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Freedom - Don't Ever Take It For Granted |
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Posted by Sharon Montiero
June 20, 2009
My husband got an offer to open an International School in Port
Harcourt Nigeria. Although we surfed the web and spoke to a couple of
people in Port Harcourt, were not prepared for the signs of abject
poverty in Port Harcourt.
The shacks and ship containers that were home
to these people, the broken down cars on the side of the roads, the
long grass that had not been cut. The roads were lonely with pockets of
‘mopo’ (mobile police) who looked very scary. We wondered what had we
signed up for?
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Diane Shares From Experience With Love |
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Posted by Diane Illingworth-Wilcox
June 14, 2009
From Experience With Love, the project which, along with my two
daughters, is my life purpose, has its roots in my teenage years.
 Like many teenagers I felt awkward and out of place. My body was changing, I had suddenly noticed boys, and I was supposed
to be thinking about how I wanted to contribute in the workforce. (Here I am at 13)
I was
also supposed to be “fitting in” with the people and ideas that
surrounded me. I had, and continue to have, a very close knit and
beautiful family, but at the time my parents were very traditional.
Their expectations of me were to be a “nice girl,” finish school and
become a teacher, nurse or be involved in another female-orientated
job. They hoped I would find a well-to-do gentlemen, get married and
start a family. My brothers, on the other hand, were to become
successful so that they could support their own wives and families.
There wasn’t anyone other than my mother, or the characters on
television or in movies, who I could really look to for advice or to be
my role models.
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Achan Grace Finds Hope And a Home With BeadforLife |
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Story & Video by Vicky Collins
 Achan Grace crosses the threshold of the home she built with her own hands, falls to her knees and wails. Moments later, she ululates and dances with joy.
It’s a scene that no one, especially Grace herself, would ever have dreamed possible.
Three years ago, this mother of five begged for work. She feared she would die from sickness and starvation, leaving her children with nothing.
Today, she is one of several hundred women who earn an income making beautiful bead jewelry from recycled magazine paper, and selling it to eager buyers in North America. Now she makes enough money to feed her family and send her children to school.
She feels sufficiently wealthy to take in a baby that someone else has abandoned, even though she already has five children of her own. She has named the rescued infant “Gift from God.”
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Running Until My Son Comes Home From War |
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By Vivian White
Posted May 26, 2009
 I'm a 51-year-old mother whose 20-year-old son is serving in Iraq.
When Brian left last January it was very hard for me to say goodbye, especially as he was going off to war.
So, in order to feel closer to him, and stay connected with him, I decided to run the distance from where I live in Illinois to where he's stationed in Iraq, 6,436 miles away, and to run it in one year - sort of like I was running to bring him home.
Once I completed the distance, his tour would be over and he would come home.
Even though I'm a runner, 6,436 miles was huge - so I've enlisted my husband, and a few other family members to put in miles for Brian as well. So far, after 4 1/2 months, we've reached almost 2,000 miles! And we're still running....
We run not only to honor my son, but for all the soldiers overseas, and the sacrifices they make every day for our country, our flag, and all of us.
Susan notes: I asked Vivian about others donating miles. Here's what she said:
Susan, We are accepting miles. Not only do we want to accumulate miles, but also give others who are touched by our story a chance to contribute and be a part of it. So, certainly if you want to post a blog that'd be great. You could just direct them to email me directly if they'd like to contribute miles or share similar stories about their soldiers, I'd really like that. Thanks again!
Vivian (
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
)
Related links:
On War, Soldiers and Being Apart
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Grateful For Pain That Led To Passion |
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By Loretta A. Cella
March 31, 2009
I grew up in Canada, in a Vancouver, BC suburb. My parents are of
Italian decent. They knew what it was like to grow up poor, so they did
all they could to prevent their children from having to experience the
same stresses with which they had struggled as kids.
I was placed in a system of structure and faith from a very young age.
I can safely say that from the age of about six years I knew I was
different.
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Who In The World Is Natalie McIntyre? |
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Natalie McIntyre (aka Macy Gray) is touted by many to have soared to
musical stardom at the end of the 1990s. And in some ways she
definitely did.
However, I recently read an account of her story in Fitting in Is
Overrated, a wonderful book by Leonard Felder (a psychologist,
counselor, author and occasional contributor to my favourite publication
Ode Magazine), in which her seemingly meteoric rise to celebrity is
cast quite differently.
Felder’s gives a more human, and I think more interesting account of
Natalie McIntyre’s youth than other articles I’ve read, and describes
how she stumbled in fits and starts into a career as a successful
singer songwriter.
Here’s a short version of Macy Gray’s story, based on bits and pieces
taken from a section in Felder’s book, as well as others found at the links below:
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Ann Njeri (Change Agent) Takes a Pledge of Peace |
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A few years ago my family, was kicked out of our home after some tribal
clashes. My family is from the Kikuyu tribe and we have often been at
war with another tribe the Kalenjin.
The clashes always cause a lot of innocent deaths and suffering. The
hate between the tribes keeps on spreading. In January last year, more
than a thousand people were brutally killed and hundreds of thousands
internally displaced.
Even before my family was kicked out of our home, I already hated all
Kalenjins. I had been fed with a biased frame and prejudices against
them. When my family was thrown out of our home, my hatred grew. I
wanted everyone to hate them. I kept passing on the seedlings of hate
to all willing listeners.
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