The digital home of Dennis A. Smith
IT Entrepreneur
Bahai Temple, Samoa. All religions accepted.
In this Sermon from Samoa, I share how a difficult situation can bring out the best in us all – a true biblical challenge if ever there was one, and congratulate Samoa for readily accepting people as they are.
Some of us have a simple home!
I‘ve observed many well-meaning people try to help Samoa and almost just as many fall by the wayside, often getting hurt in the process. In some ways you could call Samoa a philanthropists graveyard.
In this Sermon from Samoa I draw attention to the challenges of giving meaningfully, and encourage us to question the real purpose behind our giving. I also caution against lop-sided patronising giving and explain how most giving is actually non-scriptural. [Read more...]
For those who didn’t already know or guess it, the Samoa tourism sector is in big trouble. No amount of fast talking and positive thinking can cover the facts released by Samoa Tourism Authority today. In a nutshell, tourism is down by over 7% on the same period last year and the previous year was down by over 13% on the 2009 figures.
Any business registering a 20% fall inside two years is generally in serious trouble. In this Sermon from Samoa, I totally avoid the blame game (such as blaming Air NZ for pulling their USA direct flights, the ash clouds, the Tsunami, school holidays – whatever) and I share some important factors for the way forward for the leaders – from the Bible.
Learning experiences all round - Septic Tank Construction in Samoa
Working in the Voluntourism Industry isn’t easy. It sounds “sexy” but it is hard work, and dealing many people who may want to help but have agendas and issues of their own.
There’s a limit to what you can do for people when helping them adjust to a new environment. You can teach and preach, yet ultimately “everyone is their own man” and you can only hope and pray that when they eventually fall, while they may crash, they do not burn!
Among the many projects and relationships we are establishing here, one of my core missions is to help people coming to Samoa to “help” – helping the helpers, but it is not easy.
Poet James Thomson
I was sitting in the VIP Lounge at the airport today and talked with a man very high up in government. I asked him what he did. “Oh, I’m a nobody!” he said.
This was false humility, as he was a powerful, connected and important person (and no, it wasn’t the PM, if that’s what you’re thinking – Tuila’epa doesn’t have that problem).
In this Sermon from Samoa I talk about Me! Me! Me! figuratively, and literally. [Read more...]
One card from a series of playing cards by Illuminati gamer S Jackson, dated 1995, six years before the 9-11 event.*
“I think I will de-friend any 911 truthers…idiots!” . . . said one blogger. Another was more direct, invited his Facebook friends to “confess” and then threatened to defriend anyone if they dared to suggest that the 9-11 fiasco was a false-flag event.
Goodness me what a temptation . . . so I stepped right up to the mark and “confessed” my crimes. I did it, he did (CYA!) and thus marked another example of opinionated bigotry.
“Bugger off I’ll defriend you if you don’t agree with me”, is the guts of it, sounding a lot like the days of Hitler when what you thought or valued had to align with others.
Sunday’s Sermon from Samoa is (for those who like to gossip) nothing to do with Samoa, but more to do with being blinded by blinkers and keeping friendships. It’s easy to put our head in the sand, and hard to keep friends. [Read more...]
Girls just want to have fun!
New word for the day: Predeterminationing – the act and propensity to predetermine how events and things in the future will be, or something like that a.k.a. telling a book by its cover. Sounds much more pompous than a multi-word phrase -)
HINT: It’s not a good thing to do.
That’s the essence of this Sermon from Samoa. [Read more...]
Action shot of Samoan-style fund-raising. Grandma in the front tossing in a few coins, girls dancing (just heading off screen), and bean-counters in the background, egging it all on. An engaging performance, part act, ritual, fun and accepted social interaction!
As a long-time conspiracy theorist, I am always intrigued when the “spin” is finally unspun – it always is, eventually: Hitler, Bill ‘I never had sex with that woman’ Clinton, Pearl Harbour, Helen Clark’s multiple ‘Gates, the 9-11 War on Terror, and more. In this Sermon from Samoa, I share how spin undermines God’s best intentions for us all, including Samoa.
Two reports I’ve read this morning elaborate how the media is used to achieve a particular goal – the Urewera Debacle, and the Hubbard Debacle. As a truth seeker and one who strives to also be a truth speaker, I highlight the manipulations in these two situations thus:
There has been a paradigm shift in business practice over the last 10 years. The core principles of business remain the same (buying and selling to make a profit) but the outworking has flipped from what I call a top-down business model to a networked model.
I’ve been preaching this change now for a few years under a concept called WEB THOUGHT LEADERSHIP – how to be a strategic leader on the Internet. I introduced it for the first time publicly at the inaugural 2009 eTourism conference in Wellington. [Read more...]
Smart guy, American philosopher, essayist, poet & lecturer, Ralph Waldo Emerson had something important to say about principles: [Read more...]
The fourteenth and last principle I mention here, is one that I have applied in Samoa from the start. For some reason I really love and understand the idea of Walking the Land as much as any other principle! It applies to both physical land and conceptual territory. [Read more...]
A phrase I used a lot in Fusi Safata in 2009 was “Do the right thing, work hard and have faith!”. It embodied the essence of the Christian walk in a way that the villagers could hear, understand and apply. These three are biblical principles and our thirteenth in a series. [Read more...]
The principle of empowering others comes straight from the Bible. It’s our twelfth in a series. This is the idea that we should be mentoring, teaching, and helping others to achieve their aims and aspirations in life, and that by doing this, our own needs will be met and the job will get done. [Read more...]
Legs eleven. Our eleventh principle is to work smarter, not harder. We want to engage brain before our brawn. It’s sometimes hard to do, but the rewards are much greater. [Read more...]
In this Sermon from Samoa, I share the two aspects of the Christian walk that for decades have really got to me – the fear of being sent to a foreign country as a Missionary and the concept of “Walking by Faith”. Since the 2009 Tsunami in Samoa, I’ve found myself doing both! [Read more...]
It’s Sunday in Samoa, so God gets a good look-in today. The SWAP Foundation is founded upon the biblical value system. Christianity is not required of our partners or team members but respecting the values contained within the Judeo-Christian value system is a prerequisite for working with us. This tenth principle is the one to Honour the Lord. [Read more...]
Don’t you just love a winner? Be honest now, we all do! Getting behind a top performer is motivating and invigorating. Even leaders love engaging with and learning from other leaders. This understanding is our ninth principle
in a series. [Read more...]
Can you believe it? A post without preaching! Just a few photos from the rainy season. No big deal over here. Just a bit of water . . . everywhere! [Read more...]
A question now . . . who is worth more? An unemployed rural Samoan who works for a day on his plantation and feeds his family (maybe only just) OR someone like my lawyer who works for a day and feeds his family with the best food money can buy PLUS makes so much extra money that he can easily buy a new TV every day of his life? (272x more money per hour than an employed Samoan worker to be precise)? Your answer please? [Read more...]
The seventh principle we use over here is a concept that sounds easy but is a real challenge – we require a cross-cultural partnership. So what’s the catch? Well, it’s just darned hard to do! [Read more...]
The Good Book says that “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. This biblical principle is the sixth in a series explaining the values that we are using in our work in Samoa. [Read more...]
The fifth principle will have alternative thinkers, greenies and liberals delighted. Just like the rules when visiting a natural tourist destination we require that our investors to “Take nothing home”. It’s a little different from the normal Western profit-based investor mindset, but it’ll all make sense when I explain. [Read more...]
The fourth principle we apply in Samoa is that we only want to work with the best. This runs counter to the typical cultural response to getting things done here, where near enough is close enough and we’ll all do the cheapest we can. [Read more...]
The third underlying principle that we’ve been working with in Samoa is to start with what we do have, then move outwards, to that which we don’t have but that we want. It’s based on a biblical principle found in Exodus 7:9, and also in many other places, where Moses and Aaron did in faith what God had told them to do; take what Aaron had in his hand, then use it in faith and let the Lord do the magic. [Read more...]
In this Sermon from Samoa I share another principle that we have been applying to the SWAP Foundation‘s work. Coming from a Christian perspective, I challenge the Western mindset that giving primarily entails giving money and that more money means more success. God is all about relationships and faith – not programs and success. [Read more...]
In the first of a series of posts focusing on the principles that we are using to weave our magic here, I share how I see biblical principles blended creatively with the traditional Samoan way of doing things and with Western capitalism to achieve good things, perhaps even miracles. [Read more...]
I think the doors are opening for us in Samoa again. There has to be such a thing as providence, kharma, a God or similar – there just has to be. [Read more...]
In this Sermon from Samoa I share my experiences with “Smoke, smudge & smear experts” and show how the beauty of truth gets lost so often. Magicians use smoke to hide things. To smudge is to distort, making worse, something that was created good. Smear experts play the man and not the ball. [Read more...]
Here I provide proof of Samoan Christmas fireworks:
a .22 bullet found on the road.
I push the boundaries of racial tolerance again (but am off the hook because I quote a Samoan dissing Samoans as liars) and then explain the discussion I had with the big Phat man on Christmas Eve
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