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Hi Friend ! Merry, Merry Christmas to you!
I hope you're able to push out all the stresses of this troubled world we live in and enjoy this blessed season and be grateful for the blessings that we each have. As you know, life is a 'test' and we'll pass if we can learn to ignore the outside influences which try to distract us and instead, build upon the power of the Holy Spirit which is inside of us. There is no greater power and the good news of this season is that you 'have it in you'! The message of hope that Jesus brings us with this celebration is the message of victory over this world, if we can only internalize it and let it manifest in our lives God will use you to do great things!
That's my Christmas message. Now, whether you want it or not, here's my update from the tropics....
Just to put things into perspective, I've created a nice little video which is representative of my 10 years now here in Panama (wow time flies!). This will give you a little glimpse of what my life has been like down here. I think you'll enjoy it. It's 11 minutes. Click Here
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| | I brought in the new year, 2016 with my best friend ever, Chacho! He had congestive heart failure for a number of years and with my help and a special diet, he recovered from from at least 20 heart failures, poor guy. But after each one, I'd give him compressions on his heart and he'd recover and be back to normal within a few minutes. I was always amazed. Each time I thought to myself, 'This is the one'.
I moved to a nice new house just down the road from where I was before, January 15. Chacho and I were happy for the new surroundings and nice new place, still up on the same mountain. January 24th we had a great day together, spending time together in the hammock, I was working on my computer and he'd come out of his bed to come over and lay down at my feet to be with me. We watched the Packers Cardinals playoff game and he was at my side the whole time. Chacho was a true Packer dog. He even had a Packers collar!
We went to bed and I got up to go to the bathroom and I saw him laying on the floor in there. He looked like he was sleeping but I knew instantly he had died. We had 16 wonderful years. I prayed to God many times prior to that to please take him in his sleep so I wouldn't have to put him down myself. I couldn't bear to put him to sleep myself. It would have killed me. I had to do that to Marimba almost a year to the day previously on January 15, 2015. So God answered my prayer and spared me additional grief. There isn't a day that goes by I don't think of him.
Marimba died a year earlier but Chacho wasn't alone during that time. A local dog just showed up one night and adopted me and when he saw he got good food and attention, he just moved in. That was Alex. He was also older and an outcast from a nearby village of Panamanians. When he found me, he was not in good shape. He was malnourished with mange, but I got him back to tip top shape and Alex was a true sweetheart and fit right in with the 'family'. The funny thing about Alex, was that he also adopted another family down the road, who had 2 other more active dogs. Chacho was old and quite sedentary. Alex would come to his home with me at night because he liked the chicken, rice and vegetable dinners I made for Chacho. He'd spend the night with us, then mid-morning he'd leave and go to his other home with his pals there, then come back later for the night!
Here's a short video of me and 'my boy' Chacho along with Alex, Marimba. This is a memorial video I did for them. They're all gone now. You might like it. It's 12 minutes. Click Here
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have some friends here who have 10 dogs of their own all living in and
around the house with them. Most are rescues. Anyway, they knew that
Chacho had died and offered me two new born puppies from another mother
who was rescued off the street. I was just getting used to the idea of
being free and not being tied down with doggie responsibilities, but
couldn't resist after I saw them, could you?
There were six pups total in the litter and they had a hard time finding a home for the last one. I figured, 'what the heck' what's one more? So a couple weeks after I took 'Princess' and 'Bear' I took in 'Blondie' which made for 3 new rabble rousers in the house. I'll have more on them in my next video '2016 in Review' which I'll have for you maybe next week. But in the meantime, here's a cute video I took called 'Musical Bowls'. Have a look, it's only 2 minutes. click here |
| | Then,
there was my rescue project: 'Lucky', which was a name I chose and she deserved.
Her previous slave owner didn't even love her enough to give her a name. She didn't have one! Can you imagine?
Every time I drove into town, I'd go past a small dingy little
Panamanian flop house and every time I went by, I'd see the same dog, on the same
patch of raw dirt, imprisoned and abandoned at the end of an 8' chain
24/7. Nobody cared for this poor thing, she had no friends, no love, no
life and could barely move on the short chain. She spent her entire life in this one spot. My heart broke every time I passed her and I felt terribly
guilty for not doing anything to help. Long story short, I finally broke down and convinced
the owner to give her to me and I took her home. I wasn't sure what to
do with her but that would come later. I accomplished the mission of
freeing her. That was #1.
I swear, you
have never seen a happier, more playful more loving and grateful
creature in your life! Lucky had a heart of gold and was just in heaven
walking/running the mountain free with me and the pups who came after
Chacho died. Lots of great stories about her but I don't want this to get
too long, so you'll have to visit to get those. I found her a good home and I felt just terrible giving her away, she was so absolutely happy with us and we were a family, but she was just too much for the little guys and was quite a disruption to things overall.
In the end, I was able
to find her 'the perfect' home with an older couple who already had several
dogs, a large acreage which was fenced in and secure where Lucky could run to her heart's content. The elderly couple love her a lot and Lucky is
the exact clone of a dog the couple had just lost. So for them, Lucky
was perfect and a godsend. Today they are all happy together.
But I
miss Lucky a lot. She was an angel. I guess maybe I was her angel saving her from the chains and abandonment to a life of love and freedom! What a feeling.
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| | | Re: The Panama Christian Foundation (PCF). At one point in time, I had a staff of 8 working for me in PCF which included three professional level people, two full time soccer coaches and several Project Coordinators who helped with everything on the ground level. 2 of the three professional people were mainly involved in soliciting corporate alliances and support. I also had a community center set up very nicely in addition to our offices right next door. PCF was recognized and selected by an international group in the states as a unique, 'model' organization.
They wanted to present us on their website and promote our model worldwide as an example for other like minded groups to follow. So they sent down their own professional production crew to spend a few days with us to produce a video which turned out very nice. You can see the video if you click on the FOUNDERS MESSAGE in the upper right corner of the web page. Click Here
Long story short, I was paying for everything out of my own pocket, we couldn't get the support we needed and I finally ran out of money to support the effort and had to shut things down. So right now, I'm just working myself with this one small church who deals with a lot of very poor kids and doing what I can to help them with their projects. PCF provided them the materials to start building their church and have been helping them since. So, I spend some time on these projects and it's a lot of fun cuz the kids all love me and it's a great community spirit. I just came back from their big Christmas party yesterday.
Here's a cute video of the kids in that church and the weekend lunch 'comedor'' I support Saturdays and Sundays. Click Here |
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As for business: a lot is going on and I won't bore you with details that you're probably not interested in. The most exciting thing as of just late, is that I got an App published for the law club just last month. This was a first for me. A new publishing feat! I'm trying to keep in step with the digital age. It can be downloaded for free to Android or iPhone. It's searchable in 'Google Play' store or Apple App store under the name 'My Liberty'.
I've been extremely busy doing training and promotional videos for;
The Law Club
With a growing YouTube Channel
Video on Demand workshops on Vimeo.com
I've gotten involved in Cryptocurrencies which is a fascinating development in the digital age. Just since June I've leveraged a $700 package into a retirement plan worth right now, about $70,000 at this moment and it'll go up much higher than that when OneCoin goes public. Time will tell.
...and all kinds of other stuff too voluminous to mention, but this gives an idea. Never a dull moment. That's for sure!
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| | As for personal items, I've had a long line of girlfriends come and go but I've had to throw them all back. No keepers yet. I think I've come to the rationale that dogs are a better option. They always love me no matter what 24/7. Very little trouble if any at all. And they're a lot less expensive! Many women in Latin America come from very poor families and when they find a gringo, it's often more of a financial decision than a matter of the heart, so that's always a danger, not always, but you have to be careful. The Latinas do have some very strong advantages over the masculinized women from up north. I've had some great times with the ladies and have learned how to find a girlfriend wherever I want to travel to and have a super nice hostess in my country of interest. So far I have several in Colombia, a couple in Peru, 2 in Argentina, 1 in Costa Rica and had 1 from Dominican Republic. But for now, I'm not travelling much and prefer to spend my time with my guys here at home!
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| | So that's enough from me, for now. I hope you've enjoyed the little tour and update. So before you plan your next vacation to a plasticized international resort, why don't you consider coming down and experiencing some real culture and diversity that I live in every day? Something to consider.
I'll have another little video for you, for the new year covering '2016 in Review'. Watch for that soon.
In any event, have a Blessed and Merry Christmas and keep the spirit in your heart all year long!
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