Paul Myhill's Blog

Give a Child a Gift of Hope This Season!

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we remember that He was born into poverty under 'shameful' circumstances and then immediately fled to Egypt to escape death. As such, Jesus intimately understands the plight of vulnerable and displaced children around the world today.

I've listed a few special Project Opportunities on my blog here at Abandoned-Orphaned.Com. They include providing homes for abandoned children in China and Ethiopia, rebuilding lives in Rwanda and Sudan, giving backpacks for orphans in Bangladesh and India, rehabilitating former child soldiers in Burma, preventing child trafficking in Thailand and Moldova, and fitting orphaned kids with new shoes in Kenya and Guatemala.

As you purchase Christmas gifts for friends and family, will you please remember the gifts that were presented to our Savior on that first Christmas? Will you please give Him a birthday present by providing a gift of hope to the children that He identifies with so well?

"Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me." (Matthew 18:5, NIV)

These special project opportunities can be viewed here or by simply scrolling through the prior blog posts below.

Thanks and have a Blessed Christmas!

Until They All Have Homes,

Paul
President – World Orphans

Gifts of Hope in India

Backpacks for former orphaned children

One of World Orphans church partners has built several homes for children around the slums of Hyderabad. These children attend local schools but the church needs help to pay for their backpacks and school supplies. We need to raise $890 for this task.

Giving Options

Enter the following code on your check or online memo: IND-544-Backpacks

Clothing for children in church-based homes

New clothes are a rarity in the slums of Hyderabad. However, our church partner knows that clothing and shoes are necessary for the former orphans in their care. They reuse clothing when possible, but the children frequently wear them out. As such, the church needs to purchase new clothes and a pair of shoes for 95 children. Each set (a full set of clothes and a pair of shoes) costs $22 ($2,090 for all of the children.)

Giving Options

Enter the following code on your check or online memo: IND-544-Clothes

Computers for vocational training

Our church partner in Hyderabad provides the best care they can for the rescued children in their care. Teaching these children valuable computer skills sets them up for quality jobs, enabling them to provide for themselves and for their future families. We would like to supply the church with several computers for this important program. The cost of these computers is $4,400 and will enable dozens of children to break the cycle of poverty and abandonment.

Giving Options

Enter the following code on your check or online memo: IND-544-Computers

Innocence Lost

"The chain on the door is to keep the rogues out. Before I put it there, they would break in to steal from us and rape us."

Janet, a thirty two year-old mother, shared this with me matter-of-factly, accepting rape as an inevitable occurrence in the Zulu shanty town we were visiting, an area that police rarely go into. The way in which the information was conveyed was as impacting to me as the information itself. Janet wasn’t crying and crumbling over the fact she has been raped repeatedly. She simply communicated it much like we would communicate going out to the mailbox to pick up our junk solicitations and bills. Just another fact of life, another routine incident.

The rogues are youth and men, often addicted to drugs, who break into the shacks, robbing victims to feed their habits or lust. To be "real men" the witch doctors tell them they must have sex every other day. To get a high, they need funds. Both can be found in poorly-protected tin shanties occupied by widows and orphans. "If they get in, we offer ourselves so that our children aren’t raped," Janet further explained.

There is no surprise that the area we were in was the AIDS and drugs capital of South Africa. Such things go hand in hand. When tied to a tradition of outright male dominance and the cultural requirement for frequent sex, you’re left with a boiling cauldron of abuse and disease. Tin shanties are simply cages that hold prey, incubators that hold diseased victims.

Janet used to have a chair sitting on the flattened dry mud she calls her front porch. After she put the chains on the rusty front door, she discovered that she had to move the chair inside also. The rogues would use it to get up onto her roof, pry back the tin sheets and drop in through the ceiling to rape her. I heard the sounds in my head: the sound of men lumbering up the side of the shack, the sound of heavy footsteps on the tin surface overhead, the sound of crowbars dragging across the thin corrugated barrier, the sound of metal against metal and nails popping, the sound of creaking sheets bending against the will of determined predators. The sound of screaming.

Janet is HIV positive, no doubt infected by one of her attackers or perhaps the husband that left her for another woman. Her 8ft. by 8ft. shack has two decorations – a teddy bear stuffed high into a corner, and the memorial program for her mother’s funeral held by a clothes peg to a metal edge of the shanty siding. A teddy bear and a funeral program. Innocence and loss. Innocence lost.

Today is World AIDS Day. According to an AP report this morning, "South Africa has an estimated 5.5 million people living with the HIV virus — the highest total of any country in the world and more than one-sixth of the global total. About 1,000 South Africans die each day of the disease and complications like tuberculosis. Even more become infected because prevention messages haven't worked."

Please remember the infected and affected world today. Mothers like Janet.

Children of the Dump (part one)

The graveyard is at least ten city blocks long and five or six city blocks wide. Mausoleum after mausoleum lines a grid work of streets that cut through the expansive cemetery of above-ground tombs. Most of the crypts are very elaborate, reminding me of latter-day versions of the carved sarcophagi in the necropolis of Hierapolis, Turkey, where the Apostle Philip was executed. These more recent vestiges do indeed show wear and tear themselves from the battering of tropical storms and the chiseling of homeless day laborers who find shelter and employment in the sprawling city of the dead.

People of lesser means are laid in multistory sepulchers adorned with colorful epitaphs and creeping plants. Some of these stacked vaults have been bashed in, and the remains removed, due to families’ inability to pay the regular maintenance fee. Rusty metal barrels ominously sit next to open graves, presumably to transport the former occupants to no-rent areas…or perhaps to the adjoining dump.

Large black vultures circle the edges of the cemetery, marking the boundary where interred trash merges with interred bodies. I stood on an outcropping, a place where these filthy beasts roosted on monochromatic crypts devoid of pomp and circumstance. A scene out of an Agatha Christie movie, swarms of birds perched on dead trees and equally-dead tombs while their brothers and cousins filled the air with the constant whooshing and whomping of large wings in motion. The morbid foreground panorama is placed against a background of trash and slums that reach to the horizon.

The stench of wet vulture droppings is mixed with the stomach-wrenching odor of decaying waste, hauled in by a continual line of trucks weaving in from the city’s compacted neighborhoods of three million residents.

Some of those residents were directly below us, sifting through the fresh refuse swarming with maggots and flies, looking for items of perceived value and sorting recyclables into piles of future subsistence income.

The last time I was in the Guatemala City dump was quite a few years ago, but just a few years removed from the country’s thirty-six year civil war, the longest in the Americas I’m told. Tensions were still high and wounds were still raw. The images of families working through piles of waste, in a country where many people had been laid waste, were disconcerting, to say the least.

To be continued...

Rude Awakenings

I’m not ashamed to tell you that we now have three kids sleeping in our room.

Two year-old Hannah has staked out her position between Lisa and me on our king-sized bed. Caleb, five years old, camps down on a toddler mattress next to the footboard. Newborn Naomi is strategically set next to Lisa in a bedside bassinette.

Three children under the age of six in our room?

Yes, it certainly makes for moments of late-night chaos, especially for a really light sleeper like me.

Naomi is up every three hours or so for her feeding. As Lisa takes care of the new baby, Hannah, realizing that mommy is occupied with someone other than her, wakes up in protest. Hannah is also known to talk in her sleep, often arguing with Caleb or loudly proclaiming, "Mine! Mine!" to an imaginary acquirer of her toys.

Caleb takes his middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom while totally oblivious of those trying to sleep around him. Thump, thump, thump across the wood floors, followed by the illuminating of every light possible and a toilet visit and flush with door wide open.

Meanwhile, Faith, our less-than-quiet six-year old in the next room, makes similar nighttime journeys down the hall past our open door.

Is it any wonder that I’m quite tired these days?

I was once told in the Philippines that the reason Americans don’t have larger families is because we don’t have enough rooms for each child. There is a belief in some parts of the developing world that we rich affluent Americans, with our desire to put each child in a room of their own, limit our families accordingly. Two extra bedrooms translates into two children.

Meanwhile, in the slums of Bombay, Manila, Lima, Nairobi and the world over, families of eight are crammed into one-room 8 ft. by 8ft. shacks.

My nocturnal distractions occur in a scene of great comfort – a room set at 72 degrees Fahrenheit with a constantly circulating fan providing a gentle breeze, a plush pillow-top bed so thick that you could lose yourself in it, plenty of space for the five nighttime inhabitants, and a peaceful sense of stability and security. Everybody goes to sleep with full bellies and, should anybody be sick, there are multitudes of medicines on hand.

To the contrary, those shanty-town dwellers live on urine-soaked dirt floors with no running water. Any stirring of disease-ridden children in the middle of a hot and humid night means that the whole family is awakened. Mosquitoes buzz around the heads of the feverish kids, while the danger of a home invasion by thieves is ever present. The black sooty walls choke the lungs while splintered wood makes a comfortable sleep-time position even harder to attain. Sweat-drenched sheets enunciate the combined body odors of a family that hasn’t been able to bathe in weeks.

Like most, I love weekends. After a restless night of multiple rude awakenings, I arise later than usual to sunlight flooding in through stained-glass windows. Soon there will be the scent of coffee and bacon filling the air. A nice hot shower, and a pick from many freshly-cleaned clothes, helps to get the day in order. All my smaller bed-chamber mates have long scurried off in search of cartoons and fairytales.

Meanwhile, it’s just another day of hard labor for the father in the developing world who tried to fight for a few precious hours of sleep inside his sardine-packed abode. His young daughter vomited on him last night, just another episode among many like it, night after night. There is no aromatic food greeting him, nor any fresh shower and clean clothes. The only light streaming into his dark hovel is through the same slats that neighbors can peer through, the same openings that bring the bugs and vermin.

How on earth does he have a day where he has the rest, energy and health to provide for his struggling family?

Maybe my sleepless nights aren’t so bad after all.

World Orphans Weekly! - Kenya Crashing

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

Most of you know that we frequently face dangerous situations as we travel the globe to initiate and facilitate the work of World Orphans. I’ve been plopped into the middle of scenes of aggression on many occasions. Add in unstable political circumstances, potential muggings, high-risk kidnap scenarios, religious tensions, and general civil conflict, and you have a rather potent mix for unrest and violence.

It’s never bothered me. It’s simply part of the risk and call to the Church and children.

I have to admit, though, that on the heels of my trip to Rwanda, the news of the rape, mutilations and killings in Kenya – especially in places of worship - had me a bit unsettled. A country of relative stability over its four decades of independence, Kenya took me by surprise.

Kenya is a country I love and visit often. World Orphans has funded over 90 church-based homes there that rescue and care for thousands of abandoned and orphaned children. Our in-country regional representative is based there. Key mission agency partners are based there. The capital city, Nairobi, along with Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, acts as our main entry point for ministry and teams into the region.

I’m in Hawaii right now, a world away from the terrors of night and the machetes that fly by day. I sense from light and diminishing news interest, that the general population is again numb to the issues and concerns of corruption and social turmoil in Africa, just like in 1994.

I’d like you to connect further with this country I love. Below are a few entries I’ve written over the last year alone regarding Kenya. I invite you to read, learn...and pray and act as if you yourselves were suffering.

RECENT UNREST

More Violence; More Orphans – Another church filled with women and children is set ablaze

Rape as a Weapon – Young boys and girls are not immune to such hatred

Kenya Violence in Photos – one, two, three, four.

PAST INDICATIONS

Demolition – An angry Muslim mob levels a church-based children’s home on Christmas Eve

Evil in their Hearts. Hate in their Eyes – Encircled by radicals at the site of destruction

THE SLUMS – FLASHPOINTS OF UNREST

The Breeding and Killing Grounds of the Orphan – Enter their world of desperation

The Testing of Job – Your husband is dead. Your seven children have all died of AIDS. You are caring for your orphaned granddaughter. You have HIV/AIDS yourself. Where is the hope?

Starfish – A little orphan girl reminds us of the hope and task

Red Handprints – The measure of a man?

Three Infant Boys – Will they survive to my next visit?

Women and Children First – In this sad reality, women are nothing more than possessions

Mud Caskets and Mansions – Better to live in squalor with Jesus, than in luxury without Him

Discarded Children – Children of the dumps in Kibera slum

Threads: Two Boys. Two Worlds – An intimate reminder in the Mathare slum

Stronger – How do the slums of Nairobi affect a person?

OTHER RELEVANT KENYA REFLECTIONS

Corruption – A root cause of the current crisis. A daily reality in Kenya

Namesake – Marked for death, this abandoned child defied the odds

The Lion's Share – Many African rulers ‘rape’ their nations for personal and tribal gain

Until They All Have Homes,

Paul Myhill
President/CEO

World Orphans
1840 Woodmoor Dr., Suite 100
Monument, CO 80132
1-888-ORPHANS
719-487-1700
Facebook Profile

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant.

Dhaka Home

The opening of our latest church-based home occurred a couple of days ago (November 1st) in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The urban slum conditions in Dhaka are absolutely miserable. In just the last ten years the city’s slum population has swelled to over 3.4 million people, crowded at a density of 891 persons per acre. They live in seams of garbage that run through the city as well as in hinterlands, built upon the excrement of the metropolis, in squalid conditions that are susceptible to flood and disease.

Such conditions propagate an abundance of orphaned and abandoned children.

But the church is there, there to pick up these kids from pestilence, pick-pocketing and prostitution.

(FORTUNATE ONES: Children in one of the cleaner Dhaka slums)

(NEW BEGINNINGS: Visiting our latest home, during the construction stage)

(LATEST ARRIVAL: The home today)

(NOW IN  A FAMILY: A rescued child sleeps comfortably in his new home and clothes)

Aversion

I narrowly averted harm today. I saw them gathering as I was walking along the fringes of the slum. The lead youth signaled others to join him, waving them over with low sweeps of his hand. They tracked me down a slum row as I was taking a parallel course on a busy street lined with sidewalks of broken pavers covered in slippery mud.

(DIRTY WATERS. A row of slum homes perches on a polluted riverbank in Addis Ababa)

They didn’t know that I had noticed them, but after traveling to some eighty developing-world countries, I’m super-sensitized to such things. The lead guy took an intercept course towards me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him lift the rear of his shirt and quickly put a knife behind his belt at his lower back. He pulled down on the hem of his shirt to conceal it. The other youths, about ten in number, circled around a lone shanty in front of me, presumably to trap me between them and their leader.

(DANGEROUS LABYRINTH. Slums in Addis Ababa abut busy roads and commercial districts)

A wave of traffic was approaching on the street, about thirty yards away. Just at the point of our convergence, the leader raised his hand up gesturing me to stop. He shouted something inaudible. I quickly stepped into the oncoming vehicles, dodging cars across six lanes as they slowed or swerved to miss me. The gang was yelling. The horns were blowing. I was safe.

I don’t take for granted my personal security when I travel. But I certainly lift it up to God.

During my first trip to Addis Ababa a few years ago, six terrorist car bombs were detonated in shopping areas on the day we left. Had we been in those markets? I don’t know. I was in India when the trains were bombed in Mumbai, killing hundreds in an instant. I was in Thailand during the recent military coup, albeit a quiet one. And I’ve been in too many high-tension situations to count, where Westerners are public enemy #1.

(QUIET COUP. Fortunately, this one didn't go badly in Thailand)

My wife and I were mugged in the Caribbean a number of years ago. Youths surrounded us, pressing fish knives to our bellies. I felt immobilized as I saw the blade on my wife. As they started to run with their new-found riches, I started to chase them. Yep, not exactly the smartest thing to do, but I knew my wife was safe at that point. The sight of a white guy chasing a bunch of black youths across a beach was probably quite a spectacle. They threw my camera to the ground to divert me from the chase.

As a creative-type with a passion for photography, I counted that as quite the victory.

Kids, don’t try that at home, though. Probably not good to jump into oncoming traffic either.

Stronger

Jason Kelly, the youth pastor that joined Mike, me and the Pa Pa's on the East Africa trip, wrote some very descriptive words regarding his journey with us into the Mathare Valley slum in Nairobi, Kenya. They are definitely worth reading. I have therefore posted them below (with a little editing and abridging for length) and have included some of my photographs that match with his observations and reflections:
_____________________________________________________

Looking down at my fingers on this keyboard, I am struggling with where to begin. So much happened today and my thoughts are many and jumbled. I thought I saw the most desperate place yesterday, nothing doing. Today was an emotionally difficult day. I woke up anxious about it, but really didn’t fully understand why. I understand better as the day is fading away. 

So far, every place we have been in Nairobi has required long rides. This morning’s ride, however, was only a short distance and ended at a fuel station. Paul announced that we were meeting Lameck, our host from Fountain of Life Children’s Home, and picking up two armed soldiers.

(Image: Our soldier escorts)

I was really anxious, wondering what in the world we were doing going to a place that required armed men. I had some good prayer with the Lord this morning and found great peace in the light of the approaching challenge. We drove across the road from the fuel station and entered a narrow road surrounded by row after row of shacks.

 

(Image: One of the soldiers oversees our disembarkation point) 

These shacks were covered with mud, tin, tarps, and no telling what all. As we slowly traveled down this alleyway, the passage grew narrower with each passing shack. This entire slum is not even a square mile in size, and it lies in a valley. Looking down from the top of that valley, all I could see was a sea of rust-colored tin and make-shift roofs.

(Images: Tin-roof maze)

The normal pack of children began to follow us and watch every move we made. Before long we stopped and Mike and Paul opened the door to get out. I gathered my cameras and with mixed emotion got out of the comfort of the van.

 

(Image: Jason after exiting the van)

Initially, I was disconnected from my environment and fully intended to keep it that way, and the  two tall guys with guns behind me served as a great distraction, keeping me from truly appreciating the setting around me.

(Image: The reason and the distraction) 

I imagine if I were flying over this slum, looking down on it would look like a maze.  Each shack was attached and there weren’t backdoors to any of them. A series of two to three foot alley ways lead us to our first stop and the one room home of a lady named Elizabeth. The dirt floor in her house was at least two foot lower than the alley way outside.  Entry to the home required climbing down into it. Looking down into the room, I saw Elizabeth. She was a middle aged woman holding a less than year old baby. Turns out her story is far too familiar in this slum. She had two daughters die of AIDS and leave behind children.

(Image: Children outside of one of the 'homes' we visited)

Walking through this slum required careful steps. The rusty corners of tin were at eye level and the ground was covered with ruts flowing with sewage. We visited others in the slum all to find out they all were struggling to meet the bare necessities of life. The very things I take for granted are missing in these people’s lives.

(Images: Rivers of raw sewage flow down every slum road and alley) 

At one point, I spotted two little girls about three years old. They were dirty and standing so close to a collection of sewage and trash. An unexpected image hit my mind and caused me to enter into one of the most humbling experiences. I pictured my kids in this place.

(Image: A young girls navigates past the sewage rut outside her home)   

(Image: Thick sludge-stream of feces)

I was unsuccessful in keeping my mind from thinking about Jensen walking through this mess with no shoes. I could vividly see Juddy Bear running down an alley way with no shirt or shoes but clothed with the yuck of the slum. I visualized Jackson leaning against a wall looking down at the ground. Those thoughts were too much and the painful reality that children just like mine, were doing these very thing, living in this mess. My eyes filled with tears and they streamed down my face. The thoughts of my children living in that place were painful, but those thoughts soon turned into great compassion for the children that actually live there.

(Image: Children on their 'playground')

At one point the pain in my heart was so great I could hardly stand it, and for some reason, I just looked up, I suppose to take my eyes off of what I couldn’t stand to see. I noticed the sky looks just like it does in Arkansas. I was instantly reminded at that point that God was looking down, and he never changes, nor does he make any mistakes.

I admit, I questioned God why anybody should or would live that way. Only He knows why.

(Image: Another young girl standing amongst the piles of trash and excrement)

Some of us made the trek down to the center of that valley and there was a stream flowing there.  It wasn’t a pretty stream; the water was gray and full of trash. Disease and death were flowing in this water. Hundreds of people’s homes were on the dirty banks. While I was there, many were cooking nearby, children playing, animals growing. The sight of a banana tree growing by this stream made me sick to my stomach. The very thought that this was a real place seemed impossible, and still does as I think back on those images forever etched on my mind.

(Images: River of disease and death)

As we walked back up out of the belly of that horrible place, I began to sing a Nicole C. Mullin song in my head - Redeemer. I don’t know all the words in right order but some that hit me were: "Who made the stars shine in the heavens, who told the ocean you can only come this far? I know my Redeemer lives. I know my Redeemer lives, let all creation testify, that God’s love will never die.  I know my Redeemer lives."

When I got back into the van, I got out my bible and read the relevant words of Romans 12:9-18:

"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Be patient in hope, joyful in affliction and faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it is dependent on you, live at peace with everyone." 

Looking back over all the events of this day, my heart was heavy, but my faith in God was stronger than twelve hours before.

(Image: Many children like these live in these conditions without parents. We can indeed see them protected and stronger also)

Mathare War Rages

As always, I constantly have feet and thoughts in multiple parts of the world simultaneously. Even though I type this from Romania, I just received the following newspaper article (edited and abridged) concerning violence in the Mathare Valley Slum in Nairobi, Kenya. One of our partner organizations, Fountain of Life America, has a team there right now. I will also be in Mathare with a group in mid July. We ask for your prayers for the current team and their ministry in the area during this time of bloodshed in the slum.

Please note that street youths are very much a part of this gruesome picture – youths that can be rescued by the church today...and younger children that can be saved before becoming part of their numbers.

Thursday June 7, 2007

Mathare War Rages

The Mungiki Sect left behind the most gruesome handiwork of their murderous march yet after they killed a man, beheaded him, and carved out his lifeless body in indescribable fashion.

With it, they left the residents of Mathare slum, arguably Nairobi’s second largest informal settlement with about 500,000 people, shell-shocked, struggling to come to terms with the bloodletting.

Residents and passersby, their faces a mask of horror and mouths agape, watched the spectacle from a distance, baffled.

And last night, another head believed to belong to a missing police officer was found in Nairobi River.

Police officers were mobilized to find the torso, which was still missing by the time of going to press.

In Mathare’s Mlango Kubwa, the audacity and sheer cold bloodedness with which the killers went about the gruesome act left even security officers groping in the dark.

About 20 officers armed with rifles arrived at the scene and cordoned it off, before setting about the morbid exercise of retrieving the parts.

Number of dead unknown

Only a handful of people visited to collect bodies of relatives, whose deaths were unrelated to Monday’s police crackdown, a retaliatory mission triggered by the killing of two officers on patrol in the crime-infested slum. Twenty-seven people lay dead when the guns finally fell silent.

At one point, a police Land Cruiser from Muthaiga Police Station drove into the mortuary in the afternoon to off-load its grisly cargo: the torso of a man whose head had been recovered earlier in the morning.

One of the witnesses, a man who sold body bags and who had unlimited access to the morgue, said he witnessed bodies "piled-up" on the floor the morning after the killings.

"I went there (mortuary) in the morning (Tuesday). The bodies were piled up in one corner of the room. Walikuwa ma vijanaa (They were youths)," he said.

Another colleague who spoke to The Standard moments later was forthcoming: "The bodies were many. Maybe 25 or more. "Waliletwa na wakamwagwa hapa usiku". (They were brought and dumped here)," he said.

It took police with the help of Mathare residents over an hour to trace and retrieve the torso of the victim of the Mlango Kubwa gruesome murder from the dirty water. No one among the residents claimed to have witnessed the killing.

Men have deserted slum

Men are said to have deserted the slum in droves, leaving behind only women and children as police announced they had killed another suspect on Tuesday night.

Two other Mungiki suspects were gunned down as they prepared to meet at a Mathare riverbank.

This unfolded as hawk-eyed police lay in wait at the City Mortuary, screening all arrivals while hoping to catch up with anyone remotely linked to the victims of the Monday night massacre in Mathare. The bodies lay in the cold rooms awaiting identification by the next of kin, friends or sect members.

By late last evening, no one had turned up at the morgue to identify the bodies. With Flying Squad and regular police officers alternately driving in and out of the morgue, a pulsating sense of uncertainty hung around the place.

"We suspect that most of those killed by police in Mathare may have been youths staying alone," a City Council official manning the mortuary gates told The Standard.