mountain pix

http://traveler.nationalgeographic.com/drives/rocky-mountains/2

Against All Odds--Girl Survives Over 2 Weeks Under Rubble !!

By VIVIAN SEQUERA and BEN FOX, Associated Press Writers Vivian Sequera And Ben Fox, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 20 mins ago


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A 16-year-old girl pulled from the rubble more than two weeks after a deadly earthquake was in stable condition Thursday, able to eat yogurt and mashed vegetables to the surprise of doctors, who said her survival was medically inexplicable.
Hundreds of thousands of other survivors hoped for a breakthrough of another kind — the delivery of badly needed food aid.
Key players in the Haiti earthquake relief effort, in what may prove to be a pivotal meeting Wednesday, decided to better coordinate by dividing up the shattered capital, giving each responsibility for handing out food in certain areas.
Food distribution thus far has often been marked by poor coordination, vast gaps in coverage, and desperate, unruly lines of needy people in which young men at times shoved aside the women and weak and took their food.
"These things should be done in a systematic way, not a random way," Dr. Eddy Delalue, who runs a Haitian relief group, Operation Hope, said Wednesday of the emergency food program. "It's survival of the fittest: The strongest guy gets it."
Wednesday's rescue of teenager Darlene Etienne from a collapsed home near St. Gerard University, 15 days after Haiti's great quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, was the first such recovery since Saturday, when French rescuers extricated a man from the ruins of a hotel grocery store.
Etienne is stable, drinking water and eating yogurt and mashed vegetables, said Dr. Evelyne Lambert, who has been treating the girl on the French Navy hospital ship Sirocco, anchored off the shore of Port-au-Prince.
Lambert said that Etienne has a 90 percent chance of survival
"We cannot really explain this because that's just (against) biological facts," Lambert told a news conference. "We are very surprised by the fact that she's alive. ... She's saying that she has been under the ground since the very beginning on the 12th of January so it may have really happened — but we cannot explain that."
Etienne may have had some access to water from a bathroom of the wrecked house, and rescuers said she mumbled something about having a little Coca-Cola with her in the rubble.

Fruit Of The Spirit

   If  we are "abiding in Christ" the Holy Spirit will cause our lives to produce "fruit".This "fruit" is the inner working of His Spirit, guiding &; prompting our spirit,so that we will act or think in a certain manner!
   "But the fruit of the Spirit is love,joy,peace,longsuffering,gentleness,goodness,faith, meekness,temperance:
against such there is no law." Galatians 5:22 & 23.
   This is not acheived by our effort. It is His Spirit alone inside of one who believes in Christ Jesus of Nazareth, as their Lord & Saviour!! Of course our "humanness" will at times hinder the display of these "fruits"; but He will guide us back onto the correct course. Stay in the Word, pray to Him,He is always there
& wants to commune with us!!!

Pat Robertson & Haiti

press release Statement Regarding Pat Robertson's Comments on Haiti

CBN.com – VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., January 13, 2010 -- On today’s The 700 Club, during a segment about the devastation, suffering and humanitarian effort that is needed in Haiti, Dr. Robertson also spoke about Haiti’s history. His comments were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. This history, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed. Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath. If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson’s compassion for the people of Haiti is clear. He called for prayer for them. His humanitarian arm has been working to help thousands of people in Haiti over the last year, and they are currently launching a major relief and recovery effort to help the victims of this disaster. They have sent a shipment of millions of dollars worth of medications that is now in Haiti, and their disaster team leaders are expected to arrive tomorrow and begin operations to ease the suffering.

Chris Roslan

Spokesman for CBN

Abiding in Christ

        abide; to remain; stay; reside in;...
   Abide in me, and I in you.As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine;no more can ye,except ye abide in me. ---John 15:4

   Due to our human qualities, staying centered or "abiding" in Christ is not very easy. It's not supposed to be. As our Saviour, Christ Jesus suffered a great deal for us & our adversary satan; (little "s"on purpose);
does all he can to discourage our efforts to focus on Him. When we see these attacks coming, just remember,you must be doing something right for God, in order to draw attention from the devil !
   Stay in the Word & use prayer ...things will work out.

Miracle in Haiti !!

..Many flee Haiti capital, govt plans tent cities

Buzz up!310 votes Send

Email IM .Share

Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Twitter Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. Play Video AP – Raw Video: Miraculous Haiti rescue of woman

AP – A man stands in a crowd of several hundred Haitians hoping to gain access to the U.S. Embassy for travel …

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU and MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writers Alfred De Montesquiou And Michelle Faul, Associated Press Writers – 54 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haitians are fleeing their quake-ravaged capital by the hundreds of thousands, aid officials said Friday, as their government promised to help nearly a half-million more move from squalid camps on curbsides and vacant lots into safer, cleaner tent cities.
Doctors said a 69-year-old woman was pulled from the wreckage of a building on Friday, 10 days after the magnitude-7.0 quake, but some teams were giving up the search and efforts focused on expanding aid for survivors.

Aid officials said some 200,000 people have crammed into buses, nearly swamped ferries and set out even on foot to escape the ruined capital. For those who stay, foreign engineers have started leveling land on the fringes of the city for tent cities, supposedly temporary, that are meant to house 400,000 people.

The goal is to halt the spread of disease at hundreds of impromptu settlements that have no water and no place for sewage. Homeless families have erected tarps and tents, cardboard and scrap as shelter from the sun, but they will be useless once the summer rainy season hits.

The new camps "are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities," Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to President Rene Preval, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Doctors treating the newly rescued woman said she was in bad shape after being trapped for so long.

"There is very little hope, but we are trying to save her life," Dr. Ernest Benjamin told The Associated Press.

Doctors at Haiti's General Hospital were treating the woman with oxygen and intravenous fluids.

Thursday was the first day since the quake in which nobody was pulled alive from the ruins, U.N. mission spokesman David Wimhurst said.

"We all hope that others have survived and can be found, but the more days that go by without signs of life, the dimmer these hopes will become," he said.

Armies of foreign aid donors, instead, turned their attention to expanding their pipeline of food, water and medical care for survivors.

With extensive swaths of Port-au-Prince in ruins, more than 500 makeshift settlements with a population of about 472,000 are now scattered around the capital, said Jean-Philippe Chauzy, spokesman for the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration. Getting them to safer quarters could take weeks.

"These settlements cannot be built overnight. There are standards that have to be designed by experts. There is the leveling of the land, procurement and delivery of tents, as well as water and sanitation," said Vincent Houver, the IOM's mission chief in Haiti.

The move will be voluntary and temporary, according to Elisabeth Byrs, the spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva.

"It's to help them in a first move. After, the people will decide if they want to stay," she said.

Many people are just trying to get out of the capital, often back to the farms or provincial homes of relatives.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said Friday that as many as 200,000 Haitians have fled the capital and many more are trying to do so.
Computer teacher Daniel Dukenson walked across the capital and caught a bus to take his family from their collapsed home in a slum to crowd in with a cousin in the seaside town of St. Marc, a two-hour journey away.
"I'd like to go back, but it's going to take a lot of time for Port-au-Prince to get back on its feet. Two years, maybe," the 28-year-old told The Associated Press by telephone. He said he hopes to make a living teaching English.
Still others have tried to flee abroad. The U.S. Embassy on Friday turned away hundreds of people seeking a trip out on the planes that have dropped off aid. Scores of U.S. citizens were given passes, but many were told officials were overwhelmed and they would have to return later.

U.S. officials have warned Haitians against trying to reach Florida illegally, and people in the Dominican Republic seemed wary that the flow of aid through their border to Haiti would be accompanied by refugees coming the other way.



Radio stations broadcast reports that people had spotted Haitians entering illegally in buses or ambulances and an AP reporter saw more than half a dozen army, police and other checkpoints where Dominican officials were searching incoming cars.



Haiti's government estimates the Jan. 12 quake killed 200,000 people, as reported by the European Commission. It said 250,000 people were injured and 2 million homeless in the nation of 9 million. Others offer smaller estimates.



The disaster has prompted what the Red Cross calls the greatest deployment of emergency responders in its 91-year history. Nations around the world have offered what they can: more than $500 million from European nations, money even from impoverished Chad and Congo, and a ton of tea from Sri Lanka.



The U.N.'s World Food Program said it has distributed more than 1.4 million food rations — each with three meals, and has a fleet of trucks in bringing food and supplies.



"We are planning to flood the country with food," Myrta Kaulard, the agency's Haiti director, told the AP.



To speed that flood, the U.S. Army, Navy and Coast Guard are trying to patch up the Haitian capital's only functional industrial pier, which is key to getting in large aid shipments as well as to Haiti's long-term recovery.



Only four ships have been able to dock at the pier, where 15-inch-wide (40-centimeter-wide) cracks make it risky to let more than one truck work at a time, and damage is so extensive that military officials say they don't know how long it will take before ships can dock and unload in large quantities.



"I wouldn't even ask my workers to risk it. I don't trust it," said Georges Jeager Junior, a businessman who plans to shift his port operations to the northern city of Cap Haitien, a 12-hour journey over bad roads from the capital. Jeager Junior said that means prices will soar.



Damage at the country's badly damaged main oil terminal has kept any tankers from landing since the quake, so gas stations on fuel trucked in from the Dominican Republic.



On the waterfront Thursday, sporadic rounds of gunfire echoed from the nearby downtown commercial area. Scavengers continued to rampage through collapsed and burning shops. U.S. troops patrolled nearby to protect aid convoys, but were leaving policing to Haitian and U.N. forces.



At a building in the Carrefour neighborhood, where the multi-faith Eagle Wings Foundation of West Palm Beach, Florida, planned to distribute food, stick-wielding quake victims from a nearby tent camp stormed the stores and made off with what the charity's Rev. Robert Nelson said were 50 tons of rice, oil, dried beans and salt. Fights broke out as others stole food from the looters.



At the south of Haiti's main bay, near the earthquake's epicenter, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard — which together have put 20 ships into the relief effort — set up a triage center amid the rusting motorboats, with dozens of military doctors treating the most urgent casualties on the lawn.

"The injured seem to just keep showing up," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chris Worth. "We've been working from dawn to dusk since getting here."

Emergency medical centers almost everywhere were swamped with patients critically injured by the quake. There were dire shortages of surgeons, nurses, medicines and medical tools.

Doctors said patients were dying of sepsis from untreated wounds.
"A large number of those coming here are having to have amputations, since their wounds are so infected," said Brynjulf Ystgaard, a Norwegian surgeon at a Red Cross field hospital.



Associated Press writers contributing to this story included Tamara Lush, Mike Melia, Jonathan M. Katz and Kevin Maurer in Port-au-Prince; Martha Mendoza and John Rice in Mexico City; Bradley S. Klapper in

Prayerful Spirit: Special News from Haiti

Prayerful Spirit: Special News from HaitiPORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Haitian officials launched a huge operation Thursday to move hundreds of thousands of homeless outside their ruined capital, as medics worked feverishly to treat the countless injured.

Special News from Haiti

Thu Jan 21, 7:10 AM ET .

Haiti Rescue: Saving the Man Who Saved My Life
Buzz up!40 votes Send
Email IM .Share
Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Twitter Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. Play Video Reuters – Haiti: brother and sister rescued
. Play Video Video:Haiti orphanage relocates Reuters .
Play Video Video:Local TV, Radio Stations Team Up To Help Haiti CBS 2 Chicago .
AFP – Haitian earthquake victims line up to buy gasoline in Petit Goave. Search teams in Haiti are refusing …
By BENJAMIN SKINNER Benjamin Skinner – Wed Jan 20, 2:25 pm ET
I was in Haiti in October 2005 researching my book on modern-day slavery when I contracted a severe case of malaria. A young Haitian man named Bill Nathan, then 21, who manages a shelter for homeless boys in Port-au-Prince, took me in and attended to me daily as I lapsed in and out of consciousness. He found the chloroquine that kept me alive.


When the epic earthquake struck Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, 2010, I saw a chance to repay the debt.


At 4:51 p.m. on that day, Bill was on the seventh floor garden on the roof of the Maison St. Joseph, a sanctuary of peace for some 20 boys who have been abandoned by their families, or who, like Bill himself, were child slaves. He had just ushered five of the boys down to their chores on the ground floor, so that he could enjoy his one daily indulgence: a few moments of solitude in the roof's little gazebo, surrounded by potted plants, before evening prayers. (See pictures from Haiti's devastating earthquake.)


Two minutes later, the quake smashed open the building, and the top three floors pitched northward, hurling Bill down nearly 80 feet onto a neighbor's concrete roof, where he landed briefly, apparently on his back. Almost immediately, he tumbled onto a tin-roofed shack, and then to the ground. A neighbor later said she saw Bill "flying like a bird." In his last moments of consciousness, Bill saw the top three concrete floors of the orphanage, along with a massive wind charger hurtling toward him. Instinctively, he rolled out of the way and grabbed a clothesline, pulling himself into a corner before the cement crashed exactly where he had fallen. His legs wouldn't work, so he crawled for several feet over broken glass, before passing out.


The first three floors of the house, where all but one of the boys were gathered, shook "like a scene out of Titanic," said house founder Michael Geilenfeld, but, miraculously, they did not collapse. Had the quake hit 15 minutes later, all of the boys would have been on the sixth floor. Tragically, a 25-year-old American seminary student was crushed on the fourth floor. (See an aerial view of Haiti.)


Forty-five minutes passed before the others in the house discovered Bill, unconscious but alive. The older boys carried him on a table to Kez Furth, 24, a volunteer American nurse living next door. For the next four days, Furth treated him on the floor of her 500-sq. ft clinic-apartment, outfitted with less than the average public school nurse. At the same time, she attended to dozens of other victims, who convened in a refugee camp up the block. Some had traveled up to a mile for treatment. (See a TIME video with former President Bill Clinton speaking on Haiti.)


When news of the quake reached me, I immediately called Bill's cell phone, to no response. On Wednesday morning, I reached out to Miles Wright, the no-nonsense, burly Texan who serves as treasurer of Hearts With Haiti, the group under whose umbrella Maison St. Joseph and two other similar facilities run. Over the next 48 hours, we heard just sporadic reports that Bill had regained the ability to sit up, then to walk gingerly, but that overall his condition was worsening. Miles immediately resolved to act: "'Round where I'm from, when your family's in trouble, you show up." On Thursday night, we convened in Ft. Lauderdale. Through the extraordinary support of Hollywood director Tom Shadyac, a friend of Bill's and mine, we were able to hire a small twin-engine plane. Although that morning the FAA had ordered a ground stop on all flights bound to Haiti, I worked the phones, and by the next morning we were packing the six-seater with two Haitian surgeons and some 200 lbs. of medical supplies and baby formula.


After dark on Friday, the U.S. military finally cleared us to land in Port-au-Prince, and we drove into the city past clusters of Haitians standing in defiance of the destruction around them, praying and singing in impromptu street concerts. The orphanage lay half-shattered. Concrete chunks hovered precariously over surviving structures, suspended only by rusty re-bars. Maison St. Joseph had been looted of its store of rice and beans. When Geilenfeld hired a neighbor to carry some of the remaining food to a more secure location, a desperate crowd by the Caribbean Market mobbed the neighbor, beat him, and stole the provisions.


See pictures of the U.S. Army bringing aid to Haiti.


See pictures of Haiti's history of misery.


In the candlelight of Furth's clinic, Bill lay on his stomach on a mattress on the floor, his arms outstretched. He was in a great deal of pain, and had difficulty moving from that position, but he managed a smile when I came in to hold his hand. I lay next to him that night, with Furth resting on an adjacent mattress. It was a sleepless night: on the other side of the wall lay a trapped dog that howled whenever tremors moved the rocks around it. Furth said it had been slowly starving to death for four days. The clinic had just finished the last of its clean water.


The next morning, I helped Furth make her rounds of the refugee camp, and we rushed Bill by van to the airport. We faced resistance from the Marines guarding the entrance. Attempting to make order from chaos, they were understandably wary of admitting a non-responsive Haitian, even when he was carried by three passport-holding Americans. Finally, a lieutenant named Brandon, disciplined but sympathetic, heard my plea: "It's a matter of honor," I said. "This man saved my life, and I need to help him." ABC News anchor Dan Harris, a mutual friend of Bill's and mine, backed up my story, Lieutenant Brandon waved us through. French medics gave Bill a morphine drip and we loaded him, along with a 19-year-old American who survived the quake, onto our waiting charter. (See the top 10 deadliest earthquakes.)


Why did Bill deserve a special mission? Not just because he saved my life. Helping people is what Bill Nathan does. Orphaned at age seven, Bill was taken in as a slave by his neighbors who forced him to do domestic work and beat him mercilessly when he did not perform to standard. According to UNICEF studies, such child slaves number as many as 300,000 in Haiti; typically, desperate parents yield their children to fraudulent recruiters willingly, a phenomenon that becomes more pronounced after natural disasters. After three years of bondage, Bill was rescued by an American nun who had known Bill's mother. She brought him to St. Joseph's, where he thrived and soon he was managing the recovery of hundreds of other boys. "God kept me alive for a reason," he told me in a fleeting moment of lucidity. "I will keep doing the work that I'm doing." There is a theory of massive disaster triage that advises that the first people who should receive treatment are doctors with non-life threatening injuries. Though Bill is not a doctor, he has a demonstrated ability to improve the lives of hundreds, and to resurrect his community and his country. Saving Bill means saving more lives.


The fall that Bill endured should have killed him, but he was in peak physical shape. His injuries are painful but survivable. While his condition continues to be assessed, we know he has suffered an abrasion on his liver, broken ribs, extensive muscle damage around his vertebral column, cuts and contusions all over his body. The Israeli trauma specialist who attended to Bill upon arrival in Ft. Lauderdale said that he had seen some lucky patients since he first practiced medicine as a war medic in 1965, but Bill was certainly up there. "We can debate the role of luck, I suppose," muttered Miles, who is a devout Christian. Maybe Bill has good fortune on his side, maybe he has God. He certainly has friends.


E. Benjamin Skinner is the author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery (Free Press, 2008). Contributions to Kez Furth's mission can be sent to Angel Missions Haiti; Contributions for the rebuilding of St. Joseph's can be sent through Hearts with Haiti

Scott Brown Victory

Scott Brown won in Massachusetts last night....hopefully we can de-rail this healthcare fiasco
through much prayer!!

A Little Bit of Politics

We here are praying for Scott Brown to win the Senate seat in Massachusetts,& our country at large. We need to get our country back to the PEOPLE!!

Race Relations In the US

Today of all days, please pray for the continuing betterment of race relations in the USA & the world!!

Teens & Anger + other stuff

Teen anger management is the one tool every well to do parent will need. Ask any parent what's the hardest job about raising teens and you get several answers; but the one common theme that occurs repeatedly is that many parents will tell you that the hardest thing about raising teens is communication and how to break down the walls of ineffective communication. I feel that if you want to communicate with your teen in a way they will respond instead of the short yes and no answers a lot of parents get is to get to know your teen in a way that will encourage your teen to open up.

In a previous article I stated that parents should know their teens favorite band. Knowing your teens favorite band will give you better insight to your teen's life, thus letting you know what motivates them. There are messages in music that will tell you a load of information regarding your teen's attitude. I recently walked pass my middle teen (age 17), and I noticed she was listening to music on YouTube. As I walked by her I asked her what was the name of the band, and she told me Paramore. I have to admit that I did not know who Paramore is or what's the name of their hits, but I did a Google search on the group that night. Why? The more I know about Paramore - the more I know about my daughter. I will have opened future avenues of discussions with my daughter, and this is what communication is (equipping me with better teen anger management skills).

After doing a research on the band, I found out they are from my home state of Tennessee, some of the hits that the band has produced, but what caught my eye the most was the fact that tour dates were listed. This would be a great way to spend some time with my daughter so we can learn more about each others likes and dislikes. Learning to learn about who your teen is will give you more insight into her life. I'm looking forward to the night of the concert; I have not told her yet because I'm waiting until she is feeling a little down in the dumps before I tell her about the concert. She will love it. Teen anger management is learning to decrease the angry episodes by increasing happiness.

Another way I keep the communication flowing with my daughter is doing the one thing she loves more than any other - going to the movies. She loves scary movies, and there seems to be one coming out every weekend lately, so I know one way to get her to talk about boys, school, or any thing that pertains to her life is to take her to a good horror flick.

On the way home from a movie two weeks ago, she told me about a new guy in her life. She volunteered to tell me about why she likes him and insignificant but important facts like where he works, and the type of person he is. If I would have just out right asked her about who she's interested in without softening her up, I would have been labeled as snooping, and this could have turned into an heated argument.

If you want to communicate with your teen to the point where they will look to you for answers and guidance, you need to position yourself as a person they enjoy talking with. If they enjoy talking to you, conflicts will and can be avoided. This is what I have adopted along with other powering teen anger management techniques. Parenting has become easier, plus I have a new band that I'm starting to like. Paramore rocks!

Although it seems like you have come to a dead end regarding teen anger management, know that there is a great offer that has helped me get my other power back... This method has given me clarity over the situation. It has taught me how to remain calm and to know myself first.

"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured"...Mark Twain

Marcus A. Leverett is a proud father and mentor to three lovely teenagers. He loves to read and write, is an avid cat lover, and a devoted Tennessee Titan fan.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marcus_A._Leverett


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Who's in 'kidulthood'? Me! Well, if you're wondering what a kidulthood is, it's another term for teenagers as I understand it. Kidulthood is actually the title of a movie involving a group of teenagers and from how I see it, us teenagers are still kids, but moving into adulthood, hence, the name kidulthood.

Growing up

When you're 17, all you want to do is have fun. But, all your parents and their friends want to see is an 'adult' who can understand the world of 'adults' and they expect you to know how to use your 'common sense'. One question, how can we use our common sense when all our years in this world, we've been told what to do and what to say, and if we try to do anything different, we'll get told off? To all parents around this world, please understand, you've been through our stage in life, please give us some time to fit in your world.

Love story

When you're a teenager, that's when all the lovey-dovey stuff starts getting serious, well not that serious, but they often start thinking they're falling in love. Falling in love is beautiful, but not when it's with the wrong person. My advise, let's focus on our studies first, we're still young. Sweet talks are so easy to get, but qualifications and jobs are not. If you focus on your 'love story', you might end up forgetting your studies ad wrecking your future forever. You do not want to have to take care of a baby at a very young age. You've got so much more to look forward to. Why ruin it for someone who can't guarantee you a bright future - let alone theirs? Trust me, when you make the wrong step, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Better think twice when you're given an option.

Studies

As we get older, we get more exams and more stressed. With course works and exams, how can we organize our time to get good grades? Easy - prioritize our goals and what needs to be focused on first. Getting past exam papers would help as well, but most importantly attend your lessons. Some people think missing lessons is alright, so long as you find the time to catch up - little do they realize, that is the problem. The more lessons you miss, the more lessons you need to cover on your own, meaning less help from your teachers. So, do yourself a favor and attend! When to start? Well, we can surely start by opening a book now and revise. All the best, my fellow kidulthoods!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nabihah_Zaid

---------------------------------------------------------------------A year or so ago, I stumbled upon a series of PBS (Public Broadcasting Network) videos online that revealed how many kids are creating for themselves a totally different social identity online. Via the Internet they are able to escape their own seemingly (to them) boring lives and become someone they are not, but maybe they think that they want to be.

Whether it be a character on Second Life, creating an actual sex website that they get paid for, or they become known for their personality and charm that they may not show to those in real life. It is truly shocking what kids are able to do online that they might not ever do in real life.

The stories played out on these videos were stories of real kids who had gotten caught up in the web of the Internet and become someone else. In most cases, their parents were not aware of this at all, and in some cases the consequences once they were discovered were quite harsh.

Some of the things that kids can get involved with online are harmless, however do you know what "image' your child is creating for him or herself online. If you haven't taken into account what they are doing online and if you've never checked it out for yourself I'd urge you to start. While some kids merely use their online world as a place to be someone they aren't in real life, others use it to boost their popularity offline. Taking semi-nude or nude pictures of themselves and displaying them online or sharing information about what they participate in, the possibilities are much scarier than you might guess.

As a former youth minister who has had much experience with teens I urge you to get involved. Don't be afraid to ask your kids questions about their online activity. Always have access to their computer even if they have personal laptop or desktop PC. Always know their logins and passwords and be aware of where they "hang out" online. Don't let technology scare you or get the best of you even if you aren't tech savvy. If kids can do it so can you so don't let that stop you from protecting your kid. Whatever you do start today being proactive about the image your kid is creating for him or herself online.

Alyssa Avant is the founder and creator of Pro-tech the Kids.com. She created this site to help educate parents about the dangers of the internet and other technology and how they can be proactive about protecting their tech generation kids. Visit the site at http://pro-techthekids.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alyssa_Avant

Haiti Update

.The U.S. Military in Haiti: A Compassionate Invasion
Buzz up!45 votes Send
Email IM .Share
Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Twitter Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. Play Video AFP – US hospital ship on its way to Haiti
. Play Video Video:Bush, Clinton join Obama in aiding Haiti AP .
Play Video Video:US troops secure Haiti airport, aid begins to flow AFP .
Play Video Earthquakes Video:Biden: The tragedy is 'Unimaginable' AP .
Reuters – A U.S. Navy helicopter takes off after throwing bottles of water near the beach in Port-au-Prince January …
By MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON Mark Thompson/washington – Sat Jan 16, 10:40 am ET

Louisiana became the 18th of the United States back in 1812, but you'd never have known it watching the Federal government's ham-fisted response to 2005's Hurricane Katrina. The Obama Administration is doing things differently: Haiti, for all intents and purposes, became the 51st state at 4:53 p.m. Tuesday in the wake of its deadly earthquake. If not a state, then at least a ward of the state - the United States - as Washington mobilized national resources to rush urgent aid to Haiti's stricken people. "Our nation has a unique capacity to reach out quickly and broadly and to deliver assistance that can save lives," President Obama said Friday. "That responsibility obviously is magnified when the devastation that's been suffered is so near to us." (See how to help the Haiti victims.)



Obama has already dispatched a senior member of his national security team, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, to the scene. An armada of U.S. warships is steaming toward Haiti, to be joined by at least one Coast Guard cutter en route from the Pacific via the Panama Canal - and manned and unmanned aircraft. Within two hours of the quake, one of the globe's biggest warships, the carrier USS Carl Vinson, was ordered from off the Virginia coast toward Haiti, swapping its jet fighters for heavy-lift helicopters as it steamed south at top speed. Three ships, including the Vinson and the hospital ship USNS Comfort, boast state-of-the-art medical facilities that will care for injured Haitians. Thousands of troops are on their way to Haiti or already there, running the airport and clearing ports for many more to follow. Up to 10,000 troops will be in Haiti or floating just offshore by Monday. 






It fell to State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley to clarify a delicate point: "We're not," he insisted, "taking over Haiti." Strictly speaking, that's true: Haiti remains a sovereign country, and there are 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers already there, charged with maintaining security. But as death stalks those smothered beneath the rubble of pancaked buildings, and poor sanitation triggers outbreaks of dysentery and other diseases, one nation in the world has the muscle to quickly make a difference. That's why the U.S. is racing aid to the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. If things get worse, the U.S. - fairly or unfairly - will be blamed by many for not doing enough.





Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to demonstrate just how much more the U.S. military is able to do than simply kill the enemy. Only the U.S. can initially control flights into and out of the Port-au-Prince airport from aboard a nearby Coast Guard cutter, while waiting for an Air Force special-ops team to set up shop at the airport and step up operations to 24/7. Only U.S. warships have the capability to generate up to 400,000 gallons of fresh water a day from seawater. Only the U.S. military can send a spy drone from California to fly lazy orbits over Port-au-Prince snapping close to 1,000 pictures a day, which when compared with similar ones shot last summer, create a map of the hardest hit areas that can be instantly relayed to those working on the ground.





Only the U.S. military has enough aluminum matting to boost the runway capacity of Port-au-Prince airport. Only the U.S. military has the surveillance capability to quickly assess additional Haitian airfields and seaports for use in rescue relief operations. Only the U.S. military has the wide variety of vessels and aircraft to utilize those fields and ports, including air-cushioned vehicles capable of ferrying 60 tons of supplies from ship to shore at 40 knots. (See TIME's exclusive photos of the aftermath of the earthquake.)





But the limits of U.S. capability can also be seen: The Pentagon diverted an unmanned Global Hawk drone bound for Afghanistan to Haiti instead, to photograph the damage there. "We were about to send that Global Hawk over to the war" until the earthquake, explained Air Force Col. Bradley Butz. "It will stay here until the President says it's time to send it forward."





While the drone had no comment about its sudden change of mission, some of those bound for Haiti welcomed the new assignment after more than eight years of war. "Marines are definitely warriors first," Captain Clark Carpenter said Friday as his unit prepared to ship out to Haiti from North Carolina. "But we are equally as compassionate when we need to be, and this is a role that we like to show - a compassionate warrior that can reach out that helping hand to those who need

Pray for Haiti

We have been praying for the many victims & the relief workers...you guys PLEASE PRAY as well !!!

Heart of God For Our Children

There is so much "drama" in our children's lives, moreso due to technology. How can we turn our children's lives back to see the heart of God, back to us, back to what really matters in this life!

Praying for our children, our country, is just one way. But, we have to truly care and realize how different their lives are compared to our childhood. We need to listen, to feel the heart of our child.

More on Marriage

The Divine Order to Marriage
Imagine the scene in heaven as the Trinity plans the Creation.
by Dr. David Kyle Foster
Next Article in Series:Previous Article Next Article 1.Overview
2.The Divine Order to Marriage
3.Covenant: The Heart of the Marriage Mystery
4.Reflecting Our Relationship With God
5.Marriage's Meaning for Believers
6.God's Design for Marriage
7.Why Marriage Matters for Adults
8.Reclaiming the Heart of Marriage
9.Next Steps / Related Information
Share This Article: Print This ArticleE-Mail This Article The Divine Order to Marriage TwitterFacebookMySpaceDeliciousDiggStumble UponGoogleYahooImagine the scene in heaven as the Trinity plans the Creation. They've got a working model spread out before them, with little planets and trees and human action figures.

Pondering anew what He can do, the Father points to a human action figure and says to the Son, "I think we ought to make them male and female."

"What's that?" asks the Son.

"Well, I'm going to divide Adam into two parts, male and female, you know, to make things more interesting."

A bit bemused and surprised, God the Son then turns to the Holy Spirit for His response, who pauses, throws open His hands and says, "Why not? What the heck. Knock yourself out Abba!"

Do you think it might have happened something like that? By the way modern culture treats gender differences (if they acknowledge them at all) you'd think it might have gone something like that.

In Genesis we read:

And the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." . . . So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib (side) he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. (Gen 2:18, 21 22)

Why did God do it that way? Why create one being and then take a part of that being and create a second, differentiated yet complimentary being who is "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh," a being who is sexually, emotionally and in other ways different, yet of his own substance? Upon seeing her, Adam could have observed, "It's me . . . but not me." Well, if you think about it, it does sound like the kind of thing you might expect a Trinity to do.

The Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is a family, and thus man in God's image must be made a family as well. Therefore, a man cannot completely realize the essence of his existence until he learns to exist with someone and for someone. Both relationship and communion are crucial to this process.

And so we see from Genesis 1 and 2 that God created woman from the side of man so that the man would not be alone. From the teaching of the New Testament, saints have since discovered that He also created the Church from the side of the second Adam—Christ—for the same reason—for intimate fellowship.

Back in the Genesis account, we note that the newly created Eve was Adam — his very flesh and bone, and for that reason, the Bible says, Adam called her woman, and, for that reason a man is to leave mother and father and be united to his wife to become one flesh (v24).

For what reason is man to marry a wife? Because woman was originally a constituent part of man, she must return to become one with him again, so that the full expression and design of God's image in human beings can be revealed.

Here we have another parallel between the Old Testament type and the New Testament fulfillment. Eve was to reunite with her source and become one with him—just as we are with Christ, as He prayed in John 17. Sexuality, therefore, is a prefigurement of the intimate relationship that God desires to have with man. In fact, the marital union and covenant, in all its dimensions, is meant to gloriously reveal the very image of God in ways that we can only begin to understand.

Ah, but there's more to this mystery than can be seen on the surface. The union of a man and a woman in Holy Matrimony is not literally the permanent recombining of two bodies into one. This is mystery that reaches depths of meaning beyond what our present intellectual capacity can grasp.

Clearly however, what woman is as a part of man is not tied to individuated pieces of flesh and bone, but is far broader and more profound than that. She is the necessary compliment to him that together reveals the glory of the image of God in humanity. Her parts and his parts each have their own order and function. Together and rightly ordered, their united differences ignite the power and glory of creation itself, which is the consummate activity of God from the beginning.

So God does a two stage creation of man. First he makes the full orbed being (Adam, which in the Hebrew means, mankind). Then in phase two, God removes woman from Adam's side and makes Eve a separate being, though of Adam's substance, designed to ultimately reunite to her source through the mystery of Holy Matrimony.

And the spark, the power of that union is meant to gloriously reveal the very image of God to angels and archangels and all the company of heaven and earth. That is why Satan fights tooth and nail to pervert and distort rightly ordered human sexuality, holy matrimony, the family, and fatherhood in particular.

In fact, the amount of time and effort that Satan expends to destroy the image of God reflected in marriage, fatherhood and human sexuality is a barometer of just how incredibly important it is to God's plan and the expression of His glory.

Beloved, there is a profound and awesome reason for the way God ordered the creation of man—one that is commented on throughout Scripture, and one that we must observe if we are to find the fulfillment of our very being as humans. It is ordered as the union of a man and a woman in marriage—heterosexual and monogamous—an order that Jesus unambiguously reaffirmed in Matthew.

From The Divine Marriage by David Kyle Foster. Available in booklet form at www.MasteringLife.org. Reprinted with permission.
Next article in series:
Covenant: The Heart of the Marriage Mystery


Previous article in series:
Overview

Rate this article:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Print Article
Print Series
Send Article
Send Series

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Divine Order to Marriage TwitterFacebookMySpaceDeliciousDiggStumble UponGoogleYahooRelated Resources
Sacred Marriage
Know God better, trust Him more fully and love Him more deeply while enriching your marriage.

More >>


Experiencing a Fulfilled Marriage I-II
The divorce rate today is staggering — among Christians and non-Christians alike. Here are some practical tools you can use to nurture a healthy, fulfilling marriage.

More >>
Things to ConsiderPureIntimacy.org
Pure Intimacy is an online ministry of Focus of the Family devoted to the biblical truth that human sexuality flows from the image of God that we bear as male and female and is a good gift from God. -- Choose Region --AustraliaCanadaChinaCosta RicaIndonesiaIrelandMalaysiaNew ZealandSingaporeSouthern AfricaTaiwan

Marriage & God

Marriage: God's Idea
by Focus on the Family
Next Article in Series:
Next Article 1.Overview
2.The Divine Order to Marriage
3.Covenant: The Heart of the Marriage Mystery
4.Reflecting Our Relationship With God
5.Marriage's Meaning for Believers
6.God's Design for Marriage
7.Why Marriage Matters for Adults
8.Reclaiming the Heart of Marriage
9.Next Steps / Related Information
Share This Article: Print This ArticleE-Mail This Article Marriage: God's Idea TwitterFacebookMySpaceDeliciousDiggStumble UponGoogleYahooWhere there is anything that's designed, there is a designer. Whether it's a truck, building or train — or even marriage — there is always a mastermind behind the masterpiece. God, the mastermind of marriage, also has a plan for how marriage works best.

It can be overwhelming to try and understand God's design and plan for marital love because contradicting and varying messages are everywhere: in books, magazines, movies and music. As a result, many couples fall into the trap of looking everywhere but to the Designer to find out what God intended for marriage. If you've tried understanding marriage through the world, there's a better way.

With help, you can tap into the design that God has for marriage here in this series of articles. We can show you how marriage is created out of divine order, is based on a covenant relationship, reflects our relationship with God and truly has a greater impact in our lives than many have assumed.

Hopefully, these realizations can help you to experience a greater sense of fulfillment and a lifelong perspective for your marrige relationship.

Copyright © 2009, Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured

6.5 earthquake strikes off California coastJanuary 9, 2010 9:32 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- A 6.5-magnitude earthquake has struck off California's northern coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake, which ran about 10 miles deep, hit at 4:27 p.m. (7:27 p.m. ET) Saturday, about 25 miles from Eureka.

There were reports of power outages in some areas, CNN affiliate KCRA said.

"I was talking on the phone and all of a sudden it started shaking. I thought my TV was going to fall over," Eureka resident Cole Machado told CNN.

He said the power cut out for a few seconds and there were reports of downed phone lines and broken windows in the the nearby town of Ferndale.

Ferndale resident Jessica Stephens Tucker described the movement from the temblor: "It rolled and rolled and then it slammed."

There was no tsunami warning issued.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, according to the U.S. Coast Guard in Humboldt County.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/09/california.earthquake/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Praying Gratefully

We must be in a grateful frame of mind/spirit when we enter His presence!

Prayerful Spirit is dedicated to those who love our Lord & Saviour,Christ Jesus of Nazareth