So proud.

Sent from my phone.

Zamvideo

Here is the video from my trip.. it’s 10mins… this version was for Zamfest.

Zamfest

I half heartedly prayed for just the right number of people.. We got down to the very last chicken leg…

photo2

photo 2

photo 3

photo 4

photo 5

Sent from my phone.

A look into the future..

Sent from my phone.

Spiritual Children

It’s hard to know what the work of the Holy Spirit is.. and what is the work of us parents. But, I was pretty amazed last night by my daughter. I had left the three kids in the car and ran into get something.. when I got back Ethan was in tears because he wanted a drink of water and Emily just quietly drank it all in front of him.. without even answering his requests with a no.. she just sat there drinking the water despite his desperate pleas. How horrible.. how can people be how evil? I was furious and let her know this. She new it was bad. After awhile she began offering Ethan food.. and cookies. The wife and I immediately assumed she was buying good favor so she wouldn’t be disciplined when we got home. However, when we did get home I talked to her about it.. how sad it made us that she would be so unkind. She said, “I know.. on the way home I asked God to forgive me in my heart.” We didn’t ask her to do that.. we didn’t suggest it.. she just did it. One could argue that it was preconditioning.. not that that is so horrible. But, on her own, she took her sin to God and asked for forgiveness and it genuinely changed her attitude towards her brother. I am the one who convicted her of sinned against her brother.. but I believe it was the Holy Spirit who let her know that she had sinned against God as well..

I don’t deserve this God or these children.

My Eva

Sent from my phone.

Something I don’t want to forget..

This is the busiest time of my life right now.. but it’s also the best. It can be hard to stop for a second and savor everything, but I must keep trying… and when I can’t stop.. I can at least take a picture to savor it when I get a chance.

Geoffrey Baron
PIER Systems, Inc.
360.756.8080 | 360.746.0473 | 360.393.0111 | piersystems.com

You believe strange things part 3

I love this stuff. If people choose to base their belief system upon science.. they are forced to believe some pretty strange things…
Here are 10 tenets of the science religion: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6546462/The-10-weirdest-physics-facts-from-relativity-to-quantum-physics.html

My personal favorite is the infinite universes theory… the implications of which are absolutely mind blowing (not only can bushes suddenly start burning without actually burning.. they have to). This isn’t crackpot stuff either.. this is what the physics community typically subscribes to.

Zamblocks

While in Zambia a few things stuck out to me…

1) These people need jobs.. they have an unemployment rate somewhere around 70% (during the "Great Depression" US unemployment was around 25%.. and don’t even get me started about the "Great Recession").

2) When they do have jobs.. they aren’t the best. It’s not uncommon to see kids on the side of the road smashing rocks all day.. for maybe.. maybe.. $3.. assuming someone buys the smashed rocks. That’s right.. about 12-16hrs of backbreaking labor for about $3. Most of country lives on less then that. You get the idea.

3) There is trash EVERYWHERE.. and they just burn it on the side of the street. The whole of Lusaka reeked of burning plastic. Delightful. We watched as kids bathed in a creek that had been freshly filtered through burning plastic. Refreshing.

4) They make just about every building out of concrete blocks.. and where do they get the material? From the people smashing the rocks.

So, my plan is to figure out how they can recycle all that plastic into the concrete blocks. It turns out this idea is starting to catch on in the US already. If I could create an economic value for waste plastic… I am guessing that slums of Zambia.. and possibly the rest of Africa.. could be cleaned up in no time. Better air quality, better water quality.. create jobs.. it’s a win win win. And thus the idea for "Zamblocks" was born. (Adding "Zam" to something makes it Zambian.. surprisingly, I didn’t come up with that.. they did that without my help.)

Alright.. so what’s next? How do I make this happen? Who wants to help?

Zambikes

It’s easy to write about the putrid squalor of Zambia.. the horrid AIDS infested slums.. kids swimming through burning trash filled streams.. the tenuousness of life. See.. so easy. However, I am going to do my best to light a candle versus cursing the darkness. There is a surprising amount of hope and joy there.. that in a lot of ways it puts us to shame. Coming back through London it was pretty shocking to see the dour faces… I just wanted to start hugging people. Come on people! You have no idea how good you have it! It does just go to show you that people need more then just "bread".

So, I present to you Zambikes.. the model for the future of Zambia and possibly all of Africa. They are company that exists to not only sell great bikes.. but to help the Zambians. I think above all else.. Zambians need jobs. With jobs comes money for education.. with education comes more and better jobs… I certainly don’t want to inflict our materialistic society upon them.. but our problems pale in comparison to what they deal with. Using logic like that you could avoid giving a starving person bread because vegetables are better for them. Let’s start with some bread.

www.zambikes.org