RELYING ON JESUS AS NEVER BEFORE

Within three minutes after loading in the back of the van on Thursday morning, August 4th to leave on the mission trip to Cambodia and Thailand, panic spread through me. I had started my malaria immunization pills as directed, at eleven o’clock the day before, and now I was feeling what I could best describe as a combination of sea sickness with the flu.

Now the thought of the 55 hours of travel that lay before me seemed overwhelming. When the van pulled into Chicago, I was thinking about simply staying there and having my wife pick me up, but I prayed and continued on. When the plane arrived in Los Angeles, I was willing to forfeit the $3,500.00 I had already paid, and purchase a ticket back home. All I could think of was curling up in a ball in my own bed.

I called my wife from Los Angeles and scared her with my verbal fragility. I asked her for prayer and also for prayer from my sister in law. They prayed and I continued on my journey.

Over the next few days my “mild case of malaria” included shaking, chills, headache, hot flashes, tiredness, nausea, sweats and more. During this three day episode, the single response from my mouth, and in my mind, was the Name of Jesus.

In Cambodia on the 6th, after taking another capsule with the continuing result, I simply quit taking any malaria medicine. I trusted Jesus would either keep me from contracting malaria or heal me later if I did. While I lay awake that first night, wrestling in bed, I prayed continuously. Again, Jesus’ name was my single strength.

Did I need to endure this sickness to put Jesus in the foremost part of my mind?

Jesus was faithful. He served the orphans and my teammates, allowing me to participate, and He gave me the biggest taste of heaven I have had on earth. The Holy Spirit has shown me that Jesus’ kingdom is infinitely larger than I once envisioned in own mind and heart, and the orphans are in the front row. God allowed me to kneel at the orphans’ feet and worship Jesus with them. Now I can pray to the Father to help me better focus on Jesus’ kingdom.

UP FRONT BAIL OUTS

The authority for a city in Indiana to act as a governmental entity comes from the Indiana Code which the Indiana Legislature passed into law. One group of elected decision makers working for the city and for voting taxpayers is council members. Council members each individually make decisions like every other human being using their own preferences. Two examples are: i) council members who appropriate a half million dollars for the city to purchase buildings prefer to spend taxpayers’ money and lose tax revenue from private ownership of the real estate; and ii) council members who vote to loan taxpayers’ money as wholly forgivable prefer to forego the city making a profit (interest). Is the thinking behind these two preferences productive for the taxpayers?

Private decision makers who prefer making profit must think critically before venturing into a new, productive opportunity. Private decision makers (private venturers) are motivated to do so, compared to politicians, because private decision makers have their own “skin in the game.” Private decision makers must think through income and expenses. If income is not greater than expenses, private decision makers would not move forward with the possible new venture because there is too much risk.

Politicians who prefer to influence private venturers’ profit decisions with selling buildings under cost, providing money with forgivable loans, and incurring construction costs for private venturers’ developments while spending taxpayers’ money, directly cause private venturers to lose clarity. Private venturers allow the expenses they do not have to pay for because the city is paying with taxpayers’ money, to trump the risk and reward analysis. Such private venturers do not figure out how to manage the real risk in order to move forward since they are getting “bailed out” up front. Up front bail outs lead to hurt feelings, sour relationships, poor decisions, and lost jobs.

IDENTIFYING DECISION MAKERS

The authority decision makers hold is great and affects many people. Decision makers make judgment calls that once are made, carries with such judgment calls long term effects whether good or bad. Decision makers’ thinking leading up to the judgment calls is important to understand. Decision makers who are elected officials, for instance, make judgment calls once they get elected which most of the voters do not even know about. Elected decision makers commonly are not held accountable about their thinking.

One reason elected decision makers are not held accountable is because voters do not identify who exactly is making the judgment calls. If decision makers are not identified, then voters cannot explore the thinking of the decision makers separately since voters do not know whose thinking to explore. Decision makers are difficult for voters to identify because when judgment calls are made, terms like Congress, the Indiana Legislature, the City Council, or the City are used.

The City of Elkhart, for example, is not a decision maker. The term City refers to many different groups of people like the City Council, departments, the Mayor’s staff, and citizens themselves. The term City is a collection of many different people some of whom are decision makers. The City being made of the collective individuals cannot make judgment calls. The City is incapable of being held accountable for its thinking because the City does not think. The City’s representative legislative group, namely the City Council, is also incapable of being held accountable for its thinking because the City Council does not think, the elected members of the City Council think.

In order for voters to make those with judgment call authority accountable, voters must understand who is making the decisions and supposedly thinking. Voters cannot get confused with collective terms like City and City Council but must identify who is the elected official who is supposed to think before making a decision. Once voters begin keeping tabs on an elected official about such elected official’s habits of thinking, voters will understand the attitude of the elected official and better understand whether the elected official is a servant leader.