Gently Shake Your World

It was Gandhi who admonished his generation saying, “In a gentle way you can shake your world.” Gandhi certainly shook his world during his lifetime. While traveling throughout this world I have met my share of passionate persons who have likewise shaken their world in gentle ways.

One of my dearest international friends was Daniel Kalnin. He was born in the mysterious country of Burma. The British had colonized Burma, bordered by China, India, Thailand and a bit of Laos. Burma had become a strategic defense post for the Brits during World War II. But in 1948 Great Britain decided to pull out of Burma and sail home. The vacuum of leadership and stability threw Burma into political, economic and cultural chaos. They had grown to depend on the British rule of law, available health care, and the advantage of international trading. Power struggles, tribal wars and a lot of bloodshed became the rule.

Daniel realized that if he were to see any of his dreams come true he would have to leave Burma. When he was 18 years old he slipped across the Thailand border and became a fugitive. Eventually, some Americans rescued Daniel and brought him to America where he was educated and where he met his Canadian wife, Beverly. Upon graduation the two of them determined to return to Thailand and work with the hill-tribe people who lived on the border of Thailand and northern Burma.

In Thailand Daniel constructed, with the blessing of the King of Thailand, a small housing development. He tested 27 water sources to find an uncontaminated water supply for the village. None could be used. But high in the mountains he discovered a spring of pure water and built a water project of cisterns and pipelines to serve the people. One of the criteria for families to move into his development was to stop cultivating poppies for opium resale, take ownership of some of his land and start growing a cash crop of coffee. Daniel returned briefly to the US and raised money to buy coffee plants. While here he set up distribution outlets to market the new “Hill-Tribe” coffee brand in America. The villagers discovered they could make more money with coffee crops than poppies. Because of the new water system the villagers became dramatically healthier.

I traveled with Daniel on motorbikes over the steep trails of the lower Himalayas along the border of Burma to his new development of Bayasai and the bustling town of Prau. Daniel showed me the large brown church the people had built with a large red cross painted on the front. It was the only place in the insurgency area where the people from five different tribes were living together peacefully.

In the commercial city of Chang Mai, Thailand, Daniel and Beverly had additionally built the “Home of Blessing.” When I first visited the Kalnin’s home in Chang Mai there were 47 “throwaway girls” ages ten through twelve who had been taken from slavery and prostitution and were being housed, loved and educated in that home. But for 30 years Daniel had been estranged from his family and beloved homeland of Burma. Eventually, Project C.U.R.E. was privileged to join Daniel in returning to Burma and seeing his dreams come true in establishing the highly effective “Barefoot Doctors” organization that has saved literally thousands of the lives of the hill-tribe villagers and citizens of Thailand and Burma.

My dear friend Daniel recently died and I am still grieving the loss. This article is written to the honor of Daniel, his family and his never ending life’s work. Today, I salute him as a true champion because in a gentle way Daniel shook his world!

Gratitude

When I was a kid we used the word “dibs” a lot. I had dibs on sitting next to the door in the backseat of the family Buick on the way to church. I had dibs on the classroom’s leather football for the morning recess. When I was playing little league baseball I had dibs on the mahogany stained Louisville slugger bat with the electrical tape on the handle. I presumed that those positions or objects were sort of birthrights to me and I presumed everybody else had that figured out as well. I never really owned them. I never did anything to deserve them, and I was never really thankful for them . . . I just put “dibs” on them. 

Today, my native culture has graduated to a new level of sophistication. I look around and see my fellow travelers speeding down a newly paved freeway that allows for a much higher speed limit of cultural expression. I still sense the same spirit of “I dibs it,” but now I sense a frightening new power of selfish expression from the driver’s seat of the runaway vehicle. Instead of saying, “I dibs it,” I hear it repeated in rapid-fire sequence, “I deserve this . . . I’m entitled to this!” “Do it for me now!” 

If you look closely enough the seeds of tragedy can be found in the “I dibs it” statement. But the unraveling of civility can be found in the concept of “I’m entitled to this.” Recompense from a position of entitlement separates you from the attitude of gratitude. Why would you consider giving thanks for something that was due you and should have been given to you even earlier? But, Oh, how pleasing it is to hear the sincere and simple expression of gratitude from a meek and unassuming source. 

A couple of years ago Project C.U.R.E. teamed up with the Black Lion Hospital in Addis Abba, Ethiopia. Thousands of children in the area were dying each year with cardiac pulmonary problems brought on by a variety of African childhood diseases. We were able to install the very first cardiac catheterization equipment for children in the whole of East Africa, along with all the necessary supplies. The heart surgeons there are now saving the lives of about two thousand little kids each year! 


Recently, NBC Nightly News and Brian Williams dispatched reporter, Michael Okwu and a crew from Burbank, CA to follow up on our project. First, they visited the Denver headquarters of Project C.U.R.E., then the crew traveled to Addis Abba and the Black Lion Hospital. There, they interviewed little Teclemec’s mother. Teclemec was five years old and dying because her pulmonary artery was so narrow it obstructed the normal blood flow. “She didn’t eat or sleep,” her mother said. “She was a very sick little girl.” Then the Ethiopian heart surgeons worked their procedures and gave Teclemec a second chance to live. 

In the news video clip Teclemec, with sparkling eyes and a most engaging smile, speaks through the translators, “Now I can play and now I can run. Now I can do anything I want to do.” It is a perfect picture of a little girl with a million dollar smile and a mother with a heart full of simple appreciation. In the news segment Teclemec shyly dips her head to the cameramen, and with the countenance of an angel she simply says . . . “Thanks!” 

Oh, how refreshing. How beautiful. How rewarding, because, Gratitude is the soul’s expression of non-entitlement. 

To view the NBC News Clip in its entirety please click below:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Colonel and Her Children

It wasn’t a sprint . . . it was a full throttle marathon race across the heartland of Vietnam. This race took me from government meetings with the People’s Party leaders in Hanoi, south to Da Nang, further south to Quang Nam Province, then to meeting Ministry of Health officials, hospital directors and Vietnam Charity Directors. I was assessing scores of Vietnam hospitals where surgery rooms were dangerously inadequate, hospital laboratories devoid of either lab equipment or supplies and discouraged doctors literally begging for medical goods.

When I reached Qn Du Province, the conversations were periodically punctuated with the name “Colonel Thuong Tuong Vi.” I presumed the person to be a Vietnamese military man until I heard someone say “Madame Vi.” Madame Vi was a respected icon and at the same time a mystery woman. When we reached the city of Tam Ky I was informed that we had been extended a special invitation to meet Colonel Thuong Tuong Vi at the “Mercy Center for Performing Arts.”

Thuong Tuong Vi was a full Colonel in the Vietnamese Army, a past member of the Central Committee of the People’s Party and a high profile citizen of the Hanoi cultural society. But, additionally, she was one of Vietnam’s most renowned artistic performers. She was a professional singer and dancer, and had received countless awards for her talents, especially for her entertaining of the military and the People’s Party members.

Madame Vi, however, had become a devout Christian. The change in her life intrigued the Communist Party elite as her comrades watched her go out and collect disadvantaged children from the streets and bring them into her “Mercy Centers for Performing Arts. “I no longer wanted fame and attention,” she told me. “I only had a burning desire to help other people, especially young, disadvantaged children.” Her Center in Tam Ky housed 72 children, in Da Nang she was housing and training 120, and in Hanoi 180 orphans were being housed and trained in the performing arts.

Anna Marie and I were met at the door of the Tam Ky Center by Madame Vi. She was elegant, dignified and graceful. She ushered us into a well-appointed conference room. While we were getting acquainted, Madame Vi shared with us that it was her dream to have Project C.U.R.E. establish and equip a small clinic for the children in each of her Centers. “I want to provide the best for my children, because one day they will be our new leaders. I want them to see and feel what is possible.”

Madame Vi then escorted us upstairs to a small performing theater. When seated, she leaned over and whispered, “God showed me that one day I would no longer have my talents and my beautiful voice, and that I should take those talents now and transfer them into orphans, homeless children, and crippled children who otherwise would have no hope of a good future.” A handsome young Vietnamese boy stepped forward on the stage and welcomed us in flawless English.

The first songs were traditional Vietnamese folk songs, performed beautifully with graceful choreography and hand signing. The mini-concert continued with the words, “In a moment like this, I think of a song, I think of a song about Jesus.” I looked around in amazement. The sound, quality and harmonies were overwhelming. Each word was phonetically sung in perfect English. There was not a smidgeon of doubt that the famed performer had poured her life and talents into the previous urchins. The meticulously trained young singers communicated with warm smiles, direct and sparkling eye contact, vibrant body language and stage presence. They ended the presentation with two familiar Christmas carols and the song, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands!” I took my eyes off the kids and looked around again. Everyone in the room was crying! It was a performance I shall never forget.

When the performance was over we were once again directed to the conference room where they had prepared lovely dishes of hot Vietnamese snack foods and tea for us. There, I promised Madame Vi that I would help her get her clinics for the Centers. I also asked her about what her People’s Party friends thought about her selection of songs.

“I teach diversity of culture,” she said. “I teach the underprivileged children perfect English. The officials love it. I first teach the children to sing the songs phonetically. While learning the lyrics they begin to ask questions about what the song writer was saying. I just simply answer all their questions so that they can sing the songs with understanding and feeling. Strangely, they all fall in love.”

“You see,” Colonel Thuong Tuong Vi confided to me, “I can’t go back and start a new beginning, but I can start today and make a new ending!”

You Can't Do That!

Indeed, you would be a wealthy person today if you would have received $20 for every time somebody hollered in your ear, “You can’t do that!” I’ve never figured out who it is that appoints and empowers all those guardians of the culture who are so intent on policing your possibilities. But there certainly is no shortage of volunteers who are eager to tell you not only that “you can’t,” but also give you “viable” reasons why you can’t. 

I have discovered, however, that one of the greatest joys in life is accomplishing something that other people adamantly declare cannot be accomplished. There seems to be within the nature of mankind a spirit that resists the declaration of the impossible. We want to keep turning the tumblers of the combination lock until we hear that magical “click” that opens the hasp. 

The intriguing history of Project C.U.R.E. is a simple sequence of happenings and miracles that people declared up and down would not and could not take place. I recall the prodigious occasion of my receiving a personal invitation from Great Leader Kim IL Sung to travel to North Korea and join him in celebrating his 81st birthday. I would be required to obtain a visa to be able to travel to Pyongyang. 

Let your imagination run as to the reaction of the staff persons in charge of the “Korea Desk” at the Department of State Building in Washington D.C. when we informed them of the personal invitation and the simple request for help in securing a visa to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “No, you don’t have a personal invitation from North Korea. We can’t get anybody into Pyongyang. You will be held hostage there. It is a Hermit Country and you can’t go there! We are here to keep people like you from creating an international incident.” 

Well, it’s been about 19 years since my first trip to DPRK. I have returned eight times and, believe it or not, the US State Department even entrusted some of the top DPRK decision makers to me and allowed them to come to Colorado and stay in our guest house. We have taken millions of dollars worth of medical goods to the needy people of that country. I was there when the dam broke on the Yalu River and tens of millions of dollars worth of damage occurred. We were the only ones to go to their aid. And there is a certain sense of pleasure that comes when I hold in my hand the first shipping license issued to Project C.U.R.E. by the U.S. Commerce Department and Department of State to deliver ocean going cargo containers of donated medical goods directly into the North Korean port of Nampo. 

I believe that one day in the not-too-distant future there will be a grand reunification of the two Koreas. I have even presented to the United Nations a paper encouraging those possibilities. But always in my ears I hear people saying, “That can’t be done . . . you simply can’t be a part of that!” And traditional logic and perceived reality would robustly second that motion . . . “That can’t happen!” 

But I have a word of encouragement for you today. If you cradle a dream in your heart and you desperately believe that dream can take wings and fly like an eagle, and you have dedicated yourself and your creative energies to seeing that dream become reality, then, pick up that combination lock again, embrace it and begin turning the tumblers with gentle passion until you hear that God-sent “click” resound in your heart. Can you imagine the joy and excitement of seeing the hasp of that lock fall open and with your own eyes, what others had declared, “That can’t happen, ”. . . you actually see become reality?

Improve Your World

In her diary, Anne Frank documents the horrors of Nazi Germany and her life of hiding, capture and efforts to survive in a concentration camp. Her wholesome attitudes and keen observations of life continue to amaze her diary readers even today. One of her statements leaves me defenseless and convicted: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” She is right!

I am so appreciative to have had people in my life who were determined to make this world a better place, regardless of all the reasons imposed on them why they could not. Two such people were my aunt and uncle, Rev. Robert O. and Lela Jackson. Early in their marriage they had volunteered to go to Argentina as missionaries. Later, they traveled to Swaziland, Africa to help establish a medical mission in the 1940s and 1950s. They landed in a place called Manzini and served four years at a pioneer hospital and nurse’s training center. The next four years were spent out farther into the bush veldt at a place called Piggs Peak Station. Uncle Bob directed the efforts of the medical clinic and coordinated the activities of the mission. They literally poured their lives into the work.

One of the greatest rewards of my work with Project C.U.R.E. came in 2004, when Anna Marie and I were requested to travel to Swaziland. The Raleigh Fitkin Hospital in Manzini, Swaziland, 17 additional district clinics, and a nurse’s training college were in desperate need of help. The medical institution, as well as the Swaziland government, had requested that Project C.U.R.E. come and assess the health care facilities and see if we could be of assistance. The Swaziland government Health Ministry had promised to help financially underwrite the hospital. But the Swaziland government was having a tough time backing up their promises with money.

Over 100 years before, the King of Swaziland had given the missionary endeavor a huge piece of land that now was part of the city of Manzini, and had invited them to educate and minister to the people in Swaziland. Their presence in that part of southern Africa had been very successful and influential over the many years. Uncle Bob and Aunt Lela Jackson had been a part of that successful endeavor. The hospital administrators showed me records and evidence of the Jackson’s indefatigable efforts while they were there.

When we finished our assessment work in Manzini we were taken to the mountainous region of northwest Swaziland to view the outlying medical clinics in Piggs Peak, Endzingeni and 15 other clinics. Upon our arrival at Piggs Peak Station I stood just inside the entry gates of the compound and drank in a 360 degree view. “So, these were the views my relatives captured in their hearts day after day so many years ago.” They had worked in this very hospital and lived on this very compound during the critical days of growth and development of the care- giving ministry. As a young boy I had become vicariously acquainted with Swaziland. I had studied the pictures, listened to the wild stories, had touched and seen the artifacts from Africa that they had toted home with them. My soul now drank it all in as if I were a thirsty sponge with human legs. How soon we forget the exacting price others in the past have paid in their eternal journey to improve the world.

Upon my return to Colorado I called my 84 year-old “Uncle Bob,” who resided in an assisted living center near Roseburg, Oregon. My Aunt Lela had died a few years before. I told him that I had just returned from Swaziland. I let him reminisce and encouraged him to tell me once again about their experiences in Manzini, Endzingeni and Piggs Peak. “Do you remember seeing a long line of trees stretching from the church, past the clinic and toward the main house?” Uncle Bob asked me. “Oh yes,” I replied, “they are huge evergreen trees all in a straight row.”

“I planted all those with my own hands. I got them from a tree farmer who had come to plant a forest of trees on the rich and fertile hillsides of Piggs Peak.” “Uncle Bob,” I assured him, “you are to be commended for having planted all those trees in a straight line from the church building, past the clinic and toward the house. They stand today as a testimony that you left Swaziland a greener and better place than when you went there.”

“But,” I continued, “you and Aunt Lela are to be commended even more for the many years of your lives that you invested in Swaziland. Spiritual and physical seeds of help and hope were planted there by you that are far greater than the row of beautiful evergreen trees. Only heaven will reveal the waves of goodness that have lapped the shores of eternity since you and Aunt Lela affected that place by your committed lives and efforts. For Anna Marie and me, it was a great privilege to go to Swaziland and honor not only God but also you and Aunt Lela with additional medical goods for the hospital and clinics. Thanks for being a faithful worker and a good uncle.” Somewhere in their early journey they had discovered the eternal message also penned by Anne Frank, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

Better Off

I think it’s time that someone should bring to the discussion table the difference between the concept of “greed” and the idea of the pursuit of someone’s “best interest.” The two concepts are not the same. However, the intent to confuse the two has some ideological appeal and, as usual, time aids in the erosion of many traditional words and concepts.

Historically, greed has been considered as one of the “Seven Deadly Sins.” It is a sin of excess and inappropriate expectation . . . the “me first – regardless of cost or consequences.” Greed is not always easily identifiable in the beginning, and that makes it confusing. But, be assured that sooner or later, harbored greed will surface into observable behavior. Another thing I have noticed is that greed delivers a different result than what was anticipated in the beginning, and sad and terrible consequences of greed may take a long time to surface.

Pursuing one’s best self- interest, however, is not necessarily greed or selfishness. It has to do with appropriate expectations and comes along as a necessary component in the “free choice” package. When you are given daily alternatives it is the expected behavior to choose that which is highest, best and most fulfilling. Of course people pursue their own self- interests, thus the beauty of individuality and divergent creativity. Pursuit of their own self- interests includes seeing their families become “better off.” Pursuit of their own self- interests includes their concerns for their friends and neighbors being “better off,” as well as the entire citizenry of their communities.

I am a businessman and an economist . . . a compassionately involved cultural economist, dedicated to helping other individuals in the wholesome fulfillment of their self- interests.

I often tell people that “I have decided to give the best of my life for the rest of my life helping other people be better off.” So, what on earth does that mean? Albert Schweitzer acknowledged, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” Serving other people includes the concept of helping them become “better off.”

Lately, I am running into more articles and interviews where I hear frustrated folks bashing the concept of anyone advancing or moving ahead in their circumstances, saying, “They are getting more education and trying to acquire more skills just because they want more of the pie, and I get less of the pie as a result. They are just greedy, and it’s not fair,” . . . or . . . “The earth is sufficient to meet every man’s need . . . if only those profit people would just stop their greed.”

I have two dear friends, husband and wife, each is a talented medical doctor. They are highly motivated, full of energy, and are Nigerian. Their burning passion was to build a 50 bed hospital in Port Harcourt, Nigeria with a fine radiology department, laboratory and well- equipped operating room. Impossible!

Dr. I.C. Ekwem and Dr. Linda Ekwem heard about Project C.U.R.E.’s work in Nigeria. They pursued me aggressively and even secured the money, purchased airline tickets, came to Colorado, and stayed at our home in Evergreen. They shared their dream and passion with Anna Marie and me. They showed us what they had already done to accomplish their dream. I really wanted to help them become “better off,” so we helped them finish and furnish their dream hospital. Today, the Ebony Hospital stands as a miracle near the shores of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

The doctors Ekwem were aggressive, passionate, and persistent in pursuit of their self- interests. They wanted to see their hospital become a reality. Today, they are “better off,” and hundreds of patients are alive and not dead, and thousands more are healthier . . . all are “better off.” But I implore the cultural levelers to never bash my friends as “greedy” and assign them to their contrived category of “selfish.” Acting in one’s self- interest is not the same as being selfish. Making good choices that serve one’s best interest is different than greed.

World Survival Tip #2: Forget Not the Photos!

I’ll bet you thought I was going to extol the wisdom of taking a backup camera along with you in case your cell phone camera went dead in Mongolia. Nope. I don’t want to talk about taking photos of your trip, but taking photos to your trip. Hundreds of times my trips turned from “minus” or “mundane” to “marvelous” because I had remembered to take photos with me. Updated photos of my family were never outside my reach during my forty years of international travel. People in Montenegro, Morocco and Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan and Palestine all know my family.

In December 1997, I had just finished lecturing at the University of Kiev in Ukraine. I needed to travel to the Pirogov Medical University in the city of Vinnitsa, Ukraine. An Eastern European snow storm had blasted the region and many of the roads were closed. Riding the old Soviet train was my best option for making the four hour trip.

The train had been traveling all night before arriving in Kiev. When I got on the train the compartment was still made up into a sleeping car arrangement. Other people were already occupying my compartment. A middle aged couple had staked their claim on the upper berths; their clothes and food leftovers were strewn on the compartment table and around on the floor. Another fellow in the compartment was a shriveled- up old man with thick glasses and white hair. He wore a gray, hard wool suit with the entire left front of his suit jacket covered with Soviet military medals and badges of accomplishment. I had just put my two bags on the bench by the door. The old retired military man immediately began rearranging everything.

I smiled warmly at the old “czar” and he mumbled something in Russian. I replied with a mumble in English. When he realized I did not speak Russian, he simply snapped his head around to the opposite direction and stared at the compartment wall. The train was very hot and stuffy. The absence of any fresh ventilation exaggerated the foul smells of rancid food and the peasant peoples’ belongings.

Old, frumpy Ukrainian women with knurled faces and hands gathered in gaggles around the stopped passenger trains. Their ragged cloth bags contained homemade food being offered to the hungry passengers. Before we pulled away from Kiev Station the middle aged couple from our compartment jumped down from their beds and purchased some of the food. I scooted over on my cot and made room for them to spread their newly acquired goodies out on the already messy table. From the wrappers of old newspapers, they pulled a plastic bag of greasy potato chunks, slimy, cooked cabbage and chunks of strange looking meat. Small loaves of unwrapped bread, along with a smaller plastic bag of pickles, rounded out their breakfast meal.

I quickly used up as many Russian words as I knew. I smiled a lot and politely deferred the offer to share the greasy potato chunks and cold cabbage. The diplomatic ice was broken; then came the magic. I reached into my thin leather attaché and pulled out the photos of my family. Their eyes brightened and their whole bodies responded. They reached for the photos and handled them with their greasy hands and laid them on the table. Everyone began talking in chorus, waving their hands and smiling. Even the grumpy old “czar” smiled and pulled from his wallet two crumpled black and white photos from the past. He told me all about the women in the pictures, and I told them all about my wife, sons and grandchildren. He knew what I had said and I knew what he had said even though we didn’t catch the words. We had all become good friends.

I have shown photos of my family to kings, presidents, rogues, prisoners, dictators, refugees, priests, holy men of Tibet and hostile border guards. They almost always reciprocate by sharing a photo with me. Photos are full of “super glue.” They bond hearts together instantly and speak a language that surpasses words. They have opened doors that were solidly shut, shut doors that would have led to my demise, and skipped over years of relationship.

Photos have also been one of my best moral defenses while traveling. Cultures and folkways differ considerably throughout the world, but respect shouts its message from the mountain tops. If I find myself in a situation of uninvited familiarity or unwanted pursuit, I simply reach for my family photos and proudly display a picture of my beautiful wife, explain how much I love and respect her, and then show photos of my important sons and gorgeous grandchildren. Without being rude or judgmental, the conversation gets back on track or tapers to a respectable close.

The only travel documents I own that are more worn and used than my bulging passports are my travel photos. I never want to leave home without them!

Holding the Rope

Two of the finest international friends Anna Marie and I have made while traveling throughout the world are Dr. James Terbush and his lovely wife, Leigh. For years, Dr. Terbush worked for US Department of State as a medical liaison at many different US Embassies. Eventually, Captain Terbush became the Command Surgeon for NORAD, NORTHCOM and Home Land Security. We worked together in Senegal, Argentina, South Africa, and Afghanistan. We even sat together in the palace living room of the president of Albania, in Tirana, where we helped organize medical camps for the refugees fleeing the Bosnia-Herzegovina-Croatia massacres. 

We became better acquainted with the Terbush family when we spent time with them at the Embassy in Athens, Greece and explored the mystical Greek islands together with their 21 year old son, Peter. Jim Terbush and Peter loved to climb mountains together all over the world. Peter decided to enroll in Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado and started teaching climbing classes, talking incessantly about one day becoming a climbing guide.

Early on, Dr. Terbush had taught young Peter about the “belay” position used when you are holding the rope to secure a climbing partner on the mountain above you. “Always protect a partner at the end of his rope,” he would tell Peter. “Never let go!”

Peter and two of his college friends, Kerry and Joseph, decided to make a quick trip to Yosemite National Park and climb the legendary Glacier Point Apron. Sunday evening, June 13, 1999, Kerry had climbed about 60 feet up the mountain. Peter was in the belay position securely holding Kerry to the granite face as he climbed. Then the absolutely, unimaginable thing happened! With the roar of a hundred freight trains and the energy of an exploding bomb, the upper ledge of the famous mountain let loose and shed in excess of 200 tons of boulders down to the valley below. Peter looked up to see boulders the size of automobiles coming straight down upon him. The earth shook. He looked again and saw Kerry. Peter knew that if he moved the slightest he would lose his belay position and Kerry would swing out and catch the full force of the cascading granite from over 1,000 feet above. “Always protect a partner at the end of his rope . . . Never let go!” Peter could have made it to safety. He chose to stay. The valley filled with dust and people in the park fled.

Both Kerry and Joseph lived. Young Peter was crushed by the thunderous slide. In order to free the rope to let Kerry down they had to get to Peter. There he was . . . his left hand was gripping the rope above and his right hand pulled down hard against his right hip just in front of the belay device attached to the climbing harness at his waist. . . the perfect belay position. They had to pry the rope from Peter’s grip. The Park Rangers and Search and Rescue members on the scene hailed Peter as a hero, consciously giving his life for the lives of his two climbing buddies.

Today, I want to thank my friends, Dr. Jim Terbush and Leigh, for bringing Peter into this world and into this culture. And I want to honor his memory by thanking Peter for his dauntless character and selfless expression of sacrifice. Whenever my circumstances press me to the point of inescapable decision, I want to recall Jim’s life lesson to his son, Peter, “Always protect a partner at the end of his rope . . . Never let go!”

**If you would like to know more about the Peter Terbush Memorial Outdoor Leadership Summit-Western State College of Colorado, go to:www.western.edu/student-life/wp/outdoor-leadership-summit **

Only One Person

When I was thirty years old Anna Marie and I decided to give away all our accumulated wealth and start over. We decided to start listening to a different drummer and restructure our value system. I decided to “Give the Best of my life for the Rest of my life helping other people be better off.” That was the best business decision I ever made. That one decision set into motion unforeseeable consequences and an exhilarating adventure full of challenge and reward. That adventure took me to nearly every corner of this earth and taught me time and again,“To the world you may be only one person, but to one person you may be the world.”


One day my travels had taken me to Madras and Salem in the southern part of India.Project C.U.R.E. had promised to deliver donated medical goods to needy orphanages and medical clinics in the region. When I finished my agenda in India I traveled on to Singapore. My next venue was Hong Kong where I had meetings scheduled with a number of NGO leaders operating in mainland China. But in Hong Kong I had a most memorable meeting that absolutely had to do with neither governmental nor non-governmental agencies. 

Upon arrival at the Hong Kong airport, I hailed a taxi and rode to the downtown Kowloon Hotel. Once settled into my room, I made my way to the dimly lighted restaurant and ordered dinner. Minutes later they seated a white-haired gentleman at the table next to me. He was trying to read the menu in the near darkness and he had forgotten his glasses. I knew exactly what he was going through. So, without saying a word, I took off my glasses, leaned across the chair and laid the glasses on his table. It caught him so by surprise; he stumbled all over himself thanking me for noticing his plight. He admitted that he was about to randomly point to something on the menu and hope for the best. We began to chat and when I had finished my dinner and was finishing my tea, he invited me over to his table. 

My new friend lived in New Zea­land and was a successful businessman, coming to Asia often in his line of business. He had been buying and selling umbrellas for over twenty- seven years. He inquired about what I did, and I shared with him about Project C.U.R.E. He asked a million questions, and my answers kept getting more involved. He looked directly into my eyes and surmised, “You can’t do what you are doing without being a deeply religious man.” I told him that once I wasn't, but several years ago everything changed. That opened the flood gates of emotion for him.


He told me that just three weeks prior the diagnosis had been confirmed that he had can­cer . . . the same kind that had taken his mother within a span of 10 months after her diagnosis. They assured him that he would not have even the ten months to live. I went through two more cups of tea as I simply sat quietly and listened to him pour out his heart. He had it pretty well figured out what he was going to do with his business, but he painfully struggled as we discussed the effects his death would have on his wife and his grown children. “My wife begged me to not take this business trip to Hong Kong. But, I absolutely knew I had to travel from New Zealand to Hong Kong and check into the Kowloon Hotel. You reached over and loaned me your glasses . . . but you did more. You allowed me to use your vision and see through your eyes and discover hope and confidence and a future for my family.” 

I left the restaurant that night very humbled . . . just to think that God would bring one man from New Zealand and one man from Colorado all the way to Hong Kong in order to strike a match and kindle a flame of hope and encouragement in the heart of a needy traveler. “To the world you may be only one person, but to one person you may be the world.”

Trust Accounts (Part IV)

Deposited into your TRUST ACCOUNT is exactly what someone around you needs.

How is it possible that 80% of the male population of a civilized country could be brutally massacred in the 1990s without alerting the attention of the world? Yes, it happened! No, it did not occur in Africa. Yes, I was a witness. 

As far back as 340 AD the Armenians could trace their Christian religious heritage by church buildings and monasteries located throughout the area now known as Nagorno Karabakh. Throughout the centuries the Turks, the Azerbaijanis, and, later, “Stalin the Supreme” tried to eradicate the people of Karabakh. Stalin destroyed or closed down all the churches and monasteries, lined up the religious leaders and ordered them shot. He then totally cut off the Armenian enclave of Karabakh from the geographical borders of Armenia and presented Karabakh to Azerbaijan as a gift. 

During the 1990s the precarious fate of Nagorno Karabakh took another tragic turn for the worse. The oil cartels desired to build an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Black sea . . . right through the heart of Karabakh. Ethnic cleansing was determined to be the simplest solution for dealing with the nuisance population. They were perfectly isolated. No one would know. Former Azeri President Elchibey pronounced in June 1992 that if there were still Armenians in Karabakh in October of 1992, the people of Azerbaijan could hang him in the Central Square of Baku, the Azerbaijani capital. The atrocities were unbelievable at the hands of the Russian Fourth Army, the Turks, and the Azerbaijanis. 

One lone international figure became the voice for the voiceless in Nagorno Karabakh. Baroness Caroline Cox, Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords in London, stood in parliament and pled their case. She then went to the scene of the atrocities and actually rode in the helicopters helping evacuate the victims from Stepanekert, the capital of Karabakh, to hospitals in Yerevan, Armenia. 

Baroness Cox and her Executive Assistant, Stuart Windsor, contacted Project C.U.R.E. and requested that I join them in Yerevan, Armenia and travel with them to Karabakh. My research of the Armenian and Karabakh situation had somewhat prepared me for a cursory understanding of the history of the region. But I was in no way prepared for the emotional wrenching I would experience during my stay. 

While I was in Nagorno Karabakh, I agreed that Project C.U.R.E. would deliver millions of dollars worth of needed medical goods to the bombed out hospitals in the devastated country. I also promised to send enough pieces of physical rehabilitation equipment for them to open a rehab clinic to serve the crippled victims. 

But when I returned to Denver I was told that we had just sent all our physical therapy and rehab equipment to some other needy place around the world. We had none left in the warehouse. We needed a miracle. We made a list of all the pieces of equipment we would need to procure and send. We then hung the list in a conspicuous place. We all began to pray. 

Several weeks later Dr. Douglas Jackson and I took a walk through our warehouse. Justin, the man in charge of our warehouse, came running up to us with tears in his eyes. He was so excited! “Listen to what just happened!” he shouted. “This morning a company who sells medical equipment called and said they were discontinuing to sell rehab and therapy equipment and were donating everything they had in their warehouse to Project C.U.R.E. We just finished unloading their huge truck. Listen to this! . . . 

We took our written list in hand and as they began to unload the truck, we began to check off the pieces of needed equipment from our list. When they had finished unloading, every single item on our list had been checked off . . . every piece of rehab equipment we had written down has just now been miraculously delivered. What we needed to put on the ocean-going cargo container headed for Nagorno Karabakh was on that truck!” 

As Justin was telling us the story, this thought was exploding inside my mind: 

“Deposited into my Trust Account is exactly what someone else around me needs!” 

Review again some of the principles of the Trust Account concept: 

1. The inventory of your Trust Account (everything you possess) is there as a result of a Direct Gift or a Gift Exchange. 

2. The inventory is to be administered by you, the Trustee, for the Benefit of Others. 

3. As you, the Trustee, transfer inventory out of your Trust Account into the Trust Accounts of Others, God makes Compensating Deposits into Your Trust Account . . . thus allowing you to give Even More into the Trust Accounts of Others. 

4. God determines the Amount, Kind, and Timing of the Compensating Deposits . . . the Trustee is only responsible for the Current Inventory of the Account. 

5. Deposited into your Trust Account is exactly what Someone else around you Needs. 

Allow these concepts to change your life!