Fmr. YWAMer's "Mercy Corps" Turns 25

kingcountyjournal.com - Mercy Corps turns 25 with its founding values still intact: "What started as O'Neill's small nonprofit in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood is now a leader in the world of international relief and development. Last year Mercy Corps, now based in Portland, raised and spent $154 million in aid, helping more than 7 million people in 35 countries.

Some of the current projects include helping more than 1 million victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami in India, Sri Lanka, Somalia and Aceh province in Indonesia, and providing health, water and sanitation assistance to 90,000 people in Sudan's Darfur region.

Mercy Corps is currently sending a team of experts to the Gulf Coast to assist its partner organization Episcopal Relief and Development, which has people on the ground there.

``They've now become an agency that is listened to, that is on the forefront of issues in Washington, D.C.,'' said Paul Kennel, president of World Concern, which is the international relief arm of CRISTA Ministries.

Through the organization's 25 years of growth, many things have changed, including the gradual evolution of Mercy Corps' mission and the emergence of a whole new profession in relief and development work.

Who Dan O'Neill is as a person is very much a part of what Mercy Corps has become.

Born in Olympia and growing up in Shelton and Bellevue where he attended Sammamish High School, O'Neill was raised by his conservative Baptist parents. On his mother's side of the family were ministers and missionaries. On his father's side, Harley-riding rebels.

O'Neill, now 57, takes after both.

In 1971, as he was finishing up a degree in graphic design at the University of Washington, he began what has become a lifelong process of philosophical reflection.

``I made a conscious decision to engage in things that matter,'' he said. ```Shouldn't it be about something bigger than Dan O'Neill?'''

``I think he is a genuine person of faith, and I say that in a way that is overused these days,'' said Margaret Larson of Bellevue, a former NBC correspondent who now consults with relief agencies, including Mercy Corps. ``He spends a lot of time questioning how we connect with people as human beings.''

O'Neill gave up his student deferment from the Vietnam-era draft, reasoning -- and gambling -- that if his draft lottery number didn't come up, he would drop down into the lower tier of priority the following year.

In 1972, degree in hand, he sold his motorcycle and the car he worked through college to pay for and signed up to join Youth With a Mission, a Christian relief group. He spent the summer in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe (called Rhodesia back then), Uganda and Kenya.

``It opened the door that there's a whole world out there with wars, famines, disease. That was a wake-up call for me,'' he said."

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