Good effort, TRO, but you are thinking too small. Infrastructure would in fact save more lives than missions. Hygiene, water systems? Small change, these folks need roads, utilities, school systems and non-exploitative governments! Sadly, it is beyond the ability of the first world to provide these things to the third world: see the effects of 200 years of well-intentioned work in Haiti. More poignantly, see the effects of our missionary work in the middle east, conducted not by Methodists from Ohio but by the powerful intellects and massive resources of the military and intelligence communities.

Missioning is hard, and JI is using exactly the right approach by supporting small, non-governmental efforts to do a little, temporary good by person to person contact, support and love. Missioning is retail work to make things a little better, and to communicate some level of personal concern. Nothing else works as well. Most everything else doesn't work at all.