I returned home from Tibet exhausted.  The trip was more demanding than I expected that it would be and although there was a pile of work waiting for me in the office, I took one appointment and then excused myself, went home and collapsed in bed.  The next three or four days were a blur of sleep and diarrhea, as my body purged itself of three weeks of very unfamiliar food, high altitude and unrelenting stress.  Usually I bounce back pretty well, but this time I felt it.

Things started returning to normal the following week and I slipped into the normal routine of being dad to my kids, principal to a few dozen more and spiritual leader for our community here in Tokyo, Japan.   However, I noticed something peculiar as I drove my son to the train station to commute to school.  I couldn’t make out the license plate of the car in front of me.  I had had a new prescription made only three months before when I got back from holding OperationSAFE camps in Haiti and so it seemed odd.  That evening as I went to pick him up again, I noticed that something was definitely wrong.  Usually, I would see the street signs in the distance, watch them gradually come into focus as they grew nearer and then pass by – but that night they never came into focus!  They stayed blurry until they shot by without me having the slightest idea what was written on them.

The next day I went to an optometrist.  One of the most difficult things about living in a foreign country where the language is so completely different than my own, is that in certain areas my vocabulary is hopeless.  Medicine is one of the those areas.  The doctor checked my eyes, took a picture of my retina and explained that there was a problem.  She wrote down on a scrap of paper the following characters -
???????? – actually she had about 5 more added onto it and I could only make out three or four.  My wife, who is Japanese, had almost as difficult a time with it.  The doctor said that if the condition worsened she would recommend surgery.

Of course, as soon as I got home I rushed to the internet to try and figure out what the mysterious problem could be and the first things that popped up all looked terrible, irreversible damage, macular degeneration, even the possibility of blindness.  With a history of diabetes in my family I even took the step of getting a full physical examination which mercifully found nothing wrong.  The doctor had told me to come back in a week and they would check to see if the condition had worsened, so we waited and prayed!

The next week, I walked into the doctor’s office once again and a different doctor was on duty.  He checked my eyes, dismissed the previous doctor’s findings as artifacts on the instrument’s lens and made out a new prescription for a much stronger pair of glasses.  I didn’t know what to think.  If God had healed me, then why couldn’t I see?  If there was nothing there in the first place, then why couldn’t I see?  We decided to take the whole thing as a wake-up call to slow down and reduce the amount of stress I was under.  I cancelled an upcoming trip to Hong Kong, stopped taking speaking engagements and started clearing my calendar as much as possible.

Four months later, while on a trip the U.S., a generous supporter made an appointment for me to see a specialist.  She thoroughly examined my eyes and not only was there nothing wrong, but she said that my new glasses were now too strong!  When I returned to Japan I dug my old glasses out of the drawer and with a prayer, put them on.  Sure enough, I could see!  I could read the small print on the calendar across the room.  See the clock on the back of the wall.  See the license plate of the car in front of me and read those signs at night as they rush by.

To all of you who have been concerned and praying for me.  Thank you!

Many people look at the work that we do with children who have suffered trauma around the world and compliment us for being great people.  But I have to confess that I consider helping innocents in far off places to be one of the easier forms of generosity.  It is much harder to be generous with people who are closer to you and more responsible for their situations.  Here are 5 ways to become a more generous person.  We begin with the easiest and work our way up to the ones that are the hardest.

1.  Make it Count

There are many wonderful organizations out there making great efforts to help people who truly need help.  They all need your donation and will put it to good use making the world a better place.  You will feel better for having helped the orphans, fed the hungry, dug wells, saved an endangered species or impacted climate change, all with the click of a mouse, without even having to leave your computer.  You might not agree with every cause, but there is surely some cause that you can believe in enough to make a donation.  You might have reservations whether the money will really get to where it is supposed to go, but there are plenty of sites that watch charities and rate them on things like accountability and overhead.  You might not have enough money, but in reality even a small gift (like the cost of one meal out) when added to others makes a difference.  So have you run out of excuses yet?  Make a donation and get started on the road to generosity!

2.  Make it a Habit

The next stop on this road is to make generosity not just something that you do on impulse but a habit in your life.  This is achieved by repetition.  A good start would be to choose a cause that you really believe in, something that you are personally connected to in some way, and commit to making a monthly donation.  Don’t go overboard and burn out, but make a solid commitment to give what you know you can afford.

3.  Make it Personal

So far generosity has been something you can do without getting your hands dirty.  Here is where the fun really starts!  The next step is to invest something much more valuable than cash; your time, energy and experience.  The real hurdle here is not a busy schedule or lack of opportunity, but that whenever things become personal, they become messy.  This is what I mean by getting your hands dirty.  It is not the physical labor but the personal interactions that cause the most problems.  With personal involvement come relationship issues, ego trips, power struggles and a whole host of other excuses not to volunteer.  But with this third stage also come much greater rewards, because as you volunteer, not only are you giving, but you are also growing into a more generous person.

4.  Make it Hurt

We have all heard the old sports adage, “No pain, no gain.”  It is true in every area where we seek growth.  The next stage is not only to give to causes that you are passionate about or to suffering innocents, but to be generous with those who are less than innocent, and to those you would normally overlook.  Many more excuses arise at this point.  We reason that we can’t possibly support every cause.  We wonder what choices that person made to be in their situation.  ”Do they deserve my help?”  The answer to most of these questions is “No. they don’t”  But the more important question is to ask yourself if you were in their place would you want someone to help you?

5.  Bring it Home

Here we finally come to the hardest level of generosity.  To be giving, forgiving, generous and gracious with the people whom you know the best;  Your wife, your husband, your children and your relatives.  You know them inside out, backwards and forwards and if there is no good excuse you can dig one up from last week or last year.  Amazingly, this is the big leagues, where all of the skills that you have learned and put into practice are put to use.  You have to stop making excuses, and habitually choose to go past egos and personalities, past hurts and petty rivalries to give your love to the ones that mean the most to you.

This week I took a few days off and went to the Southern Alps of Japan, a beautiful area where rice fields are surrounded by majestic snow capped mountains.  If you don’t look at the architecture or the agriculture, you would think that around the next corner you would run into Heidi.  But of course it is the unique Japanese atmosphere that makes it all the more attractive.

Mt. Kaikomagatake in the Southern Alps of Japan

The Challenge

After one day of total relaxation, my dog Sammy and I started off to climb Mt. Kaikomagatake, one of the peaks towering behind us.  My motivation was both to enjoy the mountains but also to prepare for our July 10th climb of Mt. Fuji to benefit earthquake children on the Tibetan plateau.  You see although I adore climbing, it wasn’t until after we decided to challenge Mt. Fuji to get ourselves ready for the altitude in Tibet, that I realized how out of shape I am!  I haven’t climbed a real mountain for years!  Mt. Kaikomagatake is a real mountain with an elevation of 2966 meters (9829 feet) and I wanted to see how far Sammy and I could go before having to turn back.

Moving Mountains

It is funny how faith moves mountains.  One action that is spurred by faith encourages other similar actions.  It is the difference between hope and expectation.  When you are only hoping for something you look longingly into the distance yearning for the situation to change, for something to fall into your lap, for someone to notice but there is no positive action.  But when expectation enters into the equation, things start to happen.  I have been hoping to lose weight and get into shape for quite a while now, but there is always something else to do and another project to start.  My hope didn’t bring results.  However, now I have a very large expectation in front of me because I have stepped out in faith to lead a team to help children on the Tibetan Plateau.  I know that I will need more strength than I have, and cannot let my team down and so I took another step of faith and decided to climb Mt. Fuji to prepare.  Since I live in Japan, Mt. Fuji is not as far off and unimaginable as Qinghai, but it still is a mountain sized expectation for which I need to prepare.

Milestones

Sammy, my labrador retriever and I started out early in the morning hiking through the forest.  Posted repeatedly along the trail were warnings about black bears, so I fastened bells onto my belt-loop to alert the bears to our presence and kept Sammy on his lead until we were stopped to rest.  Sammy wanted to pull me up the mountain, but I knew that he would need his stamina for later in the climb.  I sure would need mine!  Thankfully we never met any bears but we did come across a troop of nine Japanese monkeys.  Things were a little tense as we passed through their clearing, but their leader shepherded his group off to the side and Sammy and I went through quickly without making eye contact.

More challenging than any wildlife, of course, was the mountain itself.  Japan’s mountains are very steep and this trail was no different.  The further we rose the more difficult each new section became.  Along the way I found that those who had gone before me had left markers, small stone reminders that progress had been made and that another milestone had been achieved.  If you only look at the summit, it is easy to lose hope.  If you focus completely on the pain of each forward step, you are as likely to turn back as to go on.  But by pressing forward to the next milestone we were able to keep going.  Sometimes it seemed like forever before we found the next one, dropped the pack, burst out the water bottles and sat down.  Sometimes we would come over the top of a ridge and find the next marker as a pleasant surprise.

As we neared 2000 meters, the terrain started to change and the weather began to shift as well.  We were surrounded by mist as we entered the clouds and the rocks and boulders grew larger forcing me to use my hands and Sammy to make heroic jumps.  The rewards were greater as well as it seemed that the whole mountainside was in bloom, like a well-tended park instead of a wilderness.  Looking down on the clouds we could catch glimpses of the surrounding mountains and reaching the summit of the ridge, we could peer down massive walls of granite on either side.  The way forward was up sheer rock with chains for hikers to pull themselves up with, but unfortunately my partner was unable to use them.  Not for lack of heart, but due to concern for his safety, we had to turn back and head for home.

Mt. Yatsugatake seen from the trail.

Partners in Faith

Faith is not a solo endeavor.  The reality is that faith is an adventure.  With every adventure there are risks and rewards.  If there are only rewards then it is not an adventure but a job, (and probably not a very fulfilling one).  If there are only risks then it is just foolish thrill seeking.  But because adventure demands both risk and reward, we must prepare for the risks and expect the reward.  If you bring someone along with you, many of the risks can be overcome more easily.  Sammy’s boundless enthusiasm kept me going through many torturous sections of the trail.  His presence gave me a sense of security amongst the creatures of the wild.  He isn’t much of a conversationist, but he is a very good listener.  And despite having to turn back because of Sammy, he actually saved me from greater danger, as the moment we arrived safely home, torrential rain poured down for the rest of the night.

This time we reached 2000 meters, and came home safely after 8 hours of hiking.  We didn’t make it all the way to the top, but we accomplished a lot.  The next morning I was feeling it, and even Sammy slept in till eight.  But I am already planning another marker along the way, recruiting more partners to join us, and expecting mountains to move.

I have thought quite a bit about whether or not blogging, facebook and twitter are really worth the effort, or rather what the correct balance should be between more traditional communication and the new social media.  In typical business parlance I am worried about ROI, return on investment.  Does it make more sense for me to spend my communication time writing e-mails, making phone calls and designing newsletters, or sending off tweets into the void, updating statuses and writing blog articles that might just well go unread?

To be honest I don’t really consider ROI that often, as I am not in the business world but the non-profit humanitarian sector.  I do quite a lot of things that do not make much business-sense but in which there is a lot of common-sense.  I give away much more money than I make.  I often help people who can be of no use to me at all.  I go out of my way to find the least and the lost that no one else is willing to spend the money to help because it is inefficient and unproductive.  I do this because I believe in the brotherhood of all and the larger community, not to make money but because helping one another is our duty as human beings.  Perhaps in this brave new world of connections and community online, common-sense has something to share with business-sense.

Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters

The business model is to track every effort made against the amount of return gained through that effort.  Efficiency then requires that we maximize efforts that bring in greater returns and weed out useless exercises.  This might work well in the corporate world where customers are reduced to numbers and bottom lines are everything, but in the connected world of community both online and for smaller non-profits there is more to consider.  The old saying goes, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.”

• Goodwill – Communities have long memories.  A specific action might not have any immediate result, but continued interaction within a community will build reputation, trust, and positive image that will influence decisions in the future.
• The Tip of the Iceberg – The network of connections that we can track are only the tip of the iceberg.  For every person that we actually talk to, there are friends, neighbors, relatives and countless others who are influenced indirectly through them.  They will never even show up on our radar until they have need of us.
• Relationship – Once goodwill has been established, people in your community, online or otherwise, will be willing to do things for you even though it brings them no immediate benefit either.  People will step up in times of need simply because it is the neighborly thing to do.

So perhaps it is better for us to be less efficient in the short-run to become more effective in the long-run.  I liken it to the constant dilemma of “the walk-in”.  At times it seems that I can never accomplish anything because there is always someone at my door who just dropped by to chat.  I might be frustrated but of course I put on a big smile, offer them a cup of coffee and prepare to “waste” the next half-hour or so chewing the fat.  My productivity might suffer, but in reality I know that the personal visit always trumps whatever important project I might be working on, because it is these people who will be donors, volunteers, partners and advisors, they are the ones who will believe in what we are doing and move heaven and earth to see that it happens, all because I took the time to sit down with them,  hear their concerns and share my heart.  A half an hour not wasted but well spent, but with precious little data with which to track it.

I have been looking at a few blog posts that share what kind of tweets someone should make, and wondering what the right balance for a non-profit like us should be.  I won’t claim any magic formula but this is what is working for us.

1. OperationSAFE News – News about our work with trauma children around the world — this is not self-promotion, I assume that people follow me because they want to keep up with OperationSAFE.
   (For example we are holding a Mt. Fuji Charity Climb on July 10th to support our work with children in Qinghai)
2. Connections – the best way to build trust is to make connections between people and the work that we are doing. I tweet links to articles I write on our blog, links to our fan-page on Facebook and links to our channel on You-Tube. Each offers a different slice of the OperationSAFE experience and attracts a different community in service of the same goal – to help hurting children.
3. Awareness – I routinely scan the news and other tweets looking for events that effect the children that we serve. This morning I used tweets to draw attention to the copy-cat school violence in China that affects whole communities and the young Dutch boy that was the sole survivor of a plane crash in Libya. I look for well-written mainstream journalism pieces that give greater insight on the lives of children who have been through war or are living in a refugee camp. I also search for reports from humanitarian NGO’s and UN agencies that would otherwise go unnoticed in the flow of news.



4. Mobilization – When a major event hits, Twitter has been a valuable tool for both up-to-date information and connecting with people who want to help, whether through volunteering or donation. Recently we were able to rapidly put out a call for translation of our materials for Haiti that made the final job of localization much easier. Hundreds of Twitter friends helped put out the appeal and by spreading the job between volunteers the work was done in less than a week. Currently we are doing a similar appeal to help translate the materials into Tamil in support of our work in India with HIV orphans.
5. Education – I regularly post excerpts of articles on topics that support our core mission, such as the importance of volunteerism, and how to avoid compassion fatigue.
6. Meditation – I have gotten into the habit of sharing my daily meditation with my friends on Twitter. Everything we do flows out of who we are. Typically I will pick a topic and share my thoughts on it and see where the conversation runs. I also look for wisdom that is being shared by others that is true. There are many pithy statements out there but not all deserve an RT.
7. Reciprocation – Through Twitter I have met a lot of people who are also passionate. Some of my tweets are meant to encourage them to keep up the fight, whether that is a simple “thank you” for helping us, an #FF, or a RT of an important tweet.

Lets face it! Most people are only generous when they have to be – and we are fast approaching the most generous of seasons, Christmas – when expectations that you will give are at their highest.  In fact, if you forget to give a present to say your girlfriend or your husband, you can expect to be in the doghouse for quite a while.  The present doesn’t actually gain you anything – it just keeps you from getting into trouble!

Some people have learned the age old adage that it is better to give than to receive and eagerly give when the opportunity presents itself.  They have discovered that it is the gift that is given when least expected that has the highest returns.  They have learned that helping someone in need, can even be its own reward in itself.  Having an open heart to give is truly the first step to becoming a generous person.  But it is just the first step.  Here are three more steps that will have you off to a running start at true generosity!

1.  ”Generosity is not limited by wealth or income, only by passion and creativity.”

Truly generous people are never limited by a lack of money or even opportunity!  They see the need and are passionate to help, even to the point of devising creative solutions to get around any obstacles.  Most of the organizations and charities that are really making a difference in the world today were not started by the wealthy or the powerful, but the passionate and creative.

2. “Generosity and creativity are entwined, it is possible to give without being creative, but not to be generous.”

True generosity goes beyond writing a check – it is making an investment in something that you wish to succeed.  Whether that investment is in a young relative’s education or a child suffering on the far side of the world, it is just as important to follow-through to ensure that your gift has been well-spent, to encourage persistence and offer counsel.  Much aid given is actually counter-productive, creating dependencies and ensuring that those receiving it will never succeed on their own.  True generosity looks past numbers and creates solutions.

3. “Donate your passion and creativity and you can do far more than those with only money to give.”

Truly generous people want to do more than just give money.  They want to be involved and part of the solution for the causes that they care about.  Social media is a perfect catalyst for these truly generous people to be more involved on a world-wide level than they have ever been able to before.  A shut-in living on a pension can be just as passionate and creative as a fresh-faced student (but perhaps with a bit more wisdom and experience).  A starving student can make just as big an impact as a celebrity if they are willing to give their all.

I won’t kid you, becoming a truly generous person – also requires sacrifice, a deep love for mankind, and humility – all of these are character traits that must be learned with great diligence – but you can take the first step today.