The .Plan

Seattle Weekly is one of those aggressively annoying left-wing publications that likes to trash all things Christian. Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened up this week’s paper to a feature on World Vision.

Interesting tidbit about its current CEO, Richard Stearns:

“Coming to World Vision was very improbable,” Stearns says, once settled at a table and sharing plates of phad Thai and Panang curry. A headhunter for World Vision sought him out in the late ’90s, the first time the organization had looked to the business world for leadership. Every previous World Vision president had come from either a church or a Christian college. World Vision was now an enormous operation, however, operating in nearly 100 countries on every continent but Antarctica…

But while World Vision had a solid reputation in both the religious and secular world, Stearns’ reaction, when the headhunter called seven years ago, was something like horror. “It was the last place I wanted to go,” says Stearns, now 54. Although he had been a longtime child sponsor through the organization and a devoted Christian since falling in love with a religious woman (now his wife) in business school, he says he had no inclination to fully “enter the pain of the poor.”

He also considered himself unqualified for the job, having no experience in humanitarian work. “It seemed like a bizarre move to go from china to World Vision.” And then there was the money. World Vision was offering $200,000, a handsome salary in nonprofit terms (it has since grown to $367,000) but a 75 percent pay cut. To Stearns, it seemed that he was being asked to give up everything that he had achieved at great odds…

“I actually turned the job down,” Stearns says. “But I was so conflicted, so haunted by my decision, that I called World Vision back.”
–Nina Shapiro, “The AIDS Evangelists”, Seattle Weekly, November 15, 2006

One of the nice things about living in Seattle is that when it drizzles here, it snows everywhere else:

Road crews kept the most-heavily traveled highways open through the Washington Cascades as a strong Pacific storm system dumped snow in the mountains and buffeted much of the state with high winds. Interstate 90 and U.S. Highways 2, 12 and 97 remained opened throughout the storm Sunday and early Monday. Traction tires were required on U.S. 2 over Stevens Pass and recommended on U.S. 97 over Blewett Pass and over U.S. 12 over White Pass, the state Transportation Department reported.

But this means that, just a mere hours away by car…

We had another one roll through yesterday and last night, leaving us another 14 INCHES OF NEW SNOW. Since Saturday morning, we have had 53 INCHES OF NEW SNOW!

Ski area rope lines are going up today, chair lift ramps are being groomed and prepped and base areas are receiving stocking shipments.

We are still going with our OPENING DAY OF THURSDAY NOVEMBER 16, as we are continuing to watch Tuesday night/Wednesdays system which looks like it is carrying A LOT of precip. . . . and possibly some warm air with it. We need to see how this system affects the snowpack and since the forecasts are calling for a rapidly lowering freezing level later on Wednesday, THURSDAY still looks like our day.

Woo hoo!