Looking at the Y2K problem from a religious perspective

By JUDY TARJANYI

Toledo Blade

Shaunti Feldhahn could well be the Joan of Arc of the new millennium, driving a small army of Christians to do battle with the impact of the Y2K computer bug.

Clad in business attire instead of armor, the 31-year-old financial risk analyst is leading a charge inspired by her belief that the inability of many computers to adjust to the year 2000 on Dec. 31, 1999 will, at the minimum, result in the kinds of disruptions that occur with natural disasters.

Armed with a resume that includes a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University and experience as a financial analyst with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Feldhahn has founded the Joseph Project 2000, a nationwide effort to help churches, nonprofit organizations, and families respond to Y2K-induced problems.

She speaks to groups around the country on the issue.

Feldhahn, in a recent speech in Toledo, Ohio, that she first started looking at the Y2K problem as just another risk to be analyzed and then realized it was one of the biggest risks she had seen. "It just sort of weighed on me," she said.

As she told a friend about it during lunch earlier this year, her dining companion asked, "Why isn't the church talking about this?" Her friend cited the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis in which one man helps save an entire nation because he foresees a famine and helps Egypt prepare for it by stockpiling food.

"From that day on," Feldhahn said, "I looked at everything I saw through completely different eyes. I saw Y2K as a need for service."

Her friend suggested she write an article for a major religious publication like Christianity Today, but Feldhahn knew one article wouldn't be enough. A book would be needed, but for her to write it would be absurd, she thought, since she had no track record for getting her writing published.

Feldhahn decided to start organizing a book anyway. She and her attorney husband, Jeff, had just moved from New York City to Atlanta and the consulting work she was doing allowed her some time to pursue the project.

What happened next Feldhahn likes to describe as one of God's "really cool works."

She was in a meeting at a Christian financial planning firm and happened to mention her book idea to someone who said the firm just happened to have an executive on staff who had previously worked in Christian publishing. Maybe he could help?

When Feldhahn told him about her Y2K project, he seemed taken aback then said he had just spoken with a contact at a Christian publishing house who was looking for someone to write a book on the Y2K problem.

Within three weeks, Feldhahn had a contract and within 50 days, she had finished the manuscript for a book that was published this week by Multnomah: "Y2K: the Millennium Bug -- A Balanced Christian Response."

But a book wasn't her only goal. She also was concerned about a way to help communities get ready for the effects of Y2K. In the same serendipitous way she had met the book publishing contact, she said, she was linked through a friend with a Medford, Ore., couple who had organized a community awareness event to help people prepare for Y2K disruptions.

"They spent a whole day with me and by the end of the day, I knew this was something I was not just supposed to write about, but actually do."

In addition to serving as president of the Joseph Project, Ms. Feldhahn is editing a monthly newsletter, Countdown Y2K, on the crisis.

When Feldhahn speaks to group, she sticks to the practical, telling people how to mobilize their churches to help others.

While some pastors are advising church members to grab their guns and dogs, their gold, and their groceries and head for the hills in anticipation of Y2K disruptions, she urges congregations to stick around and help.

"We need to be service, not survival oriented," she said.

"I hope everyone here is committed to help those you have nothing in common with. ... At times of crisis, people are looking for leadership, for the person who is prepared physically and spiritually to deal with it."

Communities, she said, rely heavily on churches in times of crisis, as they have in recent natural disasters that have swept the country. But, she went on, they need to prepare, and many are less prepared than the average small business.

Churches can get ready, she said, by building financial reserves so that they can function in a crisis when donations dip, by joining with other community organizations to build a helping network, by making the necessary preparations so that they can offer their facilities as a safe haven to people in need, and by adopting at-risk institutions in their neighborhoods.

Feldhahn said volunteers also can investigate the level of Y2K readiness in their communities by contacting utilities and other entities that supply electricity, water, and other services.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)