The Homepage for Asif Zamir's Missions Work
When you do the wrong thing and it blows up in your face, it hurts.
When you do the right thing and it blows up in your face, it hurts even more. Especially when you do better than everyone else, when you go the extra mile, when you go in with nothing but good intentions and good works. You can’t help everyone. Some people need to be ignored, even exiled from your life. There is nothing you can do for someone people.
In the year 2000 I met an American missionary who was born in California but lived as a missionary in Indonasia most of her life, only coming back to America in her teen years to finish up school. Her heart was very much in Indonasia and she was gathering up a team to go back and raising funds to do so. You know how much I love missions and I’ve participated in so many missions projects and trips I’ve lost count.
In 2004 a happy story turned sad as Indonasia lost more than 200,000 people to a Tsunami, and my missionary friends went missing and are presumed dead.
In 2006 I got to meet another American (now Canadian) missionary who grew up in Indonasia. He married one of my best friends (I was the videographer at their wedding, and I did a terrible job). While I was video taping the ceremony, I couldn’t help think about the ones I’ve lost.
It’s fair to say that I’ve participated in a lot of missions projects, I’d like to say more than 100 but I don’t know anymore. At least not right now. I’ve been to missions dinners with over 200 missionaries present, laughing, enjoying and telling me their adventures.
But I can’t stop thinking about the ones I’ve lost.
Small water project in Kenya
Elijah’s mud house includes a dirt floor and an iron roof in Mpaka in Kenya. He lives there with his family, which includes 2 children. The community of Mpaka village collects their drinking water from a hole bored in the ground because there is no piped water supply. Imagine living in Canada and having no running water. His water is easily contaminated with bacteria that can cause diarrhea and other water-born diseases, which can also cause death and usually makes a person so sick they can’t function.
A new chlorine dispenser offers a solution to this. The dispenser would cost about $600, and is installed at the local water source where users turn a valve to add chlorine to their jerricans, then collect water as usual. The chlorine disinfects the water, and provides residual protection from recontamination. This project would benefit 11 households. Elijah has volunteered to be the dispenser promoter, who is responsible for refilling the chlorine and encouraging the rest of the community to treat their water and keep themselves and their families healthy.
Kenya is a country in Africa that has made massive progress over the last 50 years, and has become very well developed because small projects like this boost people’s lives and help them move up in a sustainable way. I’ve worked on several larger water based projects, and if I can get photos / videos I’ll be posting them in months to come.
Asif Zamir
Armenia Clothing Store
Gohar raised 1,000,000 Armenian Drams (okay okay about $2,500 Canadian) which she will mostly use to buy inventory. – Asif Zamir
Mwajuma, a 30ish married mom of 3 has been running a business for the last 7+ years and needs to raise approximately $2,400 USD to improve her business. My concern on this project is that it won’t be fully funded 🙁
She employs helpers who run the business activities. Her business is open 6am to 10pm and she is able to make a good monthly profit.
I forgot to mention she’s in Tanzania. – Asif Zamir
In 1997/1998/1999/2000 I participated in purchasing African slaves for about $100 each for the purpose of setting them free. Hundreds of slaves were set free permenantly but others (more than 50% of them) were recaptured by the same slavemasters and trapped in slavery again and again. A lot of the money was used to purchase weapons. You can look at it this way:
– Hundreds of slaves were set free and are now doing very well
– Hundreds of slaves were set free and then recaptured, and their slavemasters have better guns now
In 2001/2002/2003/2004 I gave away a lot of money (let’s just say tens of thousands) towards helping people directly with their living expenses, and found out that a large portion of that was going towards shopping, entertainment and drugs. You can look at this way:
– Dozens of lives were improved, people who wouldn’t normally finish high school or enter college actually did so successfully and stayed out of trouble.
– Several people wasted resources that could have been better placed and simply got drunk and high.
The way you look at things, how you interpret a matter can make you a conservative or liberal, democrat or republican. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Who did bad and who did good?
Maybe it’s because I can’t play successfully, maybe a hockey player beat me up and stole my girlfriend in junior high, I’m not sure.
But I do love children. Recently after a night of handing out delicious treats to indoor ice-skaters and inviting them to follow Jesus, one of the grandmothers on my team noticed a child who was just sitting and watching with a sad face. He didn’t have ice-skates. (He didn’t have parents either, he was a foster child). I’ve known him for only a few months, let’s say 6 and he’s a handful at age 11.
The next day, I bought him a pair and watched him ice skate with a smile. Well, to be fair he’s still learning, but so am I. His children’s aid worker approached me a few weeks later to let me know that unfortunately he’s being moved to another foster home, this time farther away. The worker tried to get the child in his care so he could stay but it didn’t work out. This would be like the dozenth time for the child to be moved, and least the 50th time for me to lose a child because of this.
My point in all this is 1.) these kinds of things happen because the world is broken, and as Canada continues to redefine everything that is good, things will continue to break more. 2.) do something GOOD while you can, because you won’t always have a chance.
The boy gave his life to Jesus the last day I saw him (he had his skates with him even though he wasn’t skating that night), and I gave him a hug, and never saw him again.
PS: I gave him a Bible and pointed out that a very important prophet had his name and he was delighted. He asked me for several more Bibles to give to his friends. – Asif Zamir
This blog will focus on a project I worked on in Bolivia with a woman named Maria. I’ve participated in several Bolivian based projects, some small, and some large. Bolivia is located in South America, and happens to be the continent I was born on.
Now, I should start by saying that if you want to start a business, no matter where it is, there will be start-up costs. Never believe the ads that tell you that you can start a business for free because there is no such thing.
Maria is a Bolivian native in her 40’s who sells DVDs on a kiosk (see picture). She wanted to raise about $875 USD to improve and expand her business, and I thought this would be a good project to get involved with.
Maria used some of the money to buy a television so that she can display her movies while customers are browsing. She is going to invest in her company by expanding her DVD inventory, since there is a high demand right now. Maria faces challenges in her business because of a lack of cash to buy her products (don’t we all), so she is going to use the loan to continue buying a variety of products for each selling season. Maria’s dream is to grow her business to help support her family even more. This project is just a few months old, but already a great success, and something I am very proud to be apart of.
So… why is this so important to me? I have participated in projects where I send money every week / month, and it sometimes gets discouraging after a while to not see progress or sustainability. I mean, what’s going to happen when I’m poor, and can’t afford to send anymore money? I say this so that I can point out that this project with Maria is sustainable. Maria is a person who is building something that she can eventually hand down to her children. Okay, it may not be DVDs in the future, but you know what I mean…
Asif Zamir
Yorman is a Colombian native, a young entrepreneur who has a passion to succeed. He has achieved a number of business successes and wants to try his hand at fast food which is a growing industry in Columbia (and possibly everywhere else in the world). His income / profits are used to support himself and his mother plus pay for school, which I personally think is amazing. His ultimate dream is to become a micro entrepreneur / small business owner. Starting a restaurant in Canada might run you into the hundreds of thousands at least (I know because I’ve worked with several great restaurants in the Toronto area), but in Columbia, a few hundred (in this case $1300) would do it. Yorman’s biggest dream is to improve his sales and attract more customers, so that he can open a full restaurant in the near future.
Asif Zamir
Most people love doing something good for a good cause, and most people love a good dinner. I’m one of those people.
A popular fund raising tactic is to hold a banquet, and charge your guests a fee, let’s say $50 per ticket and that includes a fun night of dinner and dancing and hearing stories of lives changed. These are fun to attend if the food and entertainment is great (not to mention having a fantastic date). But if the food is less than great, if the entertainment is the same every year, if your gorgeous date can’t remember your name – worst of all – if you’re the fund raiser and after expenses you’ve raised a net $300 from 300 people who purchased $15,000 in tickets…
I get at least one invite each month. My point is that I don’t go to these anymore. Just donate to the cause directly. – Asif Zamir
Pastor Rob Bell