LIFE: observed

February Connections!

2012-02-16T16:43:00.001-06:00

In the February 2012 edition of Connections, Mercy Ships (http://www.MercyShips.org) arrives in Togo,West Africa. Watch scenes from the arrival and Grant MacLean, Mercy Ships International Programs Director, talks about why Mercy Ships came back to Togo and expectations of the upcoming field service.

If you cannot see the video below, click HERE

The Same Love - Paul Baloche

2012-02-15T08:52:00.001-06:00

A concept video inspired by the Paul Baloche song "The Same Love". Filmed and edited by David Baloche.

How beautiful! If you cannot see the video below, please click HERE!

What Would Skeet Do?

2012-02-09T10:20:00.005-06:00

I planned to have the last of my car tires replaced this coming weekend after it started leaking air through the sidewalls. Well, when I say leaked air out of the sidewalls, I had no idea what that even meant.

It was pointed out to me recently by Cody, a strapping mountain of a man who works for the AAA roadside assistance company as he had to help me fix my flat tire. According to him I have an old tire with some sun rot on the sidewalls and with a sudden cold spell, the air contracts and ...

Uhm, okay. I will have to replace it then.

Yesterday, I noticed that the said tire is losing air fast and won’t make it till the weekend and decided to replace it at our local Wal-Mart last night after work.

Now, know this, I am quite comfortable with my acquired level of manhood.

Admittedly, I don’t know a wrench from a spark plug, but at least I know which knife to use when you eat fish.

So, I jauntily get out of my car and to manly converse with the tire swoppee attendant at Wal-mart, who asked me if I would like a doohdah tire with radial blah-blah-blah.

At this point wild panic hits me. I am not sure if he suddenly started speaking French or just Man.

I had absolutely no idea what he is on about.

Shannon, a friend of mine’s dad, Skeet, is the über car man. He knows everything about cars. More manly you can not get.

Tire swoppee man is now looking expectantly at me waiting for my answer.

The whole time it flashed in my mind, what would Skeet do? What would Skeet do?

I change my stance and ask him to go through the list again but with adding prices this time.

He started again a bit slower and pointed out that the doohdah tire with radial something cost $79 and the Goodyear with … is a good price at $98 and goes on to end with the Fukupayama or some even more asian sounding name at $138.

What would Skeet do? What would Skeet do?

I realized he stopped talking and is expectantly waiting for an answer. I took a blind stab and said with a more manly assertive tone I’ll have the Goodyear at $98, thank you Bob.

On second thought, his name might not have been Bob.

And maybe I should not have ended my answer with a question mark in my voice as I saw the sudden pity in his eyes.

I hastily handed him my keys and jolted into the shop.

The Red Barn Shrimp and Catfish Buffet!

2012-02-03T10:08:00.002-06:00

So, last night I got another lesson on how to survive in deep east Texas! I ended up at Robertson's Ham/The Red Barn Shrimp and Catfish Buffet on I-20 outside Wills Point for a friends birthday. WOW. It is the hokey, hole in the wall, on a very busy interstate, out in the sticks kinda place. Enormous inflatable pig and wall to wall trucks outside, Styrofoam plates, plastic cutlery inside. Ugh, my heart sank.

But, oh boy, was the food good! Good company, good food and lots of laughter. Boiled Shrimp, fried shrimp, fried catfish, beans, homemade bread rolls, hush-puppies, coleslaw, all kinds of cobblers, etc. Good honest food as my gran would say.

No pretenses. Just shrimp being shrimp, I guess.

And of course as an added bonus, there was the people watching! Wow.

I found this gem of a testimony on their website:

Chris L writes: I've seen the signs for Robertson's REAL Beef Jerky along I-20 dozens and dozens of times when trekking my to/from Louisiana and finally was hungry enough on my way home to stop and grab a sammich. Pulling up past the old school gas station pumps (numeric wheels? Haven't seen those in a decade) into the dirt parking lot took me back to my formative years out in the sticks. Grab a Coke out of the cooler, mosey up to the counter, and order a sandwich. The most expensive sandwich is $3.99. My $2.99 sandwich had about a half pound of DELICIOUS ham and a slice of swiss cheese. I also grabbed a homemade cherry turnover, which was awesome. It was like a Hostess Pie on 'roids. I ate my sandwich outside on a picnic table listening to the hum of traffic passing by on I-20 and enjoyed the simple taste of a well made ham sandwich. Good times.

Famous Italians

2012-02-02T12:45:00.000-06:00

This made me smile....

Famous Italians

Fabrizio

Rossi

Biaggi

Schettino

Screening for Surgical Patients in Togo

2012-02-02T08:43:00.000-06:00

Photos from our recent Surgical Screening in Togo. Initial reports from the Africa Mercy say that the patient screening went very well! An estimated 3500 people patiently waited to be seen of which 1600 were selected for further screening. Keep watching my blog for continued updates throughout this Togo Field Service. Thank you for your prayers and support.

The Importance of Real Cheese

2012-01-25T08:49:00.000-06:00

Why it is important to only eat REAL cheese and no, Velveeta is not real cheese.

January Newsletter!

2012-01-24T15:17:00.000-06:00

My January newsletter is now available for your gentle perusing!

If you find the image below hard to read, click HERE!

move, eat, learn

2012-01-19T16:56:00.002-06:00

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage... all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ....into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films.....
= a trip of a lifetime.

move, eat, learn

If you cannot see the videos below, click HERE!

Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing

Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound

Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

The Piano Guys ft. Alex Boye

2012-01-13T09:22:00.002-06:00

Coldplay - Paradise (Peponi) African Style (Piano/Cello) Cover - The Piano Guys ft. Alex Boye

If you cannot see this amazing video below, click HERE and turn your volume UP! What a beautiful song!

A great big THANK YOU!

2012-01-10T08:39:00.003-06:00

Mercy Ships (http://www.mercyships.org) staff and volunteer crew say thanks to just some of the supporters who help us bring hope and healing to the forgotten poor. Mercy Ships is able to provide free surgeries and services because of the generous support from individuals, groups and companies from around the world.

If you cannot see the video below, please click HERE!

I love this advert!

2012-01-05T14:17:00.002-06:00

Remember that vacation you took last year? The one with the camping and the screaming and the bears? Yeah, let's not make the same mistake twice. Join us aboard one of our "Fun Ships," which happen to be 100% bear-free.

If you cannot see the video below, click HERE!

Palliative Care

2011-12-29T11:20:00.000-06:00

The Mercy Ships Palliative Care Program was initiated after crew member Ann Giles identified a need to offer continuing care to people with inoperable tumors. Now in its tenth year, the program sends nurses into the community to offer pain relief, wound care, counseling and support to these patients.

Palliative care and cancer care are still in their infancy in Sierra Leone, and there is very little treatment available at local hospitals. “Often doctors here don’t tell people the truth because there isn’t much they can do to help them anyway,” says Palliative Care Team Leader Harriet Molyneux. The result is that many of the patients with whom the team works have never heard of cancer before. “We have to tell them, ‘This is what cancer is; this is what we can do for you,’” says Harriet.

It is never easy to tell people that they are going to die, but cultural differences between the palliative care nurses and their patients create additional challenges. “In this culture, it is very hard to break bad news to people,” says Harriet. “The culture is very much to say, ‘God is great’ and encourage each other and build each other up. So it’s difficult to say straight out, ‘I’m afraid you’re dying.’ I’ve never said it directly. You couldn’t do that.”

“They are my family,” says Adama – shown with the Palliative Care team, L to R: Camilla Börjesson, Harriet Molyneux, Adama Kargbo, Dee Ameyaw.

Esther Komba, a palliative care day-worker who has been a practicing nurse in Sierra Leone for over 15 years, has been an invaluable cultural interpreter for the team. “She struggled at first,” says Harriet. “She went home crying every day the first few weeks, because it’s completely going against her culture, but she’s a very strong woman, and she’s stuck with it – she does a fantastic job.”

In 2011, the Palliative Care Team was given a budget to develop income-generating projects for their patients. These projects help patients to support themselves and to be assured that their families will be secure after they die. The team works with patients to identify a skill or trade that they have developed in the past and then helps them to get the materials and training they need to start their business.

Adama Kargbo ran a cooked food business for 20 years before she developed a malignant facial tumor and became too sick to work. She came to Mercy Ships hoping to be healed, but unfortunately her tumor was inoperable. “When we first started with her, she was very depressed, very low,” says Harriet. “She had spent all of her savings on treatments that hadn’t worked, and she was unable to feed her family.”

Adama attends church regularly, and her faith and the support she has received from the Palliative Care Team have helped her to accept her condition. Her cancer is slow-growing, so after visiting her several times, the team asked whether she felt well enough to work. When she expressed a desire to restart her business, the team helped her to get everything that she needed to set up a food stall in the market. “From then, I’ve never slept hungry again,” says Adama.

Now Adama’s business, which she runs with the help of two of her daughters, is thriving. She has added benches inside her stall, and she has also started a second cooked food business that operates five days a week. Having managed to save a bit of money, she plans to start selling dried goods soon. The earnings from her businesses support ten family members and allow her to pay her grandson’s school fees so that he can continue his education.

“It’s dramatically improved her quality of life,” says Harriet. “She’s able to buy food for her family, and it has also improved her emotional state. She’s brighter, she has a lot more purpose. We’ve noticed a big difference in her.”

When the members of the Palliative Care Team arrive for their weekly visits, Adama always has a hot meal ready for them. “I prepare food for them to show them love because they have showed me love,” she says. “They are my family.”

November 2011

Written by Catherine Cooper
Edited by Nancy Predaina
Photos by Catherine Cooper

Ravel's Bolero Flash Mob

2011-12-29T11:08:00.001-06:00

As one of the first professional symphony orchestras ever Copenhagen Phil (Sjællands Symfoniorkester) did a flash mob at Copenhagen Central Station on May 2nd 2011 playing Ravel's Bolero. Conductor is Jesper Nordin.

If you cannot see the video below, click HERE! Well worth the watch!

Exploring the Western Caribbean by ship...

2011-12-21T11:55:00.023-06:00

7 days onboard the MS Mariner of the Seas. The ship is one of five Voyager-class cruise ships from Royal Caribbean International; it is one of the largest in its fleet and among the largest passenger ships in the world. It was constructed at Aker Finnyards in Turku, Finland and had her maiden voyage in 2003. Currently the ship sails cruises from the port of Galveston, Texas to the Western Caribbean.

Galveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 47,743 within an area of 208 square miles (540 km2). Located within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area, the city is the seat and second-largest city of Galveston County in population.

During the 19th century, Galveston became a major U.S. commercial center and one of the largest ports in the United States. Galveston is known for the hurricane that devastated the city in 1900. The natural disaster that followed still counts as the deadliest in American history with over 6,000 deaths.

The most perfect bed in the world. I slept like a baby!

The Port of Galveston was established by a proclamation issued by the Congress of Mexico on October 17, 1825, while the land known today as Texas was still part of Mexico. The Port of Galveston is the oldest port in the Gulf of Mexico west of New Orleans. The Carnival Magic, Carnival Cruise Lines flagship is docked in front of us as we await departure.

Deck 4, a wrap around promenade deck. I spent many a happy hour reading here in perfect quiet and peace.

The Solarium, an adults only pool and hot tubs onboard the Mariner of the Seas. Heaven.

Cozumel (Mayan: Island of the Swallows) is an island in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen, and close to the Yucatan Channel. Cozumel is one of the ten municipalities (municipios) of the state of Quintana Roo. Cozumel is a tourist destination for its balnearios, scuba diving, and snorkeling. The main town on the island is San Miguel de Cozumel.

The Royal Promenade onboard the Mariner of the Seas. A long 'street' complete with shops and over spilling European style cafes and bars. Good for people watching and live music and parades.

Arriving At Georgetown in the Cayman Islands we had to anchor in the bay and be tendered to shore.

The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica. The Cayman Islands are considered to be part of the geographic Western Caribbean Zone as well as the Greater Antilles.

We even came under attack from a pirate ship. Luckily, I didn't see any Somalians! Look carefully, and you will see the puff of white smoke as the canon went off. I nearly dropped my camera in the ocean. It was a big and very loud BOOOM!

The Mariner of the Seas in more dodgy pirate company.

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, 234 kilometers (145 mi) in length, up to 80 kilometers (50 mi) in width and 10,990 square kilometers (4,243 sq mi) in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about 145 kilometers (90 mi) south of Cuba, and 191 kilometers (119 mi) west of Hispaniola, the island harboring the nation-states of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Its indigenous Arawakan-speaking Taíno inhabitants named the island Xaymaca, meaning the "Land of Wood and Water", or the "Land of Springs".

Once a Spanish possession known as Santiago, in 1655 it became an English, and later a British, colony, known as "Jamaica". It achieved full independence in 1962. With 2.8 million people, it is the third most populous anglophone country in the Americas, after the United States and Canada. It remains a Commonwealth realm with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. Kingston is the country's largest city and the capital.

Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee is a classification of coffee grown in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. The best lots of Blue Mountain coffee are noted for their mild flavor and lack of bitterness. Over the last several decades, this coffee has developed a reputation that has made it one of the most expensive and sought-after coffees in the world; over 80% of all Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is exported to Japan. In addition to its use for brewed coffee, the beans are the flavor base of Tia Maria coffee liqueur.

Meeting up with a dear friend of mine, Donna Shippie, who is the Asst Director for YWAM Montego Bay.

Distance sailed: 2,462 nautical miles = 2,533 miles = 4,559 kilometers in 7 days

Deepest part of the gulf sailed over: 11,410 feet = 3,477 meters

Average temperature: 72 F = 22 C

Average speed: 21.9 knots = 25.20 miles per hour = 40.55 kilometer per hour

It surely was a mix of all kinds of people... Meet Edie and Bill who definitely had caught Christmas Spirit by it's red nose!

Helpfully, the day gets noted in the elevators. I thought it a bit cheesy, but by Wednesday I had to look in the elevator to see which day it was!

My cabin attended went out of his way to confuse me. I am still not sure if this was a pig or a dog!

Beautiful and well appointed conference center. Very happy about this and well suited for the upcoming Alumni cruise!

Small cinema/screening room located right next to the conference center on deck 2

No matter what time of the day, I loved the quiet and fresh air on deck 4. I reminded me so much of countless hours spent on the promenade deck on the Anastasis.

Question and Answer time with the captain and cruise director in the theater.

One of the murals in the Royal Promenade, it looked more and more like the kid was holding up the Anastasis. I took it as a good sign!

The jogging/walking track on the ship.

The Royalpalooza, the final parade!

If Mary and Joseph Used Facebook.

2011-12-20T15:38:00.003-06:00

Ever wondered how the Nativity story would have played out if Joseph and Mary used Facebook?

if you cannot see the video below, click HERE!

Revenge!

2011-12-08T08:45:00.001-06:00

After a husband taught his wife how to handle a gun, he told her not to play with it. This is his revenge on her after she disobeyed his warnings...

If you cannot see the video, click HERE!

A Greatful Heart

2011-12-07T08:32:00.000-06:00

The Africa Mercy docked in the port of Freetown, Sierra Leone (as seen from the port towers). I am very grateful for every opportunity that we had to impact and help someone in this great nation.

BAD Nativity sets!

2011-11-30T08:46:00.000-06:00

A very piggy nativity, certainly not kosher…

Ready to cough up a hairball anyone?

Yep, chickens... WOW!

yeah, the cat nativity is probably worse. but these dogs ain’t much better…

this one is a craft kit, using marshmallows to make a nativity. yum.

Speechless!

the nativity kitchen timer:

Happy feet?

Source: http://whyismarko.com/2011/27-worst-nativity-sets-the-annual-growing-list/

Stand By Me - Japan

2011-11-28T12:22:00.000-06:00

In the summer of 2011 the Playing For Change Band was invited to perform at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. While they were in town long-time friend of the project, Jimmy Buffett, invited them to a jam session on the roof of Margaritaville that rocked into the wee hours of the morning. The PFC Band kicked off the night with this tribute to the people of Japan who have been a affected by this past spring's Tsunami.

If you cannot see the video below, click HERE.

Polka time!

2011-11-21T15:06:00.002-06:00

I happened again, I got caught again while haphazardly channel surfing. I spent some more time this week watching RFD TV's (RFD-TV, or Rural Free Delivery TV, is a United States satellite and cable television channel devoted to rural issues, concerns, and interests. The channel's name is a reference to Rural Free Delivery, the name for the United States Postal Service's system of delivering mail directly to rural patrons.) Molly B's Polka Party. Once again, I simply could not change channels.

Mollie Busta, popular performer from the Jim Busta Band and Squeezebox, is host of the weekly RFD-TV Polka show, the Mollie B Polka Party. The one-hour program features the nation’s top polka bands and a wide-variety of ethnic styles produced on location at music festivals from around the country. Along with Ted Lange, Mollie B serves as Creative Director in expanding and improving RFD-TV’s prime-time polka programming.

I seriously need to get to a Polka Show!

Below in the video is the Lenny Gomulka Chicago Push band being taped for the show, if you cannot see the video below, click HERE.

Source: Wikipedia, RFD-TV, Youtube

There she is!

2011-11-11T14:59:00.007-06:00

Safely arrived and dockside in Galveston, TX!

Mariner of the Seas, Pier 28, Galveston, TX

...and there she goes on her first Caribbean run for the season! Thanks to Hook 'em Horns/RCCLTexasTeen for the video.

A Chance Encounter...

2011-11-03T14:33:00.003-05:00

A friend sent me this incredible video of a chance encounter and shared moment with one of natures greatest and most fleeting phenomena.

A murmuration, which this is, consists of thousands of tiny starlings (birds) collectively flying and swirling about. The mesmerizing act is typically seen at the beginning of winter, right before dusk, as the birds look for a place to roost for the night.

If you cannot see the video below, click HERE to watch this incredible moment!

I highly suggest maximizing the screen to allow you to experience it as much as possible.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

United!

2011-11-03T08:03:00.001-05:00

7 Billion People | 7 Billion Actions | 7billionactions.org

By the end of 2011 the world will have reached 7 billion people. The United Nations Population Fund is leading an innovative global campaign to bring awareness to the opportunities and challenges that this milestone presents. But 7 Billion people means 7 Billion hearts.

Music has always been the best way to speak to the hearts of the people. Playing For Change has partnered with the United Nations to present an original song around the world to serve as an anthem for such an important time: "United."

They traveled across the globe, put headphones on musicians, added them to the track, and created a video that can serve as a tangible example of something positive we can all do together as a human race.

Lets inspire each other. Lets everybody get involved and join us on in this journey, so that together we leave this world better than we found it. To learn more about how to be part of the "United" track go to 7BillionActions.org.

If you cannot see the video below, click HERE to view this amazing collaboration.

The Mayonnaise Jar

2011-10-19T15:56:00.000-05:00

A colleague of mine used this in our departmental devotional today... I am not sure who to attribute it to, but enjoy anyway. Thanks for sharing Nancy!

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours a day is not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, without a word, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and started to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “Yes.”

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty spaces between the grains of sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided. “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.”

“The golf balls are the important things – God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions. Things that, if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.”

“The pebbles are the things that matter – like your job, house and car.”

“The sand is everything else – the small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.”

“If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.”

“So . . .

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness:

    * Play with your children.
    * Take time to get medical checkups.
    * Take your partner out to dinner.
    * There will always be time to clean the house and fix the dripping faucet.”

“Take care of the golf balls first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that, no matter now full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

Travels With A Duck

2011-10-14T08:20:00.002-05:00

So what started off as documenting my own travels through the medium of a rubber duck, has now spawned an independently traveling duck with his own blog. Follow his story at http://duckie.blogspot.com/

This time he is visiting the beautiful islands of Hawaii!

Lucky Duck!

La Tierra del Olvido

2011-10-13T08:11:00.002-05:00

This month's song from Playing For Change translates to "Land of the Forgotten".

The video features over 80 musicians across the country of Colombia. Music is the greatest tool for healing broken countries, cultures and hearts. This video is meant to unite and inspire the people of Colombia so they can move forward from years of conflict and create a positive future. Listen to the music, see the smiling faces, and remember that we are going to make it as a human race!!

If you cannot see the video below, click HERE !

October Newsletter

2011-10-12T13:27:00.000-05:00

My October newsletter is now online for your reading pleasure!

Click HERE to read a copy!

Mayer Hawthorne

2011-10-11T10:59:00.003-05:00

Okay, I love this song and Mayer Hawthorne is fast becoming my new favorite artist!

Mayer Hawthorne (born Andrew Mayer Cohen)is an American singer, producer, songwriter, arranger, audio engineer, DJ, rapper and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles, California. The stage name "Mayer Hawthorne" is a combination of Cohen's real middle name (Mayer) and the name of the street he grew up on in Michigan (Hawthorne Rd). "Mayer Hawthorne and The County" is a name Cohen often uses when performing or recording as Mayer Hawthorne with other artists. In Cohen's words, "The County" is basically anyone who plays an instrument or sings on his album. It’s also his band when he performs live. Cohen also performs and records hip hop under the stage name Haircut, sometimes as part of the groups Now On & Athletic Mic League.

Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Hawthorne moved to Los Angeles and was eventually signed to Stones Throw Records by label head Peanut Butter Wolf. Originally the Mayer Hawthorne tracks were meant to be just side projects for pleasure, but upon hearing them Peanut Butter Wolf insisted they be made into an album. Hawthorne has had no previous vocal training.

Mayer Hawthorne draws influence from the music of Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Leroy Hutson, Mike Terry, Barry White, Smokey Robinson and the legendary songwriting and production trio of Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Edward Holland, Jr. (known collectively as Holland–Dozier–Holland). Taking umbrage at the notion that his is a purely "throwback" soul sound, however, Hawthorne also cites more contemporary artists, such as J-Dilla, as significant influences.

Here he is singing the old Tony Bennett classic 'I left my heart is San Francisco', if you cannot see the video, go HERE!

Source: Wikipedia and Youtube.

Sally Kargbo

2011-10-07T14:20:00.000-05:00

“Sometimes, I would just sit down and cry,” said Sally with great emotion. For seventeen years, people laughed at her and mocked her because of her legs – horribly misshapen and knock-kneed. The constant verbal abuse made her feel ashamed. Walking was difficult and tiring, so she didn’t go to school. She just stayed at home in her misery.

The problem was caused by an automobile accident when she was only ten years old. A witch doctor blanketed her legs with a native concoction of boiled leaves. Splints of wooden sticks were tied to her legs for three months. But nothing changed; she returned home with bent legs. Without money for surgery, she had to learn to live with her disability.

Three years ago, Sally’s parents died. Since she had no siblings, she went to live with a friend. Her friend found a mentor to teach Sally to sew, and she eventually went to work at a dressmaker’s shop. In fact, she hopes to own her own shop some day.

A new friend at work told her that a Mercy Ship, offering orthopedic surgeries at no charge, would soon be in Sierra Leone. She encouraged Sally to go to the screening. The volunteer surgeons on the Africa Mercy surgically repaired her legs and put them in casts.

A jubilant Sally walks on her own straight legs. When she awoke in the ward, she was delighted to see that her legs were both straight in the casts. But when her casts were changed, she was ecstatic. “I could SEE my legs were straight!” said Sally with a brilliant smile. “It’s like a dream, and I’m an angel that can walk on straight legs!”

While Sally was recuperating from surgery, she received some very special guests – the wives of the President and Vice President of Sierra Leone! The moment was captured by a photographer and printed in the local paper. This was a highlight for all the patients in the ward, who dubbed her “Queen Sally.” She had never received such recognition before and thoroughly enjoyed the reflected glory of the event. It was a great start in helping Sally think of herself in a new and more positive light.

Another bonus of the surgery is that her straightened legs add height to her physical stature. When she walked on her bandaged legs for the first time, she exclaimed, “I’m so amazed! I used to be a short somebody. Now, I’m tall!”

A free surgery revolutionized the life of this young woman with the bubbly personality. Sally already knows what she will do first upon being released from the hospital ship. “I want to give my testimony at church of what Mercy Ships did for me,” she states firmly. “If it were not for Mercy Ships, I was going to die with legs like that, because I had no money. I was mocked every place I went. I’m thanking God for what He has done for me, and I’m asking Him to bless you people.”

Story by Elaine Winn
Edited by Nancy Predaina
Photos by Debra Bell

With No Hands, Man Teaches Others to Farm

2011-09-22T14:32:00.001-05:00

Bambay Sawaneh was a teenage farmer's son in Sierra Leone, Africa, when rebels attacked and left him for dead.

A decade later, he's put aside revenge. And in spite of a serious handicap, Sawaneh is equipping himself to help others in need.

If you cannot view the video, click HERE!

Viral Inspiration!

2011-09-15T09:32:00.002-05:00

A friend sent me this... Wow.

Below is some commercials created by YouTube sensations Rhett and Link as part of "commercial kings" for IFC.

If you cannot see the videos, click HERE.

NOPE. it's Chuck Testa!

Don't get a divorce.... get a donut!

September Newsletter

2011-09-02T15:38:00.000-05:00

My September Newsletter is now online for your reading pleasure, kick back, sip your coffee and enjoy reading! Read it HERE!

Bizarre Records

2011-09-02T14:11:00.000-05:00

Okay, so there is this awesome website called Bizarre Records, where they post awesome and bizzare record album artwork.
Here are some of my favourites! Visit them at http://bizarrerecords.com/wordpress/

Mike Tompkins - A Capella Cover - Forever - Chris Brown

2011-09-01T08:45:00.001-05:00

This is one very talented young man! Every sound on this track he created with his own mouth. Gosh.

If you cannot see the video below, you can watch it HERE.

American Roadtrip: Day 6 - Friends, Reunions and Conclusions

2011-08-29T11:49:00.011-05:00

After a visit from friends the night before, I wiled the morning away sitting on deck reading the paper and watching life on the river.

I forgot what it felt like living in a city that is closely tied to a body of water. There is something about it that just slows life down and brings a calmness to the soul.

Three different United States Presidents have sailed on the Delta Queen: Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, and Jimmy Carter. The Queen recreated historic steamboat races each year during the Kentucky Derby Festival, when it raced with the Belle of Louisville on the Ohio at Louisville in the Great Steamboat Race. The winner of the annual race would received a trophy of golden antlers, which was mounted on the pilot house until the next race. They also raced during the Tall Stacks festivals celebrating steamboats, held every three or four years in Cincinnati (the Delta Queen's former home port).

Next it was off to The Stone Cup, a local coffee shop to have a small Mercy Ships Alumni reunion for our ex-crew members in the area. Here is one of the reasons I love my job. These people have either never met or had some rudimentary relationship with each other. Their service spanned 13 odd years over two different ships, yet within seconds they were chatting and comparing stories like nobody's business. It was awesome. I could hardly get a word in edgewise! They also started our first official Alumni chapter. Thanks Amy (and sorry you left before the photo was taken, Amy) and well done Chattanooga!

Back to the boat to have a friend take some photos for her fair trade hammock making initiative called Color Cloud Hammocks. Every hammock is made by a team of skilled seamstresses in a family-owned business in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Knowing it costs more to pay someone fairly, they believe that it is worth it to have a safe and beautiful product. The hammocks are beautifully made so, support their effort by clicking on the link above!

What a trip! Early morning start for the 11 to 12 hour return drive to Texas and I will be sad to leave Tennessee. A great, diverse and oh-so-talented state and I have massively fallen in love with it! Thanks for a great time Tennessee and I will return!

Source: Wikipedia and Color Cloud Hammocks

American Roadtrip: Day 5 - Meeting a Grand Old Lady, That's Right Jack!

2011-08-27T08:40:00.002-05:00

Early morning start brought me to Lynchburg, which is a city in the south-central region of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Lynchburg is best known as the location of the Jack Daniel's distillery, whose famous whiskey is marketed world-wide as the product of a city with only one traffic light. Despite the operational distillery, Lynchburg's home county of Moore is a dry county. The population was 5,740 at the 2000 census.

Jack Daniel's is a brand of sour mash Tennessee whiskey that is among the world's best-selling liquors. It is known for its square bottles and black label. As of November, 2007, it was reportedly the best-selling whiskey in the world. Despite being the location of a major operational distillery, Jack Daniel's home county of Moore is a dry county, so the product is not available for consumption at stores or restaurants within the county, although the distillery does sell commemorative bottles of whiskey. Although the product generally meets the regulatory criteria for classification as a straight bourbon, the company disavows this classification and markets it simply as Tennessee whiskey rather than as Tennessee bourbon.

After a very scenic drive down to Chattanooga, I came to the whole reason for this trip, the Delta Queen and my home for the next two nights.

The Delta Queen is an American sternwheel steamboat that is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Historically, she has been used for cruising the major rivers that constitute the drainage of the Mississippi River, particularly in the American South. As of June 2009, she is docked in Chattanooga, Tennessee and has been converted into a hotel. It is possible that she will come back on the rivers.

The Delta Queen is 285 feet long (86.9 m), 58 feet (17.7m) wide, and draws 11.5 feet (3.5m). She weighs 1,650 tons (1,676 metric tons), with a capacity of 176 passengers. Her cross-compounded steam engines generate 2,000 indicated horsepower (1,500 kW), powering a stern-mounted paddlewheel.

The hull, first two decks and steam engines were ordered in 1924 from the William Denny & Brothers shipyard on the River Leven adjoining the River Clyde at Dumbarton, Scotland. The Delta Queen and her sister boat, the Delta King, were shipped in pieces to Stockton, California in 1926. There the California Transportation Company assembled the two vessels for their regular Sacramento River service between San Francisco and Sacramento, and excursions to Stockton, on the San Joaquin River. At the time, they were the most lavishly appointed and expensive sternwheel passenger boats ever commissioned. Driven out of service by a new highway linking Sacramento with San Francisco in 1940, the two vessels were laid up and then purchased by Isbrandtsen Steamship Lines for service out of New Orleans. During World War II, they were requisitioned by the U.S. Navy for duty in San Francisco Bay as USS Delta Queen (YFB-56).

American Roadtrip: Day 5 - Good Till The Last Drop

2011-08-25T18:17:00.002-05:00

A bit of history about the hotel I am staying in... The Millennium Maxwell House Hotel. The story of Maxwell House Coffee begins in Kentucky in 1873 when Joel Cheek, a traveling salesman for a wholesale grocery firm was asked by a customer what the best coffee that he sold was. In rural areas in the 1870's people bought their coffee green and roasted it at home. He naturally recommended the most expensive one, though he knew nothing about the differing qualities of coffee.

Whether bothered by his conscience or simply out of curiosity, that night he roasted some of each type of coffee that he sold and sampled them side by side. He decided that actually one of the cheaper brands had the best flavor. The next day he returned to the grocer that had asked him the question and explained why he would be shipping him the cheaper brand.

Many years passed before he would move to Nashville in 1884 and meet Roger Nolley Smith, a British coffee broker who could reportedly tell the origin of a coffee simply by smelling the green beans. The two became fast friends bound by their passion for coffee. This friendship would be the beginning of Maxwell House Coffee though it would be several more years before either of them knew it.

So there.

Had a quick drive through of music row where all the music label offices are and then on to a stop at the Ryman Auditorium. The auditorium first opened as the Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892. It was built by Thomas Ryman (1843–1904), a riverboat captain and Nashville businessman who owned several saloons. Ryman conceived of the auditorium as a tabernacle for the influential revivalist Samuel Porter Jones. After Ryman's death, the Tabernacle was renamed Ryman Auditorium in his honor.

It was used for Grand Ole Opry broadcasts from 1943 until 1974, when the Opry built a larger venue just outside Nashville at the Opryland USA theme park. (In an effort to maintain continuity with the Opry's storied past, a large circle was cut from the floor of the Ryman stage and inlaid into the center of the new Opry stage.)

The Ryman then sat mostly vacant and fell into disrepair until 1992 when Emmylou Harris and her band, the Nash Ramblers, performed a series of concerts there. The Harris concerts renewed interest in restoring the Ryman, and it was reopened as an intimate performance venue and museum in 1994. Audiences at the Ryman find themselves sitting in pews, the 1994 renovation notwithstanding. The seating is a reminder of the auditorium's origins as a house of worship, hence giving it the nickname "The Mother Church of Country Music".

Then on to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum functions as a local history museum and as an international arts organization, the CMF. On May 17, 2001, the CMF held the grand opening of its new $37 million facility ten blocks away in downtown Nashville. Inside, the museum presents its collection to illustrate country music's story as told through the turns of two centuries. Included are historic country video clips and recorded music, as well as a regular menu of live performances

The original Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum opened on Music Row in 1967. Operations of the museum came to include educational programs, the CMF Press and CMF Records, the Country Music Foundation Library (1968), and the historic sites RCA Studio B (1977) and Hatch Show Print (1986). The Music Row location of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum was closed December 31, 2000. The building was later razed and a private parking lot for employees of music licensing firm BMI now occupies the site.

So there, happy parking BMI employees!

Source - Wikipedia

American Roadtrip: Day 4 - Bluelights and Bluegrass in Nashville

2011-08-24T23:00:00.005-05:00

So... about 30 minutes outside Memphis I got pulled over by a cop. Psheesh. I was overtaking a truck at 72 mph in a 70 mile stretch. He said that he pulled me over because I was speeding. Me, not the truck that was limited to 65mph which I had to overtake at 72... He must have seen my incredulous look and said that well, he saw my Texas plates and he was from Dallas etc... blah, blah, blah. We talked about Jamie Foxx and that he was from Terrell etc. Shooting the breeze for 10 minutes, he hands me my license back warned me to keep it below 70 and bids me a good day.

I had to laugh. Well, after I drove off that is.

So I made it to Nashville, which happens to be the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home to a large number of colleges and universities. It is most notably known as a center of the music industry, earning it the nickname "Music City".

Tomorrow I will explore the city more and I will let you now. For today though, it was all about Bluegrass music. First I ended up in Robert's Western World and Honky Tonk Grill. well it is Cowboy Boots and fried Bologna sandwiches with a band playing. After a quick visit to Hatch Show Print who is one of the oldest working letterpress print shops in America, who over the years' posters have featured a host of country music performers, ranging from Country Music Hall of Famers Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, and Johnny Cash to contemporary stars such as Garth Brooks and Wynonna.

I ended up at my original target, Layla's.

I listened to a band of siblings that used to be in a band called Jypsi, but the band disbanded and now the siblings just play. I lost the plot here a bit as Lillie Mae, the sibling in charge explained it to me later on. Maybe it was the beer, I had to concentrate a lot just to look interested and not look as confused as I felt, so I nodded a lot with a very stupid grin on my face.

The music was awesome though! From cover songs like Mule Skinner Blues to Jolene to a lot of self written stuff, I enjoyed it all. Take a listen to Lillie Mae HERE.

American Roadtrip: Day 3 - Finding the Sun in Memphis

2011-08-23T15:40:00.000-05:00

After a lazy morning, I started the day visiting Sun Records. Sun Records is a record label founded by Sam Phillips.

Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley (whose recording contract was sold to RCA Victor Records for $35,000 in 1955 to relieve financial difficulties Phillips' Sun was going through), Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash their first recording contracts and helping to launch their careers. Before those days Sun Records had mainly been noted for recording African-American artists, as Phillips loved Rhythm and Blues and wanted to get black music recorded for a white audience.

It was Sun record producer and engineer, Jack Clement, who discovered and recorded Jerry Lee Lewis, while owner Sam Phillips was away on a trip to Florida. The original Sun Records logo was designed by John Gale Parker, Jr., a resident of Memphis and high school classmate of Phillips.

After this I headed to the Lorraine Motel and the The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, is a privately owned complex of museums and historic buildings built around the former Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Major components of the complex on 4.14 acres include a museum which traces the history of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1600s to the present, the Lorraine Motel and hotel buildings as well as the Young and Morrow Building at 422 Main Street on the west side of Mulberry up a small hill across the street from the motel which was the site where James Earl Ray initially confessed (and later recanted) to shooting King from a second story bathroom window as well as the Canipe’s Amusement Store at 418 Main Street next door to the rooming house where the alleged murder weapon with Ray's fingerprints was found. Included on the grounds is the brushy lot that stood between the rooming house and the motel where a differing theory says the fatal shot came from a different weapon at ground level in a conspiracy involving Loyd Jowers who operated Jim's Grill which opened onto the lot.

The Lorraine Motel had not only guests, but residents as well. The last resident of the motel, Jacqueline Smith, had resided there since 1973 as part of her work for the motel as a housekeeper. When faced with eviction for the museum project, Smith barricaded herself in her room and had to be forcibly evicted.

The neighborhood surrounding the Lorraine Motel was a lower-income, predominantly black area. At the time, the area had run-down homes that rented for $175 a month. The homes were demolished and later replaced with more expensive apartments and condominiums, as part of the rejuvenation of the downtown area.

Smith stated that the Lorraine "should be put to better uses, such as housing, job training, free college, clinic, or other services for the poor... She has also stated that Dr. King would not have wanted $9 million spent on a building for him, and would not have wanted Lorraine Motel residents to be evicted.

Smith has maintained a vigil across the street from the Lorraine Motel for up to 21 hours per day for over 20 years, regardless of weather. She still holds vigil outside the Lorraine, although not as consistently as she has in the past.

My last stop for the day was a visit to St Jude's Children's Research Hospital. St. Jude was founded by entertainer Danny Thomas, with help from Dr. Lemuel Diggs, on the premise that "no child should die in the dawn of life." Thomas named the hospital for Saint Jude Thaddeus, the Catholic patron saint of hospitals, desperate cases and lost causes. Thomas was a struggling young entertainer when he knelt in a Detroit church before a statue of St. Jude Thaddeus and asked the saint to "show me my way in life and I will build you a shrine." Thomas believed his prayer was answered, and he soon moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. Memphis was chosen at the suggestion of Samuel Stritch, a Tennessee native who had been a spiritual advisor to Thomas since he presided at Thomas's confirmation in Thomas's boyhood home of Toledo, Ohio.

Discoveries at St. Jude have completely changed how doctors treat children with cancer and other catastrophic illnesses. Since St. Jude was established, the survival rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer, has increased from 4 percent in 1962 to 94 percent today

Source: Wikipedia

American Roadtrip: Day 2 - Picking My Way To Memphis!

2011-08-22T21:41:00.002-05:00

After waking in a very comfy America's Best Value Inn (I concur) in a gunshot free Carlisle, AR, I possibly got connected to the slowest Internet in history. One page took 37 minutes to load. I know, because I sat and counted the minutes! Giving up I loaded my car I noticed that I am across the street for a picker store named Pickers Stop! Being a fan of American Pickers, a reality television series on History Channel, I HAD TO stop and pick as commanded by the shop's sign!

After a few hours drive I made it across the mighty Mississippi River into Memphis, and a new state for me, Tennessee!

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers.

Memphis had a population of 646,889 making it the biggest city in the state of Tennessee, the third largest in the Southeastern United States, and the 20th largest in the United States.

Memphis grew into the world's largest spot cotton market and the world's largest hardwood lumber market. Into the 1950s, it was the world's largest mule market.

During the 1960s, the city was at the center of civil rights issues, notably a sanitation workers' strike. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel, the day after giving his prophetic I've Been to the Mountaintop speech at the Mason Temple.

Memphis is well known for its cultural contributions to the identity of the American South. Many renowned musicians grew up in and around Memphis and moved from the Mississippi Delta. These included such musical greats as Elvis Presley, Three 6 Mafia, Jerry Lee Lewis, Muddy Waters, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Robert Johnson, W. C. Handy, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. Jones, Al Green, and many others.

Tonight, I am hitting Beale Street looking for good music and good food.

I found both at BB Kings... Although part of a chain, it has been recommended for its good music and the best dry rub ribs in town. True dat! The ribs fell off the bone and melted in the mouth. Very, very good! I also fell in love (as I do) with the local brew... Ghost River Brewery. Will have to go check them out tomorrow.

If you want to hear the music of The King Beez, click HERE

American Roadtrip: Day One - Certainly, it's Uncertain!

2011-08-22T15:33:00.002-05:00

So, starting this roadtrip with some uncertainty... with a visit to Uncertain, TX!

Uncertain is a city in Harrison County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 150. The City of Uncertain was incorporated in 1961 as a Type B, General Law City with a mayor and five aldermen on an at large basis. Uncertain is located on the shore of Caddo Lake and derives its name from surveyors who were attempting to delineate the border between Texas and Louisiana and discovered that they were "uncertain" as to which side of the line they were on as they began surveying that particular part of Caddo Lake.

I learned a valuable lesson, while in Uncertain... NEVER make fun of the house of the Lord. Even if it is called Church of Uncertain. After taking the photo above, I promptly drove into a ditch. My driver side back wheel was completely up in the air. No matter how much grass and soil I tried to displace, I could not get out.

In the end I had to flag down a very nice local young man, who happen to have a chain in his truck and he had to tow me out. Very embarrassing, esp after he greeted me with a 'You're not from around here, huh...'

After skirting Caddo Lake I headed north to Little Rock, Arkansas. Caddo Lake is an internationally protected wetland under the RAMSAR treaty and features the largest Cypress forest in the world. Caddo is one of Texas' few non-oxbow natural lakes and is the 2nd largest in the South; however, it was artificially altered by the addition of a dam in the 1900s. Most trees are eerily draped with Spanish moss (see below) and I am promising myself a return trip to spend a long weekend here.

After making it to North Little Rock, I checked into my motel for the night, I was a bit nervous as on the drive in I realized I might be in the ghetto part of town. It was confirmed a while later when I drove to a local pizza place to pick up dinner and there was a sign in the door advising patrons that they will be closing at 9 pm for a safety meeting!!!! The rest of the evening was spent listening to drunken screaming and running footsteps. About 11 pm there was a volley of gunshots and I checked out. High tailing it out of town on the I-40 I stopped a while later in Carlisle, AR to spend a very peaceful night in rural Arkansas!

Roadtrip planning!

2011-08-16T16:17:00.004-05:00

Yep, roadtrip coming up! Expect LOADS of posts next week.

I am off to Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga, all in Tennessee of course!

In Memphis I am planning to hang out on Beale Street and listen to some good blues...

In Nashville I am planning to go to Layla's Bluegrass Inn for some good ol' bluegrass music...

On my way to Chattanooga I am stopping off at a certain distillery in Lynchburg. That's right, Jack!

In Chattanooga I get to stay on the Delta Queen Steamship!!

I am also planning a side trip to the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama!

And end it all with an Alumni Reunion in Chattanooga! If you are a Mercy Ships Alum who happens to be in Chattanooga... meet me at the Stone Cup Coffee Bar on Frazier Ave, Saturday the 27th at 3pm.

To end it all ... a mad 11 hour dash back home.

Rend Collective Experiment - You Are My Vision

2011-08-05T13:00:00.006-05:00

The Rend Collective Experiment took an old Irish hymn based on the writings of St. Patrick that was written at least a millenia ago and retranslated it from the Irish and the old English to give what they feel is the best modern version. Then they added some Irish Folk sounds and of course a trash can and BAM!!

The Mississippi Squirrel Revival

2011-08-02T11:11:00.002-05:00

A fantastic little gem on rural life in Missisipi with a song about a squirrel that gets loose at church and the revival that ensued!

If you cannot see the video below, watch it HERE!

Source: Ray Stevens Music

Perfectly Timed Photos

2011-08-01T20:58:00.001-05:00

So I found this website called perfectlytimedphotos.com of, well, perfectly timed photos. Where the photographer just happened to push the shutter at that unbelievably perfect moment.

Here are a few of my favourite shots.

Awkward Family Photos

2011-07-22T09:06:00.001-05:00

This is from an article on Yahoo News sent to me by a friend this morning and it is titled Awkward Family Photos.

See the full article HERE

Thank you Atlantis!

2011-07-21T12:01:00.001-05:00

Today, we said goodbye to an achievement beyond comparison, a machine so far ahead of it’s time when it first arrived, and a vehicle that to this day, inspires awe in all who see it.

We draw the final curtain on a conveyance that carried more than 355 people from 16 nations from our planet into the great unknown, and all but twice returned them safely back home.

We say goodbye to the Space Shuttle programme, as Atlantis landed safely for the final time, after one final orbit around our small, blue planet.

“The Future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted, it belongs to the brave.” - President Ronald Reagan

Buy some nifty greeting cards like the one above by clicking HERE

July 2011 Newsletter

2011-07-19T13:25:00.000-05:00

Here is my July 2011 personal newsletter for your perusal! Click HERE to read it!

Happy birthday Madiba!

2011-07-18T09:08:00.001-05:00

Have you ever met a leader who is truly inspirational? Someone who can light a fire under people and spark them to action?

Today is Nelson Mandela’s 93rd birthday. It is also recognized by the United Nations as Mandela Day: a global call to volunteer for good causes for 67 minutes—representing each year of Mandela’s life in active politics. This day honors an iconic figure that stands for freedom, equality and human dignity, and charity.

On top of everything else, Nelson Mandela sees the benefit Mercy Ships brings to the forgotten poor in Africa.

“I was happy to learn about an extraordinary group of people from around the world who exemplify a unique expression of compassion and service to humankind. These people set an unusual standard. Unlike the norm, they pay to work. Sponsored by others they leave home to serve the extreme poor in Africa and around the world.” - Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa

So, I urge you to go out today and do something nice for someone today and pay mercy forward!

Tag-Team Mercy

2011-07-13T08:48:00.000-05:00

Lambodi is a farmer in West Africa. When his pastor asked him to escort a young burn victim to our hospital ship, the Africa Mercy, he quickly agreed. He made the 370-mile journey and planned to stay with the little girl through the treatment. But when a violent storm hit their village, he needed to return home. But what was he going to do? Spare a minute, click on play below and listen to this message of mercy.

Satchita

2011-07-07T08:19:00.001-05:00

I am proud to share this original Song Around the World, that takes you on a musical journey from Brazil to India. Get ready to smile, dance, and feel the love of the world uniting through the power of music.

Satchita is featured on Playing for Change's new CD/DVD, PFC 2. Please share this video with everyone you know, and together we will change the world one song and one heart at a time!!

If you cannot see the video below, watch it HERE!

American Cultural Observation 501: Wings over Tyler Airshow

2011-07-04T22:26:00.008-05:00

It is the 4th of July weekend and I was fortunate enough to hang with some friends and attend Tyler's first airshow. It was fun, HOT, but fun, even with weather in the triple digits. According to local media over 20,000 people Tylerites were in attendance.

For me the most exciting part were the Pearl Harbor re-enactment, TORA TORA TORA. It is a re-creation of the December 7th 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. It involved six Japanese fighters and bombers simulating the Pearl Harbor attack. In addition, TORA provides breathtaking smoke, fire and explosions from the pyrotechnics team.

There sure were some hooting and hollering from the crowd when a lone American Curtiss P40 started chasing them off!

Also quite intriguing was a Twin Beech 18 flown by Matt Younkin. The Beech 18 Matt performs (serial number 4383) in was built in 1943 by the Beechcraft Corporation at Wichita, KS.

A big pressence at the air show was the CAF or the Commemorative Air Force. Collecting aircraft for nearly a half a century, the CAF now ranks as one of the largest (and private) air forces in the world. Today the CAF has approximately 9,000 members and a fleet of almost 160 airplanes representing more than 60 different types—including planes from several foreign countries and other military conflicts since World War II.

Some of the other planes flying were the CAF's B-25 named the Devil Dog. The Devil Dog represents a PBJ, the Marine Corps version of a B-25.

The MIG-17F, made famous by the Vietnam War, the MiG-17F wa s the primary enemy aircraft engaged in the skies over Vietnam by U.S. planes. During that war and up until the F-16 entered service, it was the tightest-turning fighter in the world.When production started in the 1950s, its VK-1F engine made it one of the first production jet fighters in the world with an afterburner.

A BD-5 Microjet, which is a high performance, aerobatic, single seat, low-wing, all metal, jet-powered aircraft built from an amateur homebuilder kit. The design was originally developed in the 1970's by Jim Bede of Bede Aircraft, Inc. and designated as the BD-5. It was dubbed "The World's Smallest Jet" and quickly earned a reputation as James Bond's jet when it was featured in the movie "Octopussy." Through the years, a few airshow teams have captivated fans all over the world but today, very few flying BD-5's still exist.

Another favorite was some Smoke-Ring Aerobatics by Herb & Ditto (yep, the plane is named Ditto). Ditto, a former NAVY aircraft carrier trainer debuted in the air show business in 1998 after Herb and his crew completed a detailed 4-year restoration that won the Best T-28 Award at Oshkosh in 1996. Taking a “basket case” T-28 and making her better than new was the challenge Herb and his crew took on to make her one of the five best T-28 restorations in the country. That challenge included disassembling every nut and bolt, cleaning, inspecting, repairing and overhauling every component, fabricating and installing completely new wiring and electronics harness, new hydraulic lines, incorporating modern solid-state electronics and other improvements; all the while keeping the original look! The custom wing-tip smoke system that Herb designed and installed in 2004 to enhance his performance has created much more fan excitement than he ever anticipated.

All in all, even though sunburned... there were some jet fuel pumping through my veins and I LOVED it!

Some more photos I took on the day...

Japanese Zero

B-25

F-16's (I think)

C-130

Mig 17F

Remember the good old time when people used cameras...

Sources: facts and photo varied

Sessi Sees

2011-06-27T08:28:00.002-05:00

Mercy Ship's one minute daily feature "The Mercy Minute®" encourages listeners to make a lasting difference in a world of need by following the example of Jesus! Don Stephens explains how it doesn't matter if you cross the ocean or just a street--you can help those in need!

Sessi [Sess-see] wanted to kill himself. For eight years he’d been unable to work. He was a burden to his family. And in his West African culture, his blindness was seen as a curse. He was ridiculed and shunned. Then he heard about a free Mercy Ships Eye Clinic... Take one minute out of your busy life today to listen to this uplifting story of mercy and hope.

Getting an MRI or What it feels like being Abducted by Aliens!

2011-06-19T13:21:00.003-05:00

Had some more tests done to help figure out the reason for my recent onset of sudden double vision and thus found myself at the curiously named Tyler Open MRI.

I should have known something was up when while quietly sitting there waiting, a lady came out clutching her elbow and whimpering. She looked shaken.

I was the only person in the waiting room and with about 30 chairs available she made a beeline for the chair next to me. As she sat down she proclaimed in a hoarse voice that she never, ever want to go through that again. Up until that point I have deliberately kept myself ignorant of what exactly getting an MRI entailed. I went from squinting at the ceiling to horrified in 3 seconds flat! WHAT THE HECK WERE THESE PEOPLE GOING TO DO TO ME.

Minutes later a gentleman, build like the proverbial brick outhouse, came calling me. This did not help at all. Why does he need so many muscles, why did that lady clutch her lame elbow… is bone breaking involved? Dammit, I should have done some research!

After a cursory, your clothes are fine, leave all metal things in that locker over there and follow me, we walked past the WC and he asked if I need to go potty... (WHY????) Up until now I desperately avoided eye contact but he must have caught my bewildered look as he gently told me it takes about 40 minutes as it was quite a thorough test.

We entered a cavernous room and I laid eyes on the MRI machine. It was HUGE.

After receiving some instructions and getting ear plugs I was told to lay down on the bed thingy. My head was placed in a cradle and foam wedges were stuffed around my head, effectively immobilizing it. I saw Mr. Muscles talking to me, but I heard nothing, my imagination got a head start. Then he closed the cradle over my face, the bed started sliding deeper into the machine and at the same time it lifted.

Fighting off a panic attack I started feeling heat on my stomach and realized that I am right up to the ceiling end of the machine. No matter how I squinted, all I saw were a blur, it all looked like the same plastic as the head cradle. Then the most bizarre sounds started. Forty minutes of clanking, beeping and whirring, intersped with deathly silence, just to start again.

I felt thoroughly alone.

Afterwards I read that Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), is a technique used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structures. An MRI machine uses a powerful magnetic field to align the magnetization of some atoms in the body, and radio frequency fields to systematically alter the alignment of this magnetization. This causes the nuclei to produce a rotating magnetic field detectable by the scanner—and this information is recorded to construct an image of the scanned area of the body. MRI provides contrast between the different soft tissues of the body, which make it especially useful in imaging the brain, compared with other medical imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT) or X-rays.

The noise I kept hearing was from the switching of field graients which caused a change in the Lorentz force experienced by the gradient coils, producing minute expansions and contractions of the coil itself. As the switching is typically in the audible frequency range, the resulting vibration produces loud noises (clicking or beeping). This is most marked with high-field machines and rapid-imaging techniques in which sound intensity can reach 120 dB(A) (equivalent to a jet engine at take-off).

This is the closest I have ever come to experience what it must be like to be abducted by aliens. Fantastic sci-fi noises, being prodded and probed while being restrained… having needled inserted etc. Oh, that turned out to be the reason for the elbow clutching. They inject you with some kind of contrasting agent… ofcourse you don’t see any of this, just feel hands searching for a good vein and the ‘ugh, not a good one’ as you feel the desperate mopping up of blood. After three tries he seemed happy and back into the machine I went.

By now I had a massive headache, nausea rising and cramping muscles. Desperately trying NOT to accidently squeeze the panic button placed in my hand as I did not wanted to prolong the experience or possibly cheesing Mr. Muscles off.

Finally, after what felt like hours, it ended and after being told that getting the results will take three days, I was unceremoniously let out... From getting off the machine to being in my car in the blazing Texas sun in under three minutes. Not even offered a cookie to calm my nerves.

Well, I drove my shaking behind over to BJ’s and drank the strongest 9% beer (haha, called an Arrogant Bastard, the beer, not me), I went home.

What an experience.

source: wikipedia

Living Blood Bank:

2011-06-13T14:10:00.000-05:00

Mercy Ships Celebrates World Blood Donor Day

Garden Valley, Texas, June 10, 2011 – Millions of people around the world owe their lives to individuals they will never meet — people who donate their blood to help others.

But in West Africa on a charity hospital ship operated by Mercy Ships, recipients are given the opportunity to thank the donors who saved their life – face to face.

“We call it a walking blood bank,” says Jonesboro, Georgia, native Claudia Juarez, Senior Lab Technologist on the hospital ship, the Africa Mercy. “When crew members arrive, they have the option to become blood donors. If they agree, they are screened and are informed that when the need for blood arises, they could be asked to donate right away.”

Because of a lack of storage space on the tightly-packed ship, blood is not stockpiled to use in emergencies. And because all crew members on the Africa Mercy are volunteers – they have sacrificed to help those in need in West Africa – there is never a shortage of donors when a call goes out.

A month ago, one of the lucky recipients was twenty three-year-old Harding Sesay of Guinea, West Africa. Harding was an active teenager until a boil on his nose began to grow so large that it blocked the vision in his right eye. With no access to a local doctor and no money for medical attention, help seemed impossible. But he received the opportunity of a lifetime when he was able to have the tumor removed on the Africa Mercy in Sierra Leone.

Ward nurse Corina Buth had volunteered to be part of the Africa Mercy’s walking blood bank upon her arrival on the ship. Her pre-donation screening tests were done, and she knew she had been cross-matched for a patient going to surgery. Buth was the nurse on duty to prepare Harding for surgery. She prepped him, walked him into the Operating Room, and witnessed his operation to remove the large facial tumor.

Seeing his massive blood loss during surgery, she wondered if she would be needed to donate blood for him. To her surprise later that evening, she was called to the Intensive Care Unit, where she learned that Harding did need a blood transfusion. On the spot, with Harding in the bed right next to her, Buth gave a unit of blood. Within minutes of her donation, the blood was being transfused to restore the large amounts lost during the procedure.

The next morning Harding searched for the words to thank Buth, but was unable to articulate his thoughts. His silence didn’t bother her. “His eyes told the whole story. I knew he was thankful,” she said.

So far this year, 209 crew members on the Africa Mercy have signed up to be blood donors. Out of those, 162 have been cross-matched with 95 patients who would potentially need blood for their surgical procedures. A total of 37 units of blood have been donated.

Mercy Ships has carved out their own method in blood donation. Many lives have been saved due to the “walking blood bank.” Such a unique and effective means of donating blood gives the donor a whole new perspective on saving a life. When you can shake the patient’s hand after a transfusion of your blood has saved his or her life . . . it is a priceless moment.

Harding finds it hard to believe how dramatically his life has changed. “For so many years I suffered,” he said, referring to the seven years he hid from society. “Now, I am happy, and I’m full of joy. Thanks to God for what Mercy Ships has done for me.”

Photos by Debra Bell, Tom Bradley and Geke Rustenbrug

Pondering 'The Rose'...

2011-06-12T02:13:00.004-05:00

Saturday night and I am pondering the latest woe that has befallen me (what a month!), I have seemingly overnight (a week ago) developed quite a severe case of double vision. After getting some test done, the latest diagnosis suggest that I have fourth nerve palsy.

I had to go look it up. Turns out the fourth cranial nerve innervates the superior oblique muscle for each eye. The superior oblique muscle is one of the six extraocular muscles that allow movement of eye. Specifically, the superior oblique muscle primarily intorts the eye (such that the top of the eye rolls toward the nose), with secondary actions of depression (downgaze) and abduction (looking away from the nose).

When this muscle’s function is diminished due to a fourth cranial nerve (CN IV) palsy, the affected eye will extort, deviate upward (hypertropia), and, to a smaller extent, drift inward.

No wonder I am pondering life! So, here I am passed midnight, feeling sorry for myself and I came across The Rose... every time I hear it I am a wreck and me a grown man... lol

"The Rose" was written by Amanda McBroom and made famous by Bette Midler, who performed it in the 1979 movie, "The Rose." McBroom won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, although she was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Midler won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "The Rose".

There are two mixes of the song. The single mix features orchestration, while the version in the film (and on its soundtrack) includes an extended introduction while doing away with the orchestration in favor of piano-and-vocals only.

Anyway, this all leads to me lying in bed listening to the song and pondering the lyrics...

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed
That with the sun's love, in the spring
Becomes the rose

Below is the divine Miss Bette singing The Rose, if you cannot see the video, watch it HERE.

(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay

2011-06-09T09:25:00.000-05:00

Playing For Change is one of my all time favourite NGO's! Below is a beautiful rendition of (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay from their new album called PFC2 - Songs Around The World, done with the help of artist across the world. The song starts out with the awesome voice of Rodger Ridley, a street performer from Santa Monica, CA. Mark Johnson from Playing for Change once asked Roger the question: with a voice as powerful as his, why was he singing on the streets? He replied, “I am in the joy business. I come out here to be with the people.”

Roger and Grandpa have brought so much joy to the lives of millions, and in this song we are blessed to see them reunited again. We all shine on, and Roger’s light is as bright as the sun!!

If you annot see the video below, you can watch it HERE!

West African Businessmen Raises Money for Mercy Ships

2011-06-08T15:03:00.000-05:00

Ecobank, West African Businessmen Raise $30,000 for Mercy Ships

Freetown, Sierra Leone, June 2, 2011 – History was made in Sierra Leone, the West African Nation ranked at the bottom of the Human Development Index. Seven years ago, 70,000 UN Peace keeping troops were in this nation. Today, the UN numbers less than 70. Two democratic elections have been successfully completed. The nation willingly disarmed. As the nation celebrates 50 years of independence, it seems fitting that West African businesses would donate to support the work of Mercy Ships. It is the fifth visit of a Mercy Ship to Freetown so the organization is well known and trusted.

Ecobank, the leading independent regional banking group in West and Central Africa, hosted a dynamic fundraising auction on board Mercy Ships’ hospital ship, the Africa Mercy on the first day of June. The auction attracted over 50 businessmen and women from Freetown, Sierra Leone; raising over $30,000 USD for the international charity, Mercy Ships. The reputation of healthcare delivery to the poorest of the poor as well as the transparency of the organization convinced the West African businessmen and women that this was a worthwhile investment.

“I think it was time we showed some appreciation,” said Ecobank Managing Director, Clement Dodoo. “This is the fifth time Mercy Ships is in our town and we can all see the wonderful things they are doing. We will never forget this day. This is not an Ecobank event, this is for all of us. I am really, really touched.”

President and Founder Don Stephens highlighted the unique business model of charging the mainly all volunteer professional crew for the privilege of serving. Not only must all crew [currently 410 onboard from 41 nations] pay for air transportation but also monthly room and board. In particular, the West African business community commended the unique model of a global community living, working, serving and worshipping together while onboard ship.

The guests attending the fundraiser were given a tour of the hospital and they were amazed by the work being done—and the lives being changed—on this hospital ship. This event strengthened the excellent working relationship between Ecobank and Mercy Ships.

Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Gary Parker, addressed the group with a moving explanation of the mission of Mercy Ships and how the organization changes lives. Still in his medical scrubs, Dr. Parker had excused himself from surgery on the hospital deck, walked up three flights of stairs to speak at the event, and afterwards he re-entered the Operating Room to finish up surgery!

The auction was conducted by Winston Ojukutu-Macauley, former BBC Africa Service correspondent in Sierra Leone. To liven the atmosphere, he spurred the crowd to open their wallets—digging deep to donate to such an outstanding cause. “Mercy Ships is doing so much more than just operations; they help eradicate ignorance. Many people here still believe that curses and witchcraft [cause these conditions]. These doctors fix a leg or remove a tumor and show our people it’s not a curse, just a condition that can be helped.”

Items up for auction included paintings, football jerseys of West African players who play now in leading European Clubs such as Real Madrid, dinner certificates, perfume by the First Lady and three books about Mercy Ships, signed by the author and Founder of the organization, Don Stephens.

Mercy Ships has performed thousands of surgeries for free in Sierra Leone, including cleft lip and palate repair, orthopedic surgeries, tumor removal and cataract removal. Over the past 18 years, Mercy Ships has served in Sierra Leone five times. The organization has positively impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leoneans.

In closing, Mercy Ships President/Founder, Don Stephens, addressed the guests.

“Mercy Ships has been considering opening an office in West Africa because we had the sense that West Africans wanted to join us at another level to bring hope and healing to this region. What you have done today has confirmed you are well ahead of us! The time for Africa has come. What you have done tonight has encouraged me beyond words—that we are on the right track. From the depth of my heart… it’s not Mercy Ships thanking you, it’s those who are outcasts and rejected and whose lives will be forever changed. Together, we have made history tonight!”

Photos taken by Pamelina Chang

Africa Mercy Welcomes Sierra Leone President

2011-06-02T11:54:00.000-05:00

President Koroma tours hospital ship

Freetown, Sierra Leone, June 02, 2011 - Top government officials from the Republic of Sierra Leone toured the Mercy Ships flagship, the Africa Mercy, on Friday, May 27, 2011. President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana, and the Honorable Minister of Health and Sanitation, Mrs. Zainab Hawa Bangura received a warm reception from the 450 crew members serving onboard the hospital ship.

After being welcomed on the dock by Africa Mercy Managing Director Donovan Palmer, the dignitaries climbed the gangway and were greeted by members of Mercy Ships International Board of Directors.

The special guests were given a tour of the ship and the hospital wards. The dignitaries met several patients and learned about their life-changing surgeries first-hand. After the tour, a presentation was held in which Dr. Gary Parker showed before and after photos of patients treated onboard the Africa Mercy. The dramatic transformations moved President Koroma as he addressed the Mercy Ships board members and crew:

“You have given a lot of hope to a good number of our fellow Sierra Leoneans,” said President Koroma. “You have treated people with extreme difficulties. I know that as a nation that is committed to moving forward as a government, you have helped us to build up our capacity and provide a service. We thank you for what you have done.”

The President’s visit to the Africa Mercy comes at the same time that Mercy Ships President/Founder, Don Stephens, was presented with a Diamond Award from The Embassy of the Republic of Sierra Leone in Washington, D.C. This prestigious award recognized his contribution to the development of Sierra Leone.

This is the fifth time that Mercy Ships has visited Sierra Leone. The country has made great strides to raise its level of health care, but it still ranks at the bottom of the 2010 United Nations Human Development Index (158 out of 169 countries). Mercy Ships has aligned its program offerings with the nation’s five-year National Health Sector Strategic Plan (NHSSP). The key objective of the plan is to strengthen the functions of the national health system.

Since the ship’s arrival in February 2011, Mercy Ships has performed over 750 surgeries, over 12,000 dental procedures, and trained over 500 individuals in either agriculture, mental health, or church leaders’ training. Mercy Ships will conclude its 10-month Field Service in Sierra Leone in December 2011.

As the presentation came to a close, President Koroma’s remarks to the crew showed a sincere appreciation for the work of Mercy Ships in Sierra Leone. “You have collaborated with us – worked very hard to help us provide smiles. You are willing to help people get back to a normal life. People who were not able to walk – they wobbled – they are now walking. It is a good gift to our country. On behalf of the government, once more, I thank the Director, the initiative and the leaders. God Bless you all.”

May Newsletter

2011-06-01T13:09:00.002-05:00

To read my newsletter, please click HERE.

Marmite: Denmark says spread could be illegal

2011-05-25T10:47:00.001-05:00

Marmite - you either love it or hate it, the makers say

British savoury spread Marmite could be illegal in Denmark if it fails to meet safety requirements, officials say.

By law, the Danish authorities must give their approval for food fortified by vitamins or minerals before sale.
Products with such additives need to be assessed for any potential dangers, the Danish Food and Veterinary Administration says.

Denmark has previously banned several popular items, including the drink Ovaltine and some breakfast cereals.

A shop in Copenhagen was recently asked to remove its supplies of Marmite following a phone call from Danish authorities, the owner says.

A spokesman for the Danish Food and Veterinary Administration said: "We have no record of an application for the sale of the product, so we have neither forbidden or accepted it."

Marmite Ingredients
Yeast Extract
Salt
Vegetable Extract
Niacin (Vit B3)
Thiamine (Vit B1)
Spice Extracts
Riboflavin (Vit B2)
Folic Acid
Celery Extract
Vitamin B12
Source: Marmite website

The procedural checks needed before a final decision is reached could take up to six months.

If a ban is put in place, outraged fans of the spread in Denmark are threatening a campaign of civil disobedience, the BBC's Europe correspondent Chris Morris says.

Nutritionist Melanie Brown told the BBC she believed a ban on Marmite, which is rich in B-vitamins such as riboflavin and niacin, would be counterproductive.

"Marmite plays such a useful part in many people's diet, and in my practice it's incredibly useful for older people...who are short in vitamin B12.

"It's full of folic acid, and there's lots of evidence that many women, young women of child-bearing age are deficient in folic acid," she said.

source BBC News

Google photo bombing!

2011-05-20T13:44:00.000-05:00

I am sure you've used Google Maps to look at your house from the street view. Here are some of the other pictures that the camera took, snatching little everyday moments.

For more photos click HERE!

Photo bomb, oh photo bomb...

2011-05-19T21:55:00.003-05:00

I have been amusing myself trolling the net for photo bombs. Those unique and 'ruined' photos when people/animals/objects inadvertently or on purpose pop themselves into a photo as a joke. Here are some humdingers!

For more go to http://thisisphotobomb.memebase.com/page/6/

Three Little Birds

2011-05-17T08:52:00.001-05:00

This video is the first track of the Playing for Change album, PFC 2 – Songs Around The World, which is being released May 31st!! The journey begins in West Africa, in the ancient village of Kirina, Mali. The instruments start to play, and you hear the familiar words “don’t worry about a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright.” This timeless message invites you on a musical journey through time and space. Together we continue to connect the world through music.

If you cannot see the video below, you can watch it HERE!

A very sad day!

2011-05-13T11:55:00.005-05:00

RIP André Prinsloo, brother, dreamer and comedian.

Today is indeed a sad day. The world has lost a great person.

André was the second oldest of us four brothers and quite a character. He knew how to be serious at times and he also knew when to joke around. What I remember the most, apart from his grand dreams, was that he was one of the most politest people I have ever met; he was the kind of man who always put others ahead of him, mostly to his own detriment.

He was still an eternal child inside a man’s body. He had an uncanny ability to find joy in everything, and within seconds would have a smile on your face.

I know my brother left lots of things undone and others that he never had a chance to start.

But André, this is just my small way of saying thank you for everything you did for me and to say, I love you.

I am thankful for all the special moments that my brother has left with us. And with that, I hope that my brother will continue to live on within our hearts and minds.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Please keep my remaining brothers, Gerhard, Heinricht and their families in your prayers.

Rus in Vrede André, en mag jy vandag saam met Toets en Pȏl naby Jesus staan.

May edition of Connections

2011-05-11T08:43:00.001-05:00

Here is the May edition of Connections! Statistics reflect the alarming truth that Sierra Leone has the second highest infant mortality rate in the world. To help create a solution, and as part of Mercy Ships strategy of capacity building, the organization recently held an Anesthesiology and Midwifery conference in Freetown, Sierra Leone. One of Mercy Ships greatest assets is its international volunteers from nearly 40 countries. Allow us to introduce some of them to you. Watch these special moments in this month's edition of Connections.

If you cannot see the video below, you can watch it HERE!

Stop it!

2011-05-09T22:03:00.000-05:00

I spent last week in a Development conference and one of our spreakers used the 'Bob Newhart - Stop it!' clip to make a point. I forgot how much I loved it. It was like seeing an old friend again.

Enjoy!

If you cannot see the video below, watch the video clip HERE!

There is always one!

2011-05-02T08:17:00.001-05:00

Source BBC

How Great Thou Art - Carrie Underwood Goes Viral

2011-04-26T08:45:00.002-05:00

It's no surprise that country music fans were anticipating the TV special Girls Night Out: Superstar Women of Country, which was taped at the 2011 Academy of Country Music Awards weekend earlier this month and aired Friday night on CBS. However, it was a gospel song performed at the show that unexpectedly crossed all boundary lines and created a viral sensation over the weekend.

Carrie Underwood was just one of many huge names in the allstar lineup, but her duet with Vince Gill of the classic standard "How Great Thou Art" managed to bring down the entire house--and internet, at that. According to Yahoo! data, searches for Underwood's rendition of the tune spiked a whopping 362% on Saturday.

If you cannot see the video below, watch it HERE!

Underwood and Gill's fellow stars in the audience appeared moved by the performance, as well. Martina McBride stares transfixed at the stage, the ordinarily humorous Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert watch reverently, while Sugarland's Kristian Bush nods his head and Jennifer Nettles mouths "What a voice."

After hitting the final, climactic notes, Underwood wrapped the powerful performance up with a hug for Gill. Then, she wiped away a few tears...and faced a standing ovation from her peers. How great, indeed.

Sources: YouTube and Yahoo Music Blog

April Newsletter

2011-04-21T15:13:00.000-05:00

Friends,

If you would like to read my Easter/April newsletter brimming with heart stopping, amazing and wonderful news for your reading pleasure, please click HERE or click on the photo!

Groove in G

2011-04-21T08:42:00.001-05:00

Playing for Change News! Below is the new original Song Around the World titled "Groove in G.". This track started in West Africa with a musical group named Tinariwen. More musicians were added to the song as it transformed into a global jam with its roots in the blues spanning 5 continents.

Enjoy the positive connections and please support the upcoming release, "PFC 2 - Songs Around the World," a CD/DVD coming out May 31st everywhere music is sold!!

If you don't see the image below, click HERE to view the video.

The African Children's choir

2011-04-17T21:22:00.000-05:00

Tonight I had the joyful honor of going to a performance of the African Children's Choir in a nearby town of New Harmony. The Choir is a made up of children ages 7 to 12 from several African nations. Since its inception, the choir has included children from Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana. Many of the children have lost one or both parents to AIDS and other poverty-related diseases, and all of them are victims of extreme poverty.

The Choir was founded in 1984 in Uganda as a Christian charity and has expanded since. For each new tour, new children are selected for the choir, with each tour lasting from a year to a year and a half. The choir serves as the main fund raising branch for its parent organization, Music For Life Institute, with proceeds from the choir's work used to fund education and relief efforts for African children affected by poverty and disease. Over 7,000 children in several African nations are currently being supported through the program.

CNN International made a wonderful documentary on the Choir for Inside Africa that aired in January. For those of you who missed it, you can watch the entire documentary right here.

April 2011 Connections!

2011-04-12T15:01:00.000-05:00

My baby! Watch the latest edition of Connections below! I love producung these updates for Mercy Ships with the talented help of Scott Shellhorse! Hey, feel free to nominate us for a YouTube or webbie award! :-)

Thousands of hopeful men, women, and children were seen during this year's surgical screenings as Mercy Ships starts its Field Service to bring hope and healing to Sierra Leone. This month's update also looks at the Hospital Support Facilities modular units that are being constructed to help expand the capacity of the onboard hospital. Watch these special moments in this month's edition of Connections.

Mercy Ships, Dedicated to Excellence in World Health Care, is Celebrating World Health Day

2011-04-06T07:46:00.003-05:00

The procurement department at the Mercy Ships International Operations Center in Garden Valley, Texas, is charged with the daunting task of shipping medications, lab supplies, hospital equipment, and medical supplies (among other things) to their hospital ship in West Africa.

Dr. James McDaniel checking in at the Tyler
Airport. One way Mercy Ships gets temperature-
sensitive materials to the ship in Africa
is via volunteers carry-on luggage.

Mercy Ships is dedicated to improving World Health in some of the most poverty-stricken nations on earth. The focus of 2011 World Health Day, celebrated on April 7, is the importance of antimicrobial agents — antibiotics, antivirals and chemotherapeutic agents, among others.

Getting vital medications to the developing world in a timely manner is a challenging task. No one goes to greater lengths to ensure their patients are provided with these life-saving medications than the international charity, Mercy Ships.

The procurement department at the Mercy Ships International Operations Center in Garden Valley, Texas, is charged with the daunting task of shipping medications, lab supplies, hospital equipment, and medical supplies (among other things) to their hospital ship in West Africa. These items are either donated by generous providers or purchased.

“We send one 25,000-pound shipping container every month to the Africa Mercy, packed with medical, food, and technical supplies needed to keep our ship and its programs operational,” says Russ Holmes, Director of International Procurement at Mercy Ships. “About half of the container is solely medical supplies.”

Transporting the container can take up to eight weeks. Once the container is cleared through customs in the host country, the medical supplies are unloaded and available for surgeons and nurses to use to treat patients.

A few key pharmaceuticals, however, require a climate-controlled environment and a first-class method of shipping. Normal shipping procedures do not offer a temperature-sensitive option and are not cost-effective for items like tetanus vaccines, TB vaccines and media plates for the onboard laboratory.

Pharmacist Miriam Tillman accepts the medicine and
checks it into the system for patient use.
The medicine arrived safe and sound in Sierra Leone.

Mercy Ships has found a creative, dependable, and practical way to overcome this obstacle. -- putting these items in the compassionate hands of their volunteers.

For instance, last month Dr. James McDaniel, an orthopedic surgeon traveling to serve on the Africa Mercy, checked an extra piece of luggage at the ticket counter. One rolling suitcase carried clothes and necessities. The other — a rolling cooler — contained vaccines and hospital lab supplies.

“As a volunteer, I’m here to do whatever I can to further the mission of Mercy Ships,” explained Dr. McDaniel. This form of delivery takes 36-40 hours and is the most efficient way of getting climate-controlled supplies to the ship in a timely and effective manner.

Approximately 38 hours later, Dr. McDaniel delivered the cooler to the hospital supply coordinator on the ship. The important medicine was then available for immediate use.

Life-changing surgeries are only successful when the appropriate pharmaceuticals are available to treat patients. The two key teams at Mercy Ships that make this happen are the Advance team and the International Procurement Department. Advance secures the proper authorization to import pharmaceuticals into West African countries, and the procurement team acquires the items and works out the logistics that make the delivery of the drugs a safe and efficient process.

Thanks to these groups, as well as loyal volunteers who are willing to serve as couriers, the forgotten poor of West Africa have access to vital medications that have the potential to save hundreds — even thousands — of lives.

A Little Christian Humor

2011-04-05T16:46:00.000-05:00

Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the

computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of

hearing all the bickering.

Finally fed up, God said, 'THAT'S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set

up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge

who does the better job.'

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.

They moused.

They faxed.

They e-mailed.

They e-mailed with attachments..

They downloaded.

They did spreadsheets!

They wrote reports.

They created labels and cards.

They created charts and graphs.

They did some genealogy reports .

They did every job known to man.

Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed

across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went

off...

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the

underworld.

Jesus just sighed....

Finally, the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their

computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming:

'It's gone! It's all GONE! 'I lost everything when the power went out!'

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past

two hours of work.

Satan observed this and became irate.

'Wait!' he screamed. That's not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his

work and I don't have any?'

God just shrugged and said,

JESUS SAVES ...

End of March - The Madness Continues - Newsletter

2011-03-31T10:37:00.001-05:00

Click HERE or on the image below to read my facinating, thought provoking, cutting edge Newsletter! It WILL change your life! Quick! Do it Now! Read it, read it! Come on, I dare you, read it!

Upside Down - Wrongside Up!

2011-03-21T00:54:00.001-05:00

Okay, time for a bot of a random posting...

Have you even scratched a dog's belly, noticed it's cute scrunched up face, taken a photo of it's face and when you looked at the photo, realized it is the wrong side up?

Well, lucky for you there is a webside you can post your proud photos, and boy, aren't you in for a treat!

Welcome to the bizarre world of http://www.upsidedowndogs.com/

Here are a few prime examples...

Charlie The Basset Hound Mixed Breed

Brutus The English Bulldog

Black Jack The Labrador Retriever Mixed Breed

Lily The Boxer

Go For Launch!

2011-03-15T15:34:00.003-05:00

Space shuttle Discovery gets prepped for flight—in just under four minutes.

I will miss the space shuttle programme! Good job NASA. I recommend that you maximise your screen by clicking on the four arrows. Minimize after by clicking Esc on your keyboard.

If you cannot see the picture/video below, you can see it HERE!

Connections!

2011-03-10T20:12:00.001-06:00

One of the fruits of my labors is to come up with new monthly episodes of Connections. With the help of Scott, we come up with these little updates about what is happening within the world of Mercy Ships. Enjoy!

Celebrate with us as just days ago, the Africa Mercy, reached Freetown, Sierra Leone to begin its ten month field service to this Western African nation. This month's update concludes with an explanation from Dr. Gary Parker on making hope tangible for the discouraged. We are excited to share these very special moments with you in this month's edition of Connections.

If you do not see the photo below, click HERE to view the video.

Mercy Ships Chef Feeds Souls

2011-03-08T11:46:00.002-06:00

Mercy Ships operates the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship. Of the crew of 450 volunteers, on average, 60% are women. Mercy Ships salutes its talented female crew on International Women’s Day.

Garden Valley, TX, March 6, 2011 – Mercy Ships, a global charity serving the forgotten poor, is privileged to have highly skilled women volunteering onboard its hospital ship in various positions – nurses, surgeons, technicians, writers and other vital roles. This year on International Women’s Day, Mercy Ships takes the opportunity to acknowledge a volunteer whose job with Mercy Ships is absolutely essential, but is not always properly recognized. Los Angeles gourmet chef-turned-volunteer Rachel Bethke ensures that the crew of the Africa Mercy never goes hungry.

For the past nine months, the twenty-three-year-old has served with Mercy Ships onboard its hospital ship in West Africa. Her days are spent planning, prepping and cooking meals for almost 500 people.

“It’s hard work,” Bethke says. “It demands long hours. I never knew the steps involved in planning to feed this many people. It’s a pretty impressive operation.” Along with Head Chef Jesse Mitchell, Bethke directs sous chefs and manages the timing of cooking so the food is hot and ready to be served when masses of hungry nurses, doctors, engineers, deck hands and support staff line up in the dining hall.

Growing up, however, Bethke did not have aspirations of becoming a chef. “In fact,” the Minnesota native muses, “I always wanted to be a writer! But God had other plans.” After a short stint in journalism school, Bethke enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, California.

“I love the way cooking and food bring people together world-wide, regardless of culture or background.” After graduation, Rachel worked at the upscale restaurant, Reservoir, in Los Angeles, where her culinary skills were put to the test. The experience was amazing, but the high-stress, high-heat environment left Rachel drained at the end of the day. Cooking was her passion, but working in a kitchen in L.A. was not satisfying her soul.

Then Rachel’s brother told her about Mercy Ships, and the concept of a floating hospital immediately piqued her interest. She checked the website and saw a position open for a cook. Instantly, she decided to apply.

Today, Bethke has completed nine months of service with Mercy Ships. After a brief trip visiting family and friends in the U.S., she will meet up with the ship in Sierra Leone for twelve more months of service.

“Working in the Galley onboard is very different from a restaurant environment in the states. My team is from all over the world,” Bethke says. “There are cultural boundaries – including language challenges – that are hard to navigate.” But at the end of the day, her soul is filled with joy because she is doing her part to benefit a cause greater than herself.

Mercy Ships is a global leader in using hospital ships to deliver free world-class health care and community development services to the world's forgotten poor. The organization brings hope and healing by mobilizing people and resources worldwide, and serves people without regard for race, gender, or religion. In 2010, Mercy Ships impacted over 450,000 lives in Africa.

Bethke believes that the mission of Mercy Ships aligns with her personal values. It’s a perfect fit for the organization and for the young chef.

Coolest Grandpa ever!

2011-03-07T21:11:00.001-06:00

Okay! I want a grandpa like this! RESPECT!

If you don't see the video below, you can watch it HERE!

Sierra Leone Welcome Mercy Ships into Port of Freetown

2011-03-01T09:10:00.003-06:00

The Africa Mercy sails up the river into the port of Freetown.

This week marks the fifth time in 18 years that Freetown has welcomed a Mercy Ship; this time it is the Africa Mercy – the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship. For the next ten months, Mercy Ships is offering its state-of-the-art hospital ship – with six operating theaters, lab, pharmacy, 78 beds, and an outpatient clinic – to partner alongside the Sierra Leonean government. The ship will provide free health care to the people of Sierra Leone and training for health care workers until November 2011.

In response to an invitation from the President of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, Mercy Ships program strategy has been carefully aligned with the country’s current five-year health care plan.

Life-changing surgeries such as tumor removal, cleft lip and palate correction, cataract removal, orthopedics and plastics will be offered onboard the ship for individuals that qualify with these conditions. Potential patients have been encouraged to attend specific screening days to receive appointments for their specific medical needs. Advance teams have already conducted screenings in six locations upcountry, seeing more than 5,000 patients prior to the ship’s arrival.

Sierra Leone has made a significant effort to address health care concerns in their country, but still faces challenges. Last year, the nation implemented a free health care policy for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under the age of five. This initiative is very positive, but the nation still ranks at the bottom of the 2010 United Nations Human Development Index (at 158 out of 169). The infant mortality rate in Sierra Leone is 123 per 1,000 births. And with only one dentist for every one million people in Sierra Leone, as compared to 6,000 dentists per million people in the U.S., Mercy Ships investment in the health sector is welcome.

The Mercy Ships Eye Team will partner with the Kissy Eye Clinic to screen and schedule qualified individuals for surgeries. Cataract surgeries are performed in a simple 15-minute procedure, restoring sight for hundreds of vision-impaired individuals. Last year, the Mercy Ships Eye Team performed 2,512 eye surgeries on 2,331 patients. In 2009, Mercy Ships trained six ophthalmologists from Benin, West Africa, in the cataract correction technique. After training, the surgeons increased the number of procedures in their local clinics from 320 surgeries per year to 2000 surgeries per year (combined).

The Sierra Leonean Police Force Band was onhand to
help in the welcome of the Africa Mercy and her crew.

In partnership with other international organizations the Mercy Ship has been invited to provide training for local medical personnel who will add capacity long after the ship leaves. The training/mentoring programs will include, but are not limited to, surgeons, nurses, biomedical technicians, hospital leadership, and lab technicians. In addition, agriculture specialists onboard ship will be involved with training of local partners who will in turn train farmers in aspects of sustainable, organic farming techniques to increase nutrition.

Since 1978, Mercy Ships has mobilized people and resources worldwide to provide free health care and sustainable development in the developing world. Each year volunteers from over 40 nations bring their own unique skill sets onboard the Africa Mercy. Positions include physicians, medical personnel, engineers, maritime crew, galley cooks, hospitality workers and teachers. All professional volunteers pay their own airfare as well room and board for the privilege of serving in Sierra Leone, helping to keep the provision of services free to the recipients.

Please click here to view a video of Medical Screening at the 2010 Togo Field Service, the Mercy Ship’s previous port of service.

February Newsletter

2011-02-24T09:27:00.000-06:00

To read my latest (February) newsletter, please click HERE or on the picture!

Finding A Good End

2011-02-09T17:49:00.007-06:00

I found this great article that talked about the Africa Mercy. I love the ending of the article and I think it says a LOT about the impact the Africa Mercy had, not only to the people she served, but also to the everyday South Africans her crew came in contact with...

A number of the team went off to provide medical services in selected parts of the country. This included dental clinics in rural parts of KwaZulu Natal, while another group of specialists teamed up with The Fred Hollowes Foundation South Africa and the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Health to bring eye care and cataract surgery to people with little or no access to medical care. The team worked in several parts of the Eastern Cape.

With news that the ship was nearing the end of her repairs most of the staff and crew of 450 have returned to the ship as she prepares to sail out of the port that has been her home for the past five months. The sight of the big white hospital ship filling the quayside at Bayhead is going to be missed, as will not doubt all those who lived and worked in South Africa throughout the refit, providing health care from a sense of giving and compassion, while looking for no reward. Bon voyage, Africa Mercy, and as the Scots are known to say, “Will ye no come back again?”

The full article is posted at HERE! (Scroll about halfway down the page)

Redemption Song

2011-02-08T09:32:00.002-06:00

A decade ago a small group of documentary filmmakers set out with a dream to create a film rooted in the music of the streets. Not only has that dream been realized, it has blossomed into a global sensation called Playing For Change, a project including musicians of every level of renown, that has touched the lives of millions of people around the world.

In this track musicians around the world unite together with Bob and Stephen Marley to sing a song of freedom-- join me on this journey through time and space!

Connections: February 2011

2011-02-06T10:27:00.001-06:00

Would you like to know how the West African country of Sierra Leone began? Would you like an inside look at what it takes to prepare the world's largest privately-owned hospital ship for service in one of the poorest countries in the world? If so, you'll enjoy this month's edition of Connections.

American Cultural Observation 331: RFD-TV’s Polka Fest

2011-02-05T22:56:00.002-06:00

Now, I know I am a foreigner visiting foreign shores, but wow! I had no idea... While channel surfing tonight, I came across RFD-TV's Polka Fest and found that I could not move on to the next channel... On my TV screen were a gaggle of people hopping and skipping to real Polka music! Who knew it was so popular! A quick look on Google said that "The polka is a lively Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas."

I never really listened or watch Polka before and I found myself mesmerised. I racked my brain to where I first learned about Polka and remembered it was the movie Home Alone when Kevin's mom (played by Barbara Babcock) managed to hitch a ride with a man named Gus Polinski (John Candy) and his polka band, the Kenosha Kickers, who were driving to Milwaukee after their flight was canceled due to a blizzard.

I had to know more.. so, I turned to my trusty source, good ol' Wikipedia and found this gem!

One of the very first programs to be aired on RFD-TV was "The Big Joe Polka Show", a Polka and dance variety program hosted by Omaha resident Joseph "Big Joe" Siedlik, which continued to be popular among the network's estimated (approximately) 40-plus million available households until its final RFD-TV airing on 01 January 2011. In 2010, litigation commenced between RFD-TV and Polka Cassettes of Nebraska, the creators/producers of "The Big Joe Polka Show" involving several lawsuits and counter suits (mostly over a contractual dispute). RFD-TV contends they had an option to air the program until December 31, 2010, while Polka Cassettes of Nebraska contends that the show was being aired against their wishes, and after cessation of the effectiveness of the previous contract, which expired on December 31, 2009. In August 2010, a multi-million dollar "slander and defamation" suit was brought against Polka Cassettes of Nebraska by RFD-TV.[Source= PUBLIC RECORD:The Fourth Judicial District Court of Nebraska Clerk of Courts, date of inquiry Monday 30 August 2010 Douglas County, Nebraska]

The show was replaced by "The RFD-TV Polka Fest" on 05 January 2011, and airs during the same time schedule.

I might have to go find myself a Polka Fest to go to in person!

Believe it or not...

2011-02-04T13:28:00.000-06:00

... they are calling for an early spring!

Give Kids A Smile!

2011-01-31T08:42:00.001-06:00

Kids in Africa get a Healthy Smile

Mercy Ships, a global charity, is putting an international twist on bringing smiles to kids. Give Kids a Smile Day, observed the first Friday in February by the American Dental Association, is a day when dentists in the United States offer free oral care to children of low-income families. This year, an estimated 39,000 kids in the United States will receive free services.

Mercy Ships operates the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship, serving the poor in West Africa. The programs offered when Mercy Ships serves a nation range from life changing surgeries to physician training. Mercy Ships also operates a dental clinic that provides dental work for individuals free of charge. In essence, the dental team celebrates “Bring Kids a Smile Day” everyday. In 2010, the Mercy Ships dental team performed approximately 15,000 procedures on 8,000 patients. Men, women and children come each day to the clinic. Not only do the patients receive dental treatment, but they also receive instruction about dental hygiene while they wait for their turn to see a professional dentist.

In addition to treating children in the dental clinic, Mercy Ships dental hygienists, like Donna Bartholomew of Elk Grove, California, take time to visit schools and teach kids how to take care of their teeth. During a recent field service in Togo, West Africa, Donna spoke to a classroom full of kids at an elementary school. Many of them had never brushed their teeth – or ever owned a toothbrush.

Ms. Bartholomew warned the children, “Bad health will lead to cavities – holes in your teeth that will pain you.” She then showed them how to brush correctly, asking one of the students to demonstrate in front of the class. At the end of the presentation every child received a bright red toothbrush.

Mercy Ships Chief Dental Officer Dag Tvedt of Norway believes that children in developing countries are more tolerant to pain in a dentist’s chair compared to children in the developed world. He has provided dental treatment for thousands of children in West Africa. Most people would not think that kids would get a smile while being in a dentist’s chair.

Sometimes, however, the treatment they receive alleviates their pain. Dr. Tvedt is a vital part of the Mercy Ships dental team, and he encourages prevention through dental hygiene instruction in the region served by Mercy Ships.

Due to the lack of trained dentists in West African countries, people who live in this region typically do not have any knowledge of dental hygiene. Dental education at a young age will help decrease dental problems in the future. The Mercy Ships dental team performs extractions of teeth everyday. The team hopes that, through prevention, the amount of extractions will decrease. Correct hygiene can prevent extractions and painful procedures down the road.

The spirit of Give Kids a Smile Day is to remember those children who cannot afford yearly dental checkups. Mercy Ships believes kids deserve a smile everyday. The dental care provided by Mercy Ships meets a critical need in the developing countries of West Africa – and gives many children a bright and beautiful smile!

Timelapse Video of the Africa Mercy Departing Dry Dock in Durban

2011-01-27T11:47:00.002-06:00

January Newsletter

2011-01-25T08:48:00.002-06:00

Here is my January Newsletter. To see a better version and to actually read it, click HERE!

If you cannot read this version, please click HERE to see a version on Google Docs.

A Special Place in Hell!

2011-01-23T18:52:00.003-06:00

Now, this is only my opinion, but I think there is a special place in hell reserved for people who dress up their pets. Ha, and to prove my point there is a brilliant little website called Pets Who Want To Kill Themselves! Don't worry... it does not contain images of dogs with their heads in the oven or of cats swallowing pawfuls of pills... But their look at the camera tells of their intention... revenge! I bet you these pet owners found a piece of wet pet business in their shoe the next day! Check out the website at the bottom of this post!

Okay... here is some of my favourites!

All photos courtesy of http://petswhowanttokillthemselves.com/

Explaining Mercy Ships in 30 Seconds!

2011-01-21T14:03:00.000-06:00

How do I explain Mercy Ships in 30 seconds? Well, thanks to our video department I can!

Sabona Sonke - We Can All See

2011-01-11T09:15:00.001-06:00

Cataract eye patient waiting in line for screening,
hoping to be a candidate for surgery.

Almost 23,000 people in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province are unnecessarily blind. They are not aware that cataract surgery can restore their sight. The 2010 Sabona Sonke Campaign, a three-phase plan of intervention, is in process at three area hospitals in South Africa. The goal is to offer a workable system at each site, providing effective eye care to those with little or no access to medical care.

The Mercy Ships Eye Team is headed by Dr. Glenn Strauss, surgeon and lead consultant. They are partnering with The Fred Hollows Foundation South Africa, the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Health, and management professionals from each hospital to use the current resources most efficiently. The hospitals involved include the Port Elizabeth Hospital Complex, the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital, and the Sabona Eye Centre in Queenstown. The program will be presented for about three weeks at each hospital.

Hopefully, the Sabona Sonke Campaign will encourage people to use the hospitals more often. For example, the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha, South Africa, is a fine facility that stands ready to handle the medical needs of the community. However, people do not utilize the hospital to its full potential. One reason is that many people cannot afford needed medical services. Another problem is the prevailing public opinion that the hospital is where one goes to die.

Close up of a new lens being inserted onto a cataract patient's eye.

At a meeting of those involved at the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha, Dr. Strauss explained the importance of keeping the flow of patients constant. This requires that every part of the process must be working well within the system, as well as outside. Outside obstacles that must be overcome include negative attitudes about eye treatment and government stipends to the blind (which are often a person's only source of income).

In addition to Dr. Strauss, the Mercy Ships team includes Kim Strauss, patient coordinator; Dr. Richard Newsom, eye surgeon and consultant; Glenys Gillingham, surgical nurse and head of the surgical team; Woody Hopper, consulting optometrist and head of screening; Robin Hopper, educational team leader, administrator and management coordinator; and Shannon Hickey, team member.

Phase one of the program begins with assessment of the current system, training of eye teams, and the transporting of patients to hospital locations. The second phase calls for the training of ophthalmologists in the Mercy Ships expedited procedure of cataract removal, and the referrals of cataract patients to be received at the hospital sites. The final phase includes the cataract operations, assessment and debriefing following the cataract surgeries, and the continuation of the program at future sites.

Screening sites for the Port Elizabeth program were held at Settlers, Uitenhage and Motherwell. The Queenstown screening sites for the Sabona Eye Centre were held at SS Gida Hospital, Aliwal North, Empilisweni and Cofimvaba. Butterworth, St. Elizabeth, St. Patrick and Madzikane kaZulu were the screening sites for the Program at Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha.

Many cataract patients of Optometrist Tseli Khalatha, as well as others who learned about the program by word of mouth, crowded the screening site in Butterworth. They shared a common hope – to have their sight restored. Mr. Khalatha was in charge of admissions at the screening, doing the initial check for cataracts and moving them onto the next step in the process of identifying appropriate patients for the surgery. Robin Hopper and Shannon Hickey did biometry testing to check measurements inside the eye, and Woody Hopper used the slit lamp, a diagnostic tool for cataracts and the final step in the screening process.

Phase II of the program is the training of local eye surgeons. At the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha, South Africa, surgical candidates arrived by shuttle from the Butterworth screening site and were prepared for cataract surgery. Dr. Strauss and Dr. Richard Newsom, another eye surgeon and consultant, trained surgeons in the Mercy Ships expedited procedure of cataract removal. They worked with Dr. Carolina Salazar, Dr. Laveen Naidoo, and Dr. Thabo Matubatuba of the Mandela Hospital.

Post Op cataract eye patient 77 yr old Nontombi Ntanjong
smiles in appreciation of sight next day after surgery in the
Nelson Mandela Academy hospital in Mthatha.

Surgical Nurse Glenys Gillingham, head of the surgical team, also instructed the hospital's ophthalmic nurses in new procedures to better assist the doctors.

Dr. Salazar, who came from Cuba to work for only one year in the South African hospital, is now completing her thirteenth year at the facility. “I love the work that he (Dr. Strauss) is doing,” she said. “It's nice to have colleagues around. We all have the same purpose – to help patients.”

Mandoyisile Esther Ntanjana, one of the cataract patients, was totally blind. Her neighbor had also been blind, but had recovered her sight after a similar surgery. The neighbor encouraged Mandoyisile to have the procedure. Mandoyisile's brilliant smile reflected her great joy after the successful surgery. With great excitement, she declared, “I had a dark view before. Now I can see! I am happy!”

Dr. Strauss is working closely with ophthalmologists at each location, and hopes this process will open doors to new strategies for addressing blindness that will be duplicated easily in other areas. In this way, effective eye care will continue after Mercy Ships leaves South Africa.

Story by Elaine B. Winn
Photos by Debra Bell

Counting My Blessings...

2011-01-04T11:05:00.000-06:00

I just want to convey my thanks to you for being part of my life this year ... as each year comes and goes ... we grow through the challenges that comes knocking at our doorstep and 2010 proved to be no different! It was real tough at times, but as I look back in reflection, I witness some remarkable moments and memories that will last a life time... and I am filled with gratitude.

Thank you for the friendship, the support, the encouragement, for holding my head up high when I failed to see the light at the end of the tunnel, for sharing the laughter, the tears, the doubts and confusion, and precious moments of joy and hope... (so many memories are flashing through my mind as I write this)... that made me grow beyond the boundaries of myself... and the opportunity to experience many new and wonderful life changing experiences during 2010.

Thank you for being you this year in my life...

Year of the Rabbitt

2010-12-26T12:15:00.003-06:00

2011 (MMXI) is a common year starting on Saturday.

In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2011th year of the Common Era or the Anno Domini designation; the 11th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 2nd of the 2010s decade.

The United Nations has designated 2011 the International Year of Forests and International Year of Chemistry.

March 18 – NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft is scheduled to arrive in orbit around Mercury.

April 1 – The Space Shuttle will undertake its final mission before retirement.

In May, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and Mars all visible within a roughly 6° area of sky.
In July the Dawn spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the minor planet 4 Vesta during July. The exact date remains uncertain. The International Olympic Committee will decide the host city of the 2018 Winter Olympics.

September 9 – October 23 – New Zealand will host the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Exact dates unknown but in 2011 California will open the world's largest solar power plant. The Nord Stream natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany will be completed. Blue Waters, a petascale supercomputer being designed and built as a joint effort between the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and IBM is expected to be completed in this year. A new definition of the kilogram, based on universal constants, is likely to be announced at the 24th General Conference on Weights and Measures.

Merry Christmas Friends!

2010-12-22T10:45:00.000-06:00

There's more, much more to Christmas
Than candle-light and cheer;
It's the spirit of sweet friendship
That brightens all the year;

It's thoughtfulness and kindness,
It's hope reborn again,
For peace, for understanding
And for goodwill to men!

A foreigner's guide to American culture

2010-12-20T09:41:00.003-06:00

As I lay in bed last night I read this interesting insight from Kevin Connolly- a BBC Correspondent on living in the US. I don't necessarily agree with all the points he makes but then again... I love and respect this country so much, but her people are so hard to understand! I know it is a lenghty read in this age of instant information and gratification, but hey, kick back, take a sip of eggnog and read on!

The BBC's America correspondent Kevin Connolly is packing his bags for a new post in the Middle East. During his three years in the US he has visited 46 out of 50 states and covered the country's election of its first black president.

Sometime around the spring of 1835, a young Frenchman called Alexis de Tocqueville travelled to the United States on a mission guaranteed to make Americans bristle with irritation. He was going to understand them, and explain them.

De Tocqueville was smart, Gallic and aristocratic - a 19th Century version of the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" that 21st Century Americans find so vexing.

He left behind one or two books that are still worth reading, but his most important legacy was his simplest.

After De Tocqueville, just about every European sent to the United States has treated the posting as an invitation to help diagnose the country's faults and suggest ways in which they might be fixed.

Americans find this a little puzzling.

After all, they reason, theirs is a country founded and created by migrants who had left the old world behind them.

And it is generally the most energetic and resourceful people who flee old lives to build new worlds, leaving their less enterprising fellow-countrymen behind them.

So the arc of American development is going to make the place less and less like the old world, not more and more.

But there is, nevertheless, a deep-seated European instinct that says the United States might be all right if it would only tweak its attitude towards healthcare, or gun control or the death penalty.

But, of course, it would not exactly be all right - it would just be Britain with bigger portions and better weather.

Great American Songbook
My own introduction to the realities of the American century came at a rather less strategic level.

As a very young child, I had a stammer, and when I was growing up there was a theory that the rhythms and repetitions of popular songs could be useful tools for fixing this.

“When you come to live in America, you are shocked by the familiarity of the unfamiliar ”

So the Great American Songbook was drummed into me with such merciless kindness in my mother's kitchen that I can still remember nearly all the lyrics, postcards to the dreary Europe of the early 1960s from what we dimly perceived to be a brighter place.

When age has finally shriven me of everything else I recollect across the ravaged wastes of memory, I know for certain that I will still recollect every word of the Eileen Barton classic If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd Have Baked a Cake, a genuine contender to be considered the worst song ever written.

Among our favourites was a song called Delaware, which consists of a never-ending string of puns based on American place names.

"What did Della wear, boys? Why, she wore a brand new jersey of course... "

I am still struck today by the charmless ingenuity of its witless wordplay.

It does not tackle any of the really awkward ones like Vermont, or Utah but it does manage a verse about "Why did Callie phone ya?" (Cali-for-nia)

In case you had not guessed incidentally, Callie was calling to ask "How are ya?" (Ha-wa-ii).

The result of that early exposure to American culture, of course, is simple.

When you come to live in America you are shocked by the familiarity of the unfamiliar.

You will know a pretzel from a bagel and a Dodger from a Met.

You know what the uniformed concierges at apartment buildings do, and you know what you must tip them at Christmas.

The answers respectively being not much, and too much.

And there is something beguiling in that easy familiarity, but something misleading about it, too. It tends to blind Europeans, and the British in particular, to any sense of just how foreign a place America can be.

'Bureaucratic boondoggle'
This is, after all, a country born out of a tax-revolt during a rebellion against centralising authority, and then expanded by settlers who exchanged the comforts of the Eastern seaboard for the dangers and opportunities of the wild interior.

It is not surprising that a feisty scepticism towards government lingers in the politics here.

The Tea Party movement is successful because it taps into the deep American suspicion that all federal government apart from defence spending, is a kind of bureaucratic boondoggle, dreamed up by larcenous conspiracists in Washington to allow them to line their pockets by picking ours.

And America is, of course, an intensely religious place - something that is not difficult to trace to its foundation by a band of hardy religious zealots.

If anything, over time, it is getting more religious rather than less. The motto In God We Trust was not added to American banknotes until the 1950s, for example.

Americans tied themselves in knots two years ago agonising over whether a black man, or a white woman could yet be elected president.

But here is a safe prediction. It will be a very long time before an atheist or agnostic gets anywhere near the White House.

A stark contrast with Europe where the opposite is increasingly the case.

And our differences extend into this earthly realm too.

To Europeans, for example, a gun is a weapon, pure and simple.

To many, but not all Americans, it is a badge of independence, and self-reliance - the tool of the engaged citizen who does not think that either the criminal, or the forces of the state, should have a monopoly on deadly force.

Show us a gun, and we picture a muscular ne'er-do-well in a balaclava menacing an elderly sub-postmistress.

An American is more likely to visualise a plucky homesteader crouching between an overturned sofa in a burning ranch house, preparing to defend his family to the death.

American manners
These things too are familiar enough, but a country so large, so restless and so energetic is necessarily full of surprises and contradictory impulses too.

This is after all, the land that gave us prohibition and then invented organised crime to get around it.

“ I have been handed a ticket to a multi-storey car park with an exhortation to have an 'outstanding parking experience' ”

American writing, for example, beguiles and exasperates in equal measure.

Its newspapers - with one or two exceptions - are awful.

Endless sub-clauses roam across prairies of newsprint in search of the point, like homesteader wagons on the Oregon trail circling around a knackered old buffalo.

And yet the daily American way with language is touched with brilliance, taut and crackling with life.

My favourite example is the simplest, the old railroad crossing sign that simply says: Stop. Look. Listen.

Impossible to shorten or clarify, it was written by an engineer for a country of new immigrants with limited English. It is not long, but it is still in use today, a rare example of perfect writing.

American manners, too, are not quite what you might expect.

The invocation to "have a nice day" is still common, and when it feels sincere it has a real charm. But like a fast-food franchise it has expanded and mutated.

In the Bible-belt, you will be wished a "blessed day" for example.

Gymnasium receptionists will enjoin you to "have an excellent workout" and, most improbably of all, I have been handed a ticket to a multi-storey car park with an exhortation to have an "outstanding parking experience".

But the rejoinder "you're welcome", which once greeted almost any expression of thanks in America, is in retreat.

In its place is a sort of wordless acknowledgement, halfway between a grunt and a hum, "mm-hmmm". It is a sound that acknowledges your thanks but implies that no great joy has been found in helping you either.

“America has enormous debts but it still spends as much money on defence as all the rest of the world put together ”

America was first into the world of over-effusive politeness and it is on the way to being first out, too.

In some ways, in my three years in America, I found the country at one of the least typical times in its history.

A society defined by boundless optimism in its own future has been suffering a spasm of self-doubt.

For the first time in history, the current generation of Americans cannot be certain that the generation that comes next will be more prosperous.

An aversion to paying taxes and an addiction to public and private debt do not add up, and American voters may well be left to conclude that they have awarded themselves a lifestyle that they can not really afford.

One possible casualty might be the curious form of credit-card imperialism that has helped to shape the world in recent years.

America has enormous debts but it still spends as much money on defence as all the rest of the world put together.

And if that makes you uncomfortable, it is worth remembering that wherever you are, there is a good chance that if your country is ever invaded, your leader's first phone call will be to the White House in Washington.

And so this remains a place of immense patriotic pride.

Because it is a country at war, young men and women in uniform are a common sight on internal flights around the country.

It is curiously moving to see them sitting looking a little embarrassed as a pilot or flight attendant calls on their fellow passengers to give their service and sacrifice a standing ovation.

Friendliness and hospitality
But there are, of course, irritations to living anywhere, and it is the job of the irritable to find them.

Americans could make their public spaces a little quieter, for example, if they all took one step closer to the person they are talking to.

And they could speed up their journeys to work by not insisting on holding every elevator for everyone who wants to catch it as though it was one of the last helicopters leaving the roof of the Saigon embassy in 1975. There will be another lift along in a minute.

And after three years of eating steaks the size of elephant's ears off plates bigger than satellite dishes, all of our crockery back in Europe now looks like it was borrowed from a doll's house. They may take some getting used to.

But America in one sense was exactly as I expected it to be: a place of gripping public theatre at election times, and a place of great private virtue nearly all the time.

I found that private virtue on the night I arrived three years ago on a much-delayed New Year's Eve flight, which slipped and stumbled through the icy skies over the choppy darkness of the cold prairies.

I chatted sporadically to the grandmotherly woman beside me about home, and family, although I cannot in truth remember much of what was said.

But I do remember what happened once we landed.

There were no taxis and my fellow passenger insisted, without checking with him, that her husband would happily drive me to my hotel.

It was a round trip for him in the Arctic midnight of a public holiday of perhaps two or three hours.

I expected to detect at least a flicker of surprise on his face when this was first put to him, but there was none.

"This is America son," he told me, "We help each other out."

Nothing that happened in the three years that followed was to undermine that first impression of friendliness and hospitality.

De Tocqueville toiled on higher slopes of creativity than me and did a pretty good job of understanding and explaining Americans, even though they get riled at the idea that foreigners can ever understand or explain them.

Still, for all his tireless labours and exalted musings, I bet nothing ever happened to him that explained as clearly as that five-minute conversation in an airport car park three years ago, exactly what it is like to live among those extraordinary people in that extraordinary place.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9294890.stm
Published: 2010/12/18 11:45:12 GMT

© BBC MMX

My favourite Christmas things... so far!

2010-12-16T15:34:00.013-06:00

My Favourite New Christmas Ornament (Collections) :-)

Every year the US Congress releases an official holiday ornament and I have been collecting them since 2006 (the year I came to the US). Last year I got to visit the Capitol and the White House in DC and so these ornaments took on a whole new meaning to me. Today I got the 2010 one. This year's ornament celebrates winter and depicts the East Front of the Capitol. On the ornament, the Capitol appears as it exists today while a horse-drawn carriage reminds us of the building's origins at the end of the 18th century. The vignette is crafted of multiple layers of finely enameled cutwork metal placed to create a three-dimensional scene. It truly is beautiful!

Thank you Kathy G!

My Other Favourite Christmas Ornament (Single editions)

Seven boots, cowboy hat and a sheriff badge! Very fitting! Not sure if i want to meet the cowboy that has a need for three boots though!

Thank you Patrik and Diana for this gem inbetween the other goodies!

My Favourite Virtual Christmas Card

Is a card I got from Amtrak Guest Rewards. It is pretty neat and uses the precipt of a children's pop up book to travel from coast to coast. Very well done, but hey, look for yourself and turn up those speakers... http://holidaycard.myamtrak.com/agr.html

My Favourite New Elf

Santa's newest helper, Christmas Trevor, urged us this morning to 'Believe' while doling out fistfuls of Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuits!

I have never so fervently believed in a sandwich, while inside my brain my seven personallities competed with each other shouting "I Believe Santa, I BELIEVE!"!

Ugh, it is going to be a loooooong day.

Thank you for the breakfast treat, Christmas Trevor!!

My Favourite Christmas Song

My Favourite Christmas Card

Okay, so this is one of my favourite Christmas cards this year. The photo is of Valerie, a colleague of mine, her husband Tony, Rosie the dog and their pet calf - Holstine.

He is an adoptee from the Mercy Ships Ranch and was obtained to replace a new born calf that went missing. After a few days the original calf turned up and Holstine was not needed anymore.

The Moreland’s adopted him and he went to go stay with them at their little house. We suggested that they name him Sir Loin, but they graciously declined...