LDS Cooperative "one heart and one mind...with no poor among us"

The Palestinian boy's death in the West Bank town of Jenin, tragically, was not unusual.

Children are commonly victims of fighting in the Middle East.

But what happened after his death in November 2005 was exceptional.

Ahmed's grieving parents donated the boy's organs to "the enemy" - an Israeli hospital.

His heart now beats in the chest of an Israeli Druze Arab girl.

His liver kept a Jewish girl and an Israeli mother alive.

His lungs were transplanted into a teenage Jewish girl and his kidneys divided between a five-year-old Bedouin and a three-year-old Jewish girl.

The parents, Ismail and Abla Khatib, decided that some good could come of his death.

Tom Webb of St. Mary's University (and the Masters in Management program) presented a workshop on how cooperative managers need to manage differently from other enterprises.

He began by commenting that cooperators share, in addition to the values and principles, a common view that people are basically good. Corporations are managed by people and so corporations will act as good citizens. However, unlike cooperatives, corporations must deliver a return on investment and the search for profits may cause good people to make bad decisions. However, cooperatives can also make bad decisions.

Wellinton is a selfless father and a loving husband who sacrifices himself daily in order to ensure his small daughter and dear wife’s well-being. With the aim of acquiring the medicine necessary for the well-being of Delia – he toils daily in his fields, and even more so when the time for harvesting arrives as the swift gathering of his crops guarantees their immediate sale. He has ambitions to improve his work and produce with better tools, manures and fertilizers.

Wellington is looking for about $400 and has raised about 75% of the money he needs. I chose to lend the money to Wellington because I found his story endearing, I wanted to help him...and he has a killer name! :-)

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand. [1]

Like a camel traveling through a needle's eye[1]
My parents were fighting traffic between Orem and Provo a few years back when a shiny new BMW Z4 zipped past them. The license plate on the swanky sports car was emblazoned with, "Alma 36:1." Curious about the cryptic message the owner was conveying to the public, they grabbed their scriptures in the back of the car and looked up the cryptic slogan. It reads, "My son, give ear to my words; for inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God, ye shall prosper in the land."