Sad News (although nothing totally tragic)

This just in from CNN.com. . .

Brace yourself: Beer prices are going up

Brewers say rising commodity costs and lower volumes are forcing them to raise its price tags.

By Ben Rooney and Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writers
Last Updated: August 26, 2009: 8:07 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Beer drinkers beware: The cost of a cold one is going up.

Brewers across the globe are hiking prices to compensate for lower volumes and higher commodity costs in the recession.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer and maker of Budweiser, announced plans to raise prices Tuesday.

"We plan on taking price increases on a majority of volume and in a majority of markets this fall," Anheuser-Busch InBev said in a statement. "The increase helps cover some input costs."

The U.S.-Belgian brewer said prices will go up "across different price tiers" including its high and low-end brands.

The price hikes are part of a broader industry trend.

Heineken, best known for its Heineken and Amstel brands, said Tuesday that its global price increases have helped it turn profits despite sagging volumes.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) was formed in November 2008 when InBev, which brews Beck's and Stella Artois, bought St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion.

The looming price hike comes as sales volumes in the brewing industry have declined. Anheuser-Busch InBev said earlier this month that total beer volumes were down 1.5% in the second quarter versus the same period last year.

Heineken, based in Amsterdam, said Tuesday that price increases helped the company offset the pull back in consumption. Heineken makes and brews 170 international beers and ciders, but is best known for its brands Heineken and Amstel.

"The economic and trading conditions remain difficult, and there will be continued pressure on volumes in the second half of 2009," CEO Jean-Fran�ois van Boxmeer said in a statement.

First Published: August 25, 2009: 5:41 PM ET

Saludos de Guatemala! (Greetings from Guatemala!)

This is the daughter and granddaughter of Esther, the recipient of the Habitat for Humanity House that the Wellshire group built in March. I had a chance to go back and visit the family and see their completed house. You can read more below.

I am sitting down relaxing in the lobby of my little hotel in Antigua for the first time since I arrived on Sunday night. I finally have a little free time to sit down and update my blog, so here goes!

I am spending a week in Guatemala and a week in Mexico working with the local staff and offices of Aguas de Unidad/Healing Waters International. I arrived here in Guatemala late Sunday night and will be catching a bus to Mexico this Sunday. For my seven days here in Guatemala, I have a pretty packed itinerary.

After my plane landed at 11pm on Sunday, Daniela Rosales from our Guatemala office picked me up at the airport and we made the 45 minute long drive to Antigua (this drive takes only 45 minutes when there is no traffic, more on that later.) She dropped me off at the hotel and I crashed. I woke up Monday morning at 5:15am to shower, get dressed and be ready to go at 5:45am. I had a meeting planned with a member of the Aguas de Unidad Guatemala board of directors at 7:30am in Guatemala city and because of the rush hour traffic, it takes an hour and a half to get from Antigua to Guatemala City in the mornings.

The meeting was very successful. I had the chance to thank our board member for his service to the organization, update him on what was going on with Healing Waters and he shared some great ideas and thought that he had about how to make Aguas de Unidad better in Guatemala.

After this meeting, I drove to our office (which is on the road between Guatemala City and Antigua.) I held a staff meeting with all of our Guatemala staff, got brought up to speed on the happenings of the Guatemala office, helped establish and set some priorities, and enjoyed some quality time with our amazing Guatemala Aguas de Unidad team.

After a delicious lunch, I headed to one of our water systems that is located with a church in the "La Florida" neighborhood. I sat down with the pastor of the church and talked through some operational changes that we have while getting updated on how the water system was going for his church. The opportunity to be in the field seeing the water systems and meeting with the pastors is always amazing and really recharges my batteries in the work that I do for Healing Waters/Aguas de Unidad.

This pastor has been using the water system to bless his neighborhood and his church, and it was amazing to see the love in his eyes for Jesus and for his community. After the meeting at the water system in La Florida, I headed back to the office and spent an hour working with Ben, our director of maintenance for Guatemala.

We are in the process of hiring an assistant for Ben and he and I had to sit down and write the job description and employment contract. While this may sound dry and boring, it was also an opportunity to get caught up with Ben. I have talked about him before in my blog: http://blogadegregorio.blogspot.com/2009/06/day-in-life-of-healing-waters-field.html He is a great guy and it was a lot of fun to work with him, even on a project that might seem boring.

After we wrapped up at 6:30pm, we headed back to Antigua. These 10-13 hour work days can be long when I am in the field, but they are worth it. Because my plane ticket and hotel are paid for by our generous donors, I really feel like I need to be a good steward of those donations and take full advantage of my time in the field, so I tend to work very long but very fulfilling days.

When I got back to Antigua, I went out for tacos with Dani, Ben and Ben's wife Krista. We shared some great stories over some Gallo beers and tacos. All in all, it was a great day in the field!

On Tuesday morning, I had to get up at 5:15am again for a 5:45am departure to Guatemala city. I went to meet with the national denominational council for the "Verbo" churches, which is a big denomination of evangelical churches that started here in Guatemala. The denomination has over 30 churches here, and many in other countries including Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and they have even planted churches in Spain, Canada and the United States. I love this sort of "reverse missionary" work when Latin America is sending missionaries to do church planting in "developed" countries like Canada, the United States and Europe. It turns the whole missionary perspective on its head and I just love it!

The meeting with the denominational leadership for the Verbo churches went very well, far better than expected. We have 2 water systems currently at Verbo churches, and after this meeting with their national council, I hope we will consider expanding into more Verbo churches in the future.

We headed back to the office and then I took our whole ADU Guatemala staff out to lunch. After a delicious lunch, I headed to the community of Villa Verde in Ciudad Quetzal. This is where we are going to be installing one of our next water systems. I had the chance to meet with some members of the church, tour the community and see the location where the water system will be installed.

It is very exciting that despite the tough economic times, Healing Waters/Aguas de Unidad is still expanding as an organization and we will be installing three new water systems in Guatemala this year. (Along with 3-4 in Mexico and 10 in the Dominican Republic.) I hope to visit one of the other new water system sites later in the week.

I returned to the office late in the afternoon and then called our headquarters in Denver to check in and update everyone there and finally made it back to my hotel at about 6:30pm, racking up another 12+ hour day but excited both for what was accomplished and for what the rest of the week held in store.

Wednesday morning (this morning) I actually got to sleep in until 6:30am, imagine that! My first meeting was an 8am breakfast meeting with a pastor, but it was in a town between Antigua and Guatemala city, so I didn't have to fight the rush-hour traffic going into Guatemala City.

The meeting with the pastor was incredible. He told me stories of some of the amazing things happening at his church, at the water system and in the community. This is one of those pastors that just knocks your socks off with his vision for serving his community and his amazing work ethic.

We departed the breakfast meeting to go to Chimaltenango, which is a town about 30 minutes from Antigua where we have two water systems. This is the town where we went with the group from Wellshire Presbyterian church for a trip in March.

We arrived about 30 minutes early, so we drove to the Habitat for Humanity house that the group from Wellshire helped to build back in March. I had the chance to see the completed house and spend a few minutes talking with the family, it was great to see the project come to completion and see the family moved into their house. I really respect organizations like Habitat for Humanity because they provide such a basic thing (dignified housing) but really work to empower the recipients of the houses and charge no interest or very low interest loans to the new homeowners, truly a "hand up" and not a "hand out."

After visiting with Esther (the new homeowner) we headed to one of the churches in Chimaltenango where we have a water system. We met with the pastor for over two hours, and got an update on the state of the water system and the church. Once again the pastor shared some great stories about what they have been able to do in their community because of the water system. It was invigorating!

After a quick lunch, we met with the other pastor at the other church in Chimaltenango that has a Healing Waters/Aguas de Unidad system. I hadn't met this pastor before and it was great to sit and talk with him and hear his vision for transforming his community.

We returned to the office at about 4:30pm and I checked back in with the Denver office and got caught up on e-mails. After leaving the office at 6pm, I have been sitting in the hotel relaxing.

I am going to go grab some dinner and then drive down to Guatemala City to pick up my parents who come in on a flight tonight.

They are going to hang out here in Guatemala for the next few days while I am working and then join me on the bus trip from Guatemala to Chiapas, Mexico on Sunday. I am blessed to have them come down here to spend some time with me, enjoy all that Antigua has to offer and keep me company in the 12 hour bus ride on Sunday.

I will try to update once or twice more before I leave for Mexico on Sunday. I will also try to get some more photos in here too. Take care and LET THE CLEAN WATERS FLOW!

Powerful Video

My mother-in-law sent me this video today. It moved me to tears. If you have 7 minutes, take a look. Here is a synopsis of the video:
This film is about the hunger and poverty brought about by Globalization. There are 10,000 people dying everyday due to hunger and malnutrition. This short film shows a forgotten portion of the society. The people who lives on the refuse of men to survive. What is inspiring is the hope and spirituality that never left these people.

Food insecurity, malnutrition and starvation go hand in hand with lack of access to safe drinking water. Let's all work together to try and solve these problems.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Working for a non-profit in an economic recession

Filling a 5 gallon jug of safe drinking water at one of Healing Waters systems in the community of "El Puerto" in the Dominican Republic.

Kids taking their bottle of water back to their family

I had some hope the economy would start to turn around or at least level out and stop dropping with a rise in confidence from the stimulus getting passed last week. No such luck.

My working theory on the economic recession is that it is a combination of 2 factors:

1. Legitimate economic problems/issues associated with banking, foreclosures, etc.
2. Lack of confidence in the economy

When people lack confidence, they turn inward and stop spending. Even I have started saving more and spending less in the past few months, so I guess I am part of the problem.

My hope was that with Obama's election and the subsequent stimulus/bailout package, that confidence would start to return. I had no illusions that it would be immediate, or that things would turn around by March, but I had hoped we would see some signs of hope.

Working for a non-profit, all of this is compounded. We have seen a major drop in donations. The need for safe drinking water in developing countries continues to grow, but our ability to meet that need and install new systems depends on getting donors to help pay for the installation costs. Needless to say, my job and salary are also donor dependent, so there are some real concerns there as well.

I read this article in the Denver Post and thought I would share it with you. There are some really good points in the article, so read and enjoy!
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_11762219

A call to service

This is a photo of me and Ed Anderson, the CEO of the non-profit I work for, Healing Waters International. Ed exemplifies the idea of Servant Leadership and demonstrated that to me so much this week. . .

Social service organizations and non-profits are really getting hit hard right now due to the economic downturn. The bitter irony is that their services are needed now more than ever. Soup kitchens are seeing a drop in volunteerism and a rise in people that are coming to them in need of food. Low-cost and free medical clinics are experiencing the same thing, drop in support and rise in patients. I heard a statistic that 20% of all non-profits will cease to exist within the next 18 months. Victims of the economic recession. . .

As Christians, we are called to service, and as the economy continues to kick us while we are down, I challenge you to look up and look out and see how you can help.

I am still reading the "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction" and just got done leading a study on chapter 5 this morning at work. Chapter 5 focuses on Psalm 123 and the notion of service. I really liked this quote on page 67-68:

"God's people are everywhere and always encouraged to work for the liberation of others, helping to free them from every form of bondage - religious, economic, cultural, political - that sin uses to stunt or thrwart or cramp their lives. . . Those who parade the rhetoric of liberation but scorn the wisdom of service do not lead people into the glorious liberty of the children of God but into a cramped and covetous squalor. ¶ As Psalm 123 prays the transition from oppression (“kicked in the teeth by complacent rich men”) to freedom (“awaiting your word of mercy”) to a new servitude (“like servants alert to their master’s commands”), it puts us in the way of learning how to use our freedom most appropriately, under lordship of a merciful God. The consequences are positive. I have never yet heard a servant Christian complain of the oppressiveness of his servitude. I have never yet heard a servant Christian rail against the restrictions of her service. A servant Christian is the freest person on earth."

In these tough times, let's strive for our freedom by becoming better servants of God and serving others. That could mean volunteering, or just sitting and listening to a friend or neighbor who is struggling. As hard as it is to focus externally while we are hurting so much internally, that may just be what will get us out of this crisis and turn things around.

A quote that gives me peace in turbulent times

This is a photo of a child in Guatemala at one of the water purification systems installed by Healing Waters in the Landivar community in Guatemala City.

Still reading the book "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction" by Eugene Peterson. Wanted to share this slightly long quote with you from page 62:

"Too often we think of religion as a far-off, mysteriously run bureaucracy to which we apply for assistance when we feel the need. We go to a local branch office and direct the clerk (sometimes called a pastor) to fill out our order for God. Then we go home and wait for God to be delivered to us according to the specifications we have set down. But that is not the way it works. And if we thought about it for two consecutive minutes, we would not want it to work that way. If God is God at all, he must know more about our needs than we do; if God is God at all, he must be more in touch with the reality of our thoughts, our emotions, our bodies than we are; if God is God at all, he must have a more comprehensive grasp of the interrelations in our families and communities and nations then we do."

Wow! What a relief. It is a test of faith to see how deeply I believe this.

I am generally a very sound sleeper, but I have not gotten a night of really good sound sleep in over a week. It is time to "Let go and Let God!"