May 08, 2007
Packing Parachutes
How many times do we forget to consider the people that pack our parachutes (and we neglect to pack one for someone else).
Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam . After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk . You were shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!"
Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor." Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands
each time the fate of someone he didn't know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory -- he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason. As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachutes.
I am sending you this as my way of thanking you for your part in packing my parachute .
Have a great day.....
Posted by keefner at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2005
Child Vaccines
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donate $750M.
Gates pledges $750m for child vaccines
By John Oates
Published Tuesday 25th January 2005 11:23 GMT
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $750m to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization which protects children in the developing world from preventable diseases.
The government of Norway is putting $290m in the pot and Gates is calling on other donors to meet the funding gap. The World Health Organisation estimates $8bn to $12bn is needed between 2005 and 2015 to immunise 27m children in the world's poorest countries. GAVI has raised $2.3bn towards this goal.
Gates said: "Today, a child's access to life-saving vaccines too often depends on where he or she lives in the world, and that's unacceptable....This is a solvable problem - it's time for donors, both public and private, to dramatically step up their efforts to close the immunization gap." WHO estimates that of the 10m children who die before their fifth birthday 1.4m die of a disease for which there is a vaccine and another 1.1m die of a disease for which there will soon be a vaccine.
GAVI will spend the money on supporting immunisation programmes in 72 of the world's poorest countries. Diseases targeted include diptheria, hepatitis B, tetanus and yellow fever.
GAVI has distributed 991m single-use syringes. It also works with the pharmaceutical industry to accelerate development of new vaccines.
The Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation supports projects in global health, education, public libraries and at-risk families in Washington state and Oregon. The Foundation gave GAVI $750m in 1999 to protect 670,000 people.
Posted by keefner at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)