I Should Have Become a Watchmaker

Clocks have always intrigued me. For those of you who have visited our home, you know that we have at least one wind-up, pendulum clock in every room in our home, except the bathrooms and closets. The pendulum clock that hangs in our kitchen has been in our personal possession for over fifty years. I am fascinated by old clocks and captivated by the concept of time.

We have traveled to Greenwich, outside London, and viewed the Shepherd Gate Clock at the Royal Observatory. I have carefully lugged home interesting clocks from South America and Asia for my family, and have even visited the rare display of ancient clocks at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.

The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, and if I would have become a clockmaker and an official studier of time, I would have been called a “horologist.” Our word clock is derived from the Celtic words clagan and clocca, meaning “bell.” If the mechanism doesn’t have a bell or chime, it is simply a “timepiece” or “watch.” For the past 6,000 years, devices such as the sundial, the candle clocks, the hourglass, and the ancient water clocks have been different physical processes studied and used to consistently measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units of day, lunar month, and year. So, in layman’s language, clocks measure time and time is what keeps everything from happening all at once. That sounds simple enough . . . but wait. What is time? 

We all know that an hour can seem like an eternity, or pass in a flash, depending on what we are doing. You can’t see time or feel time, yet your car mechanic can charge a hundred dollars an hour for it without fixing a thing. And some wise guy can convince you that “Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.” I even had a sacrilegious bloke once ask me “What year did Jesus think it was?” Time was a serious enough issue that when Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland was on her death bed in 1603, she begged, “All my possessions for a moment of time.” 

Ancient philosophers and theologians have never been able to agree on the nature of time. St. Augustine handled the subject cleverly. He thought he could grasp the meaning of time, but admitted that when it came to explaining it he had a difficult time: "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not." He ended up explaining it by calling it a distention of the mind, “by which we simultaneously grasp the past in memory, the present by attention, and the future by expectation.” 

The ancient Greek philosophers believed that the universe had an infinite past with no beginning. Medieval philosophers and theologians developed the concept of the universe having a finite past with a beginning. This view is shared by Abrahamic faiths, as they believe time started by creation, therefore, the only thing being infinite is God and everything else, including time, is finite. 

So, the one view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe—a dimension independent of events— in which events occur in sequence. The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through," nor to any entity that "flows," but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is neither measurable, nor can it be traveled. 

When I get tired of reckoning with the dusty minds of the past, I resort to the real world and philosophy of Dr. Seuss to shed some insight on the subject of time: “How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” Then he goes on and quips, “They say I'm old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!”

I started paying attention to the historic clocks as I traveled the world. I am totally rapt by Big Ben along the River Thames in London. The Salisbury Cathedral clock, built in 1386, is considered to be the world's oldest surviving mechanical clock that strikes the hours. I learned that Galileo first had the idea to use a swinging bob to regulate the accuracy of the clock, even though Christiaan Huygens was the fellow who figured out the mathematical formula that determined 39.13 inches was needed to be the length of the pendulum for the one second movement. He actually made the first pendulum-regulated clock in 1670.

Spring-driven clocks appeared during the 15th century. On November 17, 1797, Eli Terry received his first patent for a clock. Terry is known as the founder of the American clock-making industry. Starting in the U.S. in early decades of the 19th century, clocks were one of the first American items to be mass-produced and also to use interchangeable parts. About twenty years before the American Civil War, Alexander Bain, Scottish clockmaker, patented the electric clock. The development of electronics in the 20th century led to timepieces with no clockwork parts at all. Time in these cases is measured in several ways, such as by the vibration of a tuning fork, the behavior of quartz crystals, or the quantum vibrations of atoms. Currently, the international unit of time, the second, is defined in terms of radiation emitted by caesium atoms. 

Albert Einstein once said, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking . . .the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker." 

I believe that what Einstein was saying was that since this phenomenon called time seems to exist for the convenience of mankind, it certainly stands to reason that the most significance connected to it lies with the heart and behavior of individuals. Each person has exactly the same number of hours and minutes in every day. Wealthy people can’t buy more hours, and even the smartest scientist can’t invent more minutes. Try as you may, you can’t save time to spend it on another day. The dazzling concept of time reminds us to cherish all the individual moments, because they will never come again. If you don’t value yourself and those around you, you won’t value your time. Until you begin to value your time you will not fully maximize it.

            There’s a clock on the wall and it’s ticking down; the time you have left ‘til
            you’re dust in the ground. How you love the people with the time you’ve got
            determines if you are judged as worthy or not.


William Penn said, “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” Had I understood that fully, even at a younger age, I probably would have joined Albert Einstein: “If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”

My Affair with Daffodils

 I wandered lonely as a cloud

                 That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

        When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

            Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

               Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Those are the opening lines from William Wordsworth’s famous poem about daffodils. I swear, I really didn’t mean to fall in love with daffodils. It just sort of happened. They are native to meadows and woods in Europe, North Africa, and West Asia, with a center of distribution in the Western Mediterranean. Wherever I would wander lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills, I, too, would catch a glimpse of the crowd, a host of golden daffodils. Over 140 varieties have gained recognition. But you don’t get to view them very long in one place. They are in bloom for about three weekends, then gone for another year.

The name "daffodil" started out as “affodell." The reason for the introduction of the initial "d" is not known, although a probable source is an etymological merging from the Dutch article "de," as in "De affodil." From at least the 16th century, folks have been fooling around with the name; Daffodowndilly has come to town in a yellow petticoat and a green gown.

In ancient China, a legend about a poor but good man holds he was brought many cups of gold and wealth by this flower. Since the flower blooms in early spring, it has also become a symbol of Chinese New Year. If the daffodils bloom on Chinese New Year, it is said to bring extra wealth and good fortune throughout the year. The Chinese also love and revere the flower because of its sweet fragrance.

In Persian literature, the daffodil in the spring garden is a symbol of beautiful eyes, together with other flowers that equal a beautiful face, such as roses for cheeks and violets for shining dark hair. In some countries the yellow daffodil is associated with Easter. The German for daffodil is Osterglocke, that is "Easter bell;" a house with daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or not the sun be shining outside.

But the place where I fell in love with daffodils was not Germany, China, Persia, or Holland . . . it was in dear old London town. In my years of travel, I would be required to pass through London a half dozen to ten times a year. I looked forward to being in Great Britain in the spring. Many times I would be in London on my birthday, March 22nd. Even if I only had a few hours layover at Heathrow or Gatwick, I would grab my camera, put the rest of my bags in “left luggage” at the airport, get on the train, and head for Victoria station. From there, I could walk into a fantasy land of weaving and nodding gold. The daffodils would be in bloom in Green Park, Hyde Park, St. James Park, and all along the Pall Mall from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace. It was ecstasy. It was peace. It was a delight to the eye and a solace to this weary traveler’s soul.

One spring, I had been traveling in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was necessary for me to continue my travels through London and on to Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda. It had been very cold in Pakistan and would be very hot in Africa. I needed a whole new set of clothes, but did not have time enough to go all the way back to Denver to exchange suit cases. Fortuitous enough for me, it was spring break at Anna Marie’s school and it was also going to be my birthday. She packed another suit case for me, jumped on a flight out of Denver, and we met in London. We walked through the parks and returned to our hotel near Westminster Abby. I was very exhausted from the travel and fell soundly to sleep in our room. I awoke to a room filled with fresh daffodils and roses. She had gone to the market and purchased flowers and fresh strawberries for tea and shortcake.

Two years ago, Anna Marie began to ask if there was any place special I would like to go for my birthday? My answer was, “No, I don’t believe so. I think I know already what is on the other side of most of the mountains on the map.” Then, I stopped and said, “Oh, there is one place I would love to go . . . let’s go to England and chase the daffodils.” We flew to London, and then caught the fast train to Carlisle. We met up with some friends and headed to the Lake District in the north. Our destination was the village of Grasmere, the old stomping grounds of William Wordsworth. We visited fields of daffodils, the ancient stone church and courtyard of dazzling yellow, and the gravesite and headstone of William Wordsworth.

To my surprise, there were bus loads of Japanese and Koreans there to honor Wordsworth and view the daffodils. In the traditional Japanese medicine of kampo, wounds were treated with the daffodil roots mixed with wheat flour paste. Also, daffodils, that just happen to be the national flower of Wales, are now grown commercially in Powys, Wales, to produce galantamine, a drug used to combat Alzheimer’s disease.

You see, most visitors travel to Great Britain after school is out and they just think that all the parks are always grass. Little do they know that under that carpet of green grass are tens of thousands of daffodil bulbs ready to cast aside winter and announce the beauty and vibrancy of yet another Spring. By the time the tourists arrive, the big lawnmowers have cleared away the transitional gold and have prepared the parks for yet another summer.

I can identify with William Wordsworth’s final stanza of his poem about daffodils:

   For oft, when on my couch I lie
   In vacant or in pensive mood,
   They flash upon that inward eye
   Which is the bliss of solitude;
   And then my heart with pleasure fills,
   And dances with the daffodils. 

Happy springtime to all of you . . . and why not experience an affair with the daffodils?

The Heaviest Stone

In October 1999, super-cyclones struck the eastern part of India in the region of Orissa, leaving more than 10,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. In January 2001, massive earthquakes hit India’s western region of Gujarat. The quake registered a horrific 7.7 on the Richter scale and immediately left more than 30,000 people dead, more than 165,000 injured, and almost one million people without homes or economic support. When the earthquakes and the super-cyclones hit India, Project C.U.R.E. immediately became involved. 

From our Project C.U.R.E. warehouse in Rochester, England, Project C.U.R.E. UK sent emergency medical goods to the earthquake victims, and from our warehouse in Phoenix, Arizona, Project C.U.R.E. sent goods to Orissa. But the real need proved to be in the long-term reconstruction of destroyed medical facilities in both venues. Requests for help began pouring into our Denver headquarters, and the pressure was on us to get to the locations and perform the needs assessment studies so that we could begin to ship the much-needed containers of donated medical supplies and pieces of equipment into the crippled areas. 

Additionally, we had been getting pressure to perform a needs assessment trip into Katmandu, Nepal. I had decided to see if we could combine both assessment assignments into one trip. Throughout the history of Project C.U.R.E., it had not been out of the ordinary for me to travel into some pretty precarious situations. We never wanted to do anything foolish or presumptuous, but neither did we shy away from traveling into the “hot spots” of the world. 

In India’s grievous history, the Babri Masjid Hindu temple had stood on holy ground near a place called Ayodhya, not far from the major western city of Ahmadabad in the State of Gujarat. Previous conflicts between the militant Muslims and the radical Hindu sects had resulted in the Muslims desecrating the holy site by destroying the Hindu shrine and building in its place, on the very spot, a Muslim mosque. 

In 1992, the Hindu radicals had attacked the mosque and had torn it down piece by piece and burned it. Riots broke out across India where thousands of people were either killed or injured and surrounding properties were burned or looted. The Hindus made a declaration that they would rebuild their temple and reconsecrate the holy ground. They had declared that on the 15th of March, 2002, they would march to the holy site with a sacred stone called a “Shila daan stone” that would commemorate the official beginning of the temple construction. The Shila daan stone consisted of two heavy carved slabs of stone carried from Mount Govardhan to be used in the construction of the foundation of the new temple. Earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled that the Hindu temple should not be rebuilt, and the government purchased the surrounding property in order to block the building. But none of that was going to stop the Hindus from delivering the heavy stones and reclaiming the lost honor of their gods, which had suffered for such a long time under the Muslims. Hindu pilgrims began taking the public trains to Ayodhya to support the move to rebuild the Hindu temple. 

On Wednesday, February 27, 2002, the Indian trains were packed with passengers headed to Ahmadabad. The Sabarmati Express had just pulled into the Godhra station. Muslims were at the station shouting anti-Hindu slogans. The train pulled out of the station only a short distance when someone pulled the emergency stop handle. Immediately, the stopped train was attacked by rock-throwing Muslims, who began smashing out the windows of the railcars. 

The frightened passengers in a second-class sleeping car pulled down the shades and locked the coach doors. Soon burning rags, Molotov cocktails, and bottles of acid landed inside the train car while the attackers doused the outside of the coach with gasoline and kerosene. Almost immediately, sleeper car S-6 and the adjoining coaches were on fire. There was absolutely no escape for the passengers inside who were burned alive.

Of the fifty-eight people who burned in S-6, twenty-six were women and sixteen were children. An additional fifty or more were injured in the burning ambush. Then rumors quickly spread that in order to teach the Hindu pilgrims a lesson, the Muslims had also kidnapped and raped Hindu women. 

Riots broke out all over India. Hundreds of people were being killed, and properties were being torched in Bombay, Ahmadabad, and Hyderabad, and as far away as New Delhi and Calcutta. Everyone figured that the violence was only a precursor to what might happen on March 15th when the Hindus marched to Ayodhya with the heavy Shila daan stone. 

Our trip was scheduled to put us into India on March 12. From Bombay, we were to travel by train—the same Sabarmati Express train—to Surat, in the state of Gujarat, right through the city of Ahmadabad. That was where the train cars had been stoned and burned, and all the people killed. That was where the worst of the riots were taking place. Our airplane landed in Bombay at 2:00 a.m. Messages were waiting for us at the front desk to not take the train and to not travel north to Gujarat state. By breakfast, two of our hosts met us at the hotel and insisted we travel with them south to Hyderabad, where Anna Marie and I would be safe for a few days. Eventually, calm was restored across India and we were able to perform all of our needs assessment studies in the flooded areas of eastern India. We also flew into a military airport in Gujarat state and determined where Project C.U.R.E.’s help would be targeted in the tragically decimated earthquake areas. 

As we were hop-scotching across India, avoiding the rioting, I had some time to reflect. Just months before the India episode, Rudolph Giuliani had responded to the terrorism of 9/11in New York by saying, “We can't accommodate terrorism. When someone uses the slaughter of innocent people to advance a so-called political cause, at that point the political cause becomes immoral and unjust and they should be eliminated from any serious discussion, any serious debate.” Terrorism is carried out in a calculated fashion. The terrorist supposedly fights to remedy wrongs. But for righting the wrongs, his only solution is the destruction of the structure of the society or culture. 

To complicate the India encounter, this grudge between the Muslims and Hindus had been going on for a long time. The grudge had simmered and simmered and began to boil in 1992 with the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Another layer of complication existed because it had to do with a religious conviction. Paschal once stated that, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” And it certainly is not a new thing for people to use God to justify the unjustifiable. 

Hate and bigotry seem to be learned responses. I don’t think people are born to hate other people or cultures or religions. They learn that characteristic through being taught. And if they can learn to hate and carry long-time grudges, then it seems to follow that they can be taught to experience and embrace love. In fact, I have come to believe that love comes a little more readily to the human heart than does bigotry. As Martin Luther King, Jr. used to say, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” 

There was one more thing that impressed me about the Shila daan stone situation and the massacre of all the people in India, beginning with the burning of the loaded railroad cars. Life is too short and the alternatives too dangerous, and too expensive, to carry a grudge. 

The two big slabs of carved rock that comprised the Shila daan stone were heavy. The folks who carried those stones put forth great effort and paid a tremendous physical price to humanly transport those stones to the temple site in Ayodhya. But even though the Shila daan stones were heavy, they were, in truth, not the heaviest stones in the story. The heaviest stone you can carry is not a Shila daan stone . . . the heaviest and most dangerous stone you can carry is a grudge stone. If you are carrying a heavy grudge stone today, let me encourage you to take a deep breath and just let it fall to the ground. The whole world will be better off!

Skullduggery in Somalia

It is imperative that integrity be the cornerstone of any endeavor where everyone is expected to be better off. Napoleon Hill declares, “I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects.”

I agree with Warren Buffet’s curt advice about employing people: "In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you." Integrity is a precious commodity, and when it is compromised or put up for sale in the market place of life, the result is always moral and cultural bankruptcy.

Integrity has to do with consistent behavior stemming from a core group of values or virtues. When we speak of someone’s integrity, we often use descriptors like, honesty, principles, truthfulness, strength of character, or incorruptibility. Probably, the most common descriptor used for the lack of integrity is hypocrisy, because there is an observable disconnect between the projected expectation and the actual behavior.

While working in Somalia in 2001, I was shocked by two glaring examples of the loss of integrity that impacted the culture of that historic nation. The first had to do with the presumption of the citizens that the new president possessed integrity, intelligence, and energy. In the early days of his regime, Siad Barre had dreams of unifying the twelve major tribes of Somalia and developing a strong economy by emphasizing national loyalty and pride instead of clan individualities.

He realized he needed outside help, and readily fell into the trap of accepting “help” from the Soviet Union. He swallowed the Marxist-Leninist ideals of communism and controlled markets. Those concepts and practices were an irritant to the independence and more entrepreneurial tribal clans of Somalia.

The Russians, along with thousands of Cuban troops, came creeping in, wrapping their tentacles around every life-giving artery of Somalia. Trying to rid himself of the Soviet entrapment, Siad Barre began endearing himself to the United States. He played the Soviets against the U.S. in order to get his best deal. The U.S. wanted to stop the Soviet aggression in Ethiopia as well, and the Russian’s expansion throughout Africa, so they agreed with Siad Barre to pump millions of dollars of aid money into Somalia and arm Siad Barre with the latest and most sophisticated war weaponry to protect himself from the Russians.

When the Soviets began pulling out, economic growth began taking place. Siad Barre became enamored with his own greatness and power, and his regime assumed a cultist personality intolerant of any challenge or criticism. The people of the different tribes resented the elitist cruelty. Barre abandoned all thought of unity and resorted to control by pitting the twelve tribes against each other, and the clan warlords began plotting the assassination of the leader. All of that chaos became the setting for the TV coverage of Somalia we received in the U.S. and for the “Blackhawk Down” episode in Mogadishu. Wherever there were pockets of discontent, he would send his trusted troops in to machinegun down all the livestock herds and throw into prison anyone who might speak out against him. He even sent his men into the northern area to poison the water wells of his own people. Eventually, he utilized his military arsenal of bombs, tanks, airplanes, rifles, mortars, and other weapons that had been supplied to him by both the Russians and the U.S., and employed them to murder his own people.

He visited the northern seaport city of Hargeisa (population of a half million people) and declared he would punish them for their disloyalty. He loaded the bombers given to him by the Soviets and U.S., deployed them from Hargeisa’s own international airport, and had them destroy the buildings, water systems, industries, and homes in an effort to ethnically cleanse the disloyal people of the north. Very seldom in history can you find anything as sinister or evil as what President Barre perpetrated upon Somalia. He also strafed and bombed his own cities, like Berbera and Burao, and eventually, Mogadishu. The entire country of Somalia was left in shambles.

After twenty-one years of murder, deceit, and skullduggery, Siad Barre foiled an assassination plot and escaped with his money to Kenya, then to Zimbabwe, and finally he died in Nigeria. He possessed intelligence and energy, but lacked integrity.


My second glaring example of perfidy and treachery in Somalia included the United Nations.

During the genocide, Somali citizens were desperately trying to escape as refugees and appealed to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees for help. Somehow, the rampant lack of integrity flooding over Somalia likewise washed over the U.N. The incident took place while I was in Somalia and became a textbook case of “mess up” and disgrace. The United Nations’ employees who were in charge of filling certain refugee quotas into countries such as Great Britain, Canada, and the United States were charging the refugees anywhere between $3,500 and in some cases, in excess of $5,000 U.S. money to process their application and place them into the country. That money went straight into the pockets of the individual U.N. employees. They would make the penniless refugees pay fifty shillings just to get inside the waiting room to talk to a U.N. individual. It was discovered that the U.N. employees would actually sell false documentation, phony identification papers, and bogus case histories to allow people who were not even refugees to be able to be “resettled” in the United States. The U.N. admitted that four staff members were suspected of soliciting money from the displaced persons they were paid handsomely to assist.

The U.N. officials came to the defense of their workers by building the case that the U.N. workers were really the “victims” in the situation. The U.N. had been informed for the previous two years of the employees’ scam, but claimed that the employees were placed in very difficult and stressful positions. Outside people just couldn’t understand the terrible and unbearable position of pressure and temptations the employees had been subjected to when there were nearly a quarter of a million people seeking to be placed into developed countries, and only 8,000 to 11,000 immigration spots had been made available by the well-off countries.

Finally, the United Nations directors gave the U.N. workers new assignments elsewhere, where the pressure would not be so unbearable. But they made that decision only when some refugees, who had paid their $5,000 and still never got selected to go to the United States, threatened to kill the extortionists. The U.N. had to then make a move to protect their poor, victimized representatives. No one had been brought to task or punished for the bribery scam. The U.N. employees had intelligence and energy, but did not possess integrity.

It really was not safe to go into Somalia when I did. There was no central government, no rule of law, no infrastructure, no civilized politics or security. But, the Somali community of Denver had literally begged Project C.U.R.E. to go there with one of their members and assess the medical needs of Somaliland, since the entire healthcare delivery system of the country was tragically broken, and all of the medical facilities had been sacked of supplies. We felt that Project C.U.R.E. could significantly alter the healthcare delivery system and greatly influence the everyday life of its people for many years to come.

I was astounded at the absence of integrity characterized by the Somalia mess, and was reminded of an old Rwandan proverb I had learned in Kigali: You can out-distance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.

I believe that sometimes we are commissioned to go into dark situations with the match of goodness to rekindle the flame and fan the fire of lost and compromised integrity.

Russian Rockets and the Power of Goodness, Part 2

It was late Tuesday, May 25th. My time was running out. My Russian visa was to expire at midnight, Wednesday the 26th. The Moscow airport declared that all flights were full and would not sell me a ticket for an earlier flight than my originally scheduled flight for Friday, May 28. Even the Russian Aerospace officials could not get them to budge. It looked like I would be spending some time in the Moscow jail and be paying a huge fine. I decided to try a different approach. I called back to Denver and asked Douglas to contact a United/Lufthansa airline desk and see if they would sell me a ticket from Moscow to either Frankfort or Munich, Germany, at about 10:30 p.m. on the 26th. “It’s a done deal,” came his reply minutes later. Now, I had a legitimate reservation in the system that the folks in Moscow would have to acknowledge. Now, I really had to get to work in the time I had left.

Tuesday evening a meeting was called where I was introduced to all the Lockheed Martin team, the NPO Energomash rocket folks, and the Moscow and Khimky medical officials. I was able to explain what Project C.U.R.E. would be doing to bring relief to the depleted medical system that was serving the Russian Aerospace scientists and technicians. I bragged on Lockheed Martin’s desire to help the Russian scientists in their time of family need. We explained the time pressure we were under to see and assess all the medical facilities before I had to leave. They were all extremely appreciative and cooperative. 

During the hours of Wednesday we were able to visit and assess all the major hospitals and polyclinics within the Khimky area. I was very pleased I had brought with me some gifts. I had lugged the medical books, the Colorado photo books, and the new stethoscopes with me all across Africa and England. But it was worth the effort. The doctors were so overwhelmed whenever I would make a presentation of a gift. Lapel pins were important status symbols in Russia. At one point, Dr. Alexander removed his trophy lapel pin commemorating the sixty years of space endeavors at Khimky and pinned it onto me. I was moved by his show of honor and affection. When it came time to present him with a gift, I gave him one of Dr. Netter’s collector’s books on the Anatomy. He could hardly speak.

Dr. Boris Pavlov was eager to point out something quite new to his hospital facility. He just smiled and grinned at me when he showed me the new Russian Orthodox Chapel that had recently been built within his hospital. There, , doctors, nurses, and patients alike, could go and pray to God. I thanked him for showing the chapel to me. He said as soon as I spoke he knew that I was a sincere Christian.

I was dead tired, but I had requested one more official meeting. It was with the Russian customs authorities to thoroughly discuss the shipping in of the donated medical goods. The meeting proved to be one of our most productive meetings while in Russia. The director estimated how much value to declare on each container load of the donated medical goods, and gave me other absolutely necessary tips for a successful delivery.

After some hassle from the airlines and customs folks, I was able to board the earlier flight and leave Moscow for Frankfurt, Germany, about an hour before my visa expired. Lockheed Martin had never needed to be convinced of the superior design and function of the Soviet rockets. By purchasing the store of Soviet rocket engines, at least three things were accomplished: (1) the U.S. program was able to sop-up the inventories of rockets out of Russia, adding to U.S. national security; (2) Lockheed Martin would be able to corner the market on supplying rocket engines for future space travel and commercial launch in satellites and exploration vehicles; and (3) the advanced technology of the Russian program would be available not only in hard metal merchandise, but also in intelligence and manpower of the Russians to the American space program.

It really was an historical event of great significance when the two nuclear superpowers of the world were now joined in a common program of peaceful achievement. Project C.U.R.E. had been able to play a very small, but very key, part of what had transpired with the NPO Energomash and Lockheed Martin joint venture. I was told later that not only did President Boris Yeltsin approve and sign the deal, but encouraged the process, because of the love and concern that the American scientists had shown for the struggling Russian rocket scientists of the aerospace program.

Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “It is not because things are difficult that we do not venture. It is because we do not venture that they are difficult.” I am coming to understand more and more that there is great strength in kindness and gentleness, and our acts of kindness are really stepping stones to our own fulfillment. At any rate, I have decided to see if we can continue to significantly shake our world with kindness and gentleness. I had been away for nearly the entire month of May. I was returning home very tired, but I believed I was “the happiest man in the world.” Hearing later of the successful inaugural launch of Lockheed Martin’s Atlas III rocket powered by the Russian RD 180 rocket engine really made me a happy man! 

Russian Rockets and the Power of Goodness, Part 1

On May 14, 2000, I received word that the very first American rocket equipped with a Russian RD180 rocket engine had blasted off from launch pad 36B at Cape Canaveral, Florida. My eyes raced to read the details. The propulsion system designed and built by the Russians had launched the inaugural Lockheed Martin Atlas III rocket carrying a Eutelsat W4 communications satellite into active duty. I shivered. 

In 1996, I had the opportunity of becoming friends with Robert Ford, Lockheed Martin’s program manager. He loved what we were doing around the world with Project C.U.R.E., and teams of employees and executives from Lockheed Martin would frequently come to Project C.U.R.E. and help us sort materials, pack cases of medical goods, and help us load the ocean-going cargo containers. A couple of years later, Robert asked me a rather unusual question: “What are you specifically doing for the people of Russia?” I replied that from the first days after the fall of the Soviet system, Project C.U.R.E. had been in the countries trying to meet the medical needs not only of Russia but of all the old Soviet Federation. 

Robert’s second question was, “Are you specifically doing anything to help the Russian scientists in and around Moscow? Are you aware of the terrible plight of the disenfranchised technicians and scientists, and are you presently involved in helping them in any way?” My answer was not complicated: “If the scientists and their families have been part of any of the local area hospitals or polyclinics where Project C.U.R.E. has shipped donated medical goods, then their lives have, no doubt, been affected.

Robert then went on to explain that they had been dealing with the scientists at the highly secured Khimky scientific complex near the Moscow airport. Since the political demise of the country and the economic bankruptcy of their system, even the most respected scientists and technicians of the old Federation had been cut off along with their families from any access to medical services or salaries. The hospitals were empty of the most basic medical supplies, and even their polyclinics were without simple essentials.

“As a community of fellow scientists,” said Robert, “we would like to come along side our new Russian acquaintances and their families and help them out in their time of medical need. We have worked with Project C.U.R.E.in the past and would be proud to have you partner with us to see if we can make a difference. If you will furnish the donated medical goods to replenish their system, we will underwrite the shipping expenses.” I tried to explain that we had always worked from the premise “take what you have and allow it to become what someone else needs.” If you wish to experience peace, then provide peace for someone else.

Lockheed Martin was aware of the fact that Project C.U.R.E. required a needs assessment trip to any location requesting our help in order to accurately determine the appropriate medical goods to be donated. We agreed that we would make the trip in May, 1999. Project C.U.R.E. agreed to a significant gifting plan that would be structured over five years and would replenish millions of dollars of medical goods into the deficient hospitals and clinics of the Khimky community. I would simply tie the Moscow venue onto the assessment trips I already had planned to Dakar, Senegal, Nouakchott, Mauritania, and London during the month of May.

Lockheed Martin had become interested in purchasing from the Soviets the inventory of super RD 180 rocket engines out of their bankrupt aerospace program. The procedure for making the purchase was very complicated from both the U.S. and Soviet sides. The whole agreement was contingent upon the approval and signature of President Boris Yeltsin.

Moscow, Russia, is not my favorite city in the world. But, I was presuming that my friend Robert Ford would be at the Moscow airport to pick me up and everything would be fine. I had been in and out of Moscow many times and I found myself with feelings of irritability and apprehension each time I prepared to visit. I had many good friends in Russia and throughout the Old Soviet Union, and fond memories associated with many of my trips. But, there was something edgy about the city of Moscow. If they could hassle you over the slightest detail, they would. If they could take advantage of you as an American, they would. I found many of them were rude, even toward their own people.

While standing in line to clear customs, my mind went back to the time the customs official at Moscow just arbitrarily took out of my passport my visa for Kazakhstan. I protested loudly and told him the visa was my property and I needed it to enter Aktav as I continued my journey. The official gave me back my passport, but without my Kazakhstan visa, and the only explanation I could get was that they didn’t like or approve Kazakhstan since they had withdrawn from the Union. My further protests got me absolutely nowhere, and eventually I had to go through the process of purchasing another visa at the border of Kazakhstan.

When I exited customs, I did not find Robert, but I did see a nice big sign reading, “Dr. James Jackson.” Jim Sackett, a Lockheed-Martin employee, would be my Moscow host. Robert was detained in Denver and had to cancel the trip. We went directly to the Aerostar Hotel. Once checked in, I sat down with Jim and reviewed the agenda for the days I would be there. Before I went to bed, the personnel at the front desk notified me of a potential problem I might have with my Russian visa. The woman said, “Dr. Jackson, you say you will stay with us through the night of May 27th and check out on the 28th. But it is against the Russian law for a hotel to rent a room to a person whose Russian visa has expired. Your visa expires on midnight the 26th of May. I think you have a big problem.”

I thought to myself, “Why am I surprised that I have a technical problem over which I am being hassled here in Moscow?” I told the lady at the desk I would look into the problem the next day.

I had figured that the departure date on my Russian visa could very easily be extended for one more day. I was so wrong. The officials at NPO Energomash took my passport and visa and approached the customs and immigration folks in Moscow. Even with all their clout and influence, the visa people said “nyet, if he remains in the country one minute without a valid visa, he will go to jail and pay a very huge fine.”

Tuesday morning Jim picked me up and we drove to the gated and closed city of Khimky community. Within those walls and behind those fences was some of the tightest security in the whole world. It was there the Russian rockets were designed, developed, proto-typed, tested, and installed. There they had built the world’s most powerful and most efficient rockets. The U.S. scientists had developed their products along an entirely different design and philosophy. No one had ever disputed the superiority of the Russian rockets over any others developed to date. It had all taken place over the years, right where I was now standing.

After lunch we walked into an experience that I shall never forget. Passing all kinds of security, I was led right into the building complex where the designing, building, and testing of the famous Russian rockets had taken place. Jim leaned over to me and said, “You are now among a very small handful of officials from the West who have ever been permitted to pass through these doors and see what you will now see.” 

The head of the Russian Aerospace Agency met me and personally directed my tour, pointing out the historical progression of the Russian rockets since 1908. He kindly answered all of my questions and pointed out the difference in basic design between the U.S. rockets and the Russian rockets. It was easy to see why they could get over three times the thrust, efficiency, and payload-lift out of their design. What used to take three separate rockets on the end of an Atlas Rocket of the Americans, the Russians could accomplish with only one of their machines. Their design relied on fewer moving parts and a concept of super-heating the fuel before it was re-injected into the combustion chamber.

He showed me the rocket engine which had thrust Sputnik into orbit and the rocket engine that had put the Soviet astronauts first into space. I asked about the huge clustered rocket engines which were painted green. He told me that those rockets were the ones that during the Cold War were loaded with nuclear warheads and aimed at every major city in the U.S.

When the Director concluded my tour, I asked if I could possibly have a photo of the two of us in front of the rocket engines. I fully expected to have him laugh and good-heartedly deny my request. But he answered, “Sure, Dr. Jackson, it would be my privilege to be photographed with you in front of the world’s largest and most powerful rocket engine. After all, you are now one of the family.”

While we were leaving the building, the NPO Energomash security once again updated me on my visa problem. The Russians were not going to budge an inch. My flight to leave Moscow was scheduled for after the time my visa would expire. It looked like Dr. Jackson had come all the way to Moscow to assess all the hospitals and clinics of the aerospace community, but would be sitting in a Moscow jail. The officials were having no success at all in booking an earlier flight or rerouting me out of Moscow. I was in an embarrassing, diplomatic mess.
                                              

(To be continued February 12, 2013)

Tribute to the Koreans

In order for an historical atrocity to become a positive and teachable experience it is necessary and sufficient to accurately recount the incident for those who follow. Few practices in history are so devilish as the false and purposeful revisionism of factual matters. I want this short story to highlight a little known occurrence in history, and honor the character and culture of the Koreans during a sad and dark time of their history. 

In my early travels to northern Russia, and especially as I made my way across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Afghanistan, I continually met up with some of the most dedicated and compassionate expatriate doctors, nurses, and teachers I had ever met. They were intently focused on their pursuits and willing to put up with the most severe and inconvenient circumstances. They were driven. They were Korean, and I soon began referring to them as my “Seoul mates.” 

I had met and worked closely with John Kim and Dr. Choi of Messengers of Mercy,centered in Chicago. Kim had traveled with me to Afghanistan and Albania, and had introduced me to a Korean husband and wife medical team, Dr. Jae Doo Shim and Anna. They had found a piece of property, bought it with their own money, personally designed and built a two-story clinic. “We never knew where we would ever get the necessary pieces of equipment or the necessary supplies to run this clinic … but then God sent Project C.U.R.E. to help finish our dream.” I asked John Kim, “Where are all these excellent Korean doctors coming from? They are absolutely the best!” 

Project C.U.R.E. was being requested to help many Korean medical and ministry organizations working in Central Asia: Daniel Kim, CEO of The Young Nak Foundation from Seoul, Korea, CAFÉ (Central Asian Free Exchange), and the doctors Joshua Koh and Herbert Hong, representing the IACD (Institute of Asian Culture and Development). I slowly began to understand that Project C.U.R.E. had landed in the middle of an incredible miracle story of love and international compassion. All those Korean doctors and organizations had heard the distinct call for help from the dim shadows of their lost kinfolk just as soon as the old Soviet curtain of secrecy and silence had come crashing down. The very call had emboldened them, and had ignited their passion to help their betrayed and violated brothers and sisters. Nothing makes a person as strong as when he hears the call for help. 

The brutal invasion and occupation of the Koreans by Imperial Japan resulted in many of the Koreans escaping into Russia. The Koreans were diligent workers and good businessmen and became successful landowners and farmers. During the 1917 Russian revolution, most of the Koreans sided with the Bolsheviks. But, as Joseph Stalin and the Communists began to steal the revolution away from the Bolsheviks, the landowning Korean entrepreneurs were seen as untrustworthy by the comrades who lusted after their productive farms. 

By 1926, Koreans represented more than a quarter of the rural population of the Far East Vladivostok, Russia, region. A secret plan of ethnic cleansing was adopted under the idea to resettle the Koreans, “on suspicions of disloyalty to the Soviet Union.” The propaganda claimed that it was to stop any possibility of penetration of Japanese espionage. Joseph Stalin’s plan of systematic population transfer moved into high gear between September and October, 1937, moving over a quarter million Koreans to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Orders called for an immediate removal of the Koreans, to be totally completed within ninety days.

Orders called for the Koreans to be transported by railway trains of about fifty carriages each, with twenty-five to thirty people per carriage. Travel to the undisclosed destinations took between thirty and forty days. To accomplish the quicker time schedule of movement, people were simply crammed into the cattle cars without heat or other provisions. Multiplied thousands of the Koreans never even survived the trip. One survivor wrote of his arrival at an unknown destination, “Each family dug a hole to live in. We made a Korean ondol (heated floor). We burned bushes for heat. There were no trees or charcoal. We lived that way for two or three years.” Many Koreans were placed far from each other in isolation to prevent contact with each other. Thirty-four thousand Koreans were placed on the desolate outpost of Ushtobe, Kazakhstan, with no food and no shelter, and were forced to survive on their own for almost three years. Thousands died of starvation, sickness, and exposure during the first few years in Central Asia. 

Project C.U.R.E. was working right where most of the displaced Koreans had ended up during Joseph Stalin’s murderous transmigration scheme. Now, the Koreans had lost their own identity and even spoke only Russian. 

One such Korean family I met, that had come to Uzbekistan to help, represented the Good Samaritan Medical Aid Foundation. Dr. Chong Soo Kim had started out his medical career in Seoul, Korea, as a neurosurgeon. In 1971 he traveled to Indiana University Medical School and certified as a U.S. anesthesiologist. But, in 1994, Dr. Kim heard about the plight of the Koreans in Central Asia and decided to take his family and go to Uzbekistan. They sold everything they owned and he walked away from a good job paying well over $300,000 a year. 

Dr. Kim was met by the harsh realities of Uzbekistan. Offering medical service was a way to establish a relationship with the local people. But there were problems with the local authorities. 

There was a great shortage of medical training in the Tashkent Oblast, so Dr. Kim began offering medical classes where he would teach Western medicine. Most medical textbooks in Uzbekistan were over twenty years old and written in the Russian language. Dr. Kim started teaching out of American textbooks. That required the students to learn English. Dr. Kim’s daughter moved from Evansville, Indiana, to Tashkent to help teach the students English and Korean. 

Dr. Kim had been able to purchase an old Soviet kindergarten school in the city of Almayk. When he purchased the old facility, the buildings were terribly run down and the gardens consisted of only weeds. He used his own money to repair and remodel the facility into a very delightful clinic site for the city. All he needed now was for Project C.U.R.E. to come and fill the building with pieces of equipment and medical supplies. We not only furnished his facilities, but went to the local government hospital in Almayk and sent needed supplies and pieces of equipment to them as well! 

As I continued to work with the heroic Koreans in Central Asia after the fall of the dismal Soviet system, my heart would at times nearly burst with compassion and pride for the thousands of Koreans who responded to the urgent call for kindness, justice, and righteousness. In my quiet moments I would think: 

Show me your hands, are they scarred by compassion?

Show me your feet, have the rough trails left them bruised?

Show me your heart, has it been broken in love for your wounded brothers?

I salute my Korean friends!

Challenges (Part II)

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Helen Keller

Once Dr. Singh had meticulously inched his way across the downward moving Himalayan glacier, there was no thought even given to whether we would turn back or go on. Dr. Singh and Dr. Wangmo pressed forward to get me to the Spiti Valley, and more immediately, off Rotung Pass and the sixteen-thousand-foot Kunlom Pass. Between the passes we stopped amid the gigantic boulders of the bleak valley at a crude bridge that crossed the Chandra River. Some friends of the Singhs ran a “dhabz,” or roadside café, out there in the middle of no place. They weren’t out there to make a lot of money from the tourists, because there just weren’t very many silly people out there visiting Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. But the old weather-worn Hindu couple felt that someone needed to be available with food, fresh-brewed black tea, and matches for the “at risk” travelers going that way. By then, the frigid temperatures had plunged and the blue plastic tarps that served as the roof flapped furiously at the timbers to which they were tied. The walls were piles of stacked stones. There were no window openings, just one doorway in the front made of another flap of blue plastic tarp.

When the crusty old man saw how I was dressed, he quickly pulled off his coat and made me put it on. He told me I would need it in Kaza and to just return it on our way back down the mountain. The soup they served to us was dark green in color and thick in consistency. I could make out that beans were included in the ingredients, but as to what else I could not tell you. 

The hot, strong, black tea was also thick and sweetened like syrup, but it felt good as it ran its course from my mouth to my empty stomach. While the old man kept the fire going inside his stacked-stone stove, the old woman rolled out corn chapattis on a flat rock with a round smooth river rock and fried them on a piece of flat, blackened iron balanced atop the fire. 

We finished our lunch, thanked our gracious hosts, and resumed our journey. As we continued to gain altitude in our Gypsy 4x4, we moved from the bleak tundra landscape to mountain elevations that contained absolutely nothing but dark brown and black volcanic gravel. As we drove across one rock slide area of about a quarter-mile in width, Dr. Singh explained to me that they were probably the most dangerous areas on the mountain face. “You have to travel across them if you traverse the face of the mountain. You can’t go above or below them because some chutes were thousands of feet in length up the mountain,” explained Dr. Singh. But the idea was to never stop while going across a rock slide chute. Even if there was an obstacle in your way, you must never get out of the auto. The driver must always be behind the steering wheel and keep moving. The rock slide areas were extremely unstable and just the movement of the wheels could be enough to set the slide into thunderous motion down the endless mountain. 

It had turned completely dark as we rode on. We had to make it to Kaza, simply because there wasn’t any place else to stop and stay the night. Finally, Dr. Wangmo gave out a squeal of delight. We had just passed where they used to live and had their clinic. Even though there were no street lights or welcoming signs, we had entered the town of Kaza, where we would spend the night. It was 9:45 p.m. and all the lights were out. The doctors Singh and Wangmo were very good friends with the people who operated the only “hotel” in Kaza. Dr. Wangmo ran in and awakened the owner and his wife. They came out to greet us and hurried us to the frosty kitchen to fix us some more black tea. 

When morning came, I could hardly believe how happy the doctors were. They just kept talking about how important it was for me to travel to Kaza and the Spiti Valley. It was cold outside and I was glad for the musty borrowed coat. The view of the snow-clad Himalayan peaks was breathtaking. But the immediate surroundings of Kaza were pretty bleak and brown in color. Nothing grew there of its own accord. The people in the Spiti Valley were considered lower on the Indian caste system. We had crossed over Old Tibet the night before, and we were only two miles from China. Doctors Singh and Wangmo had lived there with the people for over six years, and the townspeople were thrilled to see them, and excited that in the future there might be access to increased medical care. 

After a breakfast of chapattis, rice, and black tea, we left the hotel. It was a bright and crisp morning and hard to believe that only days before I had been in the sweltering heat of 120 degrees in Delhi. We had to retrace every bump and rock and flowing waterfall we had crossed the day before. 

With it being dark as we entered Kaza, I had missed a lot of the grandeur. Just outside the town, plastered tightly against a rugged stone cliff, was an ancient monastery. Later, His Holiness the Dalai Lama would be there to teach and pray for world peace at the key monastery. A lot of people would make the pilgrimage to Spiti Valley for the occasion. 

The old Tibetan valley floor in Spiti was higher than any of the mountain peaks in Colorado. During the daylight drive back, I marveled at the road we had passed over the night before. In many places the road had been chiseled out of the granite face of the mountain and just hung there totally unprotected and without the hint of any guardrails. We stopped long enough along the Chandra River at the “dhabz” to return the coat, and had some more tea and a couple of biscuits with the old couple. As we approached Kullu Valley, I asked Dr. Singh how many times over the years he had crossed those two passes on his way to Spiti. “Well over 500 times,” he said. “Well over 500 times but never, ever, in the month of May.” 

Yes, we were able to successfully help deliver urgently needed medical goods to the doctors Singh and Wangmo on the northern borders of India, and as Robert Frost once penned, “Courage is the human virtue that counts most—courage to act on limited knowledge and insufficient evidence. That's all any of us has.” 

However, in dealing with the subject of challenges, I have personally decided that next time I am confronted with such a significant challenge, I will first try to expand my limited knowledge and insufficient evidence of the challenge, and especially try to stay away from moving glaciers on the face of twenty-thousand-foot Himalayan mountain peaks. 

(The full version of this story taken from Dr. Jackson’s TRAVEL JOURNALS from around the world will be published soon)

Challenges (Part I)

You should never underestimate the challenge you are facing or your ability to deal with it. Challenges seem to have a way of discovering, as well as developing, latent inner strengths and abilities that had been hiding within you prior to a particular adversity or challenge. When I was growing up, a fellow named Art Linkletter had a television show where he used to say, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” I think he was on to something.

The blind author and intuitive philosopher, Helen Keller, once reminded us, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” I remember a life threatening situation I encountered in the rugged Himalayan Mountains of northern India that didn’t just challenge me, but nearly frightened the Scotch-Irish machismo out of me.

I had been requested to travel from Denver to Frankfurt to Delhi, then transfer onto Jagson Airlines to be delivered to the Kullu Valley in the far northwest corner of India. My destination was a city called Naggar, where I was to assess the Shamballa hospital and several clinics that had requested donated medical goods from Project C.U.R.E. With all of the airline transfers, they had successfully lost every bit of my luggage, and I left Delhi with only the shirt and pants I was wearing, and a familiar but empty promise, “We will locate your luggage and forward it to you right away.”

My hosts in the Kullu Valley were Dr. Jatinder Singh and his Hungarian-born wife, Dr. Wangmo. They were a delightful couple having come to serve the neglected Himalayan people of Northern India, Tibet, Southern China, and Kashmir. The warm welcome I received from the doctors and townspeople of Naggar and Ghordor had moved me to tears.

After completing the assessments of the hospitals and clinics, doctors Singh and Wangmo asked, “Don’t you people ski a lot in Colorado? We have a bit of time right now, would you like for us to show you our ski area up on Rotung Pass?” I hesitated. I had borrowed a denim shirt and an ill-fitting pair of pants from Dr. Singh that morning because I still had no luggage. “I don’t think I am prepared to visit a ski area with only a thin pair of pants and a light shirt. Do you think I am dressed properly?” “Oh, yes,” they chimed in, “we will not get out of our Gypsy 4x4. We will just go to the top of the pass and let you see; then we will come back down. You will be fine.”

It was May 17. Rotung Pass didn’t usually open until late June or July, but the road up to the gate of the pass had just been opened. The people from all over blistering hot India wanted to go play on the left-over glaciers and wade in the cold streams. The narrow military road up the pass was crowded with old buses, taxis, and dilapidated cars, puffing and chugging in the high altitude. People coming from as far away as Delhi and Hyderabad, who had never touched or seen real snow before, were competing to get to the glaciers to play. It made no difference that there were no ski lifts, gondolas, or rope tows. The crowds just wanted to touch cold snow.

It was a beautiful day. The doctors insisted we stop and buy fried bread and onion sandwiches and Coca-Cola from the maverick vendors. While we were eating, the temperature began dropping quickly. The doctors told me that when they first came to the area they had started their medical work on the north side of the Himalayas. “You just drive down the other side of the twelve-thousand-foot Rotung Pass, along the high valley floor, and go over a sixteen-thousand-foot pass called Kunlom Pass and down into the Spiti Valley in old Tibet.

“Dr. Jackson,” Dr. Singh excitedly announced, “we need to help our friends over in the Spiti Valley, and since you only send things after you personally assess a facility . . . we will never be closer to them than we are right now. We could hurry and be in the Spiti Valley, spend the night there, meet our friends, check the facilities, and be back to the Kullu Valley by tomorrow.” 

“But,” I inquired, “how do you propose getting by that military guard standing at the gate? He is not allowing anyone to get through and go down the other side of Rotung Pass. Furthermore, I only have a thin shirt and a pair of your pants with legs that are too short.” “No problem,” was the reply. “The Gypsy 4x4 is warm and we will be inside until we arrive at Kaza in the Spiti Valley.” With that, Dr. Singh jumped out and ran over to the soldier guarding the gate. He returned with a smile. There hasn’t been as much snow recently and just today some trucks have been over the pass to take supplies into the Spiti Valley.” The guard had recognized Jatinder Singh as a doctor and had given us permission to go.

About halfway down Rotung Pass we encountered a slight problem. A glacier had slid across almost the entire roadway. We stopped and sized up the situation. Dr. Singh felt that as long as he could keep his downhill set of tires on the gravel roadway, the other set of tires could run up onto the glacier pack and we could pass by safely. Dr. Singh had to keep a good balance to the movement of the 4x4. He couldn’t go too slowly or he would lose his momentum and we would be stuck on the upper side in the snow. And he couldn’t go too fast and run the risk of putting the 4x4 into a slide off what seemed to be a never-ending drop from the downside to wherever the bottom was twelve thousand feet below.

The first fifteen yards went quite well. Then the road base on the downhill side gave way. We had been hoping to count on the road base as our security, but the glacier melt had run underneath and softened the base. Suddenly, I felt the right rear corner of the 4x4 swing downhill, and the left front corner where I was sitting (since India’s cars all had right-hand drive) began to get higher and higher in the air. Dr. Singh let off the gas and we sat perched teetering on the edge with the front left tire three feet off the ground. Everything was in slow motion and I fully expected the 4x4 to just slowly roll on over down the side of forever. I admonished Dr. Singh and Dr. Wangmo to move very gently and try to exit on the uphill side, being careful not to get beneath the auto in case it should roll on over.

Once we were safely out, we had a better chance to consider our plight. The wind had built up measurably and caused a teeter-totter effect on the auto. I told the doctors that our very best chance was to wait for a large India truck to come up the hill from down below and hook on to the front of the 4x4 and gently ease us back onto the glacier and roadway. Dr. Singh, an athletically modeled Indian, wasn’t going to wait for anything. He took off running down the road to seek help. We watched as he took shortcuts down the mountain face, dropping from one road to the next road level instead of running the full distance of the switchbacks. 

While Dr. Singh was gone, we discovered that there weren’t going to be any big trucks coming on the road past us. We were on a by-pass road and the trucks were going on a different military road. By that time, the clouds were moving down from the summit and the wind was acquiring a sharp bite to it. I started looking for some shelter on the bare face of the twelve-thousand-foot mountain pass. What would I do if we were required to spend the night with no food, fire, or protection?

Returning to the Gypsy 4x4 for warmth or protection would not work. About the time I would get tempted to consider crawling back into it, the wind would come up and the 4x4 would start rocking and teetering, and the front left wheel would go higher. The Gypsy could tip in the wind and go plummeting down at any second with absolutely nothing to stop it. The wind continued to pick up, forcing the clouds down from the top of the mountain to where we were, making a cold fog. 

Dr. Singh had run downhill far enough to find a road workers’ camp. He grabbed six workers there and flagged down a truck driver. The truck eventually got to us, but there were at least two immediate problems. The truck could not get any closer to the 4x4 than about fifty yards because of the soft roadway and the piled snowpack. The other problem was that if we weren’t careful, the vibration from the big truck could get the glacier moving again across the roadway. The moving glacier would simply sweep us all off the face of the mountain. 

Several of the men went carefully to the lower corner of the 4x4 and gently pushed up. As they lifted, other men stacked rocks below the wheel. They repeated that process until they had built a base. I was on the front corner of the vehicle trying to add my weight to the leverage. Without a hydraulic jack or a pry bar or a long, wooden pole or any other scientific advantage, the Himalayan mountain men picked the vehicle up about six inches at a time until it was once again level.

The road workers who were chopping at the snow had by then cleared about three or four feet of the glacier for the entire fifty-yard length. Then it was time for Dr. Singh to try his skill at driving the rig back along the ledge to the other side of the glacier.

Experience is not what benefits a person; rather, it is what that person does with the experience that makes the difference. I have learned not to necessarily pray for an easy life, but to pray for wisdom and strength to handle the life dealt to me. What would wisdom suggest we do to get off the face of that treacherous, freezing, Himalayan Mountain?

(Continued next week . . . January 22, 2013)

Follow Your Heart

Jacob Petrovic was my friend. I knew him by his Americanized name, “Jim Peters.” He knew his life was limited and didn’t want to waste a single moment living someone else’s dream. He had dreams of his own, courage enough to follow his heart, and sufficient confidence to trust his seasoned intuition. Jim wanted to return to the unstable federation of Yugoslavia, but the civil war, the bloodshed, and violence made the political climate throughout the Balkans extremely tentative.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once advised, “Beware what you set your heart upon, for it surely shall be yours.” For over fifty years Jim had his heart set upon returning to his birthplace in Belgrade, Serbia. Jim was sitting in the audience where I had just delivered a presentation on my recent trips into North Korea and Iraq. He approached me: “You have been to Bagdad, Iraq; Havana, Cuba; and Pyongyang, North Korea; have you ever been to Belgrade, Serbia, in Yugoslavia?”

“No,” was my answer. “Why not?” was his rapid response. “Because Project C.U.R.E. only goes where we are invited,” I answered. “Then would you go to Belgrade if you were invited?” Three days later the two of us met in my office to discuss the possibility of traveling together to arrange for needed medical goods to be donated to the hurting people of Yugoslavia.

This was not the first time Jim Peters had followed his heart where there was no pathway to lead. But he had learned early that wherever you go it is necessary to go with all your heart, because the intuition of the heart has reasons that even reason does not necessarily understand. Jim had escaped Yugoslavia in 1944. Germany had wreaked havoc on the Balkans during the First World War. Then, during World War II, Germany, Italy, and Russia had exercised their special cruelty on the area.

Young Jacob Petrovic and his brothers were part of a prominent Belgrade family. They had joined up with the resistance movement to try to protect their homeland from the Nazis and Communists. When Allied pilots from America or Britain got shot down over Yugoslavia, the resistance group would try to get to the pilots first, and through dangerous and clandestine strategies eventually return the pilots back across the enemy lines to the safety of the Allied troops.

Jim and his friends had been able to save the lives of over 200 American and British pilots. But, eventually, the Gestapo closed in on them and they had to flee the country without even saying goodbye to their families. The soldiers had surrounded the family home. They were in the process of breaking down the doors to capture Jim and his brother with orders to bring them in as prisoners or shoot them on the spot if need be. Jim and his brother sought the help of a school girlfriend who was also in the opposition movement. She successfully hid them in her house. That night they escaped. They were able to slip from her house, jump fences, and run into the nearby forested hills. It took over two years for them to complete their escape by working their way eventually to Switzerland. Jim continued to follow his heart.

While in Switzerland, two of the American pilots whose lives they had saved, searched for them, miraculously located them, and brought them to America. They landed in New York in 1947.The very first day they arrived they found jobs and went to work. The pilots, whose lives had been saved, sponsored Jim and his brother through Columbia University in New York. Both graduated with MBAs in 1949.

Jim’s world was becoming as big as the dream of his heart that he was following. His talents were quickly recognized, and he was soon hired as an international representative for Singer Sewing Machine. From there he was able to leap-frog into an international position with RCA, and eventually, he moved to Denver, Colorado, and became the Senior Vice President for Samsonite Luggage in charge of all international business. After fifteen years with Samsonite, he retired and worked as an international consultant for Mattel Toys. He and his wife continued to make Denver their home.

But the burning desire of Jim’s heart was still leading him. He was going to go back to his homeland, and with the help of Project C.U.R.E., take help and hope to his relatives and needy countrymen. During all the years of his absence he had kept up on the events taking place in the Balkans. But as we tried to put the travel plans together we ran into difficulty. The U.S. had cut off all diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. We were then forced to try to secure the necessary visas for our passports by going through the Yugoslavian Embassy in Toronto, Canada. That required our working directly with the Slobodan Milosevic officials.

Eventually, we were able to work our way through the international bureaucracy of Canada, NATO, the U.S., and the warring factions of the Balkans, and receive our proper paperwork. Only twice had Anna Marie cried when she dropped me off at the airport terminal. Once was when I first went to Baghdad, Iraq, and the other time was Sunday, July 16, when she dropped me off to leave for Belgrade. "When I see you walk through those airport doors I never know if I will ever see you again.” Then she apologized for crying. At the airport was where the rubber really met the road. There were no outside pressures making us do what we were doing with Project C.U.R.E. We received no money. It was truly a love gift to God. We were both totally a part of that gift.

Once we were settled into our hotel in Belgrade, Jim Peters wanted to walk and show me some of the history of Belgrade. He showed me where his boyhood friends used to live, and where he used to work, and the office buildings where his prominent family members ran their businesses. When we got to one intersection, he stopped and pointed out the old bank building where his father was once an influential officer. Just across the other street he pointed out where he spent his last night in the city of Belgrade in 1944.

Jim Peters had followed his heart. He had not let time, or the noise and static of others’ opinions, or inconveniences, drown out the inner voice of his own heart. He had found the seed that had been placed in the citedel of his own heart and nurtured it into a beautiful, living flower. That beautiful vision and lofty ideal had now become realized. Jim and I traveled a couple of different times together to Yugoslavia and spent enough time together in Serbia, Kosovo, and Montenegro to make all arrangements necessary to send millions of dollars’ worth of donated medical goods to hospitals and clinics all over that part of the Balkans. Jim had followed his heart.

Don’t waste your time living someone else’s life; live out the beauty of your own calling. Let your heart guide you. Your heart usually whispers . . . so listen carefully!