Dan Roth - Pastor of Disaster

This will be my last post related to the 2005 National YouthWorkers Convention in Pittsburgh. I promised I'd write about some of the great new people I met, and among these are the World Vision crew (esp. Mike & Shawn whom I worked the most with) and the IMJ crew (esp. the Leggs whom I worked the most with). I've also mentioned a few other folks elsewhere, and there are undoubtedly many who I will fail to mention. (A special thanks to Alex Roller for letting Judy & I come out and serve.)

However, I'd be lying if I didn't say I found one person's story catching me the most... not only because of his story, but because he didn't want to tell his story. His story only came out because the others who worked with him were eager to share it as part of getting to know each other before we spent a week working together.

Simply put, Steve Reynolds is one of the reasons we have to hope that starvation around the world can be significantly reduced. In the 1980s, he recorded video of the famine in Ethiopia, and was the person who finally got them broadcast... first on the BBC and then in the US. It was these images which inspired the original big pop-culture anti-famine efforts which included "We are the World" and Live Aid.

Steve is also the person who first took Bono on a tour of Africa, and they ended up spending a month doing feeding and other relief work together. Bono says of Steve, "Honestly there is no chance that I would be here if he hadn't called me up and asked me to make that journey. It's a journey that changed my life forever." During U2's Seattle Concert, Bono dedicated "One" to Steve.

Here's a bit more about Steve in the Seattle Times (including the photo above).