Who remembers weather forecaster-turned-missionary Derek Van Dam?
He’s the guy who came to Swaziland from the United States and sent back a series of reports to his television station NBC25 in Michigan.
I wrote about him in August and September 2007 when he was working with the El Shaddai orphanage.
In his reports called ‘Derek Goes to Africa’, NBC25 followed Derek and his church friends as they prepared to travel to Swaziland and then looked at the work they did when they were here.
The reports give a fascinating insight into the way Swaziland is viewed in America.
These reports are important because very little about Swaziland gets covered in the foreign media and this is even more so when you look at countries outside the continent of Africa. Because of this people know very little about the kingdom and what little they do know they learn through the media.
I was very critical of his reports because I felt they didn’t really understand the complexities of the situation in Swaziland, especially over the problem of HIV AIDS. They also suggested that Swazis couldn’t look after themselves and needed outsiders to come in and ‘save’ them.
Although I didn’t think much of the reports, I did feel that Derek himself had some kind of life changing experience.
And so this has proved to be.
Writing on his own blogsite, Derek says that he is giving up his job in Michigan and coming to Africa.
Derek is moving to Cape Town to the South African television station E.tv to be the head of its weather department on its new 24 hour news channel.
Derek serves on a board of directors for a non-profit organization in the United States called Compassionate Life Foundation that focuses on humanitarian/mission work in Swaziland. The foundation works with widows and orphans of AIDS victims.
Derek writes, ‘We provide them with medicine, shelter and places to worship (among other things). To make a long story short...I will also be working with them while in Africa and going back and forth to some hard-hit areas. It is an important step to make the personal contact needed to keep the trust between the people and the Americans.’
To read more about his experiences when he was in Swaziland and to link to the television reports he made click here.
See also
DEREK GOES TO AFRICA 1
DEREK GOES TO AFRICA 2
DEREK GOES TO AFRICA 3
DEREK GOES TO AFRICA 4
2 comments:
ok what do you have against Derek Van Dam? He is a great and caring guy and you make him out to be this guy who only cares about himself. He is young and he truely is an angel sent from above. How many young people do you know that would do the things that he has done? Derek is going to be missed back here in Michigan. All I am saying is give Derek a chance and get to know the real Derek Van Dam and you will see exactly what we see. A wonderful guy!!!!!
Derek only cares about himself. When he was at CMU, he would constantly ask people for answers on assignments and claimed the reason he didn't understand the information was that he had A.D.D. Yet, he knew exactly what time a party would start and where to get beer.
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