Another Tragedy for Local Teen

Another teenager from our community, Ophylia Mona Lisa Afuha'amango, committed suicide this week. She was friends of Seema Singh and Maikeli Iongi who both died tragically last month. A local young leader put it into descripttive words this week when he said, "Our community is on fire." Most especially, the Pacific Islander community has gone through many trials. Please continue to pray for the youth in East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park. While there are less gunshots and homicides right now, kids are still dying.

This is the second suicide of a young person, both hangings, in the last two weeks.

The Palo Alto Daily News reports:

Students Mourn Classmate
At the start of her sophomore year at Menlo-Atherton High School, Ophylia Mona Lisa Afuha'amango wrote a letter to one of her teachers.

"Something that I'd like you to know is that I'm striving to get back into AS English next year and hopefully AP Lit my senior year. ... I'm excited for this year!" she wrote.

On Friday, hundreds of students and community members packed the high school auditorium to commemorate the life of Afuha'amango, who San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said committed suicide on Tuesday.

In her junior year, Afuha'amango was affectionately known as "Mona Lisa Smile" and "Monster Baby" to her friends and family. The 16-year-old resident of east Menlo Park had been a leader in her school's Polynesian Club, played on the soccer team and was hoping to attend UCLA or Brigham Young University after graduation.

"She would check on me every five minutes to see if I was hungry," said her older sister Laynah at the service. "We always talked about graduating, walking that stage together."

Steve Teu, a mentor to the school's Polynesian Club, said Afuha'amango, who was of Tongan descent, was an energetic and popular student well known to the area's Polynesian community. She had known both Maikeli Iongi and Seema Singh, both teenagers who died in East Palo Alto shootings earlier this year.

YWAMers Praised for Faith and Leadership

The Denver Post reports on the memorial service at the Denver YWAM base: "We're going to celebrate a life, we're not accentuating a death," said Faith Bible Chapel pastor George Morrison, in opening a memorial service today for two people killed at a missionary training school in Arvada . The service is called "A Celebration of Life for Tiffany and Philip." Philip Crouse and Tiffany Johnson died Sunday when a gunman opened fire at the school's dormitory. Youth With a Mission director Peter Warren said today both Crouse and Johnson embodied the spirit of the group. First the service focused on Crouse . "Phil gave his life to Jesus Christ and was never the same again," said Zach, a friend of Johnson's who met him years ago at a youth ministry in Alaska. At the time, Crouse was tough and wouldn't let people get close to him. "Over the years, Phil became a humble, teachable, sweet guy" who was able to reach kids with rough e...

Book: White Man's Burden - thoughts for Labor Day Weekend

I'm reading a fascinating book that has some of the same themes that run through Bob Lupton's recent writing. It's called 'White Man's Burden" by William Easterly. (I get the feeling some of you have read this already.) You can find it here. The title of the book is somewhat unfortunate, it's meant to be sarcastic. There are some amazing points here, stuff NCUD and others at CCDA have been talking about for years. I encourage you to check it out - here's a couple of great excepts from the first chapter: "But I and many other like-minded people keep trying, not to abandon aid to the poor, but to make sure it reaches them. Rich countries have to address the second tragedy if they are going to make any progress on the first tragedy. Otherwise, the current wave of enthusiasm for addressing world poverty will repeat the cycle of its predecessors: idealism, high expectations, disappointing results, cynical backlash." "Let’s call the advocates...

Big Gifts, Tax Breaks and a Debate on Charity

New York Times Article on the debate regarding the societal benefits of non profit donations. It's a somewhat rambling article, but my feeling is that this is a brewing debate. Eli Broad, a billionaire businessman, has given away more than $650 million over the last five years, to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to establish a medical research institute, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and to programs to improve the administration of urban schools and public education."What smart entrepreneurial philanthropists and their foundations do is get greater value for how they invest their money than if the government were doing it." "I got a plaque in the mail and an invitation to an awards ceremony. I never gave them another nickel. What were they spending money on plaques for?" The rich are giving more to charity than ever, but people like Mr. Broad are not the only ones footing the bill for such generosity. For every three dollars the...

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