Saturday, January 30, 2010

My Dave Ramsey Car

We've been working Dave Ramsey's plan for about a year and a half and are a few months from being debt free (except for the house). If you know much about Dave Ramsey, he suggets that you get yourself a 'garage sale car' for about a $1000 while you're working your way out of the debt. Being that our family went a couple of years without a second car, the luxury of getting a second car (a 1996 Ford Escort, with a hatch!) about a year and a half ago was awesome. Freedom. Not having to carpool everywhere. Less coordination needed on scheduling. And while the racescort, as my mechanic affectionately calls it, has certainly been a blessing, I've thought several times that perhaps either Ramsey needs to adjust his garage sale car price for inflation or I need to find a different one! So, some signs that my car may not last forever:
  • When a dealership features your make and model, with flashing hazard lights stuck in a snowbank, as the hook to get you to buy a new car (no joke, my vehicle was on the advertisement for the Automall at www.keloland.com)
  • When you only get concerned when there's more than two warning lights lit on your dashboard. If one of the lights is the check engine light, you still need one more to go off before taking it in.
  • When you won't let your wife drive it, not necessarily because of chivalry (though that is a good enough reason on its own!), but because you don't mind driving without a radio, interior lights, and a clock that doesn't work, while your wife does, and if she drives it too much, may actually want you to fix it (I know, I know, it's just a couple fuses).

Oh well, driving like no one else so that . . .

Friday, January 29, 2010

Malcolm Gladwell on Poverty

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s book What the Dog Saw. The book is a collection of his articles and he has an interesting article on poverty called “Million Dollar Murray” in which he examines traditional approaches to fighting poverty and how little impact they are having. He writes that the prevailing opinion is that poverty and homelessness are distributed along a bell curve distribution and that the “the vast majority of the homeless were in the same state of semipermanent distress” (183). The argument continues that with so many continually homeless, what good could be done?

Several studies, though, revealed that homelessness has a power-law distribution, where all the activity is not in the middle but at one extreme (182). Sioux Falls is one of now several cities that has bought this argument and is concentrating its homeless efforts by taking the most chronic cases off of the streets, giving them an apartment, and surrounding them with tools and resources to make it off of the streets. While building apartments and staffing these initiatives is expensive, it is also expensive every time a homeless person goes into detox at the jail, or uses the emergency room, or other public services. Taxpayers end up paying the bill one way or the other, and while to some it doesn’t seem right to give a chronic middle-aged drunk a furnished apartment, it’s proving not only to work but also save taxpayers some money. A win-win scenario, right?

Not so fast. Gladwell writes “from an economic perspective the approach makes perfect sense. But from a moral perspective it doesn’t seem fair. Thousands of people in the Denver area no doubt live day to day, work two or three jobs, and are eminently deserving of a helping hand- and no one offers them the key to a new apartment. Yet that’s just what the guy screaming obscenities and swigging Dr. Tich gets. When the welfare mom’s time on public assistance runs out, we cut her off. Yet when the homeless man trashes his apartment, we give him another (191). Gladwell continues “power-law solutions have little appeal to the right, because they involve special treatment for people who do not deserve special treatment; and they have little appeal to the left, because their emphasis on efficiency over fairness suggests the cold number-crunching of Chicago school cost-benefit analysis (197). It’s fascinating stuff and another reminder of how tangled and difficult it can be to make progress on these issues.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Homecoming!

The Christensen's adopted son from Haiti, is home in Sioux Falls! Read the article from the Argus Leader on the miraculous homecoming. The family stopped by the office yesterday and it was such a joy to meet him and see a 2+ year process full of ups and downs come to fruition.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Haiti Adoption

The Argus ran an article on the Hillcrest family adopting from Haiti this morning.

Random Retail Rants

Some random rants on some recent experiences with retail workers:

  • Don't call me 'hon'- at a certain drive through, the voice reads back my order, my total, and then says 'pull aroun, hon'. Unless your my mom or my wife, 'hon' really doesn't apply. And I don't care if the voice is some sweet eldery type who calls everyone hon, she should save the use of 'hon' for her grandkids, or more likely, greatgrandkids.
  • Don't make comments on my order- I probably go to HyVee, Wal Mart, and other 'big box' retailers several times a month, as I pick up stuff for Hillcrest, stuff for Cleveland Elementary School, stuff for Hillcrest's other partners, and obviously stuff for home. Why does the checkout person, upon seeing a cart load of soaps and shampoos (which we are picking up for Cleveland's under-resourced) feel the need to say "wow, that's a lot of soap. You must go through a lot of shampoo. Ha Ha". Seriosuly, I have no trouble conversing with someone who wants to chat to connect with the customer. But when you're dumb about it, and make stupid assumptions (you must go through a lot of snow gloves to be buying that many!), it bothers me.
  • Don't talk to me if I am in the self-checkout line- I know for some, the self-checkout line is a symbol of what's wrong with business today. A machine that lets you check yourself out takes the place of a person who could and is doind that job. But research shows that men, more than women, use these self-checkout lanes for a variety of reasons- speed, convenience, and also that I don't have to talk to the checkout person, who's going to comment on the 50 pounds of ground beef that I am buying!

I feel better now. Enough ranting . . .

Monday, January 18, 2010

Hillcrest and Helping Haiti Update

Some recent developments regarding Hillcrest and Haiti:
  • Hillcresters donated over $4,000 yesterday to aid relief work in Haiti. An amazing and generous offering!
  • Hillcrest could soon be partnering with Bethany Christian Services, one of our adoption agency partners, on a short term mission trip sometime this spring. More details to come.
  • The Christensens, the Hillcrest family adoptiong from Haiti, continue to ride a roller coaster ride. Recent news reports point to some positive developments with Haitian orphans who were already in the adoption process.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Helping Haiti

I know this blog's reach isn't that great, but for the few that read it, please consider helping out the Haitian relief effort in some way in the days to come. If you're a Hillcrester, know that we're taking a special offering this Sunday for relief efforts in Haiti and are choosing to work with Samaritan's Purse, where 90% of donated funds go directly to relief efforts.

If you attend another church and have some influence, consider doing the same thing. Your church can take a similar collection and direct it to a number of other reputable organizations; see this list for starters. Of course, you can donate individually to these places as well, but there's something neat about strength in numbers. There's still time to pull of a Haiti offering this Sunday.

For me and Hillcrest, what's happening in Haiti has a special connection as there's a Hillcrest family who's in the adoption process with a little Haitian boy named Steeven. All the reports that we've gotten are that he is alive and doing well. In your prayers, please pray for Steeven and the Christensen family.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Neither rain, nor snow . . .

Sioux Falls is having quite the winter. In addition to the Christmas storm, we had a storm last week that cancelled two days of schools in a row. I can't remember the last time Sioux Falls public cancelled two days of schools in a row. And in the midst of this rotten weather, Hillcresters have shown their grit, serving at a couple of service projects that certainly tested our mettle.

Over New Year's weekend, we helped move a family. When I woke up on the Saturday of the move, the air temperature was -30. A new Sioux Falls record for that day. Got a couple calls wondering if the move was still on with how cold it was. Yes, the move was still on, and over 25 Hillcresters showed up to move a family, working several hours, despite the bitter cold.

Then this past Wednesday, we were scheduled to pack backpacks at the Food Bank for the Backpack program. Wednesday afternoon was when the storm started moving in, schools were letting out early, and churches were cancelling their Wednesday evening programs. I was on the phone with the Food Bank and they were going to go ahead with the packing of the 2,000 backpacks. I said that Hillcrest would be there and asked the Food Bank if we could start early knowing that people could come as they were getting off of work (we were scheduled to start at 6:30). From 4:00 on, Hillcresters braved the elements and unplowed streets to pack the backpacks. We even had a little pizza party in the Food Bank's work room as many hadn't had supper yet.

I will carry both these events with me for quite a long time as snapshots at why I am proud of our church and our people, who served despite the elements.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Fast Company and Fighting Poverty


I tend to have a bias against magazines, especially if I am able to find their content in a book! But one of the books I read gave me a free subscription to Fast Company, a magazine that examines business, technology, leadership, and how trends within each enterprise intersect with one another and society. After two issues, I'm hooked.


One of their recent articles looks at some work leading economists from MIT are doing to try and improve lives of those living in poverty. A second article highlights some of their results.


A couple of the big takeaways include turning upside down a couple of preconceived notions. The first thought is that charging under-resourced people for something, even if it's a small amount, (say education or a vaccine) helps the under-resourced people value it more. The article and MIT economists dispel this notion with a couple of real life scenarios. A second thought is that grassroots efforts or loose community organizations are better at combating fraud and theft of donated aid monies (you'd think this given all of the attention such scandals receive) than top down entities. The economists point out that grassroots efforts have a marginal effect, while top down organizations prove to reduce fraudlent activity by 8%.