Whirlwind Missions

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Chief!

Tim A. Cummins @ 10:36 pm  

Tuesday is usually my least favorite day.  My wing man (Jesse) normally works with his sister Ashley on Tuesday and teaches guitar to the refugees in Clarkston.
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So I’m back to Lone Ranger days.  Bahd luck.

But today I had Ian North hanging with me.  So I was smiling!
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We had another meeting with the Darfur folks.  We did ascertain that the Chief is actually chief of ALL the Darfur tribe.  (Over 2 1/2 million people.) So he’s a big deal.
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I was definitely back in “news mode” and tried to get as much info from him as possible as to what happened to get him here.
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The hard part about doing the journalist thing is that people from troubled backgrounds can get really paranoid.  When you’ve had people trying to kill you for years, they don’t readily trust you.

So you have to be patient and take it at their pace.  Over time I think we can help him get his story out, but if they don’t want to open up, I’m not going to be their advocate.

Many times when people ask me for my advice what they really want is money.

But I’m not from this country and I’m used to people asking me for money.  I’m not afraid to tell people, “Brother, I know what happens to money in Africa: it gets stolen by crooked officials.  Unless you have a group on site that you trust, there’s no way me or my partners are just going to start sending checks to some guy in your village.”

Hard words to swallow.  But it’s better they know the truth.

I dropped Ian back off at the mission then went to the church to check on bills.  Found out that our Pastor of FBC Doraville, Sam Letson, resigned last Sunday.  He’ll be taking a church in Florida.  I wish him and his family well.  They’re great folks!

Also found out that our church secretary Ms. Margie Brooks’ husband Mark went to the hospital for a heart procedure.  Pray for him!

Then over to Azalea to check on the kids.  Had a great time talking with Tabias and Jouvens.
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These two have been with me for over 13 years now and are like sons to me.  Rosena, Jouven’s sister, is having a baby today!  Kids having kids.
It was good to see little brother Jimmy too!
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Tabias told me that he did his speech on Diabetes last week and he got a 97!  He told me, “I did just what you told me to do, Mr. Tim.  It went great!”
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Very proud of him!

Came home to work on email/blogs and financial reports.  Always something!

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