Failed States - does mankind have the solution?

Just yesterday a friend pointed me to a posting on Foreign Policy.com that reminded me, once again, of the deteriorating condition of our world. The photo essay entitled Postcards From Hell (Captions by ELIZABETH DICKINSON) is introduced with these words.

"For the last half-decade, the Fund for Peace, working with Foreign Policy, has been putting together the Failed States Index, using a battery of indicators to determine how stable -- or unstable -- a country is. But as the photos here demonstrate, sometimes the best test is the simplest one: You'll only know a failed state when you see it."

To view the essay go to: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/postcards_from_hell?page=full.

As I viewed the list of "Failed States" I was struck by this question. Does mankind have the solution? Do we, individually or collectively, have the ability to address and resolve the worlds seemingly unsolvable issues. Issues that have plagued the nations for centuries. Some say we can but does history provide a different answer?

MARK MAYNARD/howFar Foundation

In spite of the best efforts of the United Nations, global humanitarian aid agencies, and nearly immeasurable funds from the worlds leading super-governments to resolve the worlds most pressing issues the world we live in is broken in many ways. "Evil is abundant, righteousness is rare, crime is increasing, poverty is epidemic, natural disaster is imminent, and even the world as we know it is in jeopardy", Kevin Edwards (The Hope That's Fixed in a World That's Broken).

What is the answer?

I believe with all of my intellect, heart and spirit that there is an answer. It will never be found even by the brightest minds in our greatest universities. It is a supernatural answer and it is an eternal answer. The answer is found in the Word of God.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."
And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true." Revelation 21:3-5

To date, howFar Ministries and How Far Foundation are actively working in five of the worlds 60 worst "Failed States". They are DR Congo (5), Kenya (13), Burma (16), Burundi (23), Rwanda (40).

ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images

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Churches, Schools and Kidney Stones - Kigali, Rwanda

What a mission this has been! From Kenya to Burundi, north across the equator and then a southern crossing...several thousand kilometers. God is using howFar to build His church from the Maasia Mara to the mountains of Rwanda.

Three weeks with a high school friend, Jim Kelly and his daughter Elizabeth, has made my time here in East Africa fresh and new because we have taken the time to see things that I have never seen before.


The first half of our mission was exhilarating in every way. Then day 2 in Burundi...where it seemed as though God was allowing me to be "sifted like wheat". I awoke in the middle of the night with the all to familiar symptoms of an oncoming kidney stone. With the closest hospital 200 mile away in Bujumbura what was I to do. Pray. By the grace of God there was a small "clinic" in Murumvya where I received some midnight pain pills and then a rush back to Kigali, Rwanda in the morning...to a real hospital.

Three days in the hospital - there is just something wrong with having to sleep under a mosquito net in a hospital - and I was released...still carrying the stone.

I'll not be able to visit DR Congo and the people in Northern Uganda "who wears naked" as my friend Pastor Augustin says. But I know that my driver and friend, Maurice Amadi, is correct when he says, "God had a different plan".

Watch for the full story upon my return to the states.