Where Am I Giving: A Global Adventure Exploring How to Use Your Gifts and Talents to Make a Difference

2One Night in a Slum Showed Me How Poor I Was (Kenya, 2010): Why should we care when we have our own problems? / My problem with missionaries / Giving thoughts and prayers

TO ME KENYA FELT LIKE AN ESCAPE. Back home the world was shrinking.

The financial crisis of 2008 that had introduced chaos around the world first came to my attention in the monthly sales reports of my family's business, aka my day job. I had worked on and off for Timmerman Truss since I was in eighth grade. The American Dream my parents had built over four decades ended and the nightmare began.

The US economy neared collapse as the housing bubble, which had fueled the success of the business, burst. Our problem became everyone else's.

Main Street pointed to Wall Street's follies. Wall Street blamed Main Street's irresponsible borrowing. But on countless, nameless, and forgotten streets around the world, lives hung in the balance.

I lost my job along with my 40 coworkers. We weren't alone. Tens of millions of workers around the world also lost their jobs, but I became too lost in the epicenter of my own crisis to think of the impact it was having elsewhere. After two years of suffering meetings with bankers, lawyers, potential investors, and advisers, all hope of salvaging the business was gone, so I ran for the hills of Africa.

I had a wife who loved me and a 14-month-old daughter with whom I danced and laughed daily, but I felt like we had lost everything. We could barely make it to the next unemployment ...