miserable life, granted, with the weird possibility of dying and coming back into a higher caste position.
 
I had always found India to be such an interesting study of land, people, religion, culture, strata, marriages, and of course, medical opportunities.  It was a disturbing model of pathos vs. privilege.

If you had caste status and money you could purchase healthcare and medical procedures equivalent to New York City.  If you were one without privilege and you were a woman, you would probably be expected to give birth to your child at a local healthcare center much like I had visited and photographed, where, instead of a delivery table or a bed available, there were pieces of sheet metal lined up against a wall.  A concrete block under the head of the bed would be placed just a bit higher than the concrete block under the foot of the piece of sheet metal.  Near the middle there would be a hole made by a cutting torch with a plastic bucket resting under it.

If you went there in labor you were laid upon the piece of slanted sheet metal and left until you delivered your baby.  A caregiver would take the baby, cut the umbilical cord, and hand the baby back to you.  As soon as you had strength to get up and go home you would take your baby and go home on foot or in a scooter taxi.  Once you had left, the caregiver would return to the piece of sheet metal, scrape the placenta through the hole and into the plastic bucket and douse the sheet metal with a bucket of clean water to prepare for the next mother.

As I prepared to once again return to the vast country of India, I couldn’t help but wonder what I would observe and experience on the trip.  I knew that my life would not be the same when I returned to my home, because it never had been the same following any of my trips there.

And just why was I returning to India?  You guessed it … many more requests had flooded our office.  Institutions in India reached out to Project C.U.R.E. to supply donated medical goods.  For the current trip I intended to focus on requests from two of our international partners, Nazarene Compassionate Mission (NCM), and the Presbyterian group, Missionary Benevolent Foundation (MBF).  I had worked with both groups before in other parts of the world but it would be my first time performing studies for each in India.

The weeks preceding the scheduled trip had been a bit hectic.  Upon my return from Bogotá, Colombia, our whole family of kids and grandkids had joined Anna Marie and me to travel to Nampa, Idaho, in order to celebrate Anna Marie’s father’s 100th birthday.

Keller Johnson had lived a wonderful life spanning a time in history that had seen remarkable, if not unbelievable, changes.  When he started out there were no highways, cars, telephones, or airplanes.  He had seen so much change in his lifetime.  But at the age of 100 he still was in terrific health.  The only medication he was taking at the time of his birthday party was an occasional aspirin.

Keller was still as sharp as a tack and could tell you the price of carrot seeds, which he had grown and sold for custom cultivation twenty to thirty years before.  He could also give you his opinion on the current international and national political and economic affairs.  In fact, he still held a current driver’s license at the time of his 100th birthday.  He had become an inspiration to all of us and had been a wonderful father to Anna Marie and father-in-law to me.  Keller loved Project C.U.R.E.

Next Week: Destination Mumbai (Bombay)

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WHAT WOULD IT TAKE?

During the thirty years I have traveled internationally, I traveled literally millions of miles to more than 150 countries and became very familiar not only with all types and shapes of aircraft but also all types and shapes of travelers.

Since cabins had become my adopted abode, I was tempted upon occasion to velcro my family pictures to the plastic walls just to help me feel at home. I even learned to enjoy the company of my flying companions.

I boarded a morning flight out of Frankfurt, Germany, headed for Colorado when I met Sheri. Sheri wanted to know if my travels originated in Frankfurt. I asked if her flight to Dulles meant that Washington, D.C., was her final destination. She said her company sent her to Germany quite often, and she enjoyed traveling because she liked to observe all the people.

Then she asked me, “Where is your favorite place in the whole world?” I responded, “There is a twenty-five-acre spot in Colorado that boasts a crystal-clear mountain stream and is blanketed with majestic trees. A romantic fire crackles in the gigantic fireplace of the old log and stone house.”

Wow,” blurted Sheri. “Have you been there on vacation?”

“No, I live there every day when I’m not constrained by this seat belt!” I said with a smile, and then asked, “Sheri, you said that you enjoy observing people as you travel. What have you observed so far on this trip?”

“The thing that impressed me this morning at the airport,” Sheri confided, “was the high percentage of folks who looked terribly unhappy. And I suppose I looked as disgruntled as the rest of them. Except for this pleasant conversation, my own life is sort of bummed. It’s beginning to dawn on me that I am running faster and faster, chasing something that I can’t really identify. For certain, I’m not catching whatever it is I’m running after.”

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that someone or something, or perhaps the entire culture, has instructed all of us that we should be in hot pursuit everyday and spend our energy to the last dregs to lay hold of whatever it is that we are all supposed to be chasing?” I went on, “Sheri, don’t answer this unless you feel comfortable doing so. What was it that made you get up this morning and go through the hassle and security procedures to get on this flight?”

She studied her hands that were folded in her lap and pensively mumbled something about economic security and happiness. “This is none of my business,” I replied, “but I’m very curious. Just how much economic security would it take to make you really happy?”

Her reply came surprisingly quickly, “About twice as much as I’m presently making!” Then she grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I think more money, about twice as much, would give me a good shot at personal security. That would be enough to make me happy!”

The captain came on the intercom with some announcements, and we put a bookmark in our conversation. But Sheri wasn’t through talking.

“You know something?” Sheri asked. “It just hit me. I am presently making twice as much as I was making two years ago, and now I’m back into the same emotional cycle, saying the same things over again—‘I need about twice as much as I am making to make me secure and happy.’ Who keeps moving the bar up on the high-jump standards?” We laughed together.

“Sheri,” I continued, “just one more question from a fellow traveler. If money were not the issue, what would your list look like of what would really make you happy?”

“I want to feel worthwhile,” she confided. “I would want to be involved in some worthwhile things. I would want to personally enjoy some love, some fun, some friendship, and respect from my family and a few other people. And, I guess, I would like to leave some kind of legacy when I’m gone.”

Then Sheri said something absolutely brilliant: “You know, none of those things I just listed are available on the open market or e-Bay. Therefore, I guess if something isn’t priced on the market, then you can’t buy it. And if you can’t buy it with money, then perhaps just possessing twice as much of the stuff called ‘money’ isn’t the answer. I guess I’ve been looking for happiness in the wrong places! What a wonderful observation I’ve made today!” 

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THE PLAGUE OF ENTITLEMENT

Entitlement is defined as a feeling or belief that you deserve to be given certain privileges—that someone owes you something just because you are you. I am coming to believe that this entitlement plague is perhaps more to be feared throughout the world than malaria or dengue fever!

I have traveled in well over 150 countries and have viewed this pandemic condition everywhere. One day I was in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. I was negotiating the logistics for sending millions of dollars of donated medical goods into the country following the ravaging earthquake centered in Gyumri.

Ruben Khachatryan was a leftover Communist bureaucrat who had assumed the privileged position of gatekeeper in the new administration. Ruben was a large man with no way to stretch his brown wool suit coat around his gigantic stomach. When he laughed, the light bounced off his gold teeth and around the room like the sparkles from a disco ball. During my first meeting with Ruben, he boldly announced to me, “There is a law that says that the rich countries have to send money to the poor ones, so you must send money to me here at this address so I can optimize my region.”

The only thing that was ever optimized was Ruben’s own wallet. Because of him, the area didn’t stand a chance of solving its plight.

A short while later I was traveling in West Africa. It was a difficult drive from Lomé, the capital of Togo, north to the city of Dapaong in the northwest corner, close to the borders of Ghana and Burkina Faso.

During dinner that night at the Hotel Le Campement, our discussion at the table was troubling. It became quite apparent that our Togolese friends, on average, knew almost nothing about economics, business, governance, or how the “real world” works.

One of the top leaders of Togo declared emphatically, “Well, Europe and the US just have to come here and give us more money until we have enough. Someone must simply take it away from them and give it to us because we need it.” That sparked quite a lengthy discussion.

I received some great insights that night.

The whole attitude of entitlement, or you owe me, has become a great enemy of progress and human dignity, not only in West Africa and Armenia, but all over the world, including our own culture in America. It is one thing to graciously receive; it is quite another to expect, and worse yet, demand. Self-respect, dignity, and self-reliance have really suffered in pandemic proportions because of this contagious plague.

Once the collective human minds and spirits of a people embrace the notion that someone owes them something for one reason or another, it totally changes their character, self-motivation, and the perception of their own worth. It seems to neutralize the component of personal responsibility. They fall into the trap of seeing themselves as victims, and from that perspective they are totally blinded to creative possibilities within their own grasp.

Once they have transferred responsibility and accountability to someone else, and that new source fails to produce the expected answer to all their needs, then they feel they have a legitimate right to blame those who failed them and to emphatically devote all their energies to being angry and vengeful. And where blaming starts, creative growth stops! Additionally, the plague totally eliminates any expression of true compassion toward anyone else.

Ironically, today many developing countries are endeavoring to build their future economic systems on the idea of expecting or demanding that the rest of the world step up and give them more. And at the same time, they are blinded to the great opportunities of independent and sustainable growth and development so near to them. Blame and greed will trump the spirit of positive initiative.

Malaria and dengue fever can kill the body— entitlement can kill the soul!

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