How about a thread...................

[Jo McDonald]

You know something, Pam,...(??) while I was reading your post, my thought went to the Amish community and the Mennonites.  They pretty much lean that way.  Sowing, reaping and taking care of themselves and others.  I really enjoyed that post.
Jo

[pamsback]

  Jo, I started this thread because the BAD news is what always grabs the attention and people get to thinkin there is nothin good happenin anywhere. There is a LOT of good in this country that has nothing to do with the government really. The politicians set up there in their castles and think they are runnin things but they really aren't, they are just a bunch of buffoons makin a lot of noise while out here in the real world there a millions of people quietly goin about the business of making their world a better place to be. It just doesn't make the news. There is enough dark......people need to see there is hope and kindness and good in their world. It's there...we just have to turn around from the dark to see it.

People making a difference: Gunnar Swanson
An Iraq war veteran has dedicated his life to helping children affected by conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By David Conrads | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 5, 2009 edition

Cameron, Mo. - What would impel someone to leave a good job and a great life in the Florida Keys and move to rural Minnesota in a snowstorm in February?

For Gunnar Swanson, it all started six years ago, when he was serving in Iraq with the 957 Multi Role Bridge Company of the North Dakota Army National Guard. One afternoon in 2003 he found himself aiming his M-16 rifle at a young Iraqi boy, warning the child, in a strong, nonverbal way, not to come any closer. The boy froze in his tracks, a puzzled look on his face, then ran off.

In his 12 months in Iraq, which included surviving a close call from an exploding rocket-propelled grenade, this experience was one that affected Sergeant Swanson the most.

Just three months earlier, the same scene would have played out in a completely different way. Then, Swanson and his fellow soldiers enjoyed frequent contact with the local children – talking with them, picking up some Arabic words, taking pictures, giving the kids candy and food, and buying souvenirs and ice from them. For the troops, these encounters were a reminder of home and an invaluable morale boost.

But as violence increased and insurgent activity escalated, more and more Iraqi children were coerced, sometimes threatened, into joining insurgent groups, who then used them against the American soldiers. With kids now representing a potentially dangerous or deadly distraction, all contacts with children were ordered to stop.

"Pointing a gun at a child, threatening to shoot him," Swanson recollects. "I was 25 years old at the time, and it has weighed pretty heavy on me ever since then."

Swanson left Iraq in 2004 and was discharged from the Army the following year, but his thoughts kept returning to the children he had seen and the cycle of violence in which they seemed to be trapped. Civilian life took him on a circuitous route that eventually landed him in what, for many, would be a dream job: training dolphins at a marine mammal educational center in Florida. For two years Swanson enjoyed every aspect of his job and his life, but it wasn't enough.

"I joined the military to serve my country, protect those who can't protect themselves, and to make the world a better place," he says. "I still wanted to do that even though I was out of the military. I was living a great life in Key Largo, but I knew that training dolphins wasn't my mission in life. My mission is to help these kids over in Iraq."

Persistence, serendipity, and a little help from Google led Swanson to the perfect outlet for his passion: War Kids Relief (WKR), a nonprofit organization in Northfield, Minn., that works on behalf of children in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been deeply affected by war. Economic opportunities there are extremely limited, even for those few lucky enough to graduate from high school, making young people easy targets for the Taliban.

After several conversations with Dina Fesler, president of WKR's parent organization, Children's Culture Connection, and a visit to Northfield, Swanson took the position of program manager. The job meant living in Northfield, so Swanson left Florida and moved to a house on a farm outside town.

Swanson's first order of business was planning and organizing "A Soldier's March for Peace," a 1,000-mile walk that started on July 4 in Dallas and recently ended on Sept. 11 near Northfield. Its purpose was not only to raise money and awareness, but to get children involved. Along the zigzag course, Swanson and Ms. Fesler (who followed in an RV) stopped and spoke to some 30 youth groups – YMCAs, summer camps, after-school centers – about the plight of children in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"He's kind of a tough guy on the outside, but he really is able to let his vulnerability shine through," Fesler says. "He's not afraid to be who he is."

"If I could use one word to describe Gunnar, I would have to say 'passionate,' " adds Chad Pedersen, who served with Swanson before and during the 957's deployment to Iraq. "He is passionate about helping those kids, and anything he gets excited about, he just pours his heart and soul into it."

With his bald Yul Brynner pate, warm personality, and 100-watt smile, Swanson is a big hit with children. In Cameron, Mo., 16 grade-school children at the YMCA respond enthusiastically as they learn the names of far-off cities like Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Sulaymaniyah. He tells them his first name has nothing to do with being in the military: He was named for his great-grandfather. (Gunnar is a Scandinavian name that means "brave soldier.") The children seem pleasantly surprised to discover that children in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite their severe hardships, also play soccer and computer games.

After a short talk, Swanson and Fesler pass out paper, pens, and art supplies, and the children write letters to their peers in the two war-torn countries. "A kid over in Iraq or Afghanistan who has received a letter from a kid in the United States will probably hold onto that letter for the rest of his life," Swanson tells them.

In all, 2,700 letters were collected and will be distributed sometime next year. "We really didn't want it to be just a walk," Fesler says later. "We wanted to turn the walk into something larger where we could really showcase why we are doing this and how we want children in America brought into this."

Money raised by WKR will go to building a rehabilitation and job-skills training center in Mosul, Iraq, and a vocational training center in Khost, Afghanistan. WKR partners with local groups in both countries.

Swanson's 1,000-mile walk and his encounters with children were also intended to inspire the children to undertake their own fundraising. Along the way, all manner of lemonade stands, bake sales, carwashes, and other efforts sprang up, contributing to WKR's project.

As more funds come in, Swanson hopes that construction can begin on the projects. "[The children] can feel like they're building the youth center in Iraq and the vocational center in Afghanistan," he says.

[pamsback]

I put this on the enlightenment thread and thought it was good for here too. I'm NOT afraid of the future....maybe it will be leaner...maybe not. Remember tho change means we are still alive and growing....when you stop moving...THAT'S when you start dying.

"My enlightenment today is slightly political in nature. I'll probably put it in politics too. I was thinkin about all the panic about our country. All the doomsdayers saying our country is done, that terrible things are fixin to take over and it made me remember a saying I read once. It's a saying of the Cheyenne people...it goes "No nation is defeated until the hearts of it's women lay on the ground..." Now most of the women I know pooh pooh the naysayers and say this too shall pass! Their hearts are nowhere NEAR the ground! If the women aren't giving up...why would the men? I say great days are ahead.....may we leave the darkness and seperation of the past behind us and move forward into the future with the confidence, courage and strength of our ancestors.

Smile you're American and the future is brighter than you think!"

[pamsback]

One Man, Many Butterflies
October
16

Another wonderful story showcasing the strength and power of one person...and many, many butterflies:

An Escondido man with a passion for the bright orange-and-black monarch butterfly will play a key role in the restoration of the butterfly's winter home in Mexico's Sierra Madre as a result of a binational initiative announced this week at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's climate summit in Los Angeles.

With the backing of California and Mexico officials, Bill Toone's local nonprofit environmental group ECOLIFE Foundation is aiming to plant 1 million trees a year in the lofty mountain range where an estimated 750 million monarch butterflies winter.

"We're trying to repair decades and decades of damage," Toone said, in a telephone interview Thursday. "Trees are leaving illegally at a very unsustainable rate."

Toone, a conservation biologist who celebrated his 54th birthday Thursday, said 200,000 to 250,000 oyamel fir trees are cut down every year in the range's 140,000-acre Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve by people in nearby villages seeking wood for cooking and heating. And he said another quarter-million or so trees are cut down for sale in a black market believed to be supplying paper mills.

Toone figures he can't do anything about the black market, but with some help his group can do something about the fuel-wood factor.

And, so, he has proposed planting 200,000 trees a year outside the reserve specifically for the purpose of supplying families with fuel for cooking meals and heating homes. Toone said the success of that effort will depend on donors worldwide.

But he said the reserve reforestation project will get a big boost from the binational agreement announced by California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Linda Adams and Mexican officials.

California officials are banking on the reforestation initiative helping the state meet its mandate to lower emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by 2020 to what they were in 1990.

Besides ordering the industry to reduce emissions, California plans to let factories, power plants, oil refineries and other large polluters reach their targets, in part, by buying so-called offsets. Companies would get emissions credits for pumping money into projects that slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Toone's tree-planting initiative is one of those projects that California corporations will be able contribute to.

Source: North County Times

[pamsback]

I hear a lot on here about worthless people........very few people are truly worthless.......sometimes they just THINK they are and all they need is a little kindness and for somebody to treat them like they matter to find out they do and to find the way they have been is NOT the way they have to be.............

Dustee Hullinger
A Woman with Gifted Hands
By Shirley Brosius
www.shirleybrosius.com

With Gifted Hands, Dustee Hullinger reaches out to people traumatized by life's experiences. The art and evangelistic program serves about 200 people each week at shelters, HIV/AIDS residences, community centers and churches in New York City. Volunteer artists offer workshops such as jewelry making, painting, cooking, drawing and woodworking.

"I have the God-given ability to work with people who have 99 percent going against them, find the one percent they have going for them and begin to work forward from that point," Dustee says. "I do not give up easily, and I see the best in everyone."

During the last eleven years, Dustee has produced 33 programs, including courses on character and life skills development, which are offered at 17 locations. Married and the mother of two, Dustee serves on the compassionate ministry staff of The Lamb's Church of the Nazarene in Times Square.

Born in North Dakota, Dustee grew up in Michigan. At age 13, she dedicated her life to God at a youth camp service, and mission trips challenged her. She dreamed of becoming a missionary or an archeologist—any profession that would facilitate traveling. God opened the door for her to become a flight attendant.
Then in 1993 doctors recommended Dustee give up her work due to injuries that caused back pain. A Make a Difference in Your World conference motivated her to work with the homeless, even though at that time she wondered what she could possibly have in common with them.

A cross-country move to New York City led Dustee to The Lamb's Church, where she told homeless men of God's love as she soaked their feet. Her desire to be the hands and feet of Jesus grew, and she developed an art and design class for young mothers at a homeless shelter.

As she taught in the inner city, Dustee noticed results. Wounded people developed self esteem. Battered women found community. And leaders emerged from those who had felt disempowered. Dustee solicited funding to offer art programs in the shelter system.

Dustee eventually joined the church's staff. Through the compassionate ministry, she has offered art and socio-drama workshops and invited the homeless and needy to join singing groups. She married Jim Hullinger, financial administrator of the church, and together they developed Pathway to Wholeness, a discipleship program for men.

Although at times Dustee felt as though she walked into a field of landmines as she worked with dysfunctional people, she persevered and became a woman with a mission—to help those who could not help themselves. Rather than becoming a missionary to Africa, as she had once dreamed, Dustee found her mission field in the concrete jungle of New York City.

According to Dustee, worship services and art programs held at shelters develop relationships, plant seeds and create a bridge to connect people to Christianity.

"If we don't step out and start these type of outreaches, people in these situations will never find the Lord," she says. "They are so fractured by life complexities. They are guilt ridden and feel unworthy to step into a church. They live in a survival mode."

God continues to give Dustee many opportunities to share about her work, and her ministry has invested seed money to start 13 programs in Africa.
With a patience level far above the norm, Dustee continues to fulfill Jesus' directive in Matthew 10:42: If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward. And she motivates others to start similar programs. You can visit her web site at giftedhandsnyc.org.

[larryJ]

I rarely ever write to my congressman/woman.  However, I did write to my Congresswoman from my district voicing my disapproving thoughts on Obama's health care bill.  I thought it was a wasted effort as she was new and probably would not respond.  The positive side?  A few weeks later she actually did send a letter, albeit a form letter, but a letter just the same stating she was happy to hear my opinion on this matter and would "take it under advisement." 

Pretty neat.

The downside?  She is a democrat and will probably vote along party lines.

But, hey, she did respond.

Larryj