David McCormick

I am currently in Guatemala, taking care of these 11 boys that have somehow managed to become like family to me. This Friday, two of them will be graduating from Junior High (Middle School) and I get to watch them walk across the stage and receive a piece of paper that marks quite an accomplishment in their lives. In Guatemala, where the majority of the population never get past 5th grade, I rejoice that these little boys of mine are en route to becoming professionals with a high level of education. One of them wants to be a mechanical engineer and has already picked out the college he wants to attend here in Guatemala. Looking back over this year, waking up these two guys everyday at 4:30 am to get ready for school, staying up with them as they worked on their incredible amounts of homework, taking them to tutor classes, soccer practices and other events, I am inspired by the DRIVE they have. Now, there were certainly days where they were PARKED, but it is beautiful to reflect and ...

I wrote this on my plane ride to New Orleans, hours before Sophia and Hanna were born … As North Americans, we certainly do love our programs. We see some sort of need or problem and our forte has been to perfect a series of steps to detect, evaluate, assess and critique in order to respond, address and consequently provoke change. We hear about children dying of preventable diseases in Africa and we create sponsorship programs to meet a need. A rise in adolescent suicide rates? We create a catchy publicity endeavor and a 24-hour hotline to boot. Our kids have needs that we can’t meet? Church programs. We can’t lose weight? God bless Curves and Biggest Loser initiatives. Too much trash in Texas? We accoridnly all learned that we “DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS”. We love programs. Most often they are very appropriate and quite necessary. Considering this culture of programs that we have so efficiently and globally implemented, I have been thinking about the true needs that I see around...