A Random Act for Olivia

Last Friday we stopped at a convenience store with Olivia and Ellia, and after paying the guy behind the counter asked how I was related to the girls. After saying I'm their dad, he said he liked Olivia so he wanted to buy her a drink. He told her (and Ella) to get one of their frozen drinks, on him. I asked him why and he only said it was because he liked Olivia; I'm guessing it's because he recognized that she was handicapped and he wanted to give her something nice. Well, that was definitely very unexpectedly kind. Of course, neither Olivia nor Ella thought much of it and didn't adequately appreciate it. Too bad. You don't see that too often.

Help, Out of Nowhere

So our Lake Powell trip involved 1 crippled houseboat (with only 1 working motor), 1 ski boat, and 21 people, only 1 of whom really knew how to drive the houseboat and run everything. That's Rob, and he spent the first day shuttling people back and forth from where the houseboat was parked. So of course that's when we got a good Lake Powell storm, one they said they experience only every few years or so. The wind started blowing hard, and it sent a canopy end-over-end on the sandy beach; our little Ellie ran and grabbed it, and then Abel and I took it apart to keep it from going further. I was kind of enjoying the change in weather, not thinking about what else might happen... until I saw the houseboat's back end pulling furiously on the ropes and threatening to rip free and plow into a houseboat on the other side.

Talk about sudden horror! Rob's 17-year-old daughter Ashtyn knows something about boats and we tried the best we could to keep it moored. We turned on our motor (Ashtyn's idea; thank heavens for her) and tried to get it to pull us back. I don't even remember what else we were doing; it was such a blur.

Then suddenly there were about 4 men helping out with the ropes, and coming on board to help get that back line tied tightly. Come to find out later they'd come from across the bay in their ski boat, braving the waves just to give us some assistance. Thanks to them we pulled our back line tight and maybe even pulled the whole boat into position. Besides the back-breaking, wet work, they got us to point the motor the correct way; turns out we had been making things worse by pointing in the wrong direction. Finally, we were set into place as good as possible, and the men left as suddenly as they came.

It took us a day to recover. The storm (combined with our work) pushed the boat up on the shore about 5 feet, and the back end was sitting low in the water. It took some digging and coordinated effort to get it pushed off the beach and into a good position. Things could have turned out much worse.

The next day, the men who helped came over asking for matches. We only had two boxes, and we couldn't afford to part with them.

Ha! I make joke.

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This event is unlike most of the ones I record here: there was no strong feeling or grand revelation from the experience. There was simply a slow relief that came as the danger gradually subsided. But from time to time, I think back on these strangers' work and I feel a pleasant glow of appreciation. That's a treasure, and I'll always value it.

The Endurance of a Little Boy

We planned a hike to see a "hole in the rock", where the wind has carved out a deep cave that has worn through to the other side, starting an arch. Thomas (4) wanted to go with us, possibly because we were going on the ski boat. Of course I said "yes". I started questioning the wisdom of that almost immediately since he asked to get on my shoulders as soon as we got off the boat and started walking. Luckily, I had water I could use to coax him along. Halfway along, Uncle Bob broke into song, and after we grew tired of that Thomas started singing one he knew. All in all, it was a good hike to the rock.

We enjoyed climbing around and taking pictures in the strange cave. The view was awesome, and it was much cooler than the desert around it. It would be nice to eat a picnic there or spend a night. Alas, we finally had to leave... but Thomas wanted to stay. I stayed with him a minute longer, but we were with a whole group of people so we had to catch up so they wouldn't have to wait on a child being selfish. I insisted it was time to leave, but Thomas wouldn't have it. "I'm staying here!"

"OK," I said, and I left him.

Tolman was concerned; I had to reassure him that I would not leave Thomas in danger. Luckily there is a small hill close to the formation, so I got out of sight and slowed down to wait. Thomas was crying, howling as loud as he could, but soon I could tell that he was coming. I continued my stroll. When he got closer, I asked if he'd like me to wait for him; he only scowled in answer, so we continued with him a dozen paces behind. Later I asked him again and got the same response. Finally he said "yes," so I walked with him.

He complained a bit about the hot sun on his neck, but he didn't give up and break down again. So I pushed it: we were far behind the others so I started jogging and encouraging him along faster. He came along! At one point he hurt his ankle and we walked for a short minute; he complained again about the sun, but he kept going; he drank the last of the water along the way. But we made it, and he stayed a trooper the rest of the time.

It's awesome to watch someone grow up right in front of you.

The coat off his back

Would you give someone the coat off your back?

I've stopped on the side of the road and spent a few minutes to help someone who ran out of gas, but I have never given someone anything like the coat I was using in the middle of a Utah winter.

I heard about this story through a short Twitter post, and I had to ask to get more of the story from the observer, so he gave me a summary. My first thought was: I've got to get more details! But the truth is that I don't need to know any more; in fact, more details would actually detract from the telling. After reading it, I had to read it over again from the start. And that's the strength of this man's act: it's simply stated, but it's powerful because it seems like such a sacrifice and it's so spontaneous.

Along with those details, the observer wrote: "I think the leader was particularly pleased that nobody really noticed or made a big deal out of it." That's another subtle point to this story: such actions are so grand that it would almost be demeaning for someone to offer the giver a compliment and recognize what he did. That type of recognition is fine for some things, but in this case I think it would be a cause of embarrassment; this was done to help someone else in a big way, and this bit of heaven that he brought transcends any kind of recognition we could offer.

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After a scouting function, one of the leaders stayed and talked for a while with one of the families. Finally, he took off his coat and gave it to the man, who said, "But what will you wear?"

"I have other coats at home."

"What about on your way home?"

"It's OK. I'm used to the cold."

The recipient expressed his thanks, and they each went their own way.

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How a biker aids medical workers in Africa

Andrea Coleman is a biker, and she describes in this podcast how she applied her skills to improve the conditions of medical workers in Africa. She points out a few specific examples:

• One of their early technicians has progressed to the point where he helps manage their whole African organization.
• Their workers have been able to travel out, do their work, and return home and have a life, rather than their old way of walking out, sleeping over, and walking somewhere else on another day. One of them was pleased to have gained "a stone" of weight since using the bikes (though she's still thin).
  
• They have shown how they have enabled medical workers get "five fold increase in the number of patients seen, and five times more visits for each patient".

I've realized that these podcasts are inspiring to me only partly because of the stories of helping people out; it's been awesome to hear how these entrepreneurs are pursuing their passions and really being creative in solving problems to make the world a better place for others. It's fantastic to hear about.

Helping parents and kids with "Scream Free" Parenting

I rarely listen to popular music stations for long, but this morning I was hooked by 97.1 at 8:30 because they had Hal Runkel on, who runs "Scream Free Parenting". I've never heard of it before, and he was fascinating: he talked about issues with a high-school relationship class, and then he took calls and answered emails and talked with the hosts. I found myself still listening when he signed off at 9. (You can hear it in their podcast for this morning; you'll want to skip halfway through the segment for the start of the interview.)

Now there's work that really makes a difference in people's lives! For example, they read an email from a previous caller from a few weeks ago who says that homework is going so much better with her teenage daughter now. He talked about the issues in specific, and he did it very clearly such that I could relate and recall things that I should be doing better in my own life. As host "Danger Boy" (?) said, we've got to be reminded about these things hundreds of times, just like our children.

Very inspiring.

Comforting a Frightened Child

Tonight Ellie was fighting Olivia about having the light on; she said she was scared of the dark, and she started balling at the thought of having it all dark. After while, she finally said, "I'm scared because of something inside, but I can't tell anyone or it'll get worse." That's a bit scary to hear from your child. So I sat by her and talked about how it's the opposite: the only way to make it better is to let it out, and if you just leave it inside it gets worse and worse. So she told me that she saw a game where a robot cut off a guy's head, and now she imagines it's coming after her. (That was sure a relief!)

I held her, and we talked a bit about when I was scared when I was little, and we talked about fighting it with fun thoughts, possibly by reading a book. Then I said something about reality, and said, "There's not really any robot coming after you." Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped and she started sobbing; she dropped down to her pillow and pulled the cover over her head, so all I could see were her eyes, looking out at me in terror.

I remember thinking during the move "The Sixth Sense" how I cannot think of anything more horrible than for a child to be subjected to scary and nasty things. And now here was Ellie, terrified by an idea that something is coming for her; I don't think I'll ever forget the look in those eyes, pleading for help while fear gripped her deep down.

I rubbed her back a minute, and I talked about good thoughts that might replace the evil ones. She talked with me, and finally came out of the covers and showed me the book she's reading, and she lit up as she described what was going on in it. She really turned around quickly, and she actually seemed content as I left her reading her book, so the bad thoughts must have been far gone.

It's a good feeling to help with something like that.

A better life for a Honduran woman in many ways

I post most of the cool, socially-innovative things I find in my "Effective Society" blog. But this interview contained a story about how a group of dedicated friends really improved the life of a woman and her entire family, in not just one way but in many remarkable ways. What a gift! (FYI, that link will play only the 4 minutes of that story, so you don't have to listen to the whole podcast.)

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Do I know any of my neighbors well enough to offer this kind of encouragement and help? I'm afraid I don't interact with many of them long enough to hear their stories. Maybe I have a chance with the people at work. Hopefully I'll be listening and attentive if someone close by ever needs support from a dedicated friend.

Changing Lives by Teaching Children to Save

I am so impressed by Jeroo Billimoria's work! I heard about her on this podcast; one of her great accomplishments is the organization Aflatoun that successfully teaches children financial skills, especially in poor countries where nobody said it would work. Here are two impressive stories she told at the end of her interview:

"Let me start with a country like Zimbabwe, where everyone said you will never be able to get a single child to save because saving means that it's ... the money you save today is gone tomorrow with 1000% inflation. You know? So we said 'OK' but our pilot, and this came from the children in Zimbabwe, is they would save money and buy a pen. So they bought a lot of pens so that the money got invested in pens and when they wanted it back the pens got sold. Now that is really creative thinking of children, thinking, countering inflation, and still being able to get the money back to be able to pay for their school fees because otherwise they would have dropped out."

"We had a young girl, and we were doing this longitudinal study for 5 years, so she was in the program when we started, which was in 2001, and then we interviewed her in last year September and she said that, 'The best thing that happened to me was Aflatoun because it taught me about saving.' She was the first of 6 siblings, all of whom were girls. So her parents had sent her to school, but she was going to have to drop out because there were so many other children and the whole thing. So she started saving, and then those school fees were free she was able to pay for the little extra stuff from her savings. Today she is in 'standard 12'. All her sisters are saving and all of them have gone to school and she said this would never have happened if I had not managed to have Aflatoun because we would never have saved and that means we would never have had the bandwidth to afford this. So it's not just a child, it's been a whole family that has looked at it."

Thanks, Jeroo!

A blessing for a baby in pain

A good friend and neighbor of mine wrote the following article. I appreciate how he put these words together for us; whenever you can do anything to help relieve a child's suffering, it is a magnificent experience.

Sacred Words, by Edwin F Smith

My daughter Olivia gets seizures. I hope I can comfort her like this someday.

There's some growing goin' on!

Every morning, my kids love to play around before they're ready to go to school. Nobody does this more than Tolman: he might talk, walk, or even just sit doing nothing rather than simply get dressed and get all ready to walk out the door. So I every time they talk to me, I tell them, "Sorry, we can't talk about that until you're all finished getting ready."

This morning, Tolman came to me and said, "Dad? Oh, nevermind. You won't like it until I'm ready for school."

Wow. After dozens of repetitions, there's a glimmer that something good is happening.

More on Jason McElwain's Amazing Game

Last week I linked to a Jason McElwain video about his amazing game on Feb 15, 2006. Here are two more videos (~6 minutes each) that give more of the story.

- This one points out that he was the high scorer of the game.

- This one spends the last 3 minutes about other people who have been inspired, including a family whose son has autism; Jason comments about how their story touched him.

It's nice to see a story that keeps on giving. They say there will even be a movie based on it. Fun.

They just might surprise you!

You've got to watch this video (~3 minutes) of a young man with autism who surprised everyone in a basketball game. What an awesome story!