Brain Drain

"Brain Drain" has been one of the issues debated where development is concern. To my understanding, it is the situation whereby talents in developing countries are attracted to migrate and work in developed countries. This migration of talent is therefore known as "brain drain" (I might be wrong with this definition).

How do we measure "brain drain"?
I did a search on the articles regarding this topic and surprisingly, almost all of it was written with plenty of assumptions and uses mathematical models to predict the effect. I could not find any solid quantitative data showing "brain drain" and therefore it remains a question about the seriousness of this problem.

Is this "brain drain"?
To my understanding, "brain drain" is a flow of trained talents migrating from developing to developed countries. What if the potential talents have been attracted to these developed countries before receiving the full training? (i.e. brilliant students given scholarship to study in developed countries) Does it still consider "brain drain"?

Just putting down my thoughts regarding this issue. It seems to me that this is another difficult areas that quantitative information is unavailable. I guess developing countries might not be able to identify the amount of "brain drain". In a hypothetical situation, a person would not inform his/her country when he/she intends to move overseas. Therefore I was just wondering how do the country actually know the actual amount of "brain drain".

Make a Difference

Won't you Lord, take a look at our hands
Everything we have, we used it for Your plan

Won't you Lord, take a look at our hearts
Mold it, refine it and set us apart

We will run to the altar and catch the fire
To stand in the gap between the living and the death
Give us a heart of compassion
For the world without a vision
We will make a difference
Bringing hope to our land

I first heard this song, "Make a Difference", when I was volunteering at the NCO Training School in Ipoh in 2001. This period was one of the most challenging period of my spiritual walk with God. It was the time of slow recovering after a major "tsunami" in my spiritual life. The song meant to be my crying to the Lord and telling him the pain that is in me.

For the next few years, I came across this song a couple of times.

Then for the past two Sundays, this song have been sang during worship service, probably because it was International Mission Sunday. This time, the song brings a new dimension and understanding. It was now more of a cry asking God to use my life to fulfill His calling. That spirit within me is yearning to tell God, "I want to make a difference".

Looking at that, what remarkable blessings I have received from God since that crisis. Things have changed for the better and indeed God has used that dark point to become the turning point of blessings. Confidently, I can now tell God,

"Take a look at my hands and heart, use it for the purpose You intended for me to fulfill. I am willing to be the bridge over the gap in impacting the people You intended for me to impact. Take charge of my life in accordance to Your plan. Grant me a clear understanding of Your calling and provide all the support for me to accomplish the mission. Amen."