JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS: Roads I Have Traveled. . . Transition Journal, Excerpt # 4

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

(continued): Brasilia, Brazil, 1986: While I was still working with Zimbabwe, the embassy in Quito, Ecuador, heard what I was doing, and I went there at their request. I had a great opportunity to research and study the concept of the debt swaps or debt-for-equity exchanges. By this time I was working under my newly formed company, International Market Exchange, (IMX).

From Quito I went to Lima, Peru, then to Caracas, Venezuela, and finally I traveled to Brazil, where I worked for nearly three years with President Jose Sarney and his chief economist, Antonio Bacelar. Our plan became known as the “Libra Proposal,” and we were joined in the effort by Mr. Dilson Funaro, the outgoing Minister of Finance, the incoming Minister of Finance, Mr. Bressler, and William Canvallo, the Secretary of the Federal District of Brazil.

My involvement with the financial leadership in Brazil ultimately included my leading a delegation to Washington D.C. of Brazilian leaders to meet with Honorable James Baker, Secretary of the US Treasury. That was before James Baker had assumed the position of Secretary of State for the US.

The Libra Proposal was a plan that made it possible for the repayment of Brazil’s debt back to the American banks. Brazil’s economy was at that time experiencing runaway inflation of three thousand percent. By the time the money would get into their system there was nothing left to pay the debts.

While working on the necessary research for writing the economic sections of the book, What’cha Gonna Do with What’cha Got ?, I had run into an interesting concept. Many of the US banks had been coerced by our government, the World Bank, and United Nations to make sizable loans to foreign countries as economic relief measures. Instead of our government simply handing over large sums of additional monies to the United Nations, who in turn would hand out the monies to foreign countries, especially in Central and South America, they pressured our banks to make the loans directly to those needy countries. That sounded like a great strategy to bypass the corruption of the United Nations and the World Bank. But there was a big problem.

The banks insisted that the sovereign countries sign legitimate promissory notes guaranteeing the repayment of the loans. Perhaps the United Nations or the World Bank could allow the foreign countries to default on the loans and just write them off as bad debts. But individual banks in America were under the tight scrutiny of the US Federal Bank Examiners and Federal agencies like FDIC.

It was true that under the Nixon administration in the 1970s, when the US economy was cut loose from the gold standard, banks were allowed to use foreign sovereign debt instruments as credits toward their necessary Fractional Reserves. But it was high risk to make foreign sovereign loans, and utter disaster for the US banks if those foreign loans should ever go into default.

By the mid-1980s, many of the foreign countries were in default to the US banks. South American countries simply shrugged their shoulders and said, “Sorry, we can’t make good on our loan commitments.” That threw the US banks into a crisis. Once the loans were declared non-performing loans, the US banks had to write them off, and if they had used them as part of their fractional reserves, their assets and lending powers began to implode.

But some creative financial folks in the US came up with a clever way to take care of the problem. That program, known as Debt Swap caught my attention. It simply utilized the common elements of the old barter system to save the banking industry in America.

Here is a common way debt swaps worked: US bank examiners would require that a certain bank would have to declare a sovereign foreign loan as a non-performing loan. The bank could no longer use the sovereign foreign debt instrument as part of its fractional reserves, and its lending ratio would shrink by approximately twenty times the amount of the non-performing loan. That would spell really big trouble.

At that point a group of individuals or an entity would agree to purchase the bad loan at an attractive discount from the bank, and their new note would heal the bank. Thereupon, the new holders of the foreign note would take the note to the country owing the debt and agree to swap the note for assets within the country to settle the debt. 

Those assets could include government controlled exports, natural resources like oil concessions, mineral rights, undeveloped real estate, government-owned buildings, fishing rights, rights to ports and harbors, or any other service or commodity of equally agreed-upon value. Simply, the indebted country could use its own assets to settle the debt where it could not come up with cash to make the payments.

Many times, as was the case in Brazil, large corporations within the country would desire to purchase portions of their own government’s debt so that they could use the credits to purchase commodities from the government within the country, or apply it to their tax obligations. The sovereign countries would end up better off, the banks would be better off, and the arbitrators would be handsomely enriched for their efforts.

Next Week: Implications of International Debt Swaps or Debt for Equity Swaps for the trillions of dollars of U.S. international debt situation.

© Dr. James W. Jackson

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

www.jameswjackson.com 

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS: Roads I Have Traveled . . . Transition Journal Excerpt # 3

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

(continued): Harare, Zimbabwe, 1985-1986: Every dictator who desires to rise to power in a Lesser Developed Country promises the people two things to gain their political support: a better health-care delivery system and electricity to the rural areas. None of those who make such promises, that I have ever met, were capable of delivering on either promise. So, it did not come to me as a surprise that the Zimbabwean delegation was very interested in investigating the possibilities of acquiring both electrical and health-care items for their country. While I was in Zimbabwe I would try to help them with meeting those needs, since health-care and electricity were so important to the economic development of the country.

Upon arriving in Zimbabwe I began working almost immediately with them on an exciting project dealing with their neighbor, Zambia. I was taken out and shown how the grain storage facilities in Zimbabwe were full and running over with maize.

For three years they had experienced bumper crops, and they had run out of room to store the grain.

The reason we had purchased the burlap sacks while in US was for the storage of the overflow. I was shown stacks and stacks of sacks of maize covered with black plastic. The stacks were the size of very large buildings. But the rain was getting in from the top and the rodents were getting in from the bottom.

 And all the while the tribes across the Zambezi River in Zambia were starving to death. The irony was that Zambia was rich in copper production. However, the price of copper had plummeted and no one was buying Zambia’s copper.

As I surveyed the situation, it looked to me like there existed a great opportunity to simply put some uncomplicated trades together and make some enormous profits in a new and overripe field of opportunity. For hundreds of years Africa had suffered tribal conflicts and lacked any developed system of economics or a basic understanding of economic factors. Someone like me could come upon a situation like this and make a whole lot of money.

It should have been a very simple deal for Zimbabwe and Zambia to have structured a fundamental counter exchange, like trading excess maize for devalued copper, and made it come out beneficial for all concerned. But tribal differences, and the lack of any established method for transacting the international exchange, left both countries in a negative position. It took someone who was neutral and on the outside to step in and broker the deal. Acting in that role as “deal broker” could result in huge profits in a continent like Africa.

As I was thinking along this line, suddenly God reminded me of my commitment that I had made to Him well over fifteen years earlier: I would stop earning and storing up wealth for myself and give the rest of my life helping other people. But why then was I in Africa working with the very top people in power. I was learning a great deal about how the international world worked, but what was my specific role to be in all of what I was witnessing?

I decided to stay out of participating in any of the profits of any of the new ventures, and I simply stood on the sidelines and coached the teams. I showed my friends in Zimbabwe how they could get rid of their inventory of maize before they lost any more of the production. I showed them how to rent warehouse space in London to store the copper until the world price once again stabilized. When the price went back up they could sell the copper and make a lot of profit and at the same time they would have salvaged their precarious maize situation and saved the lives of a lot of starving folks in the meantime. Many of the hungry people of Zambia ended up with supplies of maize that helped fill their empty tummies.

While grappling with the African situation and my economic role for the future, I also had a chance to re-evaluate my commitment to doing good and not taking advantage of the business deals for myself that were so obviously available internationally. I vividly recalled some episodes in the life of my sometimes hero, Armand Hammer. He had been faced with similar temptations. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, Hammer visited the ravaged areas of the Russian Ural Mountains. He had witnessed the sickness and starvation and had told Lenin that he would with his own personal money purchase a million dollars’ worth of grain and bring it to Russia to save the starving people. He had been moved with great compassion.

But by the time his shipments of grain had arrived in Russia, he had seen a phenomenal opportunity to pillage very valuable Russian antiquities from the dethroned Czar’s wealth. Instead of simply giving the grain to the Russians as he had offered, he changed the deal and insisted that they fill the ships that had brought the grain with the valuable Russian antiquities for his own keeping. There was no gifting at all!

I didn’t want to renege on my commitment to God. I allowed the Zimbabwe situation to strengthen and reinforce my earlier promises. I remembered the old adage: The final temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right thing for just the wrong reason.

I did the best I could to help Zimbabwe get their economy established, but there was considerable push back from some of the military generals who had just discovered a lot of new power and had designs on reaping a lot of benefits from their new positions of power. Even while I was in Harare, I overheard President Mugabe’s generals remind the president that he had gotten where he was because of their bravery and their fighting expertise, and he owed them for their loyalty and they expected to receive consideration.

At that point I knew that my days of usefulness as a successful economist in Zimbabwe were pretty much over. Any idealistic dreams President Mugabe may have had for establishing a democratic free market economy in his new Zimbabwe would be swallowed up by the greed and entitlement corruption of those close to him. That spirit of greed and entitlement would be contagious, and it did not appear to me that the President had the resolve to counter it.

Next Week: The idea and practice of International Debt Swaps. 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.jameswjackson.com

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS:Roads I Have Traveled. . . Transition Journal Excerpt # 2

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

(continued): Indianapolis , 1984: Shortly after the Chicago meeting, and because I had attended the meeting, I was invited to participate in a special economic focus meeting held in Indianapolis, Indiana, sponsored by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In the welcoming speech of the gathering we were told, “You are all economists and we have brought you together to brainstorm on how to develop practical economies for Lesser Developed Countries. You are asked to be just as creative as possible with such economic components as counter trade and barter, cottage industries, micro lending, incentive credits, or anything else you can think of. There are no holds barred as you put your economic models together.”

The meeting hosts went on to explain that the people living in the Lesser Developed Countries would remain in bondage as long as they were controlled by repressive and manipulated governments. Some changes would need to take place to free them from the systems of closed and oppressive economies.

We were divided into teams, seated at large round tables, and instructed to “get to work.” After going through the expected steps in the grouping process so that we could all comfortably work together, we really began having fun. We played with the concepts of scarcity-choice-cost; land, labor, capital, and the entrepreneur; supply and demand; as well as methods of fiscal responsibility and closed economies vs. free markets. We discussed the need to have a responsible government that could guarantee the enforcement of contracts and agreements. We built in a component for the necessity of having exclusive rights of private property to hold or transfer, and free enterprise with the possibility of personal incentives and profit. At our table we included anything else we could think of to work into the mix.

At one of the coffee breaks, a woman came up to me and said, “I really like what you have been saying. It makes a lot of sense to me. My name is Maxine Partee and I am the personal representative of Mr. Robert Mugabe, the new president of Zimbabwe in Africa. In the past you probably knew our country as Rhodesia. As you may be aware, we just recently took over the government of Zimbabwe from the Ian Smith regime, and we have great plans and hopes for the future of the country. In fact, many of the Whites, including Mr. Smith, are staying in some of the government positions so that we can have good continuity.”

Then Mrs. Partee went on: “As I listened to you I thought, he needs to come to Harare and help us. Would you ever consider coming to Zimbabwe and working with Robert Mugabe’s Cabinet? You see, we have discovered that we don’t know very much about running the economy of a government.”

When I regained my balance, I smiled and asked, “But Mrs. Partee, just what is it that I would be expected to do?”

“Oh, I really don’t know for sure what you would do, but I do know for sure that you are the one who needs to come and help us.”

“Well,” I replied, “let’s correspond about this and see what happens.”

True to her word, Mrs. Partee fired back a letter to me just as soon as she returned to Africa and had a chance to talk to the president. After an exchange of messages, Mr. Mugabe sent his nephew, Mr. Chickowore, who was on the president’s Cabinet as Minister of Transportation, and a financial man of Indian descent, Mr. Mukadam, along with Mrs. Maxine Partee to visit me in Colorado. They stayed in the US for about a month, and while they were here I helped them purchase burlap sacks that they needed, and other items for Zimbabwe.

One of the things that Mr. Chickowore had requested I help him locate for Zimbabwe was medical supplies and equipment for their district and local hospitals and clinics. When he made his request, it jogged my memory that back in 1984, two other African men had also requested that I help them find medical goods for their countries in Africa. One man was Mr. Edward Wilson, a member of one of the royal families in Kenya. He had returned to Africa and had been assassinated before I could help him. The other had been a Mr. John Matthews, who not only wanted medical goods but also for me to come to Africa and teach economic seminars.

We took the Zimbabwean group to a facility called Lake X-Ray in Michigan and introduced them to David Davis, who specialized in selling over-stocked medical inventories and used medical equipment. While my visitors from Zimbabwe and I were in the Michigan and Indiana area, we also visited typical industrial locations and fabricating plants in the South Bend, Indiana area introducing them to manufacturing representatives and production suppliers for future contacts. While there they also asked to tour some typical American hospitals and clinics in the areas.

Before we made our way to Evergreen, Colorado, we flew the group to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit an electrical power generating plant that was being remodeled. The generating equipment that was being replaced was being offered for sale, and we were all curious to see if it would be feasible to procure the used equipment and transport it to Zimbabwe.

We had lots of opportunity to talk and get acquainted with Mr. Chickowore, Mr. Mukadam, and Mrs. Partee while we traveled together. When they returned to Africa a short time later, I returned to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, with them.

Next Week: My economic consulting stint in Zimbabwe with President Mugabe.

© Dr. James W. Jackson
Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

www.jameswjackson.com 

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS: Roads I Have Traveled, Excerpt # 2 Ukraine & Atlanta, 1997

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

(continued): Ukraine/Atlanta: January, 1997: As soon as Mark returned to the USA, he called me and we talked. Who could help us? How would we get everyone together? Where would the money come from to finance such a project? It was the holidays; would anyone be available to get together on such short notice?

Everything had to be finalized for presentation to the Ukrainian Parliament in about thirty days. Would it be feasible to bring a group of the top Ukrainian leaders to the US for a symposium? We would have to do a crash course for them in basic democratic, capitalistic, free-market economics and make sure they understood the concepts well enough to debate them on the floor of parliament. A majority of the members would have to understand and buy into a new paradigm of economic thinking. It is one thing to talk about freedom. It is quite another thing to allow the consequences of freedom to move in and upset cultural institutions that have been established for many years. No other republic of the old Soviet system has ever been so bold.

But even if the Ukrainians overcame the boldness factor, they were faced with the awesome reality of logistics and implementation.

As Mark and I talked, we began to get excited about the historic possibilities of such an undertaking. We both encouraged each other and caught ourselves saying, “Let’s go for it.” If we could help implement the free-market changes into Ukrainian medical law, perhaps we could use the model to influence other former Soviet republics.

 

I had personally met many of the ministers of health from other Eastern European and Central Asian countries. Maybe we could just roll an adopted Ukrainian medical-law package right over into the other republics. It suddenly became a challenge worthy of our focus and efforts. With God’s help we would “go for it.”

Mark got busy working with Edward Gluschenko in Kiev on choosing the appropriate Ukrainian leaders to bring to the US. A national board of directors meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) was to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, January 11–13, 1997. The board offered to let us utilize some of their conference space at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel near the airport in Atlanta. They encouraged us in our efforts and pledged to assist in any way they could.

I got busy on the economists. We really needed at least one heavy hitter with the recognized economic credentials. Immediately a person came to my mind: Dr. Paul Ballantyne, head of the economics department at the University of Colorado (CU) in Colorado Springs. He was my economics professor for several graduate courses I had taken at CU in the early 1980s. I have found him to be a wonderfully devoted Christian gentleman, and we have developed a warm friendship over the years. He encouraged me to become part of the Colorado Council on Economic Education and furthermore had offered his advice and helped proof my original manuscript for my gold award winning book What’cha Gonna Do with What’cha Got?

Dr. Ballantyne is also a good friend with internationally famous Dr. Michael Novak, author of many economics books, including The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. He had introduced me to Dr. Novak at an economic conference held in Vail, Colorado, in the mid‑1980s. If Dr. Ballantyne wasn’t available for our meeting with the Ukrainians, perhaps he could persuade Michael Novak to have mercy on us.

I had lost Dr. Ballantyne’s home phone number, and the university was on Christmas break, so I contacted the folks at the Colorado Council on Economic Education and finally weaseled the number out of them. When I reached Dr. Ballantyne, he and his wife were just on their way out the door to spend Christmas with their son and his family. I barely caught him.

In as short a time as possible, I tried to tell him about my involvement with the Ukraine and about Project C.U.R.E.’s humanitarian, spiritual, and economic mission. He quietly listened as I painted the picture of how I terribly and undeservedly needed his help, even though I knew there was really no reason for me to be optimistic about his assistance. I explained how I needed a real expert who could quickly and convincingly present the fundamentals of Adam Smith and free-market economics to a bunch of ex‑Marxists who are desiring to reform their health-care system.

When I shut up, he nearly knocked the phone out of my hand with his reply: “Jim, how very interesting that you would call. I have thought of you many times and wondered if you are still working with the Brazilian government on their debt repayments. Let me quickly bring you up to date on what I have been doing in addition to my work at the University of Colorado. I have been teaching free-market, democratic capitalism courses at Sumy State University in the Ukraine. In fact, my wife has been accompanying me and teaching English courses at the university using the Bible as her English textbook. We’ve had some absolutely wonderful opportunities to witness for Christ, and one family over there has adopted us and made us the godparents of their children.

“I would be pleased to help you in your efforts to aid the Ukraine, and I have the dates of January 9–12 open and available between my CU class schedule. Now I’d better run, or I’ll miss my plane to celebrate Christmas with my son and his family. Here’s my son’s phone number; let’s talk about the details.”

I hung up the phone and cried.

Continued Next Week: Historic Conference in Atlanta

© Dr. James W. Jackson

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.jameswjackson.com 

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS: Road I Have Traveled, Excerpt # 1 Ukraine 1997

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

(Note: These following Journal entries represent one of the finest episodes of the early life of Project C.U.R.E. We happened to be at the right place at the right time to providentially influence the scope and sequence of change in the health care delivery system in the country of Ukraine. Later, those seeds of change lapped over to influence change in other countries of the old Soviet Federation. My heart is again warmed as I share these journal entries with you. JWJ).

Ukraine: January 10, 1997:

Earlier in these writings, I chronicled the details of our involvement in the remarkable republic of Ukraine that had been a part of the former Soviet Union. Project C.U.R.E. had shipped literally millions of dollars’ worth of medical supplies to the cities of Vinnitsa and Kiev, Ukraine. In fact, Project C.U.R.E. had donated and shipped over eighteen tons of medical library books to the National Pirogov Memorial Medical University in Vinnitsa. The institution can now boast of having the finest English-language medical library in all of Eastern Europe.

I had the opportunity of meeting many of the high-ranking government officials in the Ukraine and toured a high percentage of their medical facilities while conducting our Needs Assessment Studies.

I returned to the old Soviet Union and the Ukraine in September of 1996, accompanied by Dr. Brian McMurray, Dr. Mark Johnson, and several other wonderful people from the Nashville, Tennessee, area. The trip was very successful, and Project C.U.R.E. followed up the visit by sending another approximately $750,000 worth of desperately needed supplies to the Ukrainian hospitals. I thoroughly enjoyed being with Dr. Brian McMurray. He and his wife became Christians only about a year prior to our trip. His high energy level and enthusiasm for doing something for God and helping the needy people in the Ukraine was contagious. It was refreshing to just be around him and watch his excitement focused on the medical needs of Vinnitsa.

But I was equally impressed with the young Dr. Mark Johnson. He was in his mid-thirties and had already gained a great deal of respect in the medical community as a urologist. It was Mark’s first venture away from the sophisticated hospitals of Nashville and the Vanderbilt medical community.

I will never forget as long as I live Dr. Mark’s first encounter with the university people the day he arrived in Vinnitsa. He had procured and taken along with him some state-of-the-art urology probes and scopes for bladder, prostate, and kidney procedures. His intent was to train the medical-university surgeons and professors in advanced urology techniques and then leave the high‑tech instruments with them. They would be the first in the whole area of the old Soviet Union to be trained in how to use the equipment and perform the procedures.

When Dr. Mark arrived to meet with the department leaders at the university, he discovered that there was no interpreter to translate the doctors’ Russian into English or his English into Russian. But true to his young American ingenuity, Dr. Mark never let the mishap throw him off beat for one minute. He simply unpacked all his urology equipment and medications, pulled out a large piece of clean paper, and began to draw pictures for the university doctors. After he had completed his masterpiece on the human anatomy, he began writing labels in English on all the appropriate body parts. When finished, he pushed the pictures over to the Ukrainians and motioned for them to label all the pictures in Russian. Next, they practiced saying the names of the body parts in both English and Russian. Equipped with pictures, urology instruments, and the names of body parts, Dr. Mark then proceeded to explain and illustrate the use of the new probes and scopes.

The Ukrainians were absolutely delighted, especially when they realized that Dr. Mark had brought all the equipment for them to keep and use.

After Dr. Mark had spent the entire day with the Ukrainian doctors, they took him to dinner to celebrate their new friendship. Fortunately, by that time the interpreter had caught up with them, and things went a lot easier. At dinner, with the aid of the interpreter, Dr. Mark gave the Ukrainian doctors an explanation of why he had come all the way from America to be with them. He explained what Jesus Christ had done in his life and how he had changed the lives of his entire family and their lifestyle. Now he was there to share Christ’s love and concern with them. 

The doctors arranged for Dr. Mark to operate on some of their patients the next morning. He was able to demonstrate the urology equipment and explain the latest medical procedures. I went into the operating room while Dr. Mark was doing the procedures. They had given him Russian operating scrubs and a tall stovepipe baker’s hat worn by the surgeons. I must admit, it was one of the proudest days of my life with Project C.U.R.E. What was taking place halfway around the world from Denver, Colorado, and Nashville, Tennessee, had to be making God smile.

The day after Thanksgiving, Dr. Mark Johnson and Dr. Brian McMurray went back to Vinnitsa and held free clinics at a Russian Orthodox church, a Pentecostal church, and several of the Baptist churches in the area. On that trip they each took with them their eleven- and twelve‑year‑old daughters. Their entire families were now locked into sharing the love of God through medicine with people they had never even known existed two years before.

While returning to the airport in Kiev for the flight back to the USA, Dr. Mark asked Edward Gluschenko, our English-speaking liaison in Ukraine, what we could do for them that would be uniquely helpful. Edward explained that the Ukrainian legislature was in the process of determining the direction of the health-care industry in their new republic. In the past, Ukrainian medical philosophies and practices had been sternly dictated by the Soviet designers in Moscow, as in all the other republics. Ukraine’s health-care delivery system was rigidly centralized. Doctors and other medical personnel were simply workers of the state assigned to take care of the sick people of the Soviet Union. There was no invitation for creativity and no tolerance for deviation from mandated procedures.

Now, with the collapse of the Soviet regime, Ukraine was facing a historic opportunity for change. Now was the time to change the philosophical direction of health care for the first time ever. Edward explained to Mark the desire to take full advantage of the fortuitous timing and build into the new system some basic cornerstones of free market, non-centralized medicine. The new laws were to be voted on by parliament in late January or early February of 1997. Those new laws would set the direction for the future of the medical profession.

The only problem was that no one in the Ukraine knew enough about free-enterprise economics to even begin to formulate the concepts, let alone articulate in a written proposal to the legislature the articles expected to be voted into the new law of the land. Edward asked if Dr. Mark might know of anyone who might be able to help them at this juncture.

Continued Next Week: A Bold and Crazy Plan 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

 

 www.jameswjackson.com 

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com