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WER & USAID
WE HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE

Dr. Joel MacCollam

Our world has changed in the past ten years.

I can travel to the most distant point of Asia in under 18 hours. And I can converse with our African staff in "real time" over the Internet, for pennies. I'll even find out the immediate happenings in a disaster or political uprising while it is still happening.

In less than a day, SARS has proven that people from two continents away can infect Americans. On the political front, once closed societies are open to new ideas. Our nemesis for three generations, communism, still dominates China, Cuba and North Korea. But its overall “glory” - if it ever had any - has fast faded with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Iron Curtain.

What Does All This Mean?

Americans love to proclaim “charity begins at home”. And no one would argue that it can't start at home. But should our “charity” - in terms of sharing our nation's resources with those in need - end at home? I don't think so.

At times in history, we have been glad our politicians could isolate us from problems overseas. But this is no longer true.

Right now World Emergency Relief and other American international outreaches - whether religious or secular, Christian or otherwise - are seeing a tremendous “open door” to bring experiences and values which have built our society to others who could benefit from what we have learned.

• Who could have imagined ten years ago that World Emergency Relief would be sending well over $15 million in aid to starving children and elderly pensioners across the former Soviet Union in the past three years?

• Or that we would be delivering life-saving emergency relief to thousands of refugees in Central Africa's Great Lakes Region while owning two orphanages and a medical clinic?

• Or that we would be taking on full care for hundreds of young orphans in Liberia?
  
• Or that WER could complete a national vaccination program for 2.3 million children in Guatemala, eradicating a killer disease? And then do a similar program in the Philippines just nine months later.
  
• Or that WER would be helping charities in over 35 countries improve their abilities to manage their resources and deliver their services to people in need?

At WER we believe America has a wealth of resources - financial, commodity, human and technical - to share, to advance both America's best interests and our Christian responsibility to reach the poor and needy.

A Small Price To Pay ...

One of my father's friends was heard to mutter about his taxes. He mumbled how America “should stop giving all that foreign aid to those people in....” (You fill in the blank!)

When I told him that humanitarian foreign aid - the kind he was “protesting” - amounted to a miniscule fraction of America's total budget, he said, “No way!” But that's the truth. For every tax dollar you send to Washington, less than one-half of one penny goes overseas for people in need.

Yet when pollsters ask Americans how much of their tax dollars go for foreign aid, the average amount cited is 20 percent. What a huge misperception: more than 30 times the actual percent expended!

WER's Partners Overseas: WER's busiest overseas program (in terms of resources committed and staff time) is shipping commodities - usually donated by U.S. or Canadian Companies.

We are grateful to our multiple partners in this hugely successful effort:

• Our individual donors
• Other U.S. charities
• Our “workplace donors” from CFC and similar campaigns
• Our consignees, who are committed to excellence
• Our corporate donors
• Our shippers
• Our overseas local charity partners, and
• The U.S. Government, especialy through USAID, and its powerful Ocean Freight Reimbursement program.

USAID (The U.S. Agency for International Development) is a premier resource for developing countries to find assistance which will improve local life for their citizens.

USAID helps WER's programs several ways:

• Through our registration with USAID, we find opportunities to work overseas which we might not otherwise discover.
• USAID's financial resources strengthen our shipping outreaches, especially through its “Ocean Freight Reimbursement” program. Our OFR program often delivers $20 or more in direct assistance for every donor dollar spent.
• USAID's own “push to excellence” has encouraged WER to upgrade our own expectations of project management and positive outcomes for the people we serve ... whether refugees in Africa, freezing children in Russia, hurricane victims in the Dominican Republic, or whomever ... wherever ... whenever.

The Strangest Paradox Of All ..

Every American knows that a founding principle of our country is the “separation of church and state”.

Yet without faith-based religious organizations helping USAID reach its goals, USAID's work (along with America's overseas interests) could be damaged, and some fear crippled. Almost 40 percent of USAID resources through its Bureau for Humanitarian Response has been awarded in recent years to religious organizations ... in part because groups like WER often will go where others dare not venture.

When AID and WER link together, we strengthen needy people overseas. In effect, church and state “work together” to build better lives as USAID helps WER distribute commodities through local charities and churches overseas. We, in turn, are glad to serve everyone in need and to represent America's compassion.

It's About Life And Death

What has WER done in the past few months, thanks in part to USAID's support through Ocean Freight? Our own goals have been met through shipping over 1,036 tons of food, medical, educational and agricultural supplies aiding over 1.3 million people in 33 countries.

Could we have done this without USAID? Certainly, some of it, but at the potential expense of other ways we help strengthen our partner charities overseas: training, technical and human resources, etc.

Finally, from a Christian perspective, charity must include what we do for those we know (in our families), at “home” (in the U.S., both locally and nationally), and overseas (primarily to people we don't know, will never personally meet, and from whom no repayment of any sort -financial or otherwise- is either required or anticipated).

Within these realms, the truest form of charity is what we do with absolutely no expectation of repayment or interest collected: our actions and resources shared with no strings attached, to a total stranger.

And while WER helps American Indians and U.S. disaster victims year-round, we believe the truest strangers we can help live thousands of miles away, walking barefoot through the dirt, unable to speak our language, wearing different clothes and simply trusting God for their “daily bread”.