I have received many email forwards, then I have forwarded them to people on "my list". I love these touching, warm, funny emails. I started saving them on my computer, so I would never lose them. I decided to create a blog to hold all these email forwards, so others can enjoy them and so I can easily refer to them when I want. I hope people who love email forwards as much as I do, or like reading funny and inspirational readings will find this site and share it with others.
Brains of older people are slow because they know so much.
People do not decline mentally with age. It just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information in their brains, scientists believe.
Much like a computer struggles as the hard drive gets full up, so too do humans take longer to access information, it has been suggested . Researchers say this slowing down it is not the same as cognitive decline.
The human brain works slower in old age, said Dr. Michael Ramscar, but only because we have stored more information. Over time, the brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.
Also, older people often go to another room to get something and when they get there, they stand there wondering what they came for. It is NOT a memory problem, it is nature's way of making older people do more exercise.
SO THERE!! I have more friends I should send this to, but right now I can't remember their names ...So please forward it to your friends; they may be my friends too .
When you read this, you will never think of thunderstorms the same way again. This will make you smile!
A little girl walked to and from school daily. Though the weather that morning was questionable and clouds were forming, she made her daily trek to school. As the afternoon progressed, the winds whipped up, along with lightning.
The mother of the little girl felt concerned that her daughter would be frightened as she walked home from school. She also feared the electrical storm might harm her child. Full of concern, the mother got into her car and quickly drove along the route to her child's school. As she did, she saw her little girl walking along.
At each flash of lightning, the child would stop, look up, and smile. More lightning followed quickly and with each, the little girl would look at the streak of light and smile
When the mother drew up beside the child, she lowered the window and called, "What are you doing?"
The child answered, "I am trying to look pretty because God keeps taking my picture."
May God bless you today and every day as you face the storms that come your way.
This is one brave gal who 0WNS the truth!She lived it, and understands it!
http://thefederalist.com/author/heather-barwick/ HEATHER BARWICK Dear Gay Community: Your Kids Are Hurting http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/17/dear-gay-community-your-kids-are-hurting/ PARENTING Dear Gay Community: Your Kids Are Hurting I loved my mom’s partner, but another mom could never have replaced the father I lost. Gay community, I am your daughter. My mom raised me with her same-sex partner back in the ’80s and ’90s. She and my dad were married for a little while. She knew she was gay before they got married, but things were different back then. That’s how I got here. It was complicated as you can imagine. She left him when I was two or three because she wanted a chance to be happy with someone she really loved: a woman.
My dad wasn’t a great guy, and after she left him he didn’t bother coming around anymore.
Do you remember that book, “Heather Has Two Mommies”? That was my life. My mom, her partner, and I lived in a cozy little house in the ‘burbs of a very liberal and open-minded area. Her partner treated me as if I was her own daughter. Along with my mom’s partner, I also inherited her tight-knit community of gay and lesbian friends. Or maybe they inherited me?
Either way, I still feel like gay people are my people. I’ve learned so much from you. You taught me how to be brave, especially when it is hard. You taught me empathy. You taught me how to listen. And how to dance. You taught me not be afraid of things that are different. And you taught me how to stand up for myself, even if that means I stand alone.
I’m writing to you because I’m letting myself out of the closet: I don’t support gay marriage. But it might not be for the reasons that you think.
Children Need a Mother and Father It’s not because you’re gay. I love you, so much. It’s because of the nature of the same-sex relationship itself.
Growing up, and even into my 20s, I supported and advocated for gay marriage. It’s only with some time and distance from my childhood that I’m able to reflect on my experiences and recognize the long-term consequences that same-sex parenting had on me. And it’s only now, as I watch my children loving and being loved by their father each day, that I can see the beauty and wisdom in traditional marriage and parenting.
Same-sex marriage and parenting withholds either a mother or father from a child while telling him or her that it doesn’t matter. That it’s all the same. But it’s not. A lot of us, a lot of your kids, are hurting. My father’s absence created a huge hole in me, and I ached every day for a dad. I loved my mom’s partner, but another mom could never have replaced the father I lost.
I grew up surrounded by women who said they didn’t need or want a man. Yet, as a little girl, I so desperately wanted a daddy. It is a strange and confusing thing to walk around with this deep-down unquenchable ache for a father, for a man, in a community that says that men are unnecessary. There were times I felt so angry with my dad for not being there for me, and then times I felt angry with myself for even wanting a father to begin with. There are parts of me that still grieve over that loss today.
I’m not saying that you can’t be good parents. You can. I had one of the best. I’m also not saying that being raised by straight parents means everything will turn out okay. We know there are so many different ways that the family unit can break down and cause kids to suffer: divorce, abandonment, infidelity, abuse, death, etc. But by and large, the best and most successful family structure is one in which kids are being raised by both their mother and father.
Why Can’t Gay People’s Kids Be Honest? Gay marriage doesn’t just redefine marriage, but also parenting. It promotes and normalizes a family structure that necessarily denies us something precious and foundational. It denies us something we need and long for, while at the same time tells us that we don’t need what we naturally crave. That we will be okay. But we’re not. We’re hurting.
Kids of divorced parents are allowed to say, “Hey, mom and dad, I love you, but the divorce crushed me and has been so hard. It shattered my trust and made me feel like it was my fault. It is so hard living in two different houses.” Kids of adoption are allowed to say, “Hey, adoptive parents, I love you. But this is really hard for me. I suffer because my relationship with my first parents was broken. I’m confused and I miss them even though I’ve never met them.”
But children of same-sex parents haven’t been given the same voice. It’s not just me. There are so many of us. Many of us are too scared to speak up and tell you about our hurt and pain, because for whatever reason it feels like you’re not listening. That you don’t want to hear. If we say we are hurting because we were raised by same-sex parents, we are either ignored or labeled a hater.
This isn’t about hate at all. I know you understand the pain of a label that doesn’t fit and the pain of a label that is used to malign or silence you. And I know that you really have been hated and that you really have been hurt. I was there, at the marches, when they held up signs that said, “God hates fags” and “AIDS cures homosexuality.” I cried and turned hot with anger right there in the street with you. But that’s not me. That’s not us.
I know this is a hard conversation. But we need to talk about it. If anyone can talk about hard things, it’s us. You taught me that.
Heather Barwick was raised by her mother and her mother's same-sex partner. She is a former gay-marriage advocate turned children's rights activist. She is a wife and mother of four rambunctious kids.
Conundrum - The definition of the word Conundrum is: something that is puzzling or confusing.
Here are six Conundrums of Socialism in the United States of America:
1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.
2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.
Think about it! And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the USA in the 21st Century.
Makes you wonder who is doing the math. By the way............
1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, But we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics.
Funny how that works. And here's another one worth considering...
2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money. But we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money? What's interesting is the first group "worked for" their money, but the second didn't.
Think about it.....and Last but not least:
3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our military and cutting our army back, but we are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article addresses the atrocity of child sex slavery—one of the fastest growing and most lucrative criminal industries in the world today. While we have made every effort to avoid graphic language, this article might be disturbing for some readers.
On a balmy February afternoon in the poverty-stricken country of Haiti, Timothy Ballard is thrown to the ground and handcuffed by local law enforcement. Lifting his head from the asphalt, he watches as the woman who just sold him two young children—a brother and sister ages 2 and 3—for $15,000 apiece is hauled away by police.
Little did the woman know that Ballard is a former CIA and Homeland Security agent who was working with the Haitian government in an undercover operation that would liberate 28 children from her “orphanage.” Little did she know that Ballard would go on to rescue more than 200 children from human traffickers in 2014 alone.
Ballard describes himself as a modern-day abolitionist and is doing everything in his power to educate the public about the little-acknowledged plague of human trafficking in society.
“We go about our lives thinking we have eradicated slavery, but it’s bigger than ever,” he says. “There are more slaves today than all the slaves in 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade.” In fact, human rights organizations agree there are at least 21 million victims of human trafficking in the world today, including 2 million children. Rescuing these children has become Ballard’s mission in life—a mission he believes is inspired of the Lord.
Into the Darkness
“I didn’t run into this line of work heroically with my sword unsheathed,” he clarifies. “I went in kicking and screaming.”
As a government agent, Ballard had been trained to fight terrorism, so he was surprised when his boss specifically requested that he help form a child crimes unit.
“I told him no,” he recalls. “It’s the one thing I wouldn’t do. It’s the worst possible thing anyone can see. Who knows how that would affect you?”
But his boss insisted that Ballard’s LDS faith would help strengthen him against the horrific crimes he would be facing.
“He felt my religious background would be a protection for me,”Ballard says.
After fasting and praying with his wife, Katherine, the couple felt strongly that the answer was “yes.” “The very reason I said no at first is the very reason we came to the decision to say yes—because we have children.”
So Ballard began his job as an undercover operative who assumed the role of pedophile or child trafficker. It wasn’t long after his first case, which led to the rescue of a 5-year-old boy, that he again doubted if he could withstand the emotional, psychological, and spiritual toll.
“This little boy was being violated in the worst possible way,” he recalls. “I was the first agent on the scene, and he jumped into my arms and wouldn’t let go. I came home that night and collapsed on the floor and cried like a baby.”
Ballard continues, “I told my wife, ‘I can’t do this.’ These children are being kidnapped and raped. There is nothing worse on earth. There is nothing worse in hell.” But he felt a powerful confirmation that this was what he was supposed to do. “I made a commitment to God and to that little boy that I would do everything I could, even if it killed me.”
So that’s exactly what he did for the next 12 years.
Divine Inspiration
As a government agent, Ballard could only work cases if a US citizen was involved. “There are limited resources,” he explains. “I don’t fault the government—it’s just the way it is.”
However, Ballard’s frustration grew unbearable as he infiltrated child trafficking rings only to be forced to leave innocent victims behind.
“I’ve had cases where I knew where the kids were, but I couldn’t get them out because there was no US connection,” he says. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”
He continues, “I had several very profound spiritual experiences that made it clear to me that I was to do something more in this field. I started getting powerful feelings that my family needed to leave California and move to Utah, but we had no idea why we were supposed to go.”
So Ballard and his wife went to the temple for guidance. The next morning, in what Ballard describes as a “spiritual download,” he received a clear and undeniable answer: “Find the lost children.”
“I knew exactly what that meant. I was to find those kids who were out of our jurisdictional reach by starting a private, nonprofit organization. I didn’t know how, but something in Utah would lead to this.”
The family moved to Utah in the summer of 2012, and soon everything fell into place for Ballard to found Operation Underground Railroad,which specializes in rescuing children trapped in slavery.
“Before I left the government, I called all my contacts in other countries. I asked if they would still let me come in and operate privately, and they all said yes.”
So the father of six assembled a team of former Navy Seals, ex-CIA agents, and other operatives with unique skill sets. Despite not knowing where the money would come from, networking and word of mouth quickly led to enough donations to begin operations in January of 2014.
“Even as the money was dropping, I felt like Jonah—I wanted to run and hide. But it got to the point that as hard as it was to walk down this unknown path, not taking it became scarier. I became petrified at the thought of sitting down with the Lord and explaining why I didn’t do what He had asked of me.”
Spiritual Strategy
Ballard’s team consists of people of all faiths, but many are LDS, including childhood friend and former Navy Seal Dutch Turley, who serves as vice president of Rescue Operations. Former US diplomat and intelligence officer Matt Osborne, who serves as vice president of Foreign Missions and Intelligence in the organization, is also LDS. In fact, Osborne joined the Church two years ago because of his friendship with Ballard in graduate school.
“Tim bore his testimony to me and planted the seed,” he says. “I investigated off and on for over a decade before I put Moroni’s promise to the test and got a response that was overwhelming.”
It was Ballard’s same conviction of heart that convinced Osborne to leave behind a stellar career in government to join Operation Underground Railroad. “There was something about what he said and the way he said it,” Osborne recalls. “At the end of the day, I can say I did this for the right reason—for the possibility of doing good. That’s what ultimately led me to jump.”
According to Osborne, having a team of people who sincerely desire to be humble and righteous has made all the difference.
“We pray constantly,” he says. “We pray for protection. We pray for guidance—to find the children, to find the honest government officials in other countries. It’s very difficult to know whom to trust.”
“We aren’t a vigilante group, and we never try to force things to happen,” says Turley. “We do everything we can, but things will happen on the Lord’s time—that’s when it is the most productive.”
“Some of the most spiritual moments of my life have happened while sitting across the table from a child trafficker,” Ballard says. “I feel the Spirit with me in those moments of complete darkness.”
Operation Triple Take
Ballard’s team found tremendous success on nearly a dozen operations last year, but the crowning achievement of Operation Underground Railroad in 2014 occurred on October 11, when, in cooperation with the Colombian government, they executed the largest-known human trafficking bust to date.
“We performed three operations within an hour of each other in three Colombian cities: Cartagena, Armenia, and MedellÃn,” says Osborne. “They resulted in the rescue of 123 victims and the arrest of a dozen criminals. The traffickers [in each city] were not connected, but we wanted to take them down at the same time so we could keep the element of surprise.”
Ballard, who served a mission in Chile and speaks fluent Spanish, participated in the Cartagena operation, just off the coast in the Rosario Islands. In a dramatic sting, he posed as an American businessman who wanted to rent a beach house and throw an elaborate party for his friends—complete with children for their “entertainment.”
Ballard had originally arranged for the traffickers to bring 20 children at $300 apiece. When he learned the traffickers wanted to build a child sex hotel on the island, though, he saw the opportunity to rescue 30 more. So Ballard asked a friend in the real estate business to pose as a potential investor.
“Mark* (name has been changed) is a successful real estate mogul. He can talk the talk, so we knew he would be perfect for this mission,” Ballard says. “I told the traffickers they would have to show us bigger numbers before Mark would be interested in investing, so the traffickers arranged to bring all the children they had to the party—even those still being ‘groomed,’ or prepared for life in the sex trade.” This included four virgins as young as 11 years old that came with a hefty price tag of $1,000 each.
The children were brought by boat to the island. With hidden cameras rolling, money exchanged hands, and a Colombian operative gave the signal for law enforcement to make their move. But there was a snag.
“Agents were supposed to storm the beach within five minutes of the signal, but it took 45 minutes for them to get there,” Mark recalls. “I thought, ‘What am I supposed to do now? It’s time for the party to start.’”
In an effort to stall the traffickers and keep them at the table, he started drawing up a business plan for their hotel. “Right at the top of the paper, I had written the cost of a child. It was sickening,” he says. “But it worked. By the end, they were arguing over who would get what percentage.”
Finally, 30 Colombian agents hit the beach and stormed the house.
One of the hardest parts for the undercover operatives is resisting the urge to comfort the children. Instead, they allow the children to believe they are pedophiles to maintain the integrity of the mission.
“When the takedown happens, we’re arrested along with the bad guys so we don’t blow our cover,” says Osborne.
In this instance, however, someone outside the team told the children that the operatives were the good guys, and as Ballard’s team left the island, they could hear the children cheering and singing and laughing. “It was very emotional,” says Osborne.
“There were Navy Seals in tears. It was a tender mercy that the Lord allowed Tim to have this connection with these kids on his last undercover mission.” (Ballard and Turley have since chosen to end their undercover work so they can bring more awareness to the public about modern-day slavery and raise donations for Operation Underground Railroad, but they are still deeply involved behind the scenes of each rescue mission.)
Three months after Operation Triple Take, Ballard returned to the streets of Colombia and began asking local traffickers if they could sell him a child for the night. “They told me, ‘Don’t you know? No one is going to sell you kids now. It’s too dangerous.’ We created a huge deterrent for the traffickers and scared off the sex tourism travelers,” he explains. “We rocked the whole country.”
Since October, Colombia has completed five operations of their own—and that is exactly what Operation Underground Railroad hopes every country will do. “Our goal is to work with these governments, teach them what they need to know, and show them that they can do this so they can have the confidence to do this without us,” says Turley. “We can’t save everyone, but as more countries join in the fight, we can make a huge difference.”
A Life of Freedom
The rescue missions don’t end at the arrests of the traffickers; a great deal of care is given to the children after they are freed.
“The most important part of the operation is the rehabilitation of the children,” says Osborne. “We partner with organizations who are skilled at that, and we screen reputable orphanages ahead of time, so when children are rescued they have somewhere safe to go. Unfortunately in many cases, family members are the ones who have sold these children into slavery, so they can’t go home. We want to keep the safety net as tight as possible so the victims never return to that way of life.”
“Every child is precious,” he says. “We can’t solve this problem overnight, but by just saving one child, we can give them back the life that God intended for them.”
As for the tiny brother and sister Ballard “purchased” in Haiti last February, the children’s parents couldn’t be located or identified. Ballard, who bonded with the siblings during the sting, couldn’t bear to leave them behind, so he and his wife are in the process of adopting them.
“They are already part of our family,” he says.
A Beacon for Change
In addition to executing rescue missions around the world, Ballard’s team is developing software that will track child pornography and lead law enforcement to the pornographers.
“The problem of child sex slavery is 100 percent the societal consequence of our pornographic world,” Ballard explains. “Pornography is a drug. Adult pornography is marijuana, and child pornography is the cocaine. When people move on to child pornography, eventually they want the real thing. This software will change everything.”
To date, Operation Underground Railroad has conducted rescue missions in Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Thailand, and the United States, but according to Ballard, this is just the beginning.
“We have been getting requests from governments all over the world,” he says. “We have several cases pending, and we never know when we’ll have to jump on a plane. It could be tomorrow. But my wife doesn’t even complain—she knows this is what we are meant to do.”
“The only thing that stands between evil taking over this world is good people who face their fears and take action,” says Mark. “People who do nothing allow evil to flourish. I can’t sit back and allow atrocities to happen. I’m not going to allow my fear to stop me from doing what is right.”
To donate to Operation Underground Railroad or learn more about the organization, visit ourrescue.org.
The Abolitionists
When Gerald Molen, Church member and Academy Award–winning producer of Schindler’s List, learned of Timothy Ballard’s efforts to rescue children from sex traffickers, he knew he had to capture the story for the big screen.
“We want to create awareness of this problem. I’m excited to help in the little way that I can,” he says.
With hidden cameras rolling on every Operation Underground Railroad mission, Molen’s film crew captured powerful footage of the operations that not only makes for a compelling documentary but provides irrefutable evidence that leads to the conviction of child traffickers.
“The footage we shoot becomes an evidence package to help prosecute criminals,” says co-producer and director Darrin Fletcher.
“There’s no doubt when the judge sees that evidence. It seals the deal.”
“We’ve felt a hand on our shoulder guiding us the entire time,” says Chet Thomas, co-producer and director. “There’s a reason for this beyond a movie or a television series.”
Timothy Ballard is the founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad. He is also the author of the best-selling book The Lincoln Hypothesis and the new book, The Washington Hypothesis. He will be a speaker at certain Time Out for Women events in 2016. Visit tofw.com to learn more.
Published on Jan 3, 2015
On December 10th, 2013 Special Agent Tim Ballard turned in his Homeland Security badge and resigned from his employment with the United States government. He had spent over a decade rescuing children from child sex tourism both domestically and overseas. Though his job was difficult, he was proud that his country was one of very few in the world who was actually doing anything about this problem. However, mired in red tape and bureaucracy, Tim left to begin saving the children that he saw falling out of the purview of the US government. These children constitute over 90% of the children lost to child sex slavery and he could do nothing to help them while in the employment of the US government.
This is a story about the lost children and the OURrescue.com jump team’s exploits as they investigate and liberate enslaved children from around the world.
