Caring for China
3300 S. Fairview
Santa Ana, CA 92704

	By Aly Song, Reuters
A relative of an earthquake victim prays for the dead at the site of a collapsed school building in Wenchuan, Sichuan province, Thursday.

"I still hear some dogs barking," Carville said, according to The State newspaper. "I'm for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee."

"As soon as I determine when that is, I'll send him a check," he added.

Asked about who might share a ticket with Obama, Carville floated Clinton's name, as well as that of Clinton ally Gen. Wesley Clark. Carville also mentioned Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg as possible running mates, according the Greenville News.

Caring For China is establishing an Earthquake Relief Fund to assist the victims of the Central China Earthquake of May 12, 2008.  To donate to this fund, go to http://www.CaringForChina.org and go to “Donations”.  The link will give you several options, including PayPal, which is quite easy.  Caring For China will send you a tax deductible receipt and you will be automatically put on Caring For China’s newsletter list.  The list is not distributed to anyone else, and you may opt out at any time. 

We thank you for your heartfelt concern for the people who have suffered in this natural disaster, and for acting so quickly to do something about it.  The funds will be wired to Central China where they will be distributed by our local staff to those in most need.  Please contact us if you have any questions concerning our organization or our mission.

Thus far there is no report of injury to any of the children at the orphanages though at least one of them has been evacuated with the children outside while the building is checked for safety.

When yet another "Evangelical Manifesto" appeared this week, I noted the absurdity of even attempting to speak for "evangelicals" given the collapse of hierarchies brought about by new media.  I then asked Randy Elrod for a comment on the situation the church finds itself in as the new technologies empower literally hundreds of thousands of individual Christians to follow their calling in dramatically independent ways.  Randy has spent more time mentoring talented young worship leaders and artists than anyone I know, and I frequently read his remarkable blog Ethos as well as the very long list of blogs he has helped launched.  Here's Randy's response:

The Death Of The Alpha Leader

By Randy Elrod

We now live in an automagical world.  A world that is composed of not one future, but multiple futures. A world of self-chosen communities or tribes that are nodes in large, complex networks of such groups. A world in which hierarchal pyramids of control are crumbling and the Taylorism world of precise affluence has become a Web 2.0 world of mystical influence and social networks.

Viral loops, not manifestos, provide the opportunity for unparalleled influence. This is a world in which documents handed down by well-meaning alpha males result in a stifled yawn. However, this same world moves to the edge of their seat upon realizing that the responsibility to change the world need not be their legacy or burden. On the contrary, the creation of culture is the calling from which history speaks.

For example, Compassion International recently asked me to help form a group of influential bloggers for a historic trip to Uganda. A trip in which we visited slums, HIV/Aids hospitals and projects each morning. We then blogged, created video, and recounted stories raw with reality and emotion each afternoon. Thousands of people around the world followed our eight day journey real-time and over 400 children were sponsored and rescued from poverty. The viral loop that was created spawned hundreds of additional posts and offered the opportunity for thousands of additional people to experience the trip in an automagical way.

This “automagic” tested the corporate structure of Compassion. The trip was completely out of their control. The blog posts were not softened or censored and the videos and art spawned were not pre-approved by the marketing department. The servant leaders of this large organization flexed and collaborated to create culture.

Servant leaders have the ability to provide a new type of leadership. A collaborative mentoring and releasing of people with varied and mystical gifts in order to create culture. Alpha leaders value control, servant leaders value collaboration. Alpha leaders value individualism, servant leaders value community. Alpha leaders value affluence, servant leaders value influence.

Today, it is through viral loops that movements really snowball. In their latest issue, Fast Company says, “A destination such as Facebook grows via invitations, with each "friend" reaching out to her own set of contacts, which in turn do the same. More than half of the undergraduate population at Harvard joined within a month of Facebook's 2004 launch; four years later, it has 67 million active users. And at its current 3% weekly expansion rate, it will have 200 million users by the end of the year, equal to the population of the fifth-largest nation on earth.”

This is not yesterday. It is today. Millions of cultural creatives offer a more hopeful future(s) and are converging for profound change. This convergence is a quiet revolution without manifestos or alpha leaders. This story is one that begs ten thousand tellers and then ten times more to be inspired by it.

Before we become consumed in the North Carolina and Indiana Primaries, I wanted to take a moment to mention the recent tragedy in Burma. 

As the AP is reporting,

The cyclone death toll soared above 22,000 on Tuesday and more than 41,000 others were missing as foreign countries mobilized to rush in aid after the country's deadliest storm on record, state radio reported.

Up to 1 million people may be homeless after Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian nation, also known as Burma, early Saturday. Some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out, the World Food Program said.

... This organization is providing much-needed disaster relief. 

Note:  This has special importance to us because two Townhaller's -- Chris Bower and Matt Bower -- grew up in the church sponsoring this relief effort.  Their mom is very active in this very effort, and may go to Burma to help.

Please do whatever you can to help the victims of this devastating cyclone.  Your tax deductable donation to support the victims of this disaster would be greatly appreciated by this group of committed volunteers.

Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldiers’ Angels, is one of the fifteen semi-finalists in NBC’s “America’s Favorite Mom” contest. There are five categories, and she is nominated with two other mom's in the "military mom's" category. The winner receives a $250,000 cash prize, and Patti has said she’d like to use the money to build a ranch for soldiers and their families to vacation at with assistance from Angel families.

Patti will be featured the morning of Monday May 5th on NBC’s Today Show, and all day Monday (but ONLY Monday) folks will have the opportunity to vote at http://www.nbc.com/Americas_Favorite_Mom/ in her category.  All the mom's are deserving, so whether you choose to vote for Patti or not, check it out!

Hillary Clinton enthusiastically picked a filly named Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby and compared herself to the horse. Eight Belles finished second. The winner was the favorite, Big Brown. Eight Belles collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, and was euthanized shortly thereafter.

Just saw this ...

"New York Cardinal Edward Egan says Rudy Giuliani should not have received Holy Communion during the pope's visit because he supports abortion rights."

During the primary campaign, I heard rumors that this might happen during the campaign (think John Kerry).  

Apparently, Giuliani had some sort of understanding with the Cardinal that the Cardinal feels was violated ...