Bush brings faith to foreign aid

[kpete]

(Posting this for a friend who was right to call this scary...kpete
)

PART 1: CHANGING THE RULES | EXPORTING FAITH
Bush brings faith to foreign aid
As funding rises, Christian groups deliver help -- with a message


October 8, 2006

This story is the first of four parts. It was reported and written by Farah Stockman, Michael Kranish, and Peter S. Canellos of the Globe Staff, and Globe correspondent Kevin Baron.

A LAKARTINYA, Kenya -- The herders of this remote mountain village know little about America, but have learned from those who run a US-funded aid program about the American God.

A Christian God.

The US government has given $10.9 million to Food for the Hungry, a faith-based development organization, to reach deep into the arid mountains of northern Kenya to provide training in hygiene, childhood illnesses, and clean water. The group has brought all that, and something else that increasingly accompanies US-funded aid programs: r egular church service and prayer.

President Bush has almost doubled the percentage of US foreign-aid dollars going to faith-based groups such as Food for the Hungry, according to a Globe survey of government data. And in seeking to help such groups obtain more contracts, Bush has systematically eliminated or weakened rules designed to enforce the separation of church and state.

more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/10/08/bush_brings_faith_to_foreign_aid/