A Gringo in Peru- A Story of Compassion in Action revised version by Jim Killon

A Gringo In Peru A Story of Compassion in Action Jim Killon

The story of one manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey out of his American life and into the Andean mountains of Peru where he created a project for poor children and learned what true wealth really was. 1

A Gringo in Peru A Story of Compassion in Action

Copyright 2013. Jim Killon All rights reserved. The moral right of the author has been asserted. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means- graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by information retrieval systems without prior written permission from the author, except where permitted by law.

****************************************** A Gringo in Peru A Story of Compassion in Action

Foreword

When I initially began writing, it was my intention to write a childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s storybook filled with wonderful tales that had a moral message attached to it. I began writing several stories, and rewriting and discarding only to rewrite a new version. It soon became apparent to me that, while it was nice and sweet, it was a smidgen of the compassion that I was feeling for the children I was writing to benefit. Tucked away, perhaps forever, in the high Andean mountains of Peru, are countless children and their families living in unimaginable conditions, most with little or no chance to ever make it out of the desperation that cocoons them. Aside from National Geographic Specials, most people in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;real worldâ&#x20AC;? will never know about the plight of these children, their unique challenges and the compassionate people who endure a variety of challenges of their own to help them. I am one of those people. I am Jim Killon. I came here, to Huaraz Peru, in 2009 initially to escape a murder contract on my life back in the United States. However, I had a long time dream of making a difference in the lives of children living in desperation in a place like this. I had no idea what I was in for and nothing would have prepared me for what was to come. This story is actually two stories in one. It is my personal journey since arriving in the high Andes and the exploration into my own heart and awareness and the amazing things that I discovered in both places. While I was focused on developing the lives of children living in despair, my own life was changing every day as a result of being among them, their families and having them share their lives with me. It was a surprise that I was not expecting but for which I am very 3

grateful. I feel that I would be shortchanging you, the reader, if I only shared an incredible story of successes and post struggle victories without also sharing the enormous challenges that we endured to get there. One is as much a part of the story as the other. I hope you will appreciate the perspective that each negative episode gave way to a far more positive lesson that was learned or served to advance the project. It is like a rose bush having thorns as opposed to a thorn bush having roses, if you will. To completely appreciate this story, it should be understood that I am just a regular guy in, what many would consider, an extraordinary set of circumstances. I have no degrees in international studies, I am not a doctor, a government representative and knew virtually nothing about humanitarian work prior to my arrival to Peru. These are simply my own experiences, my own observations and my shared reflections. I could have filled twenty volumes with my various experiences. In fact, every story shared here is derived from my ever growing collection of personal journals, which I write in almost daily, to have a continuing account of my life in Peru. I chose, instead, to write what I felt were the most pertinent and enlightening aspects of the situation on the ground here in Peru. Included here are the day by day victories of the children and our project, Changes for New Hope, overcoming every obstacle as we encountered them. I also decided to share some personal experiences that occurred while I was still in the United States which shaped my personality and character giving me the tenacity to make my stand in Peru. In the end, we manage to chip away at the issues that cause human suffering and encourage everyone to join in. It is my pleasure and joy to share this book with you. I trust it will serve to inspire you, enlighten you and move you to ask the hard questions that, once answered, will open doors that join us all together in this global community of humankind. Live large, live deliberately! ---- Jim Killon

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, It is the only thing that ever has.â&#x20AC;? ~ Margaret Mead

This book is dedicated to my parents, Dean and Terri Killon, who taught me as a child that there is no substitute for integrity, character and love and to the children of Changes for New Hope in the Peruvian Andes, to whom that message is being passed onto today.

Table of Contents

Foreword

A Very Permanent Goodbye

Over the Wall and Away

An Unexpected Wakeup Call

Welcome to Peru

The Law of Attraction

Not Quite Like the Guidebooks Claimed

Humble Beginnings

You and Your Possessions, Who Owns Whom?

The Attitude of Gratitude

Self Reflection Time Your First Exercise

Fear A Prison that You Build From the Inside

Then What Happened?

Upfront and Out Loud but with Humility

Growing Roots in the Andes

The Law of Attraction and the Office

Religion and the Energy of the Universe

The Delusion of More

Time to Exhale Your Second Exercise

Self Esteem Building and the Art Exhibition

Shining in the Face of All Adversities

You Must Be This Tall To Get On This Ride

Helping Families to Help Themselves

Building Value in our Compassion in Action

The Changes for New Hope Logo

Tenacity, the Breakfast of Visionaries

The Beautiful Ladies of the Comedor

Muscle Tension Relaxation Exercise Three

101

Replacement Therapy

105

The Dangerous Ambiguity of the Word Poverty

107

Afterword

115

Acknowledgements

116

A Gringo in Peru A Story of Compassion in Action

**************************************** A Very Permanent Goodbye “And one last thing, I want you to make sure he suffers.” It was the final instruction that my wife gave on the phone to a man named Adam. Adam was a hit man. My wife was a bi-polar alcoholic with anti social personality disorder. Though I did not realize it at the time, her arrangement to have me murdered ignited the most incredible adventure that was to change my life forever. This particular night she was going into yet another one of her bi-polar rages, fueled by too many drinks, which would become violent about one episode out of three, according to the records I was keeping. Unable to cope with her episodes or persuade her to take her meds, I was advised by her psychiatrist, the police and an attending physician at a hospital where I was treated for injuries caused by one of those violent attacks, to get out of the house when she begins to show signs of an episode. This was another one of those times. It was about midnight, one cold January night in 2009. This was Baltimore City, inner city. It was dangerous in my upscale neighborhood to walk to the mailbox in broad daylight, at midnight a short stroll could save Adam the trouble. I stood there at the open front door and thought better of it. I closed the door and stood still. Silent. I heard her office chair creak as she came to the top of the stairs and called my name. I didn’t respond. She assumed I had left the house.

The next thing I heard was her on the phone asking for Adam’s phone number. Then she called Adam. For the next thirty minutes or more, I listened to her discuss with Adam that she wanted me dead as soon as possible. She asked several questions such as where she should be to give herself an airtight alibi. What ifs and other details. Naturally, I could only hear her end of the conversation but it was clear by her questions that he was explaining his side of the details. The hows and wheres and whens. Apparently, he had asked why. “Jim is selling everything that he owned before he married me. His house, stocks and gold. He is a day trader and with the current crashing market, he wants to get out before taking any more losses. It is all his, if he’s dead, it’s all mine.” The next several minutes were a discussion on how payment would be arranged. He wanted money upfront. She didn’t have it until my estate was settled. She finally said she would try to get it one way or another. “And one last thing, I want you to make sure he suffers.” Those words were branded into my psyche forever. Shock. I stood there for what seemed to be an hour or more, unable to move or think clearly. Nothing she had done while in her drunken blackout rages or bipolar episodes in the past could have prepared me for this. The list was long and dramatic. Everything from threatening to kill us all by setting a fire in the house, to smashing my car with a baseball bat to pulling a .32 caliber gun on me to going room to room breaking up everything that she could get her hands on. Nothing. When I heard her snoring after she passed out drunk, I finally went upstairs and walked through her office to see her sleeping in her chair, sprawled. I went to bed. Though I knew there was nothing that was going to happen to me immediately, I still lay there wide awake, every muscle tensed. “Now what do I do?” I thought to myself. Whatever I decided, it had to be quick. The next morning she got up, got ready for work and kissed me goodbye just like it was in the script. I made a pot of coffee and drank two mugs like I had done every morning as far back as I could remember. Old habits die hard. Double cream, double sugar. Options. The list was short. Go to the police. They had been to the house so many times as a result of my wife’s violence that I was literally on a first name 9

basis with several of them. It was going to be a brief conversation to explain what I heard, then have them arrest her and possibly Adam as well. Conspiracy to commit murder. Everything was going to get better for me in short order, I was certain of it. I have never been more wrong about anything in my entire life. I stopped the first police officer I saw sitting in his patrol car at the end of my street. I ran down the explicit details verbatim to him as he listened intently. I expected him to leap into action, get on his radio, whistle up for the troops to move in, just like on television. “So, what do you expect me to do about it?” he said flatly. “Not to tell you how to do your job but how about arresting them, you know, protect and serve, that sort of thing.” I could not conceal my sarcasm. “Look Sir, we are the police. We solve crimes. We can’t go around arresting everyone because someone tells us they might commit a crime.” I told him that she has a history of violent behavior, that she has been arrested and placed either in jail or a mental facility for such behaviors on several occasions. “Do you have any other witnesses than yourself? If I question her, or this Adam, would they admit that they have a murder contract on you?” Doubtful. “It sucks, but it’s the law, sir. The police can’t do anything until a crime has been committed. Sorry.” I asked him what his best advice to me would be, if he were me. “Get out of Dodge, if you actually think that the threat is real. Leave the state.” I explained why that would not be an option. When her daughter, from a previous marriage, turned eighteen, she jettisoned the craziness that her mother forced her to endure, loaded a van with whatever she thought she’d need and moved to upstate New York. When the daughter refused to respond to harassing emails from her mother, she changed her phone number to avoid calls and ultimately put a restraining order on her, Mom called in a friend named Link. Armed with a stun gun, duct tape and drunken rage; they embarked to Ithaca, New York to abduct the daughter. If she refused to come back quietly, she said that she would kill her. Babblings of a bi-polar drunk or an actual homicidal plot, I couldn’t be sure. I called Ithaca police. They apparently alerted the daughter who evaded the plan in some fashion. I was advised by them as well 10

that, short of violating the restraining order, unless a crime has been committed, a citizen with criminal intent is free until the crime is actually committed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In that case, leave the country altogetherâ&#x20AC;?, the officer told me. Leave the country? It was the first time I considered it as an option. It took me about five minutes to realize that it was the only option. My wife knew my comings and goings. She knew my routines. She could duplicate a house key for Adam. My mind raced with a thousand scenarios that would put me within convenient proximity of a motivated killer. I was in a cash position, probably enough to last several years depending on where I landed. I was deeply grieved that I would not be seeing my parents who by now were well into their golden years, nor my twelve year old son, from a previous relationship, for a long time, if ever again. I considered that if I stayed, and was murdered, they would be missing a son and a father in any case. At least this way I would still be alive. How do people leave the country? Especially leave on very short notice, with no idea where to go, with just what I could carry and do it without raising suspicions of my wife causing her to hasten her plans. That was going to be a neat trick. And this is where I began that wonderful adventure which changed my life forever.

****************************************

Over the Wall and Away “What could possibly happen to turn this nightmare into anything more than more tragedy and horror”, you are probably thinking. I was kind of wondering that myself in January of 2009. I was walking away from more than just my friends and family. Materially, I had achieved significant accumulations in relatively short order. The house that I had sold was the smallest of the three we owned. The Baltimore real estate market was one of the hottest in the United States and we were positioned just right to profit huge. I hedged assets with gold bullion, South African Kruggerands, and stock markets were overbought, unjustifiably inflated which I was trading daily. When the bubble burst it was like trying to get a seat in a lifeboat on the Titanic. I got out with minimal losses. My wife, who regarded money as security, went into another round of bi-polar episodes further fueled by her violent alcoholic rants. She demanded that I hand over every cent to her. I could have sat tight and waited out the economic crisis but with this new wrinkle, everything changed. Saving equity was a far second in importance to saving my own life. The next several days were a blur and flurry of events which are far less interesting that the initial “ut-oh” that started the ball rolling. When my wife asked me very sweetly for $10,000 cash and refused to tell me what it was for except to say, “It is a surprise, for you.” I realized it wasn’t a drunken blackout conversation that she had with Adam, but a real plan and wanted me to finance my own murder. In case you were wondering, I refused to pony up the cash. Whether it was a good idea or not, I decided to tell her, on my way out the door for the final time, that she would never see me again. I told her that I knew of her plot to have me murdered and how I knew that. Her initial denial melted quickly as I remained adamant. She immediately went into survival mode and roared that I could not prove it so nothing was going to happen to her regardless of what I knew. She was right and I was gone. I did not look back.

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An Unexpected Wake Up Call Nicaragua, 2007. I had gone to visit the construction site of a condominium resort where we had decided to buy into. It was right on the Pacific Ocean, private and exclusive with a golf course included. Nicaragua was going to be the next Costa Rica for ex-pat retirees and we jumped in ahead of the crowd. Country club lifestyle, removed from the grind of American living in Baltimore. Our condo building was the last one of three to be completed. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t this place that was most compelling to me, I only spent one day there. To get there, it was necessary to travel by a four wheel drive vehicle through several pueblos, villages where the native Nicaraguans inhabited. I had my driver stop and I visited them. I saw the living conditions and situations that these people lived in. Children were obviously underfed, I could count their ribs. Houses that were not much more than straw shacks. Clothing was just a bit more than rags. People in varying degrees of desperation were everywhere. My driver had explained to me that there was poverty here and everywhere because of the lack of opportunities. Between the Sandinista revolution and a severe earthquake, Nicaragua was the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, following Haiti. There were almost no jobs; the jobs that did exist were low paying ones. To the frustration of my driver, who was being paid by the trip, my delay to spend time with these people was eye opening. I knew poor conditions existed in the world. I saw it on television. Some former celebrity past their prime would introduce a child with flies buzzing about their heads and say that so much more money was needed to save these poor children. At the bottom of the screen there was usually a disclaimer saying that this was a paid endorser. I normally changed the channel. I considered it such a hypocrisy that a celebrity needed to be paid to endorse a charity. How can they expect the general public to donate to a cause that they obviously arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t supporting themselves, unless they are being compensated to do so? I could not change the channel this time. There was no insulation of a paid celebrity standing between me and these people. It was just them and me. I was face to face with something gripping, very real. This was something that I was seeing firsthand, touching, experiencing. This is what hopelessness and helplessness looks like, feels like and really is. Poor means not 13

having much money. Destitution is what it does to the human spirit, the trauma and despair that is relentless. It sickened me that there was nothing that I could do about this, even with a million dollars in assets. I bought some food for the gathering crowd of children. I always carried a few magic tricks with me, a hobby of mine, and entertained them for awhile. A temporary relief. A brief distraction. My driver impatiently tapped his watch after a long while and it was time to go. I took the images and the experience with me. The fuse was lit. The visit to the condo resort was anti-climatic for me. It was in glaring contrast to what I had experienced in the villages. Thirty minutes in any direction of this dripping luxury I was buying were people, children in utter destitution and despair. Vulnerable children who did not deserve to suffer like they obviously did. With no way out. I had always been a compassionate man in one way or another. I volunteered with the Maryland Special Olympics in the past, helped to set up a mission for homeless people in Memphis, donated materials to a Baltimore center for homeless women with children and gave to the United Way. A few days here and there, a check in the mail, I was the typical American charity donor. Until Nicaragua. I decided that there was so much more that needed to be done and needed to be done effectively. That means direct help, outside the clutches of paid endorsers and six digit salaried executives of charity organizations. After reading a New York Times article about the compensation of the president of one large American charity, I was deeply disturbed. Perhaps she felt the she deserved and earned her $950,000 per year. If so, how much more deserving were the poor children that her organization was reaching out to? I surmised that she wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t starve if she made half that amount and thousands more children wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t either. I determined, then and there, that one day, after I retired, that I would return to this place, or some other place like it, and do humanitarian work in a meaningful way for the benefit of people like these. What exactly was a humanitarian? Fast forward to 2009. If I was going to leave the country, this was the best opportunity to put my time and money where my mouth was. I hop scotched 14

around the internet for volunteer opportunities that helped children, preferably in Latin America. I found one in a town called Huaraz Peru. They needed a long term volunteer coordinator, room and board included. A few emails and Skype calls later and I was on my way to the Peruvian Andes. Whatever awaited me in Peru was far better than what I was walking away from in Baltimore, that much I was certain. Peru however, posed its own set of challenges and circumstances which opened the door to something that was always working in my life as well as everyone else’s, though we may not have been aware of it. The Law of Attraction.

*************************************** Welcome to Peru My plane landed in Lima Peru. South of the equator, the seasons were all reversed from up north. I flew out of Washington D.C. and it was a frigid 17 degrees Fahrenheit. Colder than a lawyer’s heart. It was midsummer in Lima. The billboard flashed the temperature but it was in Celsius so I had no idea what it meant except that it was very warm. I smiled. I beat a murder contract and a Baltimore winter? I was two for two. By the time I had cleared customs and gotten my first 183 day visa and passport stamp it was two o’clock in the morning. I was in a strange city in a strange country. The first thing I wanted was a bed. A taxi charged me three times what he should have and took me to a hotel by the ocean which did the same for me. I didn’t realize it at the time because, even with the jacked up prices, they were less than half of what I was used to paying. The next morning, after a comatose sleep, I had breakfast in the adjoining dining area of the hotel. I sat outside by the pool in shorts and a tee shirt and watched the inauguration of president Barrack Obama on a big screen television. Hundreds of thousands of freezing people bundled up, just like I was a day earlier, crowded around the U.S. capitol to witness the event. I arranged a seat on a bus to take me to Huaraz. It was eight hours away, into the high Andean mountains. Life was very different there. My first clue was the cold thin air. My heavy coat that I didn’t need in Lima was stowed under the bus in my bags. I wrapped in a thin blanket that came with the seat. My bottle of water had ballooned to almost twice its size, 15

expanded by the decreased of air pressure. In the following days I dealt with mild altitude sickness. It is a common occurrence to those who ascend for the first time. I felt like I had aged 30 years in two days. Mild headaches were accompanied by nausea, extreme fatigue and hyperventilating. At 3000 meters, roughly twice as high as Denver Colorado, it took some time to acclimate. For me that was a week. Everyone referred to me as “Gringo”’ which I soon learned was not an insult in Peru as it was in Mexico. Gringo in Peru simply means ‘White guy.” I arrived at the volunteer house where the NGO housed everyone working with them. If the idea of a paid endorser or a million dollar salary for a charity president was a cold sore on the face of a charity, the NGO that I had agreed to volunteer with in Huaraz Peru was tantamount to an epidemic outbreak. The outgoing volunteer coordinator, Isabelle, briefed me on the issues at hand in total disgust. Her final words to me summed up her year and a half at the NGO, “I am done with Peru.” I wondered what I had gotten myself into here. It would be unfair to say that they did not help any children, but it would be equally unfair to say that they did all they could with the materials, resources and volunteer staff that they had at their disposal. They helped a handful of children with their homework at a small rented house, a few hours a day, when they were not drunk, high, hung over, sleeping with each other or partying at the local nightspots until dawn. Volunteer fees of $500 a month assured Yuri, the Peruvian director of the NGO, a life of comfort as he enjoyed the company of young female volunteers. There were ten volunteers paying to be there at the time. Said another way, there were funds equal to the income of a dozen Peruvian families. The NGO was helping less than fifty children, minimally. There was no accountability of any kind until I arrived and asked pointed questions. Questions that never received answers. As the volunteer coordinator, I created several new ways to involve the volunteers with the children, stepped up the care that should have been offered to the children but was neglected and started home visits. I suggested good uses for the amassed funds the organization had at its disposal. This cut deeply into the party time of the volunteers and the ulterior motivations of the director. He and I 16

had a meeting after a few months. My questions and suggestions were not appreciated. My services were no longer required. Our visions were decidedly different. I could not have agreed more. I was now in a country where I did not know the language, did not understand the culture or customs and for all intents and purposes, I was lost in the Peruvian Andes. Though I did not realize it then, it was another step, guided by a force that I was not yet aware, into a new life that would set the stage for everything that was to come. Limits are chains. The last of my chains just fell off. The adventure continued. I decided that joining another NGO that purportedly helped children may very well be the second verse of the same song. More of something that I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want. At the time I was unaware that I was guided directly to that sham organization as part of a life lesson that would serve me well in the very near future. Being aware of what does not serve you well is equally as important as knowing what does. With my heart and intentions in the right place I was inadvertently opening myself to the power of the Universe. Aligning my energy with the Universal energy that would direct me to where I was destined to be. Had anyone told me that at the time I would have laughed myself sick. I was an atheist. I was converted to atheism by Christians whose lives testified that whatever Christianity was, it could easily be contorted to adjust to their predetermined plans. In fact, most Christians that I knew could read the entire Bible in one sitting, providing that they skipped over the parts that they felt should not apply to them. Atheism was honest. If you look in the mirror and like whom you see, that is great, carry on. If you feel a sense of guilt and remorse about how you are living your life, you change it. You answer to yourself, without excuse. It was just that simple. The question now was, who do I trust? I trust myself. I was already in Huaraz Peru, it made sense to continue there. So far I had dodged the bullet, literally, fled the United States came to Peru to help children in need. While one organization was inept, the children that I had already visited in their adobe villages still 17

needed my help. They were living in conditions that would be unimaginable to people in the States and I knew that I could do something about it. I had written in a blog that it was less accommodating than camping out in the woods. The solution seemed simple. Somehow, someway, I would start my own project. I had funds from my own savings which were enough to get it off the ground. I was sure that friends and family would step up as they saw what I was attempting here. Desperate children would get the help that they needed. I would set up a website. Volunteers would arrive to help as well. It should have been a walk in the park. But it wasn’t.

*************************************** The Law of Attraction There have been so many books and articles written about the Law of Attraction, it is amazing now that I hadn’t come across it much sooner. If you are in touch with it, then allow my account to bear further witness, if you don’t, pay close attention because it is so simple that most people overlook it while trying to find a more complex answer to life. While many would try to discount it as “new age hippie malarkey”, the Law of Attraction has been in effect since the dawn of time. Whether you accept it or not, it is real as any other law, such as gravity. It has been written about in many ways by people throughout history. Quotes such as, “What you see and hear, you become.” “As a man thinks, so is he”, “Thoughts become things.” All are insights to the Law of Attraction. To keep it simple, let me share it this way. Whatever you think about, you draw to yourself. More than a positive attitude, which is very important in itself, this goes way beyond “wishful thinking”. I compare positive thinking and the Law of Attraction this way, positive thinking is mowing the lawn; the Law of Attraction is drilling for oil. It goes beyond your immediate control and sphere of influence. In fact, one of the most important parts of the Law of Attraction is to learn to get out

of the way and allow what is coming to you to come to you. You begin writing the script for your life and people, circumstances and things begin to line up to make it happen. It is called the Law of Attraction because you attract to yourself what it is that you think about and focus upon. Whether positive or negative, it is a verifiable fact. Consider what we may have thought were coincidences, odd happenstances or freak occurrences. If we can understand that everything is made of energy and like energies are attracted to each other, it is then a very small step to believe that positive energies draw other positive energies together. It has been explained that we set a ‘frequency’, by our thoughts, to attract to ourselves more of what we are thinking about. People always worried about getting sick always seem to get sick, have you ever noticed that? People that seem to have good fortune always seem to have good fortune following them. Lucky? I think not. People afraid to get into a car accident somehow end up in car accidents. Unlucky? The law of attraction is behind every “miracle.” Some years ago, I may have discounted the idea that there is a law in which I actually attract things to myself as not much more than me acting upon my own thinking or feelings. What happens when things come to you well beyond your control, power or awareness? And how do you explain when it occurs over and over on a daily basis? Suddenly, the notion of coincidence, fate or accident fades and there becomes an awareness that there is something much greater in play happening. It has become an undeniable action and force in my life which I rely on to continue my project with children here in Peru called, “Changes for New Hope”. I will share this one example of many similar ones that I have experienced. It was January 2013. I received an email from a young man in Tokyo, Japan named Kekai. He was on route to Huaraz for a retreat. He had received donated materials and supplies for children and collected $1100 in funds from his friends and family to share with a project, as yet undetermined. Originally looking for an orphanage, he had read about our project and decided rather to give the materials and cash donations to us. He and I had never been in contact prior to this, we had no mutual acquaintances and his email was a complete surprise. He joined us for just one day, met the children in the project and took lots of photos to share back in Japan. As we were saying goodbye, Charlie, my coordinator, came 19

to me and told me that there was a new group of 25 children that wanted us to begin a project immediately in their pueblo of Challhua. The parents were waiting to meet me. Until Kekai had arrived, there would not have been sufficient materials or funds to make that new group a viable possibility. I reviewed my journals that I keep. I had wanted and focused on expansion for 2013. The hows and wheres were left open. I had attracted what was needed to accomplish our goals. This is an example of how the Law of Attraction works. I would challenge you to experience it with a new awareness. I submit to you that you can order your life, regardless of your current circumstances, in a way that would make your life worth waking up to everyday. It would be like having your very own personal genie in a bottle, wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t it? I am saying that it is well within the realm of reality. Every day, I now wake up in gratitude, I focus my thoughts on what I believe about myself, the work that I do and the people and things that we need to come our way to reach our objectives. Many who understand and see the manifestations of the Law of Attraction also believe that you can focus on a new car, a house of your dreams and other material accumulations. My journey was taking me in a much different direction. I began reading many books written by people who share ideas how to manage your life. Self help books by various individuals seem to have a common thread throughout their writings; you have to visualize it first to see it in reality. The solidifying of your thoughts sets everything else in motion. One book suggested writing down on paper a list of one hundred things that I would want if the sky was the limit. No pauses, just write as fast as I could. I did and when I reviewed the list I was amazed at the change my life had taken at that point of my adventure in Peru. Ninety-six of the one hundred items that I listed were for the benefit of other people, not for me. Selflessness. It is so much easier to focus on what would benefit others and watch it become a reality. Taking myself out of the equation seems to enhance the purity of motivation. It is just what works best for me. While I was never a Gordon Gecko kind of guy, I was always pretty interested in making sure I got what I wanted. In American culture that almost always required 20

long hours, sacrifice, comparing yourself to the other guy and just about the time you had it, it was never quite enough. Satisfaction was elusive. Managers demanded more, customers expected more regardless of what had to be done to make that happen. I was caught up in the vicious cycle which causes peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s emotions and common sense to spin out of control. It only seemed like normal life because everybody was moving in the same cycle. In 2009, I broke out of the cycle, spun off into my own orbit like a free electron. Only then could I look back and see it for the insanity that it was. The American dream was in fact just that, only a dream. I had created a non profit project for the benefit of children, like the ones I spent a little time with there in Nicaragua, and what was happening to me was a transformation that opened me to the understanding that my thoughts, became things. What supercharged the results was the fact that I was acting selflessly, asking for the benefit of others, children mostly, who needed far more than I was initially able to give them. My level of compassion grew immensely. I loved people in new and far more profound way than I ever could imagine. I was being empowered by the strongest force, the most powerful frequency in the Universe, the energy of Love.

****************************************** Not Quite Like the Guide Books Claimed Even though I arrived with the very best of intentions, people are still people. Unenlightened attitudes such as greed, jealousy, selfishness, dishonesty and manipulations were all still very much part and parcel of the desperation mentality. My responses to it would take on new forms. Initially, I was prepared to respond to it like the typical American that I was. My compassion was being abused and my kindness was being taken advantage of by almost everyone I met. What I did not give to the children or their families, they tried to steal. I was told by several people that what I was trying to create here has been tried by many others who left disappointed, disillusioned, bitter and broke. I 21

was advised to pack up, give up and go surfing someplace warm with my time and money. I did not entertain that as an option for a second. However, my American, Rambo, “kick ass and take names” attitude was putting my compassion on hold. To call out the corrupt, get in the faces of those whose motivations were selfish and dishonest and go on the offensive as some sort of ‘avenging angel’ all filled me with emotions and feelings that I wanted to separate myself from completely. The first thing that needed to change in my adventure was my attitude. If some nine year olds walk off with something out of my backpack and I was outraged, I have become a victim twice. They took my belongings and my happiness. I learned how to secure my things effectively and came to realize that these children are acting, not as accomplished thieves, but out of sheer desperation. Many times, as I later learned, they were encouraged by their parents to “get everything that you can from the gringo”. Their perception is that all gringos are rich and to take from them is justifiable. “Desperation mentality” is how I began referring to it. Desperation mentality can best be understood this way; you know, without a doubt, that you will eat today. You may not know what will be served but you know sometime today, a meal is expected. What if you did not know if you were going to eat today? What if you did not know when you were ever going to eat again? Your attitude would become one of despair and desperation. The thought of stealing becomes less of a moral dilemma than going hungry. You will do anything and say anything to eat today. That was the mentality that I found all around me. It was the action, the desperation, not the child, that was bad. Now I had an identifiable target to manage. The hows would soon be revealed. To tell children, or adults, that their actions are morally wrong and unacceptable was an exercise in futility. They didn’t already know it? It also focused my thinking on negatives. All that can come out of that kind of thinking is more negativity. Then I would only be chasing negatives instead of finding answers and solutions. Thoughts become things. My response to the problem was to rise above the issue with a solution. I created 22

the “Haz lo Correcto-Do the Right Thing” program in our project. It was deliberately ambiguous so that whatever the children needed to do, to change about themselves was covered. It focused on what they should be doing. How to be better and provided rewards for good behavior was the basis of the program. The children made significant changes in their behaviors and their self esteem began to develop. Children began sharing with each other and looking out for each other. The ‘every man for himself’ mentality was abandoned. There were no consequences if they did not step up but the rewards were available for those who did. It became cool to do the right thing. The program was so successful that I took it to the director of tourism for Huaraz, Benquelo, a friend who supported the project. He in turn presented it to the mayor of Huaraz, Vladimir Meza, who loved the idea and we created a city-wide campaign. Six thousand flyers, posters and stickers were distributed throughout the city, courtesy of the mayor and the message, “Haz lo Correcto- Do the Right Thing” was seen everywhere. At a televised news conference which officially rolled out the program, the media also helped to run with the idea and the results were noticeable throughout the community. It became apparent to me that a well placed message will inspire people to action. It had to be a positive motivational message as opposed to a negative “don’t do this” chastisement. People want something wonderful to believe in, something that will help them step a little higher, make them feel better and touch their lives. Inevitably, their actions would follow. There is no way of telling how many people were affected by the message and to what extent it moved them but the estimates were in the thousands. People were feeling good about themselves and towards others. I wrote in my journal, “Words are powerful, words are power.” **************************************** Humble Beginnings The beginnings of the project, Changes for New Hope, had its own humble 23

beginnings. With the “help” of a university professor, named Vladimir and six of his students, whom I dubbed, ”The six chicas”, I located a small adobe house in a remote barrio of Huaraz, called Rio Seco, and gathered about fifteen curious children. I had come across the professor and his six students while guest speaking at several of the local university’s English classes. I was totally excited about the idea that our project is getting started. What I wasn’t counting on was that the six students saw me as someone to take cold advantage of. While I had explained we were all working on a volunteer basis, they disagreed. They expected and later demanded then later threatened me to pay them wages. Each wanted a new laptop computer, transportation expenses, new clothes, shoes, lunch every day and vacations. They regularly arrived late, left early, spent most of their time on their cell phones and usually just sat and watched me do what I could to teach children through mime and drawings because I spoke only a few words of Spanish at the time. Repeated discussions with their professor, Vladimir, who inflicted these students upon me, were fruitless. His advice was to give them whatever they asked for. Only after I came to the conclusion that they were far less than what I needed or wanted in my project did I learn that the professor sent them to me as part of their “student teaching” requirement for the university. It was part of their class project. Their demands for compensation were pure extortion. I dismissed them all. It should have ended then and there but the professor and his six bandits were not quite finished. Afraid that I would approach the administration of their university with my list of reasons why these students were dismissed and expose Vladimir’s corruption, they pre-empted my letter with a letter of their own. In it they stated that I was unfair in my dealings and treatment of the six students and Vladimir and that I should not be allowed in the university and any reports coming from me should be disregarded and ignored. It only served to raise the curiosity of the administration who awaited my response. When the six students demanded a favorable evaluation for their “hard work and efforts” serving my project, I could hardly contain my amazement at their colossal gall. As if this wasn’t enough, Vladimir slid down to Lima, registered my project, at that time known as Esperanza de Cambio, as an official NGO, with himself as the president. He 24

returned to Huaraz and as president and wrote the students their needed documentation for graduation. l wrote a letter to their university outlining the entire series of events. In it, I concluded that “The students could not have done less if they were in a coma. If these events had occurred in the United States, these people would be in jail, instead, they are expecting diplomas? ” The administration of the university was not amused to say the least. The entire lot of them were censured. The story followed them everywhere to the distain of their peers who had already distanced themselves from them. To cover all my bases, I sent a copy of the entire series of events to the American embassy in Lima, just in case the threats were not just idle babblings. The embassy responded immediately. They stated that if the matter was not resolved within seven days, they were intervening. Ironically, it drew attention, very favorably, regarding what I was doing in Huaraz. Sympathetic students joined the project, now called Changes for New Hope, as a result. It was one of the first of many lessons showing me how every negative somehow would turn into something positive. I wrote in my journal, “They tried to use me, failing that they tried to stop me, failing that they faded into obscurity. Integrity is its own reward.” I traded in my anger and resentment for a new attitude which was simply, that this was a lesson learned. I won, they lost and it was important to put it behind me and move on. I realized that there were bound to be some curves in the road. Like Thomas Edison with the invention of the light bulb, after 10,000 failed attempts, his attitude is that he simply found 10,000 ways that it didn’t work. Until it did. The Wright brothers had no idea how to build an airplane but they were undeterred until they succeeded and their lives were never the same. I learned how to fly higher than they could reach. In my heart and mind, I adapted a sense of compassion for the human frailties of people who actions showed how desperately they needed to be shown a better way to live. Not an acceptance as “just the way it is” because that part would be changing, but a forgiveness, sometimes, in advance. Perhaps they did not ask for forgiveness, but forgiving 25

them freed me from the incarcerations of anger and bitterness and thoughts of how to even the odds. All useless emotions. Fly higher than they can reach, in the expanse of my love, in my actions and purpose. It was like being in a hot air balloon and throwing off the sandbags that weighed me down. It was a freeing attitude which I use every day now. I never lost sight of why I was here in the first place. I had never forgotten the looks on the faces of children in Nicaragua and now I was seeing it again here in Peru when I pass out fruit and vitamins, school materials and warm socks. It seemed like every child lacked decent clothes and shoes. They wore whatever they reached for first in the morning. Ill fitting, torn and shoes that every rainy season ended up shredding as the children wore them. I bought as much as I could to help the situation but there was one thing that my foresight alerted me was going to be an inevitable problem. Eventually, I was going to run out of money. It was time to whistle up help from my long list of friends who I have helped over the years. I was sure I could count on them for a return favor. I wrote to everyone that I knew back in the United States, including community organizations, churches, doctors, professional associations, friends, friends of friends and former co-workers. I sent photos and letters explaining what I was doing here in Peru. I was optimistic that even in the worst of economies, I could count on those who actually knew me, to come through. I waited for a response from them. Crickets. The few responses that I did receive were not positive beyond a dismissive “Good luck in all your endeavors”. The Christian folk, who I was sure, would recognize my efforts as a page right out of their bible, apparently skipped over that page and emailed me a simple message, “I will pray for you”, also, “Jesus said, ’The poor you have always.’” I actually had one friend who I had known for over thirty years write back, “Times are tough and when a Peruvian sends some financial assistance my way, I will consider reciprocating”. Others simply ignored me completely. It was clear that I was on my own. My initial reaction, after the 26

initial shock, was less cordial than I have now learned to be when challenges arise. To the Christians I wrote, “Do you know what happens to a hungry Peruvian child when all you do is pray for him? He starves to death. The poor you shall have always? I responded with a dab of common sense. “Because we shall always have the poor, should we simply ignore their suffering and help none of them? Is that what Jesus did? How would you feel if doctors said, ‘Because we cannot cure all sick people, we won’t cure any’?” To my friend of thirty years I wrote back asking how he could ask people making perhaps three dollars a day to send him financial assistance. I reminded him that what he spends in a bar on a weekend would support a family here for a month. More crickets. The bridges were being burned as I learned more about my friends in a handful of emails than I had in the years of socializing with them. In my journal I wrote, ”Compassion without action is like a picnic without food.” The reality set in that I could go broke here in the Peruvian Andes while trying to develop a humanitarian project to help poor children. I had two options. I could believe those negative thoughts and pull back, cancel the project and spend my money and time on myself until it was gone and then face a huge question mark regarding my future. My second option was to go “full speed ahead” with my project and believe that the evidence of a work in progress would be motivating to people to want to become involved. If I went broke then I would go broke trying to do what my heart said was the right thing to do. But I believed that that was not what was going to happen. Success was the only option, whatever form success was to take on. If not friends and family, then the community of Huaraz, the international community, people who are ready and willing to put heir “compassion in action” would somehow learn about this project and step up. I had no idea how that was going to happen just that it simply had to happen. With that determination locked in my thinking, I was all in. I was about to learn a major lesson about the Law of Attraction. My thoughts were focused upon success of the project, the help that the children desperately 27

needed and as my thoughts became my reality, I became increasing confident in the broad success of this project. It was quite a leap of faith considering that I still had not grasped even the basics of Spanish as yet, I was still a long way from understanding what I was doing as far as being a teacher but I was learning as I went along. I found that art projects were fun, a good educational tool and got positive messages across to the children, the most important was self esteem, which was clearly missing among them. The frequency of my thoughts went out into the Universe and brought back an abundance of help in ways that I could not begin to imagine. But first, I had to learn a lesson about, “Things.”

************************************************ You and Your Possessions. Who Owns Whom? The Law of Attraction is always in effect. How we think about our things becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of what things come to us and in what quantities and qualities. The value we place upon our things sets into motion our emotions and passions which in turn, attracts reactions and results. People’s attitude about money is a prime example. Consider what people will do for money. For enough money, people will sacrifice the love of their families, their self respect and dignity, work themselves into poor health, forfeit their values and act in ways that eventually diminishes them as decent people. Many people are in jails and hospitals, graves, corporate boardrooms, capitol cities around the world or reality television shows because of their endless pursuit for money. On a larger scale, wars are waged, mega-businesses acting out of greed crush competitors, and governments manipulate policies to benefit their selected elite. There are others ‘things’ that warp our lives just because of how we choose to think. Here are a few examples that may illustrate my point more clearly; The girl that you hear saying, “I always seem to attract losers. I am a loser magnet. Any guesses what her next boyfriend will be like?

The guy that starts his day at work with the words, “Man I hate this job. The boss is always on my case. I can’t wait until Friday and it’s only Monday.” What kind of week is this guy almost guaranteed to have? “What else could go wrong?” “I can’t seem to ever get ahead” “I’ll go ask but I already know that the answer is going to be no” “Every flu season I always get sick” “I can’t draw” “I am such a klutz” “I hate to even get out of bed in the morning”. The “frequency” that is being transmitted by this kind of thinking attracts more of the same. Not only will the negative emotions cause people to become paralyzed with inactivity but their thoughts will become their reality. Failure, fears, sickness, personal misery and unhappiness infects everyone around them. They are not surprised they knew it was going to happen. They actually wrote the script. More so, they attract from every source, even beyond their own power to be unhappy, outside new miseries like a magnet. I know how it works. I used of be one of those people myself. Turning the tide of years of self doubt, negativity and inner conflicts was not easy. Even as I was materially successful in my life back in the States, I was already asking myself, “I wonder how long this will last.” In retrospect, losing it all was almost assured. Things. My things, things that I worked all my life to put together were history. It was a lesson that would be one of the most valuable to me. Six months earlier I was living in a huge house with three fireplaces and a Jacuzzi, two car garage and I owned two BMWs. Across the street was our three story rental property and a few blocks away was my first smaller house that I also was renting. I liked the luxury of being able to never have to look at a price tag for anything I wanted to buy. I had perfect credit and enough credit cards to put myself in debt for a hundred years or more. I ate at the best restaurants and went on some incredible vacations. I was respected in my community and was a member of a few prestigious organizations. In spite of the craziness that was occurring inside my house, the appearance from the street was very comfortable. As Americans, we identify ourselves by our things. What kind of car you drive is somehow indicative of the quality of person you are. Why is that? To me a BMW was just a car that I could trust to start every 29

morning. A car gets me from here to there, but people treated me differently when I traded in my Kia Sephia for it. I was never snobby. I treated everyone with the dignity and respect that they deserved regardless of where they were in life. I never forgot that my first job was a maintenance mechanic in a sewage treatment plant. I enjoyed what money could buy, but ultimately it was just stuff. Things I was sure, if necessary, I could live without. Suddenly I was finding out. In the Peruvian Andes, private cars are almost unheard of, few have them. People use taxis to get around which are usually ten years old or more and generally, in very bad shape. Or people take combies which are minivans used for public transportation. No house anywhere has central heat though the nights can get down to freezing. Carpeting is non-existent. Walls are usually cement in the city and adobe in the out backs. Water had to be boiled before it is safe to drink. Lights in houses were usually a bare bulb in the center of the ceiling. I found very few beds that were my size so I usually had to curl up to sleep at night. Internet is sketchy as is the electricity. Blackouts are common. Sometimes the water is out for days. There is no hot and cold running water, just cold. People wash their clothes in concrete sinks outside or in the river. Time, as in ‘on time’ is an alien concept. Appointments are kept only if people have nothing else to do or if they remember. When someone says 3 o’clock, for example, you may ask, Peruvian time or North American time? North Americans say 3 o’clock and mean it. Peruvians say 3 o’clock and arrive the next day, if ever. There is a vast difference between saying you are not attached to your things because you are camping out in the woods for a few days and never seeing your things again. The detachment of my things and the acceptance that this is how my life is going to be from now on, forever, was an adjustment to be sure. I had no choice, this was it. Initially, it was strange for my feet to touch cold tile in the morning as I got out of my bed. It was months before I no longer reached for the hot water tap on the sink as a force of habit. Taxis charge 3 Soles (about a dollar) to take you anywhere in town. Gringos were double charged or triple charged that amount. I would pay 30

3 Soles and get out of the taxi which usually incited an altercation as the driver got out of his taxi demanding what he knew was too much. I usually opted to just walk to wherever I wanted to go. It was about a year before Spanish no longer sounded like a foreign language to me. I no longer cringed as I found a chicken foot in my soup in a restaurant. I learned ways to become amused instead of being annoyed when people jumped in front of me in lines, waitresses that never brought me milk for my coffee, lazy clerks denying that they actually work in their stores, or the dozens of other examples that illustrate why Peru is still a developing country. I adjusted to it as all being “part of the adventure”. Things were gone, now they had to be forgotten. No sense of loss. A complete and total detachment from what I had and who I was. My things did not define who I was, if they did, my emotional state would have been in shambles. One of the things I share with people today is that your net worth is not to be confused with your self worth. A snail with diamonds glued on its shell is still a snail. People need to recreate themselves from the inside out. While I do not begrudge anyone who works hard and smart to earn a good living, I only caution them to remember, it is only “stuff” and not to confuse it with who they are as a person. I went from over a million dollars in assets to almost nothing in less than a year. While that would cause many people to want to jump off of a tall building, to me it was liberating in a very strange and new way. It was amazing to realize that I did not actually need those things. Sufficient funds to be able to eat everyday, sleep inside and have clothes that fit properly. Was I poor? Destitute? Should I have sunk into a deep depression over what I no longer had as so many people I knew did after the 2008 economic collapse in the U.S.? Surprisingly, I felt great. I felt a renewed sense of what was important, really important. Wealth is not only defined in dollars, yen, euro, pounds or pesos. It doesn’t define human dignity. Perhaps ‘things’ were blinders that prevented me from stepping into my sense of purpose and mission that was waiting for me. What had I actually accomplished in 31

my twenty years in sales? It was just a job. I was making money. When I left, someone else sat at my desk and did the job and made money. The dangling carrot in front of us all was the next level of accomplishment. Director’s club status, then president’s club status, then diamond level, double diamond. A bigger carrot. Somebody down at the corporate office was laughing, we bought the story that, somehow, this was important in making the world turn. As I sat at my desk waiting for the next customer to come through the door, which could have been hours or days, I began tinkering on the internet trading stocks. When you have all day to stare at charts and analyze trends, you can become pretty good at it. I began trading live at work. When I began making more money in a week than my manager was making in a month, he became angry. When I was making more in a day than he was making in a month, he was furious. All he had in life was that bigger desk, an office, control, power over his little staff of salespeople. His ego caused him to call five meetings a day. Apparently, my inadvertent success minimized his sense of self worth. We had several “chats” about it. Usually volume ten chats. He contended that while at work, my time was his to control as he saw fit. I countered that I was paid on straight commission and my time was my own. Without a customer walking through the door, he had nothing to manage as far as my activities were concerned. We traded expletives and I came to a heated realization which I shared openly.” Frank, do you know what being a sales manager in a dead car dealership is like? It is like being the smartest kid with Down’s Syndrome”. I soon quit and began day trading in my office at home. When the dealership went out of business shortly afterward, I wondered how important being a manager there really was. Egotism is an insidious poison. Why people’s self esteem and status in life is defined by what they do, where they live, and what they have is an illusion that blinds them to what is really important. Would they ever compassionately touch the lives of the people around them? Have they ever considered how to make the part of the world that they can touch, a better place. I lost everything only to become richer than I could ever imagine. Wealth is not only defined in Dollars, Soles, Yen, Pounds, Pesos, Euros, Rolexes, BMWs or the size of an office, a house or a yacht. Those things define 32

wealth only because someone said it did and everyone believed it. Much to the contrary, those things are illusions that blur the inner vision to the much greater wealth that is possible. No one will begin to look for it if they think that they have already found it. To sum up with a Zen philosophy, “A man is not his stuff”. I was ready for my next lesson. I was about to see the Universe present me with a manifestation of my desires, thoughts and open doors that had been rusted shut by my own negativity, self deceptions, illusions and fears.

*************************************** The Attitude of Gratitude Gratitude. If ever there was a lubricant in the gears of the workings of the Law of Attraction, it is gratitude. Gratitude sets your heart and mind on a course toward receiving more of the things that you think about. If you begin to list the things that you are grateful for, especially when the day is brand new, your awareness of things to be grateful for becomes a laser focus. My day begins with my feet touching soft alpaca fur as I get out of bed. No longer cold tile. I say “Thank you”. Thank you for that warm feeling and gratitude for the friend who gave the alpaca rugs to me as a gift, but also thank you for what is going to happen that day. I am confident daily that beautiful things are about to happen. Challenges will occur, undoubtedly, that is part of life too, but the solutions will come right behind them. They are challenges, not problems. Problems will destroy you, worry you, steal your happiness, and change your attitudes. Challenges are opportunities to grow, develop, help you to see things from a new perspective and build you into a stronger person than you were before. In a blog I wrote, “I appreciate the stumbling blocks in my life, once I can climb on top of them, I can see further than I ever could before.” I am grateful for the challenges in my life. And there have been more challenges than I could ever count.

Peru motivates people to new heights or rattles their foundations until they crumble. I have seen both happen. For me, I chose to be grateful for the incredible beauty of the mountains around me. The snow capped peaks of the Corderilla Blanca to the north and east of me and the Corderilla Negra to the west and south of me. Huascaran Mountain looms right out my front window. It is the highest mountain in Peru and the second highest in South America. While the air is thin, being at such high altitude of 3000 meters, (about 2 miles up) it is clear crisp and clean. It is spring like weather all the time. The food here is tropical and with a growing season of twelve months, available all year. It is an added bonus to me that it is all so inexpensive. Lunch and dinners usually cost the equivalent of two dollars. Eating every day, I still lost over 60 pounds off my 6 foot 2 inch, 246 pound frame, most of it in the first year. As I learned, living at high altitude, your metabolism increases. Walking everywhere, including up the sides of mountains, as opposed to hopping in a car to get everywhere I need to go also helped to shed the unnecessary weight. The absence of fast food and enormous portions which was part of American culture probably added years to my life. I am grateful for all of this and so much more. I wake up happy every morning. Throughout the day, everything seems to get better as I go along. Based on the Law of Attraction, thoughts become things, and an attitude of gratitude sets the stage for great things to unfold right before you. It becomes a simple matter of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;allowingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the Universe to bring to you what you have attracted. It is a matter of choice, your choice. Your happiness is not contingent on others bringing it to you or dependant on how the day goes. You create it yourself. I was walking along the beach in Lima Peru one day. I was enjoying the ocean waves surging into the shore and the wide expanse of the Pacific in front of me. The smell of the salt air and the difference of air pressure at sea level compared to the Andes. I saw huge seagulls cawing overhead as they glided across the surf searching for food. The sun was setting into the low western sky and it was just a wonderfully peaceful and quiet, almost mesmerizing moment for me. I bent down and selected a stone, an oblong black one, very smooth from years of waves polishing it. I made it my gratitude stone. I keep it in my pocket everywhere I go. When I reach in my pocket for keys or change, and touch it, I have disciplined 34

myself to recount three things that I am immediately grateful for. It is a good way to stay focused and on target. One of the most powerful experiences that I have had since my arrival in Peru is what happens to me as I write thank you letters to our friends who support us. Whether their gift is a package of school materials and art supplies or funds of any amount, I hand write a thank you note. More than just being good manners, it is necessary and important to share back with people who cared enough to send their hard earned money to us. No two notes are exactly the same. I want to make each one especially for the person so that they know how much their gift meant to me. Many times I will have the children draw a picture for me to include with my note. It takes a lot of time and mailing from Peru is expensive and slow but it doesn’t matter. A piece of my heart goes out with every letter and reflects the love and efforts of our work here. People tell me how much my thank you notes meant to them when they receive it. I feel such an incredible sense of love and a powerful wave of gratitude sweeps over me while I am writing it is beyond expression. It renews me and inspires me. I feel the connecting of my energy and the energy of our friends who selflessly gave from their hearts to the children. Gratitude. When you focus on things to be grateful for, more things seem to come into your life’s journey to be grateful for. It is what you have attracted to yourself. It isn’t any more complicated than that. **************************************** Self Reflection Time- Your First Exercise Did you think I would write a book that was designed to motivate and inspire you and not ask you to become personally involved? My personal story is shared with you to show you what is possible, regardless of the obstacles that you face. You have within you already the talent and tools necessary to overcome the stumbling blocks in your life and realize a better life for yourself and your loved ones. Once you activate your focus toward solutions instead of the issues and allow your new thoughts to become realities. So, here are a few questions for you to answer which will spark your thinking a 35

tad; 1. What made you pick this book in the first place? 2. Did you initially begin reading with some sort of preconceived idea of what you were going to be reading? 3. Can you identify, from your own life experiences, the feelings of urgency that something needs to change immediately in your life? 4. Quickly, without hesitation, list 10 things that you are grateful for. 5. How important is status to you? 6. What two things do you now own that you feel you couldn’t live without? 7. What three things would you change in your life regardless of its probability or possibility? 8. Describe a perfect day beginning with your alarm clock going off. In detail. 9. What does “compassion in action” mean to you? 10. If it were within your power, whose life would you touch and in what ways? Don’t over think this exercise or you will miss the point of it. Let it be a free flow of your own thoughts and ideas. No one will see your answers except you. Candid and honest answers are the only ones that count. Neatness doesn’t matter.

**************************************** Fear, a Prison that You Build From the Inside

We were going along so well, you may be thinking, positive energy flowing all

around and now you are going to start talking about fear? You bet! And for a very good reason. Fear, and everything attached to it, is a poison that needs to be neutralized so it doesn’t diminish your pending success, happiness and victories in life. Fear is a prison you build alone, from the inside of your own mind. Once the myth of fear is revealed, it can no longer cripple you. Fear is a myth? It isn’t real? The short answer is, nope. Not even a little bit. Consider this, you cannot go into a store and buy a gallon of fear. Can you? It is intangible, has no qualities that appear on a chemistry periodic chart, doctors can’t find it with even after the most thorough examinations. So what it fear? It is simply a state of mind. And you can change your mind. It is within your power. It is not contingent on other people, outside sources, pills or superstitions. Most people will recognize that almost every single thing that you have ever worried about, worry being a by product of fear, never happened, isn’t that true? When you were a child, somehow we all knew that there were monsters under our beds. In time, we learned that was all in our heads. But the fear thinking was developed. We made room for it in our brains. As we got older and went to school, there was always some bigger kid, the bully that every other kid was afraid of. Until someone stood up to him and showed him that, ”You have to come with butt if you want to kick my butt”, and suddenly, fear faded. In high school, we were afraid to ask a girl to dance for fear that she would say no and our egos would be crushed. One day we walked across the floor and in spite of our fears asked the girl to dance and guess what? She said yes, she didn’t laugh, she didn’t spray our faces with mace and everything else we were sure would probably happen. Then we became adults. Job interviews, asking for promotions, driving cars, learning to swim in deep water, having children of our own, getting test results back from the doctor, passing growling dogs on the sidewalk, facing terminations, economic crisis, lawsuits and hearing a strange noise downstairs at night that woke you up. Did I leave anything out? There are thousands of reasons that you can invent to carry fear around like an albatross around your neck. Now let’s talk about getting rid of fear. 37

The Care and Feeding of Fear

Fear cannot exist on its own. It is too fragile. It must be carefully nurtured to continue in our lives. Fear relies on our justifications, our egos, our irrationalities, our sense of loss and our ignorance to survive. The most dangerous thing about fear is that once it gets impregnated in your mind and thinking, it has babies. Those are doubts, suspicions, jealousies, anger, frustrations, insecurities, assorted egotisms, paranoia, racisms and hatred. What happens next is that people begin to act upon their fears. Everything from office politics to drones blasting alleged enemies in far away countries. Our fearful thoughts become fear based words and fear based actions that are devastating to our lives as well as the lives of people that we love and care about. If you have ever listened to a person on coffee break explain why they are certain they are about to be fired, it is convincing as can be. They have a list of freshly polished fears, reasons that seem plausible enough, and the tone of their voice is persuading them that it is absolutely true. “He wants to see me in his office at quitting time today. I’m done for.” Let’s assume that the individual is absolutely correct. They will be fired at 4 PM. It is not a summary execution, just a termination. It happens to almost all of us at one time or another. Why does a termination trigger such horrific emotions of fear? Perhaps we place too much emphasis on our job. We seem to make it who we are as opposed to what we do. It has come to define us, our self worth, our value to the company is equated to our value as a human being. Our egos are all wrapped up in it. It is the second question people ask when meeting for the first time. Because we place so much value on our jobs, we can be manipulated by our superiors to make unreasonable sacrifices to assure our security. Fear is neatly packaged and ready for delivery.

I was afraid to lose my job at one point in my life, so much so, that I spent 13 years in a sewage treatment plant because I didn’t know what I would do otherwise. When I was fired, I found out. I went into sales and made far more money, created my own hours, lived better, healthier and wondered what I was afraid of in the first place. I could have made the transition years sooner, had I not been inhibited by my choking fears. Here is a true story about a man I knew since my adolescent years. Mark was a police officer. According to him, it was the job he was born to do. Mark didn’t like being a police officer, he loved being a police officer. It was his identity. It defined his manhood. Mark built his life and friendships around his career. He was part of a brotherhood that was second to none. He was proud of his accomplishments as a policeman and was more than half way to retiring from the job with a good pension. Then there was an incident that involved a blur of the facts and disputed accounts of the incident, but it ended with Mark being terminated from the police force. Depression and humiliation followed. He did not look for another job. He lived off of his savings and then on credit cards, placing himself in a very deep financial hole. His friends and family was concerned for his mental health and ultimately some were afraid that he would harm himself. He became a shell of the man that I once knew. My conversations with him did little to help him realize that life goes on and there are other jobs. “Yeah, but nothing like being a cop.” Mark was inconsolable. I did all that I reasonably could for him. Eventually, I lost touch with Mark. According to those closest to him, he was never the same. He did not know how to cope with his fear once those fears were realized. The unrealistic attachment to a job and the fear of ever losing that job defeated him. Your perception of what happens to you is your power to eliminate fear. Whether fear of failure, fear of consequences, fear of illnesses, impending doom of one sort or another or an undefined fear, if you alter your view of the occurrence, fear fades. Why? Because fear is a state of mind. Fear only exists in your own thinking. It is anticipating the worst even before it happens. When you focus your thinking on solutions, answers, facts and preventions, fears are jettisoned. You may be thinking, “Easier said than done”. Perhaps initially but the first steps 39

are always the most challenging, aren’t they? However, when you train yourself, with daily practice, you begin to create new avenues in your thinking patterns. How hard is a test in school that you were studied for and were well prepared? How nervous are you when you drive your car after doing it for 30 years? Just like you no longer are afraid to get out of bed in the middle of the night to get a drink of water, no monsters are waiting to “get you” now. It is the unrealistic value that we place upon ‘things’ and our fear of losing them that causes us to fear. Jobs, reputations, relationships that have proven less than we deserve as well as our possessions and the unseen future, if we change our perceptions, they are no longer are avenues for fear to wreak havoc in our lives. Here are a few questions to ask yourself which I have used to eliminate fear in my own life. I hope that you will use them freely to develop a solid self confidence. 1. What is it that I actually fear? 2. Who is telling me there is something to fear? 3. What is the absolute worst that could happen? 4. What is the likelihood of that actually happening? 5. What options are available to me at this time? 6. What would happen if I did nothing? 7. What resources are available to me? 8. Who do I know who has been in a similar situation and what did they do? 9. How will I view this issue in five or ten years from now? 10. Can it kill me and eat me? (Seriously. While that is the extreme, you will realize that this will help to minimize your fears and eventually eliminate them) Realize that I am not suggesting putting your head in the sand. I am suggesting

taking appropriate action toward a solution, whatever form that might take. Sometimes a ‘wait and see’ position is best. Other times, facing fears head on is necessary. In January 2009, instead of fear paralyzing me into inaction, I knew if I did not act and act fast upon what I deemed a very real threat, I would be writing this from the grave right now. When you are concerned about your health, see a doctor. If someone has threatened to sue you, see a lawyer. If you fear your boss is about to fire you, go talk to him. Nine times out of ten you will see your fears are completely unfounded. That one time out of ten, realize that you have it within yourself to deal with it, manage it and overcome it. It is how character and tenacity is built. Your life will take on new forms and directions if you jettison the fears that try to cripple you. It only can cripple you with your permission. Acting out of fear instead of acting in spite of your fear is what makes horrific things happen. The best example I can share is the stock markets around the world. If you ask any day trader or stock broker what drives every market everyday they will tell you that there are only two things, fear and greed. These are the two of the worst emotions ever known to man. Greed causes people to buy what seems to be on the rise. Based on a hunch or a ‘hot tip’, no one can actually guarantee profits else everyone would be rich. Fear causes people to sell stocks to avoid losses. It is based on the same hunches and ‘hot tips’, nobody wants losses. When I was a day trader watching the real time charts on the NASDAQ, it was apparent that the stronger motivating factor is fear. Markets can be manipulated by triggering fear at the right time in the right places. An insidious avenue through which fear works is through other people, especially people familiar to you. Their fears or attempts to ignite fear in you, is something that can be jettisoned if you see how it happens. Whether in the form of nagging, intimidation, veiled threats or manipulation or when you hear, ”I’m only telling you this because I love you.”, if you see it coming, you can avoid a collision just like you would steer a car to avoid an accident. Remind yourself that you control your own life and emotions, there is no puppeteer tugging your strings. That is something that you no longer will allow. 41

Lawyers are taught in law school how to instill fear in the opposing party. Military leaders rely on fear as a tool to weaken and conquer enemy armies. Gangs rely on fear to intimidate rivals or innocent victims. Governments rely on fear to create a unified consensus of their people to oppose or support various mandates. There is one common underlying factor that is overlooked, as people are blinded by fear, is that almost all of what they are afraid of is unfounded. It is all a big lie. Each of us deserves and should expect better for ourselves. Take courage to stand up and challenge fear and you will see it crumble in front of you. You only have to do it one time. Then it becomes second nature to you. No one can do it for you. You have to do it yourself, for yourself. What you think about, focus on, will become real for you, so says the Law of Attraction. Focus on solutions, victories, deliverances and the best possible outcomes, and watch them come to you every day. On a mountainside of Secsapampa, just outside of Huaraz Peru, Changes for New Hope has a group of children that we work with. Written on the wall of the community center there is a quote, â&#x20AC;?If you want to see the impossible accomplished, attempt the impossible.â&#x20AC;? I wrote that after I overcame my own fears.

*************************************** Then What Happened? So, I was now armed with this crystallized belief that this new social project, Changes for New Hope, was going to develop into a viable and successful operation to help the poor children. I still was skating along on minimal language skills. I had no idea where our funding would come from after my own resources were depleted. I needed every kind of help imaginable from any source that it could come from. The children were counting on me. I did not feel desperate however. I felt a sense of empowerment that it would arrive. It is difficult to describe but it was a certain knowing, a confidence that something big was about

to happen though at the time I wasn’t aware of the details. And it was going to come from beyond my immediate reach or influence. And that’s when the tide turned for me. Our first few volunteers read about us on a website where I had posted a short notice. The Omprakash Foundation partners volunteers looking for international opportunities with organizations like mine. The Omprakash Foundation, headed by Willy Oppenheim, had been instrumental in providing advice, suggestions, assistance and support for us which was like a beacon in the darkeness. I could not afford any more volunteers like the professor had sent me so I added a few adjectives that made all the difference. “Mature and dedicated volunteers needed”. First Lindsey came in from the U.S., just about the time the six problem students from the university were leaving. Then Bex came to us from the U.K. She arrived with a dogged determination to get us off the ground and flying as soon as possible. She and her boyfriend, who also volunteered with us, sat for hours making flashcards by hand, creating games for the children and joined in the art projects and creative learning classes. Katherine, also from the U.K., came shortly thereafter and for almost six months made our little project her focus and passion. As others followed, I was learning many things about how to manage the volunteers as well as the children who were coming to our classes in larger numbers. One of the things I realized was that not every volunteer is going to arrive with realistic views of what we were and why we were doing it. Some were expecting Peru to be right out of an “Indiana Jones” movie. Others were expecting a fully equipped classroom style setting where volumes of class plans and teaching aids lined our shelves. Others still, just wanted to fill up their time until the parties started around town. Some adjusted, some had to move on and follow their own hearts. I had to recognize early on that we were not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Sometimes the inbound volunteer wasn’t destined to be ours either. Volunteering requires a sense of team and selflessness. Each volunteer that 43

continued with us found their niche and focused on making every day the best day possible for the children. We were grateful to have many incredible people come to us that understood what we were doing and joined right in seamlessly. One day in November 2011, one of our volunteers had talked to a young Peruvian man about our project. He wanted to visit us and if he decided it was a project that he could work with, he would join us. His name was Charlie. He was 23 years old at the time. Everything about Charlie was a surprise. He was a tiny little munchkin of a guy barely five foot tall, if that. Some of our children were bigger than him. He joined us at our Rio Seco group of children which we called “The Condor’s Nest” because the area was literally carved out of the mountainside in solid rock. Houses were half adobe and half cave. It was an exhausting climb over rugged trails to just get to the children there. Charlie was moved by our humble efforts and joined our project. He had taught classes prior to joining us and had many ideas regarding what he wanted to accomplish with us. After several meetings to align our mutual thinking, he had become an indispensible and beloved addition to Changes for New Hope. He asked for nothing more than a new pair of shoes to be able to get up the mountainside that we climbed every day. Charlie brought a much needed order to the groups of children. Inclined to run amuck and resist instructions, Charlie let them know right away that how things were going to be run. Many of the children who were coming just to receive gifts, cookies, school supplies and clothing refused to sit and listen to Charlie’s planned class activities. When there was no possibility of management, Charlie ejected them. Our project was intended to develop the children from the inside out. Values, morals and self esteem were major points of focus. Art, academics and recreation came second. The children that we were left with were there for the right reasons and each one became a gem, polished a little more every day. With Charlie managing classes, aided by international volunteers, more of my time could be spent reaching out to the community for assistance. The expat community of Huaraz had given me used clothing, some funding and advice. Local businesses sponsored our Huaraz Benefit Chess Tournaments which we held as local fundraisers. Many locals had become aware of our project from the “Haz lo 44

Correcto-Do the Right Thingâ&#x20AC;? campaign. Then the Universe opened up and brought us a very special surprise. In Toronto Canada, a wealthy couple had two young sons who were growing up in the best life their parents could provide for them. Not wanting them to forget that there were many far less fortunate children in the world, the family decided that they would find a project that was worthy of their compassion, time and support and get involved personally. Of all the projects in the world they discovered a little organization struggling along in the Peruvian Andes, Changes for New Hope. I received an email from Amanda explaining what her and her husband Richard had intended and asked to visit us to establish that this would be the right project for them. Amanda and her older son Edward arrived in Huaraz that November with several suitcases of materials for the children, Christmas presents and funds to get us along for awhile. They visited the different groups of children and saw exactly what we were dealing with. They were moved by the project and our efforts and immediately put their compassion in action. Upon their return to Toronto, they shared what they saw with Richard and their other younger son, Henry. In March of the following year, the whole family came to Huaraz and we have become close friends ever since. Richard comes to Lima Peru a few times a year with several suitcases loaded with materials, school supplies, recreational games, art supplies, clothing, books and other gifts, which the children have never seen before. While in Lima, he and I together, shop for many more large duffel bags full of materials and supplies. The children show their gratitude with handwritten letters, drawings and photos back to the family. The compassion of this family has made the progress of the project possible in ways we couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t begin to imagine just a year before. Richard has made it his personal project to source materials that we need and buy them. He tirelessly shops for the supplies, loads them in suitcases to weigh exactly 23 kilograms, which is the airline allowed maximum weight, then flies to Lima Peru several times a year to meet me there for the exchange. He has become an effective negotiator with customs and immigration officials to argue that every single item is for the benefit of the children and regardless of their rules against importing shoes and vitamins, they 45

must allow this exception. He is an amazing man with a compassionate heart as is his wife Amanda who never misses a beat to do everything that she can to aid our efforts here. Their sons, Edward and Henry also follow in the footsteps of their parents admirably so. Evidence again of the Law of Attraction in action, this was something that came to us that was beyond our reach, personal influence or connections. Much like the earlier story of Kekai from Japan. Your focus, your thinking, can attract your results as well. The like energy of the Universe has brought compassion in Toronto Canada and in Tokyo Japan together with our compassion in Huaraz Peru. And, I might add, not a moment too soon. There was one more surprise yet to reveal itself, and it would bring our project into international recognition. I spend a lot of time on the internet learning whatever I can from other NGOs, non profits and charities. I prefer to let their tail lights become my headlights so to speak. As I had mentioned earlier, I have written to friends and family and heard crickets. Now I was writing to Facebook groups which had similar interests, newspapers, and found lists of philanthropic family foundations and celebrities that had charitable foundations. I wrote to hundreds of them sharing our project, our children and our goals asking for their support. More crickets. One man stepped up to help us. About the time we were just receiving our first children, the White Feather Foundation was being created, in London England, to benefit humanitarian and environmental organizations around the world. The founder of the charity was Julian Lennon, son of former Beatle, John Lennon. Now a successful musician, photographer and celebrity in his own right, he developed the White Feather Foundation as part of his own humanitarian interests. The response to my request came back in just three days. Julian would be supporting Changes for New Hope through his foundation. The financial support that we received carried us through for a year and enabled us to put new shoes on every child in the project at that time. It also gave us the necessary funds to continue to 46

buy fruits for the children which was lacking in their regular diets and sponsored special projects as the need arose. Julian Lennon’s Facebook page and White Feather Foundation’s website acknowledged us to his hundreds of thousands of fans. This gave us the much needed credibility that prompted many others to support our project as well. I wrote a thought in my journal, “I never gave up trying, I gave up quitting. Life became empowering right after that.”

****************************************** Upfront and Out loud, but With Humility The designer of our website was a good friend named Karl. Karl and I had worked together, laughed at the same quirks of life and we believed in each other’s success. He had left the company and we saw less of each other and lost touch there for awhile. From Peru, I re-establish my connection with him. I respected Karl’s opinions and insights. When I needed his help, he was there. I wrote the website’s information, blogs and provided the photographs to be used. Karl painstakingly built the graphics and designs. He surprised me with a question during one of our update conversations. “Why are you hiding?” “Hiding? I couldn’t be more upfront and out loud.”, I responded. “Your project is but you are not. People do not trust or support projects and organizations they get behind the people doing projects. You are the name they should recognize and your face is the face of the project. You know the name Martin Luther King Jr., do you remember his organization’s name or Ghandi’s, or Nelson Mandela’s?” He had a point. Every movement had a recognizable face to identify with it. I was a ghost in the breeze. “I wanted to be humble in my efforts. I wanted to avoid the appearance of this being ‘The Jim Show’.”, I explained to him. “I thought it would look pompous as the ‘Great White Hope.’ ” Karl understood but reassured me, “Jim, listen, you’re the most humble guy I know. You have a story that should be told. In humility, not arrogance. What you have done in spite of everything that you overcame, to do what you are doing, is nothing short of amazing. You are 47

Changes for New Hope. We will use your quotes, your commentaries and your photos.” It felt uncomfortable at first and I told him that. “You will get used to it.” Karl assured me. I did and now confidently, in my humility, I can tell the story of the project, how we began, what obstacles we overcame and the children whose lives are brighter than they ever could have imagined. I have done countless interviews for newspaper and e-magazines as far away as Kenya, television and radio interviews both locally and internationally. Photojournalists for National Geographic included a filmed interview with me and also filmed our Challhua group in action as part of a National Geographic Special which focused on the Andes and its people. Sergui, who headed the expedition, remains a friend to this day and shares our story and message everywhere he goes. I am always sure to give credit to the many wonderful volunteers and sponsors who believed in our little project before we even had a lot to show for our efforts. It may have started out as one man’s vision but grew into something far beyond my own limitations. As I aligned my energy and love to the Universal energy, the impossible became our reality. Humility is a quirky character trait to have. Once you realize you have it, you have lost it. I am up front and out loud. I am Jim Killon and this is Changes for New Hope. These are our wonderful children. Join us, experience the adventure with us. It will change you forever. Help us spread the message, “Do the right thing.”

******************************************* Growing Roots in the Andes There was an awareness buzzing around the back of my mind. It was something that was becoming louder and more obvious with each passing day. Every time I

would write another task in my “To Do” list, jot another entry in my journal or met with parents asking for specific help for one thing or another it became more apparent. I can never leave Peru. The project was growing into something that took on a life of its own. It was no longer a classroom and some learning activities. I had become a macramé into the fabric of the communities where we were present. I was invited to community meetings and family gatherings, where I would sit on a rock that served as furniture, in a dirt floor living room of an adobe house and eat a huge bowl of potatoes, rice and a piece of chicken. Most of the children were from Quechua families. The Quechua were the original Inca natives and their dress, language and customs differed from the rest of the Peruvians of Spanish decent. As a result, there was a degree of racism against the Quechua people. It was wholly undeserved. The children were no longer little whiners acting out of a desperation mentality as they grew to love the project, Charlie and I and the increasing flow of international volunteers who came to share their time and lives with them. I remember in the beginning, I had to lock up everything and secure my backpack as high as I could place it because the children would distract me while others stole whatever they could find. I had no tolerance for lying or stealing. As I passed out apples, for example, and a child would come to me to complain that he did not get one. I asked to see what he had in his hand behind his back. He showed me his apple that he was concealing. I took his apple away and said, “Now you are telling the truth, you do not have an apple.” A hard lesson learned. Lying doesn’t get a child a second apple, it costs them to lose what they already had. When a child asks for a second apple and I have extra, I would give them another one. Once integrity and character was established it was possible to actually allow children to take project materials home with them if they promised to bring them back for the next class. At first this did not work out so well. A child would “borrow” a pack of crayons and we would never see it or them again. Other children realized that being honest meant that they could freely borrow anything they wanted because they had established their trust with me. My long term 49

plans were strange for them to understand. In their culture, there is no tomorrow. Families will spend every sole that they have in their pocket with no thought of saving any for a rainy day, and emergency or for whatever they will need next week or next month. Living hand to mouth, day to day was a hard concept for me to grasp when I saw families with a half dozen children or more. I came from a culture where you start saving for your retirement the day you start working. In the United States we have 401K plans, insurance plans on our houses, cars, health and lives. We preplan for every contingency. We have lawyers on retainer, doctors on speed dial, the number for the plumber on our fridge, alarms on our doors and windows, scout out the best kindergartens for our children while they are still embryos and we stock up on toilet paper and milk the moment we hear that a snow blizzard is heading our way. By contrast, the families of the children would build an adobe house and wonder where the money would come from to put a roof on it. They never thought that far ahead. How they would feed their children was another mystery. They would wait until the last minute to find the money for any need and scramble to beg, borrow or steal it. Because everyone else in their communities was doing the same thing, the culture of “desperation mentality” was ubiquitous. That mentality caused depression which was solved by alcoholism. I was all too familiar with alcoholism and its dangers. It was a vicious cycle and the children were vulnerable to neglect and abuse. We saw that we had to somehow reach out to the entire families to “do the right thing”. Our efforts to develop the children only, were anemic. Children are malleable. At their tender ages, we could teach them the right way of doing things. Instill in them character and integrity. Our example of love and compassion were the underlying reasons why they accepted our guidance. The adults were pretty much set in their ways. “Heads like a box of rocks”, I would say of their resistance to change. The answer was to create a desire within them to want to change. An intrinsic spark that would cause them to move from, 50

”The way it’s always been” to “Let’s try something new and see if it works”. Slowly, we began introducing meetings with the parents to share with them the incredible progress of their children and how they can help us by also setting good examples. Sneaking in through the back door was a plan that seemed to work best. Every parent was given a “Do the Right Thing” wristband to wear. Passing out toothbrushes for the children was the next hurdle. Many of the children had toothbrushes that were years old. Many had decaying teeth at very young ages. Many homes had no toothpaste. Upon a closer investigation I was told that it is their belief that decaying teeth was a hereditary factor, therefore brushing one’s teeth was a waste of time. “How do you figure?” I asked them. It was explained to me that their grandfather’s teeth fell out, the fathers teeth also fell out so it was just a matter of time that their own teeth will also fall out. Therefore, brushing them was useless. Siri and Cecilia were two beautiful ladies who came to us from Sweden to volunteer. I had explained the dilemma with them. They had a computer program that clearly explained, in Spanish, with photos, what will happen if the children did not brush their teeth and how such demise is easily preventable. Their presentation was chilling and informative. The children now brush their teeth and are given replacement toothbrushes every six months. Richard makes sure a shipment of new tooth brushes is included in every visit to see me. In my journal I wrote,” It is now glaringly obvious that there is no finish line to this project and our objectives. Our work here will never be finished. As some children advance, new children, new groups will arrive and we start again. While cash is king to enable us to purchase what we need, cash doesn’t buy hope, compassion or love that the children need to see every day. Our time is the most valuable commodity here. It has taken two years just to be headed in the right direction, find our center and see a noticeable progress among the children. No one will be able to step in and pick up where I left off. This is home for me now. What was once strange and bizarre is now commonplace and my everyday life in the Peruvian Andes. I am loved and appreciated throughout the communities. I can never leave here.”

**************************************** The Law of Attraction and the Office I was living in a hostel down by the Rio Santa for the best part of a year. Among other reasons, it was half as expensive as living in an apartment. I had a private room to myself and it contained most of the materials that we used in the classes. Where we had exclusive use of the salas, or meeting areas, we could store some materials there but the more expensive things we stored in my room at the hostel. I had materials under my bed, alongside my bed, stacked suitcases I had brought back from Lima, donated by Richard and his family. While I was immensely grateful to have such a supply, I was running out of room quickly. Tom and Mia were a couple that came to volunteer with us from England. They were proactive, resourceful and wonderful for the children for the two months that they joined us. Mia had been in Huaraz two years prior and had met a guide, a man named Willy. Willy was bi-lingual, deeply involved in community service projects and his church. Willy couldn’t do enough for anyone needing his help. Mia and Tom thought it would be a great idea to introduce me to him. Willy was as excited to meet me as I was to meet him. Kindred spirits. We shared our mutually beneficial ideas with each other and understood each other missions. He had taken us on a tour of the church and the adjoining “campo” or large walled in area which housed, among other things, an auditorium, meeting rooms, a large hard surface soccer court, classrooms, a comedor, which is a cafeteria that was used to feed the local poor people, several fully equipped doctors’ offices which lacked doctors. Willy explained that the local doctors want to be paid for their services and the church had no funds for it. The intention was to treat the poor people at a minimal cost. The doctors refused to work for less than their regular pay. Faced with that impasse, the well equipped offices remained empty. We toured the upstairs area which was to be examination rooms. There were three areas that ran the length of the building and were perhaps twelve feet wide. All were empty. Willy turned to me and asked, “Do you need an office?” There were no funds to 57

rent an office. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I can talk to the priest who is in charge here. You are helping children in the community, I am sure he will let you have the office, for free.â&#x20AC;? And that was how we came to have an office, for free. I had not asked anyone about an office, nor had I even mentioned that it was at the top of my list for things that I needed immediately. I recognized that this was no small gift. Who just walks up to you and hands you the keys to a free office? I recognized that there was an aligning of energies, bringing together what I needed and what others had to give me. Some would call it a miracle. What was unfolding in front of me was not exactly water turning to wine or parting the Red Sea, but to me, it was every bit as potent and wonderful. I no longer was amazed when my love and compassion was met by a greater love and compassion. I now accepted the Law of Attraction as a very real force in my life. It is something that I could rely on and see results on a daily basis. I am continuously in a state of gratitude even as my feet hit the floor in the mornings. I ask the Universe everyday for direction and guidance, inspiration so that I can inspire others. Love being the highest and most powerful energy and everything is made of energy. The children move me to a higher love. The dedication of the volunteers also moves me to a higher love. The gratitude of the parents in their own humble mannerisms also moves me to a higher love. The compassion in action of the international community, people like Richard and Amanda and their boys, Julian Lennon and his White Feather Foundation, Deb in Australia who, even in financially tough times, makes it a priority to send money for the children, and the people who send post cards with messages of hope and encouragement to the children which they gather around to read as they arrive. And of course Charlie, relentless and impassioned by the children who love him for delivering them out of mediocrity and desperation, giving them hope and light at the end of their dark tunnels. My journey began as a nightmare, became a dream and now has become a vision come true, more beautiful and completely encompassing in ways greater than I could ever have imagined.

My love and compassion had multiplied a thousand fold. I have found a purpose and mission in life that makes a mockery of the years that I had spent sitting behind a sales office desk, closing that undecided customer or pulling wrenches in a sewage plant, busting my knuckles as I slipped off of yet another rounded bolt or placing sell orders on the NASDAQ expecting that gutsy trade that will feel like a grand slam home run in the World Series. I found something that needed to be found. Not only the children here in the Peruvian Andes, but I had also found something inside of myself, something that was always in seed form, until it was time to sprout and grow and flourish. And the time was now.

******************************************** Religion and the Energy of the Universe One of the most dangerous forces in the world is preconceived ideas. Much like the man who said, â&#x20AC;?Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t confuse me with the facts, I have already made up my mind.â&#x20AC;? Preconceived ideas have put bars on the windows of our minds. When people are told what to believe and follow unquestioningly, one can only hope that the leaders telling the masses what to believe are genuinely interested in their followers. History has proven that has rarely been the case. I am a history buff. What I read in history books, which serves as 20/20 hindsight, is shockingly repetitive. It is as though one despot read the life story of a previous despot and took notes which served as an instruction manual to commit even worse atrocities. Religion is preconceived ideas prepackaged, gift wrapped and ready for delivery. Not to be confused with faith, religion is a ritualistic practice that most do by rote. You can wash your car religiously. When the lines of religion and faith blur there becomes a strange and foul smell in the air. I hope this brief commentary opens a few windows to clear the air. I cannot denigrate anyone for their religious views regardless who or what their faith has them worshipping. I am, however, deeply confused with the randomness in which their beliefs are adhered to or abandoned as is convenient. I have read 59

the Bible cover to cover more than once. Then I looked around at those who claim to be followers of the central character. I had come to the considered conclusion that, while many Christians may be sincere, most that I have encountered did not need a cross around their neck as much as they did a mirror. America was founded as a Christian nation as we learned in history class. By the Puritans. The Puritans were under heavy persecution in England by the king who had his own version of self referencing Christianity which served him better. Escaping from such tyranny, the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock, set up camp and church and began heavily persecuting everyone who wasn’t their version of self referencing Christianity which served them better. Apparently under the assumption that you can never get enough of a good thing, in their extremism, they started branding people as witches. One sliver of the entire Bible states, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” That was enough to prompt witch barbeques all over the New World. Anything that could not be explained was the work of the devil incarnate in people. Such as epilepsy. It begs the question, “What is the difference between religion and superstition?” Meanwhile, back in Europe, Rome had called for the extinction of anyone who wasn’t toeing the papal line, religiously. Papal ordered mass executions of ‘heretics’ rivaled those of Stalin, The Third Reich, and Chairman Mao, combined. At some point someone said enough was enough so a new flurry of religious zeal swept the world. Martin Luther, Calvin and a cast of thousands broke out with their own versions of ‘This is how it ought to be.’ This opened the floodgates which downstream finally brought us to modern day Christianity. Late night televangelists, who just returned from some religious pilgrimage that was too far away to check, with real hair made to look like toupees and the ability to weep on command were proof of how incredibly gullible people can be when someone speaks to them, with passion, wearing a shiny gold cross. It is easy to convince anyone of anything if they are already predisposed to believe it. These folks will send in 10% of their incomes faithfully to a man living in a mansion with a Rolls Royce parked in front and will respond to my request to aid our project helping poor children in the Peruvian Andes with an icy, ”How do I know you are real?” 60

And atheists are frowned upon? While people are amusingly entertained by my take on the Barnum and Baileys of religion throughout the ages, some might take offense to it. That, I would hope, would inspire them to do more than drop to their knees and pray for me. I hope it inspires what religious leaders have feared for centuries, free and clear thinking. If any religious beliefs can withstand the scrutiny of doubt and insistence of clear proof then more power to them. Mass executions, denial of aid to the poorest of their own people while amassing unimaginable wealth, glaring hypocrisies which are excused with the wave of a hand and the teeming millions who claim to be followers of a messiah but whose actions are anything but in his footsteps begs the question, “What’s the point?” Religion, like governments and company policies, need to be questioned, reviewed and scrutinized. Under such scrutiny, if it is deemed to be harmful or abusive and far afield of its core purpose for existing, it needs to be changed or if that is not possible, needs to be abandoned for something genuine and beneficial. Perhaps my thinking is jaded by living in Peru where I see families in unimaginable destitution, giving their mandated 10% of their earnings to a church that is already the wealthiest organization in the world, with blind allegiance. Part of the reason for their poverty is the adherence to their church’s doctrine that birth control is a sin. Families with enough children to form their own sports team receive no help, financially or otherwise, from the church that did nothing more than promote the desperation that they currently endure. Religion is a poor substitution for common sense. Sincerity is no authentication for accuracy of truth. Accepting something on faith is someone’s prerogative but becomes dangerous when one wagers their families, life savings and freedom to think for themselves on it. The energy of the Universe is not a religion. I did not have to forfeit my atheism to align myself with the force that is perfect and pure and moves in harmony. I do not personify the energy nor define the force as a god. It proves its force and what it is daily to me through its gifts, the encounters I have with others and by showing me that what goes out from me comes back to me in much larger and unexpected ways than I could have imagined. I became aware of the energy of the Universe 61

without preconceived ideas. It has withstood every scrutiny and question I had. I simply observe, open myself to what it will bring to me and share my gratitude with others. The Law of Attraction is a manifestation of the energy of the Universe in action. The frequency of my thoughts brings like energy back to me. Good thoughts or negative thoughts, the attraction is there. Admittedly, I am no one to tell anyone else how to practice their brand of faith. I would only ask one favor. Please be what you say you are, otherwise we all become confused. It is hard for people to accept your claim to believe in a particular path as The Way if you are always taking detour routes from it.

************************************** The Delusion of More Everybody wants more. More is synonymous with better. It is a badge of success. The more you have raises your self worth to new levels of importance, acceptance and position in society. Doesn’t it? Or does it? The only problem with more is that it is never enough. I have not met one individual who ever achieved massive wealth and said,”Ah, I made it! I can stop now.” What would you guess the goal of someone with five million dollars is? If you said six million, you guessed correctly. Marketing executives all over the world meet in boardrooms contemplating how to get more people to want more. If it is the ‘new and improved’ product, or what you need to be sexier this year, be the first kid on your block with it or some other way to stroke your ego into a near frenzied state of materialistic ecstasy, they will develop it. Once they create the desire to have more, it is a lemming’s race over the cliff mentality. This has been witnessed every year at Christmastime with the latest toy that “everybody just has to have.” They will wait in long lines outside of department stores at 4am to be first in line to get the toy, whatever it is. Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch Dolls and Tickle Me Elmo caused people to go absolutely nuts in their pursuit to get one before they were all gone. And it is pandemonium when the doors open at 8am. Herd mentality. More. We just have got to have it. 62

Or else, what? No one has ever asked the question. When people are convinced that more money is security, who doesn’t want to feel more secure? Can you ever be secure enough? So we will work ourselves into an early grave to ‘Get There’. When people are convinced that food is comfort, who doesn’t want to be more comfortable? So we eat until we fall down and rock ourselves to sleep trying to get back up. Ignoring that our weight is unhealthy, what will kill us in 30 years is not as important as feeling good right now. By the same token, if people equate sex with love, who doesn’t want to be more loved? Alcohol and drugs makes people feel good? Who doesn’t want to feel good and all the time? Guns make people feel more safe? Who doesn’t want to feel more safe? Implants and body augmentations makes people feel more self confident and beautiful? Who doesn’t want to feel more self confident and beautiful? The excesses continue. However, is it really more? Or better? Does anyone ever really “Get There?” When we aren’t satisfied, we look for the next ‘Holy Grail’ of contentment. When all else fails, doctors will prescribe pills to make you ‘feel better’. Pills to wake you up, calm you down, put you to sleep, kill your appetite, enhance your sex drive, numb your depression, and pills to cure you from all the effects of all the pills you took. Failing that, there are rehab clinics. What have we done to ourselves in the endless pursuit of more? A friend of mine, an American expat in Peru named John, told me of a story that I found amusing and dead on point. He was in Miami with some Columbian friends, visiting the United States for the first time. He took them to a super mall shopping. The Columbians, who lived a far more modest lifestyle than most could imagine, saw the hundreds of stores with millions of options available to purchase to the American consumers. They looked at John and exclaimed, ”Who buys all this crap?” “People who think that their lives wouldn’t be complete without it.” was John’s reply.

This is by no means a rebuke to anyone who worked hard all their lives, earned a good living and has nice things. As I wrote in a previous chapter, things, in and of itself are not problematic. Planning for a secure future and retirement is necessary. When the things you own, own you, consume you and cause distress, envy, resentment, frustration, medical issues and bloats your self representation erroneously, among other emotions, when you do not have them, or have lost them, that is cause to rethink your attitude about ‘more’. I want to share this real life ‘I promise that I am not making this up’ example of how people’s minds can be warped when having more is considered equal to being a better human being than others. It is from my own experience. I hope that you will find it as amusing as I do now. I used to work in a carpet store in a suburb of Baltimore called Towson, before I knew any better. It is an area prominent with ‘old money.’ As the patriarchs of renowned families passed away their fortunes were inherited to the next generation. Millions of dollars fell into the laps of spoiled adult children whose feet had never touched concrete. My manager, Bob, was one of the most patient and professional people I had ever met. He welcomed me to the store and advised me about the majority of the clientele thusly; “Jim, these people are sure that they are a better breed of human beings than anyone else. Doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs. You are going to meet people who are so snooty that they think Towson is still part of England.” I laughed. I shouldn’t have. For the next year I saw, what I was sure was a hidden camera reality show, being filmed in our store. One of the first things customers did when they walked into the store was to tell me how important they were. I was asked numerous times, ”Do you know who I am?” They would assert their station in life by making impossible demands of service. Carpet, that had to be special ordered from a factory across the country, they wanted installed the next day, or else. Some demanded that their carpet be installed in the middle of the night so their spouses would see it in the morning and be surprised, but they wanted it done in total silence. Or else. One eccentric lady insisted that she enter the building through a back door because, “I do not want to use the same front 64

door as the common people.” I greeted some customers at the door who refused to shake my hand because I was a “Lesser Than”. I was told on several occasions that “I could buy and sell you a hundred times.” Some would only deal with owners or managers, not lowly sales staff. I had met sports superstars, head doctors, judges, lawyers and television celebrities in a carpet store where each showed their disdain for another human being, who was only trying to serve them, as dismissively as they could possible express. “They were not above the law, they were the law.” Bob would tell me. “Just ask them.” It did not take me long to develop thicker skin and an attitude that insulated me from scathing, undeserved insults from people who put their pants on the same way I did, one leg at a time. Had I known then what I know now I probably would have fared much better under the circumstances. Unfortunately, at the time all I was armed with was my own sense of humor which hinged on sarcastic inappropriateness. When a customer came in announcing that he was a doctor and therefore very important, my knee jerk response was, “Not to me sir because I’m not sick.” Bob was authorizing massive discounts to the customers who demanded my head on a platter or in lieu of that, my immediate termination. Bob probably would have obliged them had he not found my retorts so enjoyably hilarious. When one customer entered the store and asked me immediately, ”Do you know who I am?” I suggested that she sit at my desk, have a glass of water, check for any identification and contact a family member. Insulted, she roared that she would never come into our store again. I thanked her. You have to know when you have had enough. After a year of watching people bloat their egos to the bursting point, I resigned. Bob suggested that I put these anecdotes in a book. So here it is. It was frustrating at the time, but in retrospect it is now just amusing. I was grateful for the experiences that taught me so vividly what I will never allow myself to become. The love and pursuit of ‘more’ has caused more misery and suffering in our families, communities and the world by igniting emotions and actions which destroy us. People are people are people. Although we may all be different, 65

tolerance and compassion brings us all together as one. We are on earth to be happy, content and learn to love people and live in peace. If everyone would share, just out of their abundances and our compassion with those less fortunate, what a wonderful world this could be. I have found that the more I give, more comes back to me in even greater abundance. It is the Law of Attraction in action. People are people are people. ‘Better off’ does not equate to ‘better than.’

********************************************* Time to Exhale - Your Second Exercise It is now time to share something with you that I trust will be an immediate benefit and will be useful to you from now on. One of the most important things you can possess in your life is the ability to decompress, relax and let go of stress, whether it is self imposed or stress that you allowed into your life. Without the need for expense and unnecessary regimes, I want to introduce to you what has worked for me for years. You will want to recognize what you are feeling as opposed to why you are feeling it. Relaxation is a release from stressors, not an analysis and focus on them. If you realize that your dog used your dining room for a fire hydrant, you have found the cause but you are still stressed out about it. So, allow yourself to be free. First, I want to let you know that this is not to be taken as medical or psychological advice or a substitute for anything recommended to you by a licensed medical practitioner. You can use these techniques in addition to, but not in place of, professional advice. I have probably just upset dozens of lawyers all over the world with this disclaimer. Many probably are from Towson. Here is what I do, almost every day. It serves me well. If I am busy, I realize that centering myself is even more important to my well being. I make time regardless of my daily activities. I will be more focused and effective after my personal time.

Breathing. We have been breathing since birth so what is there to learn new? Breathing correctly and effectively is what most people seem to miss. If you focus on your breathing at this very moment, as you are reading, you may realize that you are not breathing deeply and completely. It has been explained that there are three parts to your lungs. We usually are breathing with only the first third. The hustle and bustle of daily life has us in a near â&#x20AC;&#x153;fight or flightâ&#x20AC;? mode, always ready to make a move, a decision or give a response. Our posture usually is in some version of a slumped position. Our shoulders may be slightly raised. This is especially true if we spend a large portion of our days sitting at a desk, in a car or a couch. To breathe effectively, you will need to adjust the way you are positioning yourself to accommodate your breathing. And now we will begin to learn about breathing to relax and relieve stress and renew ourselves. Initially, you will want to sit or lie down where you are comfortable and you can be alone and quiet for perhaps fifteen minutes or more. It is important that you not force anything to happen but allow this exercise to just flow naturally. If you find it difficult to push away interrupting thoughts or ignore them, it will leave you in time. If you are more comfortable closing your eyes then you should allow yourself to do so. If you prefer to keep your eyes open, that is fine as well. There is no right and wrong way to relax, it is a personal experience, just for you. The results are yours as well. Begin by becoming aware of how your body is feeling starting with your head, including your face, your neck then down to your shoulders. Concentrate on allowing your muscles to let go. Continue to focus on your chest and back, down to your hips and legs, then down to your feet. Allow yourself to focus on releasing each section of your body, part by part. Once you have allowed yourself to relax this way, you are ready to focus on your breathing. Observe how you are breathing right now. Is it shallow or is your breathing a quicker pace? Also observe how your chest feels as you breathe. Is your chest tight, almost clutching your lungs as you breathe? Do not force anything to change at this point, just allow whatever is happening to continue to happen. Change will come shortly, but for now, recognize what your breathing 67

pattern is at this time. Do this for a good minute or two. Consider how this makes you feel when you observe your breathing in this way. If this is something new for you, you may feel a little awkward and unfamiliar, observing your breathing. This is fine and just a normal reaction to anything new to you. In time it will become second nature as you do your breathing exercises daily. Now you will want to deliberately slow your breathing down. Focus on each inhalation and exhalation, listening to your breathing, in and out. Do not try to breathe deeper, just observe each breath as you take it. Concentrate on each breath being a little slower going in and going out. Turn your attention inward. Feel your breathing as though being aware of it for the first time. Remind yourself that this is your time, just yours, and nothing else matters at this present moment. You are learning to relax in a new and different way. This is very important to you. Take your time with this part of the exercise. You are ready for the next step only if your breathing is very slow and gentle right now. If you are now quite there yet, allow yourself a few more moments and focus on the gentle calm of your inhalation and exhalation. Allow your muscles to feel comfortable and relaxed. When you are sufficiently comfortable with your slowed breathing, continue reading to the next step. You will now want to place both hands on your abdomen, with one hand just above your navel and your other hand just below. As you breathe you will observe your hands rising and falling with each breath. Notice the slow rising and falling. Only be an observer to your own breathing. Everything should come easily and naturally to you. Gently, let your breath flow into you a little deeper as you see your hands, resting in place, rise a little higher. Again, breathe just as deep and feel the expanding in your chest and rising of your abdomen. Remember to do this slowly. There is no reason to hurry and you will want the full benefit of this exercise. You are now filling the second part of your lungs. You may feel a slight resistance until the muscles surrounding your ribs and chest begin to relax and stretch. This is why you do not want to force your breathing. Slow, gentle focused inhalations and exhalations. Give yourself five minutes or more of this deeper breathing. At this point you may want to put this book down and close your eyes to allow yourself maximum focus and relaxation, as you continue your breathing, 68

slowly and effortlessly. Once your diaphragm is relaxed and your chest is comfortably expanding with each deeper breath, it is time to breathe even deeper, slowly and gently. Your lungs will now be completely expanding. You may want to draw back your shoulders slightly to accommodate this deeper breathing. As you take a deep breath, you may want to hold it for a count of five seconds and slowly exhale. You may want to do this a few times to allow your chest muscles to fully expand and be in unison with your breathing. This will help you do this exercise more effortlessly and naturally. As you breathe deeper still, you may find this is sensation a little unusual. This is because you do not normally breathe this deeply throughout your day. Become aware of how your body feels. Consider how your thinking presently is focused, calm and tranquil. You are oxygenating your brain and body in a new way. It is a more efficient way and your thinking and body functioning should react accordingly. You can continue with your deep breathing exercise as long as you are comfortable and you stay focused. You can close out any distractions around you more easily now as you enter a more relaxed state of mind. Life can bring you many distractions and obstacles. This breathing exercise can minimize and even eliminate the effects of them and allow you to become more efficient effective and calm in your day to day life. With daily practice, you will find yourself automatically breathing deeper without having to make a concentrated effort. Here in the Peruvian Andes, the air is particularly thin, therefore it is actually necessary to be able to do these breathing exercises to maintain optimum health and mental focus. I am confident that you will feel the immediate benefits of this exercise and will want to continue practicing what you have just learned for its maximum potential to you. Depending on what you used to relax before now, you may appreciate that you can change the state of your mood and body without the need for alcohol, drugs or the need for your environment, meaning people and circumstances, to change around you. Later, I will share with you other exercises that will include muscle relaxation, guided imagery, visualization and empowering yourself by bringing your conscious and subconscious minds into agreement. I have used all of these for years with very effective results. There is nothing mysterious or magical about 69

these exercises. It is simply a matter of training your thinking, your mental and emotional state. If you will practice this exercise for five days, I promise you will want to do it every day as part of your daily routine. It is that effective. The Law of Attraction is bringing to each of us more of what we focus our thoughts on. It would therefore be in our best interest to be able to guide our thinking instead of our thinking and imaginations guiding us, wouldn’t you agree?

******************************************** Self Esteem Building and the Art Exhibitions An insidious effect of living in desperation and despair day in and day out is the lack of self esteem. In the barrios, where we have groups of children, the roads are muddy trails, their houses are cold adobe, with corrugated aluminum roofs. Old tires held down the roof from blowing away in the winds that whipped down at sunset every evening. Many of those roofs leaked in the heavy rainy season which soaked dirt floors, blankets and beds and clothing. Many of the houses were without electricity. The wiring may be there but the family could not afford the cost of electricity. Children were unable to study and do homework after dark. Grades reflected their minimal study time. The only time I ever remember not having electricity in my home was during a blackout. Power was restored almost immediately. These families were living in total darkness when the Sun goes down. For years and years. I went onto our website and asked those who were following our progress and now supporting us for suggestions and solutions. As it turns out, there were flashlights, torches as they are called in the U.K., that were wind up devices that needed no batteries. They generated their own electricity by cranks built in. Due to my ‘first world’ lifestyle in the United States, I was completely ignorant that such lights even existed. I asked those who were able to send us as many as they could. The response was amazing and heartwarming. Every child without electricity received a wind up flashlight. They had never seen one before and as we showed them how they worked, their responses were equally as moving, ”Now we can do our 70

homework after dark.â&#x20AC;? They realized that the most economical and effective road out of their situation was education. We were making headway. Wind up flashlights were not the only thing that these children needed in their homes. Many did not have adequate blankets on their beds. No house has heat in the Andes. People wear coats and sweaters to stay warm. Another request for solutions and suggestions came back with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;thermal space blanketsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. It was something else that I never heard of. Used by anyone needing to stay warm in space, mountainside campsites or in survival situations, these thin lightweight blankets were the perfect solution. They trapped body heat thereby keeping the child warm at night. A sheet, the thermal blanket and maybe one regular blanket was all they needed. The quality of life for the children was becoming increasingly better. As they were living better, they were feeling better about themselves. Self esteem was still severely lacking. We had brought in some local psychology students from a private university who did tests with many of the children. The results which were charted and shared with me showed extreme lack of self esteem, depression and other related issues. The living conditions, parental abuses and neglect, hunger, unattended sickness, unsanitary or the absence of bathrooms and alcoholism in the families all added up to the inevitable, lack of self esteem and depression. The problems were staring at us begging for a solution. The psychology students and their professor, a psychologist with 20 years experience had no solutions to offer. Only test results. I reasoned that all of our work in progress was destined to collapse based on the fragility of a foundation of self esteem issues. Words and counseling alone were not going to convince and persuade children that their self worth and value mattered in the face of prevailing situations they faced every day. We discovered the solution was going to be slow and required immense patience. Everything about Peru has taught me patience. Still lacking a fluency of Spanish, I would draw with the children to illustrate what I was trying to express. As my Spanish got better, so did my artistic talent. And I liked drawing and painting. Click!

I bought reams of paper and crayons, paints, brushes and colored pencils. Donations also came in from our compassionate sponsors. Patience. Children drew what surrounded them. Their creativity was limited to every drawing being mountains, houses, farm animals and trees. I encouraged them, hugged them with every feeble effort and taped onto the walls dozens and dozens of papers of trees that were circles with a stick, rows of triangles were mountains, houses were triangles on top of a square. Hugging each child served two purposes. I was showing my approval and admiration for their efforts and to search them for paints and crayons that were heading home with them, without permission. Desperation mentality would vanish with the development of self esteem. I took them outside and painstakingly pointed out the beautiful mountains that surrounded us. Rugged and majestic mountains, snow capped with glaciers, rolling hills at the base of these natural monuments. We looked closer at trees to see the intricate details of the trunks and the leaves. Houses were adobe and doors and windows had their own uniqueness. I had hoped that they understood my reason for the field trip and would be inspired to draw more realistic creations. I turned them loose on the art supplies. When they were finished they excitedly ran up to me with their new and improved creations. More mountains, trees, and houses but bigger this time, still one dimensional circles, sticks, triangles and squares. I met their big smiles with my own. They were trying. Eventually, we got a break. Emulating my version of trees and mountains, they began copying what I was doing. Realizing that it was not as hard as it looked, they added detail, color that was realistic and then using their own ideas, started painting and drawing their own artwork. Then abstract art. We dipped our feet in paint and walked across a large sheet of paper. We took balloons, blew them up and covered them with newspaper strips, water and flour. Paper mache. When they dried we cut them in half and gave them two options, paint bowls or make masks. When they had the hang of it we took chicken wire and wrapped some of our children and volunteers completely in it. The wire took the shape of the people. Slowly we covered the wire figures with paper mache, then did head to toe newspaper articles. The caption was â&#x20AC;&#x153;What you read, you become.â&#x20AC;? Minds opened. Creativity was spurred into new directions. The younger children were 72

excited just to be coloring inside the lines. I was proud of their accomplishments but most of all, to see the development of their self esteem. To know that they could do something that they were sure was impossible just months earlier was a quantum leap for their image they now had of themselves. One day as I was passing by the local museum in Huaraz, I looked in and saw an exhibition made by children from one of the local schools. Framed on large colored tag board were a few dozen drawings of mountains, houses and trees. Circles on sticks, triangles on top of squares and rows of triangles. Nearly identical as though every child was drawing the same scene. I attended an assembly with these children at the museum and watched the glow of their faces as their teacher and principal gave awards for their efforts. They were so happy that their artwork was displayed in the museum. I applauded them with enthusiasm as my wheels began turning. I asked the principal how they managed to have the childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s artwork displayed. I got the name of the director and arranged a meeting. We were an unknown group of artists, children at that. We never had a public exhibit or display before and want to do an exhibition in his museum. He looked at me as though I had just asked him for a unicorn. There were a hundred reasons for him to say no and he got through twenty of them before I thanked him for his time and left. I wrote in my journal, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Satisfaction is for those who are finished dreaming, done imagining and have given up reaching for what can be.â&#x20AC;? Sinead, was another beautiful volunteer, born in Huaraz and moved with her mother to Oklahoma in the United States. She had joined us during her school breaks in the summer while visiting her grandparents. This was her second year to be with us. Sinead knew of the rejection by the director and told her grandmother about it. The grandmother was a kind elderly woman who owned a shoe store with her husband for many years. She had provided the children with shoes at very reduced prices for us, sometimes the price went down to free. It was one more reason to be very grateful. I was about to have another reason. She knew the director and his wife, they were actually friends. She impressed upon him the 73

work that we were doing and why an art exhibition would be extremely valuable to our progress and it would impose upon the director and his museum minimally. In brief call from the director, he gave the details for our first art exhibition at the Archeological Museum in Huaraz. It would be held in August 2012 for a period of one week. I thanked him and hung up. It did not matter to me that it was only for one week or that it was the most obscure museum of the several in the town. Success is a game of inches, or millimeters considering we were in Peru. A door had opened for us and we were going through it. I was bouncing off the walls with happiness. My first call was to Charlie to tell him the good news. Charlie and I had our first difference of opinion. Charlie had always been supportive of every one of my plans. “But this is a public exhibition Jim, out there for everyone to see. The children’s artwork is greatly improved but ready for a museum exhibition? I think it is going to be an embarrassment to us and to our project. I think we should reconsider.” He was nonplussed. What I considered was that even Picasso wasn’t a Picasso, until he became a Picasso. Everyone starts somewhere. We were going to start here. I had been to many museums in my lifetime. The Met in New York City, the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., The Walter’s Art Gallery, The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and The Baltimore Museum of Art. While I am no art critic by any stretch of the imagination, I would have put my son’s elementary school doodlings alongside some of the expressions of modern artwork in some of those museums and probably get equal reviews. My response to Charlie was with the respect that he had earned, though I disagreed with him. “Charlie, there was a famous artist named Andy Warhol. He made a statement once about art which was, ‘Art is whatever you can get away with’. My friend, this is something that we are going to get away with. It will build the children’s self esteem in ways that we couldn’t have imagined a year ago. I am envisioning something very special here and it will be the first of many exhibitions. I am dreaming big here, dream with me.” Tom and Mia were with us during the scrambling to arrange, frame, organize, 74

mount and deliver the artwork to the museum. We went to a printer to design and produce a huge poster with our logo name and announcement of the exhibition. Our message, “Haz lo Correcto-Do the Right Thing” was the central theme. I was using the exhibition to further spread the word and message. We mounted about a hundred paintings and drawings, set up the life sized paper mache sculptures and adjusted the track lighting for maximum effect. The paper mache bowls were filled with candy for visitors. Repeatedly, I had to return five minutes after leaving the museum to slap the hand of the security guard who I found filling his pockets. He and I eventually agreed to just laugh about it. We brought the children and their parents in on combies to the museum for a reception in the garden in the backyard of the museum. The children were absolutely elated by the fact that their drawings and paintings were now gracing the walls of a real museum. I took photos of them in front of their creations and posted them on our website. We ignored the fact that their artwork, which was a mere week old, was being exhibited alongside ancient Incan and Huari sculptures over one thousand years old. The children could not stop smiling. They said to me that it was their proudest moment. Charlie arrived to the reception. Aware that hundreds of visitors had passed through the museum, loved the art exhibition and actually took pictures of their children standing alongside many pieces, he acknowledged that this was a great idea, well planned and accomplished more than we anticipated initially. We agreed that, in the future, we would stand by each other’s plans and projects with full support. If something turned out to be less than the success that we hoped for, well, no one was going to kill us and eat us for trying our best. The children were now more motivated than ever to live up to their new found “little artist” status. Fueled by self esteem and pride in their accomplishments, they drew, painted, sketched, and asked for new ideas and suggestions in each class. Self esteem from the inside changed attitudes and temperaments on the outside. It was exactly the results and solutions that I was hoping for. My thought was that we should continue to ride this wave of success and show the children, and Huaraz, that our exhibition was not a “One hit wonder.” On the 75

strength of just one, week long, exhibition in the Archeological Museum, I approached the director of the newly built massive National Institute of Culture Museum. This museum held artwork from some renowned artists from all over Peru. Every sort of art was exhibited from paintings to photography to dinosaurs. It was four stories tall, had an auditorium, lecture halls, two libraries and an elevator, the only one in Huaraz. It was the most modern building Huaraz had with white concrete and glass outlining its mammoth structure that dwarfed everything around it. I imagined the children here, seeing their artwork exhibited in a museum of this repute and was determined to make it happen. I arranged a meeting. The director, Jose, met us midway to his office with outstretched hand. He had heard of the project, Changes for New Hope, and was well aware of the art exhibition a few months earlier in the other museum. He was eager to have us exhibit in his main exhibition hall for a period of three weeks. His assistant designed and produced a beautiful color brochure to give to visitors. I wrote a summary of who and what we were and why I began this project. Thousands of visitors passed through the exhibit. Charlie camped out in the exhibition hall and talked to everyone passing through about the project and the works of the children and what we were doing with and for them. He gave each one a brochure and a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Changes for New Hopeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; wristband to remember us by which also had our website stamped on it. Website views had tripled the usual numbers. Many visitors asked how they could get involved with the project. The children had another reception at the formal reception area which was a treat for them. Most had never seen or been in a building that large before in their lives. While they appreciated the reception, they really wanted to ride the elevator, new toy for them. If once was a lightning strike, all doubts were removed with the second and more prestigious exhibition in the main exhibition halls. The children were bursting with pride at their accomplishments. The foundation of their self esteem was now firmly laid in place.

*********************************************** Shining in the Face of All Adversities No one is ever finished learning. Graduation day in high school is followed by graduation day in the university. There are no more diplomas after that but life lessons come to you all the time. Some people learn the lessons that the Universe brings to them to help us become the best that we can be. Others miss the lessons completely and need to retake the tests, so to speak. There is a quote, ”Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.” I agree but there is a significant difference between learning from the past and wallowing in it. The determining factor is whether you can forgive and move on from the bitter lessons that happen in life to all of us. Can you allow yourself to grow past and beyond the people, situations and circumstances that would have crushed a less enlightened person that you were just prior to them? This was one of the hardest things that I ever had to accomplish and it is much easier now than it ever was just a few years ago. I could overlook ignorance and accidents. We have all said and done things that we wish we could take back and have a ‘do over’. I have an issue with people who go out of their way to deliberately speak injuriously, do things that they are well aware, in advance, of the harm that their actions will cause. There is enough human suffering in the world so why create more? When I would see people of this ilk, my thoughts became dark. I am not proud of it now since becoming enlightened, but I spent many hours, weeks even years of my life being angry, resentful and filled with ideas how such people should be dealt with. In many cases, I acted upon those ideas. There is something that you should know about getting even. The Secret of Getting Even There is an absolute secret about getting even with enemies, assorted miscreants and other folk whom you feel deserve everything that they have coming to them. That is, you never get even. Never. Revenge, even if you feel it is well deserved, is a waste of time and effort. It robs you of precious time out of your life to even if only to ponder how wonderful it would be if only you had a chance to get even. 77

Getting even is like having poison ivy. The more you scratch it the worse you itch. Then it spreads. Just as poison ivy will consume your whole body, getting even has the same effect, except it happens on the inside. Remember the Law of Attraction, what you think about is what you become. You draw to yourself similar energies that you transmit. Negative energy that you create is like playing hopscotch in a landmine field, you never know when or where you will hear the big boom. I will share this actual, “I promise I am not making this up” incident from my own volumes of retributions upon well deserving people. There was a marriage and then there was a divorce, with a few years in between. Not the bi-polar homicidal maniac I previously introduced you to but the one before. (I really know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?) The whys of a divorce are always boring so I will spare you the details. The whole idea and point of a divorce is to separate, walk away before your respective lives become any more miserable than you had already made each other. That was what I had intended to do. She had other plans. She had moved from our apartment into the next door neighbor’s apartment, a recipe for disaster if ever there was one. I had hoped that her plans to get away from me would have been a greater distance than two feet. Having taken almost everything that we owned, she moved everything into her neighbor’s apartment. The shortage of space was obvious. She put everything in storage in the basement, in my storage locker, changed the lock and the identifying apartment number. I concluded that half the possessions were mine and the storage locker was still under my care and custody as I was still the leaseholder and she had vacated, in writing, all claims to it. She repeatedly ignored my request to correct the matter so I was forced to break into my own property to reclaim it. I had a police officer standing by, just in case. It was exactly what she wanted me to do. I was a senior sales consultant for a national security alarm company. As you might imagine, having a clean police record was important. She had filed criminal breaking and entering charges against me with a court commissioner after the police she had called refused to do so. Armed with a perjured criminal complaint, she faxed a copy to every competitor company in the industry. No one wanted me in their homes to design 78

their security system if I was accused of being a burglar myself. With his deepest regrets, my boss and long time friend terminated my employment. The charges were dropped by the State when it was realized that it was my own property that I entered. I demanded that she be charged with perjury and malicious abuse of process. The Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attorney felt that, while true, it did not merit their time to prosecute it. I was livid. I was terminated from my job based on the malicious and spiteful actions of a vindictive ex. My good name and reputation was irreparably damaged. There were a dozen options that I felt justified to undertake but only one was legal. I filed a lawsuit in court against her for malicious prosecution, abuse of process malicious use of legal process, perjury, willful infliction of emotional distress, slander, defamation of character, trover and conversion. I had contacted several lawyers who declined to take my case because the defendant had no substantial assets to go after. I pursued the case in a pro se status which meant I would represent myself. For the next two and a half years I studied the law surrounding my case. I lived in the law library and became a fixture in courtrooms watching how cases carried out. Every time I read about another tort that was applicable to my case I amended my case to include it. The defendantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attorney played along. Instead of filing a motion to dismiss, he went tit for tat as I filed motion after motion, interrogatories, demanded production of documents, attended hearings, depositions and even asked the Attorney Grievance Commission to sanction her attorney for misconduct and fraud. I was relentless. Like the poison ivy that I kept scratching, I became more and more vehement in my pursuit of vindication and justice. I was going to make her pay dearly for what she had done to me and cost me, especially when I was content to simply walk away. My venom turned onto the attorney whose transparent legal maneuverings irritated me and frustrated me at every step. As her attorney, his job was to prevent me from winning my case against his client, regardless of how underhanded it was. Anger turned to hatred which gave way to utter rage which manifested itself with the filing of more motions and requests for hearings which cost the defendant hundreds of dollars an hour. It also cost me my peace of mind, time which could have been spent with 79

my infant son, focus on a new career and the development of a new relationship with a woman who was worth my time and attention. At a two day jury trial, I walked into court with 80 pounds of evidence and 12 witnesses. I had filed 15 motions, amended the case three times and spent an estimated 900 hours preparing and studying for trial. I was so caught up in retribution that I had prepared a $500,000 suit against the defendant and her attorney for conspiracy and fraud which I had intended to file as soon as this case was concluded. I was totally confident that I would win handily. But I lost. Apparently what I overlooked was the fact that judges do not like pro se litigants playing lawyer in their courtrooms. What if I won and everybody began represented themselves? According to his own court clerk, the judge did me no favors whatsoever. The jury was with me but the judge took the case away from them and ruled on his own. Every courtesy and privilege was granted to the defense counsel but denied to me. As the trial ended and people were leaving, I saw the lawyer and the judge going into his chambers. I never knew what happened in there, but I could guess. There was one favor granted to me by the judge. The defense attempted to hand me a bill for $22500 in legal fees which the judge denied saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mr. Killon had a solid case and had he known how to properly introduce his evidence, he would have won.â&#x20AC;? Revenge? Getting even? Retribution? It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter how incredibly right you are to be angry and go after someone who has wronged you, learn from my long lesson here. You can never get even. Consider also that you will compel others to retaliate in their own right as well. It becomes like two dogs chasing each other around a tree, you begin to wonder who is chasing whom. In the final irony, had I won my case, the judgment that I would have gotten would never have been paid. They were prepared to file bankruptcy to discharge the judgment. I would have never seen the first dollar.

I did not like who I had become or what I had become as a result of pursuing this course of action. As right as I was, I was wrong not to simply shake it off, forgive her for her vindictiveness and maliciousness and get on with my life. After all, the criminal case against me was dropped, I was going to resign my job shortly anyway and pursue another field. Forgiveness was not in my personality at that time in my life. It had consumed me completely and at the end of the day I had advanced my own life, not an inch. That realization came the day after the trial ended. It was a Saturday morning. My girlfriend at the time asked, ”What are you going to do today?” I didn’t have a clue because I had spent every Saturday in the law library or at home typing some motion or another. My life had been on hold. It took me a long time to shake this one off and get on with my life. What I learned shortly thereafter was a far more powerful and effective way to deal with oppositions. Forgiveness. Letting go of whatever tries to ensnare you. Granted, it is not easy but your peace of mind, happiness and love is certainly worth the effort, isn’t it? Of course it is. Forgiveness, the Gift that Keeps on Giving In Peru, I was far removed from many things that had ensnared me. I had sufficient time to look back on each person and issue that had caused me sorrow or grief or fear or some other misery. I had to recognize the fact that I was responsible for allowing things or situations to be so important to me that I made myself vulnerable to the manipulations of others. I couldn’t change others but I could change myself and my attitude. As I released my grip on material things, ego and pride, I found it easier to forgive others for their actions toward me. I made a list and one by one sincerely forgave every single person who had ever wronged me. Lastly, I forgave the one person who needed to be forgiven more than all the others, myself. The energy of the Universe, the love that is the highest energy there is, expanded within me. Now I can forgive people almost instantaneously. People acting out of their own emotional poisons, insecurities and fears deserve my compassion and love, not my focused retribution. Human frailties can only be overcome by the individual ready and willing to change. Vengeance does nothing to serve that higher purpose. It was probably the single 81

biggest leap in my humanitarianism. I hope that you will consider my shared experience here and find a way in your own life to release and forgive everyday as it becomes necessary. The one who receives the greatest gift from doing it will be you. Shine in the face of all adversities

******************************************* You Must Be This Tall to Get On This Ride Being a typical American that I was, I wanted everything all at once and was increasingly frustrated that it was definitely harder than it looked. The initial advice that I had received from well meaning people to abort my crazy idea about developing a project, avoid the investment of time and money and go surfing was based on others who had tried and failed to do the same thing. In my opinion, it is probably based on some unrealistic expectations that people coming to Peru, or any other place needing humanitarian aid, bring with them. Having goals and visions of a better world is admirable. Trying to change the world, the whole world, by yourself, in a short span of time, is a Hollywood movie script. I abandoned that notion almost immediately after arriving in Peru. Appreciation can be slow in coming and trust for a new gringo showing up in a pueblo where tourists never go is reason for suspicion. One example remains a vivid memory. I posted the names and pictures of various children on our website to ask for sponsors for each. A relentless and angry pounding on my door woke me early one morning. Two mothers had seen the website posting and were terrified and furious with me. They explained that I had placed their children in danger by my well meaning posting. â&#x20AC;&#x153;How do you figure that?â&#x20AC;? I had asked, still half asleep. They said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gringos will come down from North America and Europe now and steal our children and take them back to their countries as prostitutes and slaves 82

or to adopt them out for money.â&#x20AC;? It was a real concern which merited my attention to patiently explain why that would never be possible. I had only posted a picture and first name of the child. It would take a determined criminal genius to figure out who any particular child was, based on that minimal information, fly thousands of miles to Peru, climb up the side of an almost impassable mountainside to capture their precious little ones, overlooking the countless millions that they had passed over along the way. The two mothers were absolutely certain that was exactly what would happen. I assured them that I would remove the pictures of their children and left the others. No other parents had any concerns. Problem solved. Until sponsors stepped up to support the children whose pictures and names were still on the website. Another round of early morning reverie came as the two mothers arrived, hammering on my door again. Now they were upset that other children were being sponsored and theirs were not. I shared with them the American expression of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wanting their cake and eat it toâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and left the website as it was. People needed to learn to live with the decisions that they demand in life. As I explained to volunteers and supporters who visited us, you cannot pick up a brick wall all at once. You can, however, pick up a brick wall if you do it one brick at a time. That was our philosophy. One brick at a time. This also is how we share our thinking about changing the whole world. Nobody can do it all. Ghandi never built an orphanage in Bolivia. Mother Theresa never passed out blankets to cold children in Mongolia. Martin Luther King Jr. never dug a well for water in Kenya but they were all considered humanitarians of the highest order. What they did accomplish, in their own efforts where they were, was nothing short of amazing and far reaching. They did what they could, where they were. Long after they have passed on, the relentless efforts of their missions and focuses in life continue to inspire and move people to do better things in the part of the world that they can reach. If everyone took just ten minutes a day to try to better the little part of the world that they can touch, imagine what a movement that would be. After the work that we are doing here with Changes for New Hope started to 83

appear in online e-magazine articles and various media interviews, people contacted me to ask how to do what I am doing if they have no money to go to some place where destitution was rampant. I share with them that within walking distance of their own dinner tables were people who are hungry. Human suffering is everywhere and anywhere. While I had chosen Peru, I could have made a significant impact in my native Baltimore, had the murder contract not been a factor. Of course it is exotic and sexy to travel to a distant land and trek up the side of a remote mountainside to feed hungry children. The memories and photographs will last a lifetime as well they should. If it is in one’s heart to grab a piece of the action and hammer out solutions where a humanitarian need exists, sometimes all anyone needs to do is just look outside one’s back door. The photographs won’t be as glamorous. The scenery will be all too familiar and you may find that the ‘glitter will fall off’ of your passion for humanitarianism if it isn’t really in your blood. That is all right too. Everyone needs to understand their own heart. I have seen this personally here in the Peruvian Andes with well meaning volunteers who arrive with the best of intentions. Humanitarian efforts takes on many variations and some are less than National Geographic in intensity. The simplest of tasks is part of the whole vision and nothing is ever insignificant. Not everyone agrees with that concept. One such volunteer, “Sarah”, complained that all she was doing was sitting with small children coloring with them. She referred to it bitterly as ‘reverse babysitting’. My explanation that it is helping to prepare the children to follow directions, color inside the lines to develop eye hand coordination and their time with an international volunteer is very special to them went right past her. She ranted that she was wasting her time and, based on her attitude, I concurred. Sarah didn’t like much, in fact Sarah didn’t like herself very much. Her perception of how to change the world, one brick at a time, was so blurred and unrealistic that she was clearly, ‘wasting her time’. It prompted me to make the statement, “You have to be this tall to get on this ride.” She wasn’t. It wasn’t her fault. She just had her focus on other things that did not include or require any enlightenment. Wherever she is today, I wish her well. In our project, we hope to touch and better the lives and thinking of the 84

volunteers as well as the children. Those that were ‘tall enough to get on this ride’ thank us and stay in touch after they return to their own countries. They send the children postcards and letters. They refer their friends to support us and visit on their own travels. One of our volunteers, Bex, with her friend Kristy, ran a half marathon to raise funds for our project. That is compassion in action. Everybody can do a little something, nobody can do it all. It is the message of love and hope that goes out from the work that you do as a humanitarian that reaches the world. Your thoughts become things and positive actions. Your actual touch may be very limited but realize that everyone’s efforts are built upon the efforts of those who were building before you arrived. A realistic understanding of that will insulate anyone touching their part of the world from frustration and feelings of inadequacies. It will keep your focus laser sharp. Whether working to develop women’s rights in a third world country or giving a hungry, homeless person a sandwich just outside of your office, we are all putting our compassion in action. We can all be heroes.

************************************************ Helping Families to Help Themselves In our effort to help the children, it was our intention to extend our reach to the adults in the families as well. In discussions with them, the parents told me that they needed money, which I understood to mean, gainful employment. I made a list of the various job skills that the parents had. Most were unskilled laborers, building adobe houses by pressing mud into wooden molds like a giant cookie cutting operation. Others were motor taxi drivers, which were three wheeled motorcycles that were covered with a plastic housing, resembling a three wheel minicar. One of the more common issues that I was told about were contractors that hired the brick makers and would promise to pay them at month’s end, but they wouldn’t. Those workers who accepted the ‘double next month’ promise were stiffed a second time. There was no Board of Labor to file a complaint with and no 85

one had enough money to hire a lawyer. Repeatedly, I saw this injustice occur. Sometimes there were well scripted excuses from contractors and sometimes the contractors, once they were paid for the finished job, simply vanished without paying the crew. Without recourse, such abuses were a temptation to add to their profits providing they had no conscience. It was another reason for the desperation mentality that was so prevalent throughout the area. It seemed to me that self employment was the answer. One man I knew, Hugo and his son Grimaldo had asked me for money. Everyone has a heartbreaking story and they were no exception. They needed money for food. Initially, he had asked to ‘borrow’ the money, but with no job, repayment was impossible, which we both knew. I had a suggestion that I felt would be their solution. I brought them to my house where I was staying and took out a wooden box. In it were a few dozen magic tricks which I used to entertain the children. Magic tricks were what I had used to express myself prior to being able speak Spanish to them. I spent the next half hour doing magic tricks for Hugo and his son. The following half hour I showed them how each trick was done and had them practice each one until they were smooth. I cut a soda bottle in half, the ‘tip jar’, and told them to follow me. We went to the Plaza de Armas which is like a main plaza park. I set out a small table and set the box on it and said, “Ok guys, do your stuff.” Timid at first, they just wanted to watch me. I insisted that they earn the money that they needed for the benefit of their own self esteem and to build their self confidence. They drew a huge crowd and really got into it. I was proud of them as they earned enough money in an hour to feed their family for a week. Instant gratification, instant solutions. I promised them that they could meet me the following week and we would do it again. And that was where it all began to fall apart. The next week Hugo arrived but not his son. The following week the son showed up but not the father. The next week neither one showed up until late that afternoon. When they finally arrived, they had a plan to share with me. They decided that, because I was really the magician with all the experience, I should go to the park, do magic, earn the money, and bring it to their house and give it to 86

them. I had been in Peru at that time only about two months. “That’s your plan? I will work, make money and hand it over to you? While you do...what?” I asked incredulously. They just stared at me. It seemed like a perfectly good idea to them at the time. What I learned was that, for many of these people, needing money was not synonymous with earning it. They wanted mere handouts. The notion of teaching a man how to fish so he can eat for a lifetime was an alien concept to them. They were content to wait for the fish to jump into their boats. I asked about this problem among some of the expats and local professionals in the community that I had gotten to know. It was explained to me that the ancient Incan culture taught them three things; do not lie, do not steal and do not be lazy. Something seriously got lost between the ancient Incas and the modern day ones. The blame initially fell upon the Spanish who thought Christmas came everyday when they landed their ships and found so much gold that the indigenous people were painting it different colors just to break up the monotony of it. Trading horses, blankets and various European gifts, all new to the natives, for the gold was a win-win for everybody. Or so they thought. The natives realized that they no longer had to work for anything. The Spanish would just give them whatever they wanted for the gold they received. Laziness overcame them as they were lulled into debility. The romance apparently was short lived as the Spanish no longer traded for the gold but demanded it, took it, raping and pillaging as they went along. A few centuries later, in recent times, huge corporations with enormous machines arrived from North America scraping down mountains to rubble in search of the precious ore. The locals demanded what most would consider outrageous compensation for the rights to mine on or near their villages. It is reported that the mines can make $250,000 an hour mining. A few million dollars would amount to a few days’ profits. It was reported that 50,000 tons of rock will net six ounces of gold. Debility, or a work ethic in reverse, had become prevalent throughout the region. The mindset that the gringos have it, we want it, so give it to us, trickles down to affect every tourist, volunteer and trekker passing through remote villages in the surrounding mountains. “If I can get it for free, why should I have to work for it?” was a ubiquitous question. I was actually told as much by 87

one woman named Shirley. She said to me,” It is our culture for people to give us things. It is not our culture to have to work for them.” Considering it was me that she was expecting freebies from, I retorted, “So, all those hardworking people in the banks, auto repair shops, the post offices and restaurants are not Peruvians or are they some sort of counter culture?” All I got was a blank stare. There were countless Peruvians who were diligent and worked long hours sometimes six or seven days a week. There were professional people who were doing everything they could to get ahead honestly and respectably. However, they were not the reason I was in Peru and they were not the people that needed my help to develop themselves. My focus was on the people who needed to get there and develop a work ethic of some kind. That was a very long line. Almost 50% of the population was living below the ‘poverty line’. If we could create a reason for them to want to get motivated and help themselves, perhaps others would follow suit. Was I expecting too much of a miracle? My question that I posed was, “What happens when one day, the mines net nothing but rock?” The reason gold is so valuable is because it is rare. Either the gold will be all mined out or there actually is so much of it that they will devalue the commodity equaling coal. Either way, one day sooner or later, there is going to be some very unhappy and unskilled Peruvians when the mine companies pull out in search of a new location to dig up. In the minds of most Peruvians, that day will never come. Most never plan for their futures past next Wednesday. My next attempt was less labor intensive. Peruvians eat a dish that is called cuy. Cuy in English is Guinea pig. I prefer to call it what it is. Guinea pigs for me are fancy rats. As delicately as I possibly could be, I have declined many family dinner invitations when I knew that cuy would be served. If I was not aware in advance and a dead rat appeared on my plate, I found a distraction of one sort or another and made the family dog a very happy and well fed pet. It is the only Peruvian dish that I cannot seem to get past my teeth. But the Peruvians love it. Raising cuy in their homes, Peruvians can make serious incomes. The rodents will reproduce rapidly so all a family needs to do is buy a few, feed and care for them and let nature do the rest. I met with some families who wanted to make money 88

raising cuy. I considered that they were working to help themselves which I made a prerequisite to my involvement to help them. The mother of several of our children whose name was Teadora was my first candidate. I asked her how many cuy she presently had. She told me she had nine. I told her that I would match it with nine more. She had a male so I bought nine females and gave her money to buy alfalfa to feed them. To keep tighter reins on the operation, I explained that the increase would generate enough income to support her family and support the project at the same time. Teadora was elated at her windfall. By my best calculations, at the rate that these cuy would reproduce, even assuming some wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make it, the pack would grow to over two hundred by springtime. Then we would start selling off the larger ones while the rest kept doing what they do best. There was only one problem. Mysteriously, whenever the cuy had offspring and grew large enough to sell, they disappeared. Another mystery was that they started needing twice as much alfalfa as before though I did not see any increase in the pack. When I asked Teadora what was going on, I got back the similar blank stares as I did whenever I asked pointed questions. After some babblings about how it was confusing to her as well, I told her to sell off the rest of the cuy, and terminated our arrangement. Had she been honest everybody would have benefited, her and her family, me and the project, everybody. Because of her short sightedness and greed, she was selling off or eating the cuy as soon as they were big enough. I had hoped that Teadora was the exception and not the rule and wanted to try to help another family. I made the same agreement with Juana and Torbio in the Secsapampa area. They said that they only had four cuy. When I said that I would match their count, they said that they miscounted and actually have twenty. I asked to see the twenty. I matched their four. A week later they showed me two had died. They expected them to be replaced. I bought two more and added them back to the pack. The following week two more had died. I said that we had a 50/50 arrangement so these two were their responsibility to replace. Miraculously, no more deaths occurred. In the following weeks, I asked how our cuy were doing. No one had any idea what I was talking about. They would either 89

change the subject or simply walk away from me. Strike two. I concluded that any outreach to these people was considered opportunities to take advantage of my kindness and not to take advantage of a prime opportunity to pull themselves out of their desperate situations. I owed it to the people who were kind enough to sponsor and support our project to only help people who were making an effort to help themselves. I had explained to several families that if it was just money that they wanted, I could have stayed in the United States and just mailed checks to everyone. Our project was to develop children and by extension, their families if that was possible. They were proving at every turn that it was not. To paraphrase a quote by E.M. Forster, ”Spoon feeding people teaches them only one thing, the shape of a spoon.” I could not have agreed more. Without insult to their parents, we meticulously led the children to a new way of doing things, seeing things and showed them the value of appreciation, gratitude and the longer term benefits of working to better themselves. I also shared the idea that ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ is a sure way to see a forfeiture of any and all future help from the project. The point was well taken and the children continue to this day to be honest and focus on our core value, ‘do the right thing’. It was necessary to understand that not every attempt to reach these people was going to be successful. We did not fail, we did our best. The people failed themselves. Narrow minded greed had blinded them to the path of their own deliverance. It was equally important to show the volunteers and Charlie, who stood by my side every day, that our own attitude and positive focus was important. It serves no purpose to become bitter or resentful at those who have tried to abuse our kindness toward them. We are moving forward, never losing sight of our objectives and goals. Those who join us will benefit from our work here; those are the ones that we spend our energy on. I used the analogy of a cruise ship that does not fret about those who did not come onboard for the voyage. Neither should we. Our consolation is that we tried our best. It is all just a part of the adventure. And the adventure continues. I wrote in my journal, “Knowledge is knowing how to strike a match, wisdom is knowing when to blow it out.” 90

*************************************************** Building Value in Our Compassion in Action After more than three years since the launch of Changes for New Hope, I still review our results and accomplishments with a critical eye. I wanted to be sure that I never fell into the same trap as other heads of organizations by becoming complacent and self referencing. Most of my life I had worked under someone else’s authority and direction. I was so accustomed to their reviews, critiques and orders that being in complete charge of this project without such encumbrances was a relief. Ironically, I found that my accountability was even more rigid when I answered to myself. I carry a notepad with me everywhere, writing any new idea or thought that would come to mind. It did not have to be a great idea, just any thought that came to me. Many of the best ideas we had were initially bad ideas which we simply improved upon. Sometimes the ideas came from me and other times from volunteers. One of the best things about being a small organization is the absence of bureaucracy or the delay of a decision while waiting for four other committees to submit their consensus. I would take everyone’s opinion and ideas under advisement but the final decision and the effects of that decision was upon me. Almost without exception, volunteers were conscientious about promoting the project with excellent ideas and suggestions. As is true in every organization, it wouldn’t be interesting enough if there wasn’t someone who would object to everything just to be objectionable. I have had sufficient experience sidestepping such obstacles and found it amusing when I frustrated someone’s deliberate attempts to cause us to waste time or resources. Their frustration also revealed where their hearts were. The template to our activities was simple. What matters and what doesn’t. We asked ourselves who, what, how and why. What we need to do, for whom, why it needs to be done at this time, how we can accomplish the task as well as expected outcomes. Many times the final decision was based on whether we could afford it. Or afford not to.

We had decided to alter our strategy of how we distributed materials to the children. Developing and maintaining appreciation for what we provided was at the core of our thinking. When something is not appreciated, it becomes wasted. In the beginning, I passed out clothes to anybody and everybody who asked for them. I was deeply appalled when I would find parents on the street selling the same clothes that they were crying for with the most heart wrenching story of despair just a few hours earlier. They went on my “Nunca otro vez” list. Never again. I found some children using the paper thin thermal blankets that they needed to stay warm at night, for kites and wrapping paper for birthday gifts. Their request for a second one was refused. It was time to remember my sales training years ago. The most valuable lesson that I took away from those years of training was the art of building value. “If you are selling a $20,000 product, you better be giving a $30,000 presentation.” I remember being told. It was imperative to impress upon the customer the value of the product as well as the service that you will provide after the sale. And you better be there to provide it too. Focus on the satisfaction of the customer and the money will follow. It taught me never to equate what I did with money. To do so creates a false sense of greatness or severe depression. In sales, time never equals money. Time is time and money is money. It was a Very Good Thing that I learned that lesson before I arrived in Peru. We learned through hard experience that people considered anything that is given away was worthless, as well as the person giving it to them. Some people spent entire Saturdays taking test drives in cars they had no intention of buying. People would hijack your time to learn everything there was to know about your product only to go to a do-it-yourself shop. It was the nature of the business. The solution was to charge a nominal fee for the service that you are rendering. Whether that was $30 to visit a home, $15 to do a professional appraisal or even require a customer to sit and listen to our presentation before giving them the freebie that they wanted, if it required something from them, they paid attention. What was a worthless giveaway became something of value. Building value. Our project was the same. I always wondered why non-profit organizations 92

required volunteers to pay a fee to work for them. After having a few volunteers come through our project I understood the reasoning behind it. I decided that we would charge a $200 one time fee to volunteer with our project. It was less than any other project that I researched. It separated the ‘wheat from the chaff’ right from the start. Most volunteers understood that a project designed to help children in the Andes depends on outside funding to continue working. It is learned from experience that people respect and value what they pay for. Our volunteers who contribute the volunteer fee are on time, dedicated and focused with many new and innovative ideas to share. They had a vested interest in the success of our project. I made the exception only a few times to allow someone to volunteer with us who refused to pay the volunteer fee. It was a mistake that I will never make again. It wasn’t that they could not afford it, but that they just didn’t want to give their money to a charity that they were already giving their time to. On the surface I could almost empathize. That was until I saw the attitude that expressed that thought process as it filtered into every aspect of their time with us. They did not value the project as much more than a place to hang out, come and go as they pleased, disrupt every planned activity with impromptu ideas of their own and disregard every common sense rule that we had in place. I referred to them as “un-volunteers.” Building value was something that needed to be implemented among the children and their parents as well. We saw children ask for new shoes when they already had new shoes. They did not need them, they just got in line with everyone else. We made copies of worksheets for the children who would make paper airplanes out of them and ask for a new one. It was time to create a cost to the children so they would value what they were asking for. Extra copies were 4 centimos, exactly what it cost us. Their first pair of new shoes were free. They should last a year considering the rainy season would destroy them in that time. If they wanted a second pair of shoes six months later, I could obtain them at a deep discount for ten soles and would charge them five. New backpacks, which were brought down from Canada by our friend Richard, were distributed to every child who turned in their old one from the previous year, else they were also charged five soles. What we learned was that the desperate need that they expressed to 93

us diminished to a mere want. Soon, only the children who actually were in need of one got in line to receive something new. By building value in what we had, children, as well as the parents, respected what we gave them, took good care of it and only asked for replacements or additional items if it were actually needed. I made sure that children and parents who were genuinely unable to afford even five soles, about two dollars in U.S. dollars, received one discreetly for free. Changing attitudes, mentalities and what I called, ‘a bad case of the gimmes’ was part and parcel of what we were trying to accomplish across the board within our project. Long gone was the perception and attitude that I first encountered upon my arrival to Peru, “Get everything you can from the gringo before his visa expires and he has to leave Peru.” Those who, early on, grabbed whatever they could and ran are now looking over their shoulders at our project that is continually sharing materials and supplies to those who continue with us and realize that their attitude of selfishness and greed served them not at all. They had closed the door on themselves. After four years plus, I am still here and getting stronger every day. Part of the reason is that, there is now, an appreciated value to our service and time that we spend with everyone. It made all the difference.

***************************************** The Changes for New Hope Logo As we were advancing our project, updating our website and writing articles, it became necessary to create a logo that would reflect our mission at a glance. I wanted it to be unique and draw attention and curiosity to those who saw it. A message in a picture. After several rough drafts and discards, I finally came up with the one that I felt would say, in its simplicity, what we were. It is a fist of a right hand with an extended index finger pointing up. In the hand

was a pencil. A blue cuff is at the base. I hoped that the symbolism would not be missed. I was careful about every aspect of the logo. I used the right hand instead of the left hand which has been used around the world to symbolize revolution. Based on the aversion to the revolutionary Shining Path that plagued Peru in the 80s and 90s and terrorized the populace, I did not want any confusion about our motives. An index finger pointing up suggested advancement to higher aspirations. The clutched pencil indicated that education was the means that would get the children there. The easiest and least expensive way out of desperation and despair was through education. Intelligence was needed to use the pencil. Intelligence was also needed to vote, raise a family, maintain a decent paying job, express ideas and lead communities. While revolutionaries would rely on the ignorance of the common people to gather support and focus rage against the democratic government, intelligence would be able to withstand such efforts, without violence. The power of the intelligently written word is far superior to armed conflict. Napoleon Bonaparte once wrote, ”I fear four newspaper reporters more than one thousand bayonets.” Strikes and protest marches in the streets are a common sight in Huaraz, the capital city of the Department of Ancash. I felt that the inclusion of a non violent manner to express dissenting ideas was particularly imperative. The hand is brown like the Peruvian people. They will advance themselves with the support and help, but not the coddling and mere handouts, of the white North Americans and Europeans who have come to assist them. The blue cuff expresses that this is available to the blue collar worker, to every person and not a privilege afforded only to the elite. During the introduction of the “Haz lo Correcto-Do the Right Thing” campaign which I mentioned in an earlier chapter, which took place at a news conference held by the mayor and director of tourism, every part of the logo was explained to the press. Since then every poster, flyer, banner and event that we sponsor has the logo on it. Sometimes it also includes our website and project name, other times it is only the logo. We wanted the logo to be recognized and the message to come to mind when people saw it. It is the message that will change lives, do the right thing. 96

Slowly, we saw the reactions appear. We have tee shirts with the logo printed on them. One day William, a friend and long time supporter of the project was wearing his in public. He was stopped by someone who asked if he was a part of the project that the gringo, Jim, is operating for the children. Apparently, word gets around. I hope that the logo raises the awareness that doing the right thing, the right way motivates people to enjoy better lives everywhere. The graphic design of the logo was created by the tireless efforts of Genny MacBride in my native Maryland. Karl had asked for a volunteer graphic designer and she came forward to help us. She sent me dozens of variations of the logo until I was satisfied with the one we now use. She never charged us a dollar. Genny has supported our work and efforts here ever since. She is another one of our early heroes when heroes, at the time, were in very short supply.

***************************************** Tenacity, the Breakfast of Visionaries As a history buff, I am always interested in how people accomplished their amazing victories. Whether they were military generals or inventors or artists, they all seemed to have a common quality that made the impossible a reality. It is tenacity. It seems that they did not need to see the end result of their efforts initially, except in their own minds. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ”You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” I was amazed to learn that the Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, has no idea how to build a workable airplane, they were just intent to do it. Alexander the Great ordered his armies to burn their ships as they arrived on their adversary’s coasts. They were going to march to victory, there was no other option. If you have to see the final concrete results before you make an attempt at anything, you may as well be in a coma. One particularly gripping account of remarkable tenacity was the story of the Cuban revolution. Setting aside the politics of Fidel Castro for the moment, his courage, and that of his followers, was admirable. With a fire burning within him to overthrow the dictator of Cuba, he set out on a leaky boat from Mexico with 97

eighty seven men. Most were inadequately armed and never fought in battle before. As they landed in Cuba, they were spotted by a military aircraft and attacked. Only seventeen escaped being captured or killed. Scattered throughout the jungle, they regrouped and incredibly, continued with their plans for revolution. Their courage and tenacity inspired others and the movement grew, combined with other revolutionary groups with the same focus and in January 1959, the Cuban revolution was a success. It shows the power of belief in a cause. It becomes an unstoppable force. I share that story when I talk to inbound volunteers and people wanting to support our project. I ask them to set aside the “Let’s give it a shot and see what happens” thinking for a more focused and tenacious, “We have lit the fuse to something huge here. Everything we are about to accomplish is before us, and we cannot be distracted by negativity, setbacks or discouragement. Every small victory is a path to the next accomplishment. Every child that joins us comes with an expectation that we can do more for him than anyone else was able to until now. We will not disappoint the children, their parents or ourselves.” I have been asked by many people, particularly in the beginning when we faced our most severe challenges, ”Don’t you ever feel like just giving up?” My answer was always a simple. “No.” When I am asked, “What if you fail? What if you go broke before you succeed?” I respond with a smile and I say,” I haven’t thought that far ahead.” I have been deeply motivated by the biographies of people who have tried it, failed, tried again, failed and kept trying until it succeeded. In many cases it changed the world. Consider the passion and ultimate victories of such great people as Thomas Edison, Jonas Salk, Robert Goddard, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, John Lennon, Nelson Mandela and Steve Jobs just to name a few. I submit to you that you can accomplish the most impossible of goals and leap over every hurdle along the way with tenacity. Thoughts do become things. Everything is impossible until someone did it first. Roger Bannister disproved every doctor and physicist who said it is humanly impossible to run a four minute mile. Now, high school girls are doing it. The Law of Attraction in action, as it 98

always is, proves that whatever you think about, focus upon, becomes your reality and sources, perhaps unknown to you at the moment, will move toward you to bring you what your heart sees. I wrote in my journal, ”Live large, live deliberately.” It is my mantra for every day. It reminders me that mediocrity is death in a standing position.

***************************************** The Beautiful Ladies of the Comedor One of the proposals that I had presented to the mayor of Huaraz was the idea that social projects such as NGOs, community organizations and like minded groups should join in a round table type of forum and share their ideas, challenges and solutions. It would have been an enormous leap forward for relatively new projects, such as we were, to help us to have a head start instead of always having to figure out everything for ourselves. As with most programs in Peru, everybody thought it is a great idea but very few actually got out of their chairs. There was a loose confederation of people in organizations that would communicate with each other and share ideas and suggestions as well as surplus supplies that they had available. The U.S. Peace Corp volunteers shared their printed materials with me which was immensely helpful. We shared school supplies with the Boy Scouts and groups of children from local schools that were in need. Even as limited as the success of the program was, every bit of help was deeply appreciated by everyone who received and gave it. I am a proponent of meeting with community leaders, leaders of other projects and organizations and doing hands on interaction where we can. It requires one to have the ability to keep many balls juggling in the air at the same time. A realization that I could not clone myself came in the form of exhaustion, fatigue and dehydration on more than one occasion which parked me in bed for a few days. While, at 56 years old, I still felt as though I had plenty of shelf life left, I had to constantly remind myself that I live at 3000 meters, dehydration and fatigue will catch up with me quickly if I was not careful. I wasn’t and it did. 99

I was introduced to the local comedor by Willy, my friend who gave me the office in San Antonio. A comedor is a free lunch cafeteria that serves the poor people of the community. If one was set up every other block it wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be enough. In the same building as my office, on the first floor, there is a large dining area and a kitchen area adjacent to it. In that kitchen every day, Monday through Friday, a team of little old ladies cut up vegetables and made soup in huge pots. They make rice and add in whatever meats have come in lately. It takes hours every day to do it and I never hear them complain. A woman who appears to be old enough to have dated Balboa, still comes to the comedor everyday and folds napkins, one by one. The food that is prepared is on par with anything that would appear in front of you in a local restaurant. These lovely ladies are glad to be there serving the food, without pay, just because their hearts tell them that it is something that needs to be done and people would go hungry if they were not there. The people that show up everyday are not your typical homeless wandering vagrants that might appear in U.S. soup kitchens. Many of them have jobs. They park their push carts, bicycles from which they sold ice cream out of a Styrofoam box outside and join us. Some had large baskets loaded with candy. Boys, with their shoe shine kits beside them, would all sit at the long tables and wait to be served. Though they worked every day, they simply did not make enough money to be able to afford a meal that they had to pay full price for. The comedor charged one sole, roughly forty cents in American money, to offset the price of gas to cook the food and the water. Those who honestly could not afford even that were served for free. This was the right place for us to partner our efforts. The little old ladies were happy to have us join them and were thrilled that I insisted on the worst job in the comedor, washing dishes. I considered it the best way for me, as a newcomer, to be appreciated. I also brought in my box of magic tricks to entertain the guests which many wanted to see every day regardless of its repetitiveness. I made sure I went table to table and spoke to every one of the guests. We were fortunate enough to have donated clothing in adult sizes to be able to share with these folk. We also provided toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, 100

shampoo, combs and hairbrushes, socks and thermal blankets. I always made sure the comedor kitchen had what supplies it needed when there wasn’t money to restock. Three of our volunteers, Ali from Canada, Siri and Cecilia from Sweden joined in my activities at the comedor with a guitar and a ukulele and sang songs for the guests which was a huge hit. Very few of the guests were drunks or druggies. They were the people who life ran over in one way or another. People who were fresh out of hope and chances in life. These were those in the pit of despair and desperation and many had no families to care for them. Old people who are alone and scared in the world and younger women who had too many babies with men that vanished right on schedule. If nothing else was going to go right for these people, this one thing, a hot meal in their bellies, would assure that at least they wouldn’t starve, not as long as these little old ladies’ compassion held out and the doors were open to the comedor. And now they had me there sitting beside them, listening to them, entertaining them and joining them. They had this little glimmer of happiness in their lives, if only for one hour a day. It became apparent why the little old ladies were so enthusiastic in their jobs to serve these poor folk every day. I am not sure who was more grateful, the guests who were served or the ladies whose hearts glowed for the opportunity to be able to serve. You wish that you could do more.

************************************************** Muscle Tension Relaxation- Your Third Exercise As I promised, I want to bring you off of the sidelines as a reader of the story that I am sharing and put you “in the game”. As you can see, my experiences in Peru have been incredible. I am finding solutions for challenges, growing in love and compassion every day, realizing the invisible but very real force of the energy of the Universe and the absolute effects of the Law of Attraction and touching the lives of children living in desperation and despair which is melting away. Now I want to touch you, with your permission, to enhance the energy that radiates 101

through you, which we call, life. There are two reasons why I can never have a bad day. The first reason is that I view life coming at me in small fifteen minute segments. In smaller bite sizes, I can manage anything coming my way. I can more thoroughly enjoy the wonderful aspects of each day and I can more effectively deal with those life challenges that pop up to surprise me. No matter what happens, in fourteen minutes I can always say, â&#x20AC;?Next!â&#x20AC;? Thoughts become things. Beautiful thoughts become beautiful things. The second reason is that I take time out to do my breathing exercises, which we did in a previous chapter. It helps me to refocus and center myself for the rest of my day. When this is combined with muscle tension relaxation, the combined effect is very powerful. This is because your body trains your mind as opposed to your mind training your body how to feel. Most people get this confused. When your mind and body are in harmony, feeling relaxed and focused, you are in complete control as opposed to situations and circumstances dictating to you how you should feel. I use these techniques with the parents of the children. I will caution you, as I did in the breathing exercises, not to substitute these exercises or techniques for any advice given to you by a licensed medical or professional practitioner. If you are experiencing pain or discomfort at any point when doing them, stop or consider doing them with less intensity. You will want beneficial results from them. First, you will want to allow yourself to be in a place where you will not be disturbed for the next twenty minutes or so. This is the ideal situation, however, you can do these exercises standing in a bank line if you wanted to. If you are doing these exercises while also doing the breathing exercise as well, you will experience an optimum effect. Secondly, become aware of how your muscles throughout your body are feeling right now. Just observe and do not try to adjust yourself to feel differently. That is what this exercise will do for you. Focus on your head and face first, feel whatever tension or tightness you may be experiencing. Bring your focus now down to your neck and shoulders. Are your shoulders raised? Do you feel a certain tension in 102

your neck? Now bring your awareness down to your chest and back, completely, all the way down to your waist. Move your focus now down to your hips and pelvis and down to your legs. Focus on your thighs and your knees, then down to your calves and ankles. Become aware of how your feet feel all the way to your toes. Now it is time to begin to feel better by using these muscle tension techniques. What we will be doing is tensing each group of muscles throughout your body, a section at a time and releasing our tension. There are two ways that you can do this. Some prefer slowly tensing then slowly releasing each group of muscles. It works equally as well as the method that I will recommend here. It is a matter of personal preference. Starting with your head and face, draw these muscles tightly together like you just ate a lemon. Clench your eyes together, wrinkle your forehead, tense your cheeks and purse your lips tightly as you can. Feel the tension in your face and hold it for a slow count of five. Now, all at once, let go. This should not be a pull in the opposite direction, just a release of the muscles that you were tensing. A letting go, nothing more. See how your face now feels? Here is another similar exercise for your face muscles. You will want to do this alone because it looks odd to people not realizing what you are doing. I learned it in martial arts training. Open your mouth wide and at the same time open your eyes as wide as you comfortably can. It is as though you are very surprised at something. In training we would do this while shouting out, “Oooooooh”. Now clench your face muscles as before as though you are straining to lift something very heavy. In training we would shout, ”Eeeeeee.” Your face will feel ten years younger. You will realize by this part of the exercise just how much tension we hold in our faces. But no longer. Now, we want to continue by tensing the muscles in our neck and shoulders. Draw your shoulders toward your ears and tighten the muscles in your neck at the same time. Old that tension for a slow count of five, then let go. And repeat it once again, holding your tension, and release it. Move to focus on your back and chest muscles. This may seem a little more 103

difficult. Slightly arch your back and tighten your abdomen muscles at the same time. Hold the tension there for a slow count of five and release, just as we did with your upper body. And repeat this again, and feel the relaxation in these groups of muscles. Now, become aware of your hips, your buttocks and pelvis area. Tense these larger muscles as you did the others. Hold the tension for a slow count of five and release the tension, just letting go. Again, repeat the tension there, slowly count to five, and release. Your legs are next. Tense the large thigh muscles and calf muscles in both legs simultaneously. You may feel yourself wanting to draw your legs tightly together, bending them at the knees. And release, feeling the relaxation in your leg muscles. Once again, a slow count of five and release once again. Finally, your feet. Draw your feet upward toward your shins tightly while curling your toes downward. Tense your muscles in both feet at the same time, and release. Again, tensing all the muscles in your feet and hold the tension for a slow count to five, and release it. Now, here is the grand finale. Tense your whole body, using the techniques we just experienced, completely tense your entire body and hold the tension, for a slow count of five. Now release every muscle in your body. Once more, tensing, holding, counting slowly to five and release. Be sure to allow yourself to experience the feeling of relaxation in each area of your body. If you are particularly stressed, you may need to repeat the exercise in a group of muscles more than twice before moving on to the next section. Remember, this is for your own benefit. There is no rush to complete this so allow yourself the time and space to receive the full benefit of the exercise. Also, remember to breathe as part of the exercise using the techniques you learned in that chapter. This is an exercise that you can do anywhere at any time you choose. You will find this particularly beneficial at times of frustration and stress. As your body naturally tenses during stressful moments, use that tension to your advantage. 104

Draw your tensing muscles into a stronger tensed position, and then as you release it, you will find the tension flowing away from you. Your thoughts and attitude may follow the feeling of the relaxation.

***************************************** Replacement Therapy One of the mishaps of recognizing challenges and issues that face the poor folk living in the Peruvian Andes is that there is a focus on everything that nobody wants. Nobody wants to be hungry, nobody wants to be sick. Nobody wants to live in a cold mud brick house with a leaking corrugated aluminum roof. Nobody wants to use candles after sunset. Nobody wants to wear torn up shoes. I used the analogy in a meeting once to describe the problem with that line of thinking. Imagine going into a restaurant and the waitress says to you, “What would you like?” You respond, “Well, I sure don’t want the ham. I know that I don’t want the chicken. I definitely do not want the beef. I don’t care for the turkey. I like pizza, but not today so, not the pizza.” The waitress is still standing there, looking at you with her pad and pen in hand. Until you tell her what you do want, you will stay hungry. So it is here in the Andes. People are pretty clear on the issues that they wish weren’t a problem for them. NGOs are wonderful in sharing with the world what the problems are in these depressed regions of the world. Websites, television infomercials and magazines share the heartbreaking stories which are very real and gripping. What is missing are the solutions. People are hungry, how are we going to feed them? People need shoes, how are we going to get shoes on their feet? People need repairs on their dwellings, how are we going to provide the material and supplies? Who can we contact that has a heart to share? When we focus on solutions, also called replacement therapy, problems get solved. I wrote in a blog, “On your wall is a light switch. Just one switch, which turns on the lights. There is not another switch to turn off the darkness. When you 105

turn on the light, the darkness automatically goes away. This is how challenges and issues are resolved where they once existed.â&#x20AC;? There exists plenty of resources, not just in the form of cash, that could resolve challenges if these resources were managed effectively. Whether the issue is food shortages or water conservation or job training skills for the unskilled labor forces, solutions abound if we focus upon them. On a personal level, we can replace thoughts of depression and sadness with memories of happier times and reminding ourselves of those who love us dearly. We replace our empty stomachs with food. We replace our thoughts, our relationships, our jobs, our conditions and situations in life with something better, if we know what it is that is better, if not, we research and find out. So it is among those living in destitution and despair. It has been my experience that many have no idea what is possible or available as solutions because most have never been outside of their own regions. This was evident to me when I began having the children drawing pictures in the project. When every picture was a house, mountain, tree and lake, I realized they have never seen anything, nor experienced anything outside of these minimal existences. Television was their only view to the outside world. Replacing and expanding their experiences and views by adding ideas and suggestions to them opened their thinking to see solutions instead of being surrounded by what was no longer serving them well. One of the messages that I hope you have taken away by reading this book is that every negative experience became a positive one for me. From the murder contract to the inept NGO that I was initially in Peru to work with, to the professor Vladimir and his six chicas, regardless of the challenge, the solutions came because it was the only thing I allowed my thoughts to focus upon. Now I see the solutions for our project that has given us many incredible children, two art exhibitions, clothing and shoes, school materials, thermal blankets, reading glasses, doctors, dentists, international volunteers and supporters, and international credibility based on our association with Julian Lennonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s White Feather Foundation and the National Geographic exploration film team among many others. As we have learned, thoughts become things. Thoughts attract like 106

things to come to you as you open yourself up to new and better possibilities. The attitude of gratitude can never be understated. Gratitude requires a focus and concentration on real and actual happenstances that you are seeing and an appreciation of them. How it replaces your mentality from negatives to positives is far more effective than alcohol, drugs or manifest rage could ever be. If you want to be living a dream, start dreaming. Visualize the solutions that you want for yourself, your loved ones and the community around you. Then get busy acting upon those solutions. Taking a lesson from our friend Richard in Toronto, who came to Peru, saw the desperate situation of the children that we work with and instead of fretting about the problem, became wonderfully instrumental in becoming part of the solutions which the children benefit from everyday. My conversations and emails from him radiate with his enthusiasm and passion. Replacing what was or is with what can be and will be is a key element that will change the world, starting with your own heart. I wrote in my journal, ”There can be no heroes without there first being villains. There can be no solutions without there first being challenges which makes you reach deep within yourself to find the heroism that will save the day.” Remember, we can all be heroes.

***************************************** The Dangerous Ambiguity of the Word Poverty I have shocked many people who have read my blogs and articles when I say that there is no such thing as poverty. To some, it is like saying there is no moon. By now, you may have come to the conclusion that I am no stranger to controversy. While I am not denying that there are billions of people living in despair and substandard desperate situations throughout the world, I totally jettison the word poverty. There is one simple reason why, it is because the word ‘poverty’ is ambiguous. Every word or phrase creates a vivid image in our minds. Consider 107

these words; A red rose. A crashing blue ocean wave. Blueberry pancakes with extra butter. A cool breeze on a hot day. Every phrase creates a picture in your mind. You can almost smell the red rose, heard the crashing waves, taste the blueberry pancakes and feel the breeze blowing across your face. Now consider the word, poverty. It is an abstraction, obtusely hollow, that it remains only a series of letters arranged in a certain order. It paints no picture and has no clear meaning. When I asked ten volunteers for their definition of poverty, I got ten different answers. And all were right. How could that be possible? To say a people live in poverty or ‘abject’ poverty vaguely may indicate that they don’t have much money. We all could agree with that but what is “not having much money”? After the economic crash of 2008, I had talked to former millionaires whose assets were decimated and their net worth was only in the few hundred thousand dollar range. They felt, ‘poor’. They still had more money that most of the people on the planet, but that gut wrenching feeling of massive loss and the inability to do anything to stop it created an emotion in them that they never thought they would ever experience. They used the word, ‘poverty’ or the ‘newly poor’, to describe their situation. Meanwhile in Andean mountains of Peru, I was walking along the rugged trails passing adobe houses with dirt floors. Food was cooked on open wood fires inside of houses and the families sat on log stumps or rocks for furniture. They grew enough crops to feed their families and a little more to sell enabling them to buy what couldn’t be grown. They lived on about three U.S. dollars a day. No one there understood the word that the world uses to describe their condition, ‘poverty’. To them, this is how life is. It is how live was for their families for generations. What does the word ‘poverty’ mean to them? I met a man in his field as he was plowing using a long wooden beam with a crude wooden attachment for a plowshare that was tied to his cow, dragging it along. I told him that the stock market crashed, people’s 401k plans were in serious trouble, the housing market was collapsing costly people hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity and unemployment was at a record high. He stopped plowing, looked at me bewildered and simply said, ”Que de que?” in 108

English it translates to, ”So what?” He continued plowing. As long as he and his family ate that day and slept inside, they didn’t consider themselves poor. What does the word poverty mean to the average person in North America or Europe or Australia when it is used to describe the living conditions of the people in third world countries, such as Peru? Not much actually. The insidious ill effect of this is that no one is rallying to the call to help people if it is not clear what kind of help the people need. Let’s end poverty. What exactly are we ending? Or fixing? No one really understands it. No one knows where to start. So they never do. What if I were to tell you that adobe houses collapse during the rainy season in the Andes? You can identify with that, couldn’t you? Homelessness is a visceral image. To say that over 50% of people in Peru are living below the poverty line is merely a statistic. If I shared with you that Jose, age 12, who lives on a mountain side of a remote village, showed me shoes he was wearing that were ripped up and two sizes too small causing his feet to hurt and impaired the way he walks, you might get a better understanding. Another example is Yardy, age 10, in Rio Seco. One day I met her as she was walking down the street eating raw oats and a bit of sugar out of a plastic baggie. I asked her what it was. Her response was simply, “Lunch.” I could pick her up with one hand. The word ‘poverty’ only is a mask to the underlying issue, in this case, malnutrition. In Jose’s case it is inadequate opportunities for the family to make sufficient money to properly clothe their children. Not designer clothes, just something that fits. They do not understand the word ‘poverty’ but they do know that they are hungry every day. They are clearly aware that their little brother is sick and will stay sick because there is no money for medicine. They are sensitive to the fact that there is wiring coming into their adobe houses but there is no electricity and there hasn’t been for as long as they can remember. There are other elements that more clearly define what is shrouded over as we say the word, ‘poverty’. Inadequate drinking water, for example, is a global issue now. It is not thought about if you turn on the faucet and water has always come out. Health issues such as malaria, HIV, tuberculosis and infant mortality clarifies boldly what the word ‘poverty’ only whispers. 109

I use the analogy of an ocean. If I would ask you to tell me about the ocean, you could enlighten me for days about thousands of aspects of it. It is so massively complex. No one would attempt to swim across the ocean. The subject of ‘poverty’ is much the same. No one can imagine the end of a problem so unremitting and vast therefore many decide that any effort would be ineffectual. Doing nothing, in turn, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The word ‘poverty’ is a disease that actually creates and sustains its own symptoms. If we focus on addressing hunger, in a specific region, by creating food drives and delivery systems to that region, we have a solution. If we bring equipment, donated by drilling companies into areas where wells are needed, we have a solution. If we bring teachers into an area where illiteracy morphs into crime among the youth, we have a solution. We can pick up a brick wall, formerly known as ‘poverty’, if we do it one brick at a time. Here in Peru, Changes for New Hope focuses on children in areas where desperation and despair exists and we resolve to raise self esteem, educational quality and teach values such as “Do the right thing.” Solutions follow in the form of adequate school materials, decent shoes and clothing, children’s vitamins to shore up deficient diets and hands on help in ways that are most needed. Once we acknowledge that ‘thoughts become things’ based on the Law of Attraction, we must recognize that focusing on a challenge has merit just long enough to identify what needs to be managed with a reasonable solution. Then we turn our full attention on that solution. I take issue with the notion that we have to “fight poverty” Anti-anything focuses inordinate attention and thought on the crisis instead of the solutions that are either available or need to be found or created. The trouble with revolutions is that its leaders usually have no idea what should come after the current regime is toppled. Anti-war rallies are led by people who are confused about what peace should look like. Solutions will always be elusive if you are not focusing on creating them. At our art exhibition in Huaraz there was a drawing with the quote saying, “Have 110

you ever noticed that whenever you focus on a problem you always have one but if you focus on a solution you always find one?” It should be clear by now that you are whatever you think about. I submit that the solution to the condition of lack, the desperation mentality, is overcome with a new focus, abundance mentality. People in developed, wealthy countries need to consider themselves, not only having a sufficiency, especially in light of the examples of 3 world conditions that I have shared, but having abundance. What we, as Americans, throw away because it is old, or we are tired of it and want a new one, is unimaginable in developing countries. If we would choose to view our lives content in our obvious abundance instead of viewing ourselves lacking and always scrambling to get more, our lives would dramatically change. Like the old man plowing his field, as long as he ate and slept inside, he was content. Why are we, as a society, not content with rooms full of furniture, closets stuffed with clothes we may wear only once and a fridge full of food that might go bad before we finally eat it? Why do we feel a sense of desperation and lack when it does not exist? rd

‘Poverty’ is a fabricated word. In actuality it is an attitude. Desperation is an attitude as well. Once the first domino topples into the next domino of fear, then anger, other emotions, none that are good for anyone, soon will follow. An attitude of gratitude, appreciation and acceptance is necessary so that you understand that you not only have sufficient but abundantly enough to be able to share with those who actually suffer serious needs. Adopt a mentality of abundance, you are doing just fine, in fact, you are doing great. It does not matter what the next person has, is getting, just bought, where he is going, drives or lives. That is his journey. Yours is to find your focus, your center and sense of what really matters. What you have is abundance, enough to share and enough to understand that the ‘rat race’ is just for the rats. Who do you know, personally, that has starved to death? Do you think that you will be the first one? The term ‘bag lady syndrome’ came from that very same desperation mentality. It was based in fear. Fear, as we learned in a previous chapter, is merely a state of mind. All we need to do is change our minds. 111

What used to be termed, ‘poverty’ we now see is a conglomeration of thousands of human conditions of substandard living, all manageable, every one of them with humanitarian minded individuals focusing on specific solutions. Granted, it is not as simplistic as I illustrate here but every solution begins with the belief that a solution is possible. We just have to move off of square one. As a small NGO, Changes for New Hope needed to address the issue of the unimaginable substandard conditions of the poor, however we were unable to finance a major campaign to help as many people as we encountered. We knew that there were people out there in the world who could, and would come to the rescue if they only knew who specifically to help and how to do it effectively. The trick now was to get this message from ‘here’ to ‘there’. To use another analogy, a drowning man does not need anyone to tell him how deep the water is, or how cold it is. What a drowning man is most interested in is a life ring. The people living in destitution are not interested in people’s prayers or pity, but in viable solutions and opportunities to help them. Most want jobs, education and some form of direction to help them achieve that goal. I found encouragement in a German woman, named Jenifer, who worked as an investment consultant in Singapore. She explained that her job was to assist high net worth clients in finding projects to donate a portion of their wealth to. It seems that there is a philanthropic department in every investment banking company. It was going to be a game of inches, I was certain, but I wrote to every company I could locate email addresses for and asked them if they would review our website and mission and find us an acceptable organization to recommend to their clients. In Mexico and Brazil, the governments’ approach to meet the needs of the poor was brilliant. Both countries have social programs that pay stipends to the poor, just like welfare, however they require the recipients to meet certain standards. They must complete high school. Students, who graduate on time, receive a bonus check. Everyone on the programs must be seen by doctors to assure medical conditions can be managed while they are minor and inexpensive. They also must complete job training. In time, the number of recipients have dramatically 112

dropped. Either the recipients did not comply with the requirements or they qualified themselves to be employable and bettered themselves with their newfound skills and education. Some numbers report a decrease in government dependency by more than 20%. While it is a solution on a grand scale, it is encouraging to see a program that works and I considered, in time, to either be able to implement aspects of those ideas or recommend them with confidence to agencies and large organizations that could. In the meantime, the most cost efficient way we were able to touch the solution was to make people aware of how real and close to them the issue of the poor in Peru actually was. We are a global community now. There are no borders. Raising awareness, in a powerful and focused way, was going to move people into action. I am not content to dig into the mountainsides and only touch a hundred or two little children, no matter how effective and successful we are in doing that, for me, it just too anemic considering what we can do on a larger scale. We are a little project with a big message. Egos aside. As is indicated by the logo we designed, the written word is far more powerful than any other method to alter people’s opinions, create new thinking and inspire them to do more than shake their heads at a glaring human suffering they see. I saw the effect of our simple message, “Haz lo Correcto-Do the Right Thing”, in Huaraz and how it changed the way people began thinking in the community. I have seen messages by other humanitarians who moved millions of people to action, non-violently, with words like, “Give peace a chance”, “I have a dream” and ‘My religion is love.” Thoughts become things. When people hear the message, believe in its validity and direction, action follows. We are sending out the message. We want people to hear it and share it then act as their passion guides them. So many of us want to step off the plane in countries where human suffering exists and hope to get it eliminated before our next birthday. We now see that is not how the story will play out. People are so completely entrenched in their own lives in 1 world countries and others are so entrenched in their struggle to just get by in 3 world countries, that the efforts to bring about working solutions is an st

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interruption to both. A message of hope, compassion in action and love from a little project tucked away in the Peruvian Andes had to be short, sweet and powerful. Given a chance, I would expound to any audience what I have learned over the years I have been here in Peru. As my friends would reflect, “If you ask Jim what time it is, he will tell you how to build a watch.” I write to magazines, newspapers, e-magazines, email hundreds of people, exploit Facebook and other social media, add commentaries on websites, offer speaking engagements and have taken to writing this book. The central message is simple, ‘Do the right thing’. Combined with pictures and stories of the children and the people who are desperately trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is a powerful message. It has become a never ending life mission, and one that I can lovingly dedicate myself to completely. Our reach, using our message, is much farther than our grasp. When attitudes change, mentalities change and apathy steps aside for compassion and love to take root in the hearts of people everywhere, what was a mere hope can become a reality. Advancements are measured in inches. It is a slow uphill climb to every new victory. Whether people decide to reach out to us here in the Peruvian Andes, touch a community effort to make a change closer to home or are moved to simply be a better human being to their own family and those around them, it creates a change of energy, a positive move and inevitably, there will be a ripple effect that will continue with amazing results. Every day, I see new faces coming on the scene to volunteer, new sponsors asking how they can support this work and hearts with newfound compassion. I love those moments when I can turn to a few more children and tell them with total confidence, “No more tears little ones, everything is going to be all right now.” The Beginning ****************************************** Afterword 114

Thank you for reading this book. I could have elaborated many of the stories in greater depth but the book would have been five hundred pages and then, who would have read it to the end? I imagine that it has stirred many feelings and emotions in each person in different ways. In the end, I hope that those feelings amount to an inspiration, encouragement, compassion and love. At the time of this writing, Changes for New Hope continues to explore new avenues to create solutions as we see the needs arise. Immediately, we are looking for funding for three qualified Peruvian teachers to join our project who will expand our educational initiative. We are also pursuing every possibility to bring doctors, especially pediatricians, dentists, internal medicine and family care specialists to the empty offices at San Antonio’s clinic. People who cannot afford a visit to the doctor will be able to come here. We still have hope that a micro business project will be successful with the right people and we continue to explore those opportunities as well. A broader source for children’s vitamins, whether Peru based or internationally sourced, is urgently and continuously needed. It is simple and effective way to make sure the children get proper nutrition when their diets are inadequate. There are several groups of children whose parents have asked us to come and begin a project with them throughout Huaraz and well beyond. My response is one of hope but not help, “As we have sufficient funding and volunteer staff, we will be there.” For all the ‘compassion in action’ that we have received, a hundred times more would still be needed as well as many more “boots on the ground” here in Peru to meet the needs that we encounter every week. I am confident that we will see that support soon. I hope that you will decide to be a part of the solutions that we need to make it happen. *************************************************** Acknowledgements Compassion in Action I would like to thank the following people for their contribution of love, time, financial and material support to our project, Changes for New Hope. Their help 115

and kind assistance has made the content of this book possible. No words can fully express the impact and benefit that their help has been to these children. Every day is a little brighter for them, because of you. Dr. Depaz, Dra. Karin Graos, Maria Ines, Tove, Terry, Deb, Bernadette, Dahlia, Benquelo, Aurora, Ted and Jenn, Louis and Sophie, Domi, Alex, Claude, Kristof, Chris and Ysa, Gustavo, John, Vance, Brigadier Robin, Amando, Armando, William, Willy, Carmen, Kekai, Alan, Jose, Camille, Juan, Richard, Jackie, Mick, Dirk, Jimmy, Genny, Karl, Melanie, Elliott, Nasra, Omar, Cecilia, the MacKellar Family, Mayor Vladmir Meza, Benlab, Givingsomething.com, Ecoteer.com, Itsonehumanity.org, Willy Oppenheim and the team at The Omprakash Foundation, The White Feather Foundation, Julian Lennon, Sergui and the National Geographic exploration team, the incredible efforts of our International Volunteers, a very special thanks to Richard and Amanda and their fine sons, Edward and Henry and to my own fine son, Randy Killon, who made the biggest sacrifice of all. If you would like to learn more about Changes for New Hope and our current projects, please visit our website at www.changesfornewhope.org. Donations can be made through the website as well. Postcards and other correspondence can be sent to: Jim Killon Changes for New Hope C/O Serpost Huaraz Peru

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