Winds of Peace Foundation | July 31, 2009
*Check out the entire website! After an all-too-long delay, we’ve refreshed and updated our look and content, so browse freely! We’ve also established a schedule for regular updates so that all of the initiatives undertaken by WPF can be seen in a timely fashion.
Winds of Peace Foundation | July 30, 2009
Winds of Peace Foundation (WPF) continues to make available the opportunity for partners to learn basic techniques of business literacy and ownership characteristics to enhance their own entrepreneurial endeavors.
Open Book Management and Employee Ownership Transformation are well-demonstrated techniques for enterprise development that can be a big help to people who are trying to learn how to stay afloat.
Winds of Peace Foundation | July 30, 2009
*Mark and Steve will be visiting with current and prospective partners again during the first week of August, prior to the Fall funding cycle. Specifically, they’ll be interested in connecting with some of the Indigenous communities and women’s groups with whom WPF works. The effects of the current economic crisis is of particular concern.
Winds of Peace Foundation | July 30, 2009
One Couple’s Gift, by Steve Swanson, is the chronicle of Harold and Louise Nielsen’s awakening to the needs of the world’s poor and how they sought to make a difference.
The book covers their lives in creating Foldcraft Co. and their subsequent commitment to using their own resources for the benefit of others. You can get the book at Amazon.com.
In May of 2009, the Kenyon Leader newspaper published a story on the book in an article titled ‘One Couple’s Gift’ is giving.
Steve Sheppard | July 24, 2009
I am just about to conclude nearly a full month of “hanging out” with a group a Scandinavian educators, here visiting the Luther College campus. The Scandinavian Institute brings visitors from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland to this middle-of-America location to learn about American history, culture, people and attitudes for nearly a month of immersion. They headquarter on the Luther campus, where they are exposed to lectures covering such diverse topics as public education, healthcare, the culture of the Amish, Hispanic immigration, philanthropy, Black American experience, Obama’s economic and international challenges, Native Americans, environmental sustainability, the U.S. system of government and religious trends. It is a month-long crash course on all things American, mixed with lots of opportunities for the participants to travel the region in order to meet and speak with everyday midwesterners. On top of it all, they even get to participate in perhaps the largest summer festival honoring Scandinavian-Americans in the country, the local NordicFest in Decorah.
I’ve been privileged to address groups each of the past two years, talking about Winds of Peace Foundation and the work we do in Nicaragua. Katie and I have also been favored with the opportunity to host two visitors for dinner each year, part of the program’s “get-to-know-the-locals” effort. As a result, we’ve been invited to participate in many of the events that our visitors experience while here, a unique opportunity to re-learn about America, to see ourselves through the eyes and experiences of others, and to broaden our own perspectives with regard to how we live here in this country as compared with other places. All of that within the confines and comfort of our own community, even our own home.
What this annual interaction provides is a reality check of sorts, an occasion to step back and consider our country and society from an outside perspective, always a valuable exercise. Hearing lectures about American fundamentals reminds us of the foundations of the country and how we have, in some cases, strayed significantly from them. Hearing questions about American life and lifestyle posed by people who live outside our borders- maybe especially when they have come from another westernized culture- is a sure cure for nationalistic myopia. We live on a shared earth, so it’s important for us to recognize how everyone sees reality. And it’s pretty much impossible to do on our own because so much of what we create for ourselves is illusion.
It’s like the familiar eye test: what do you see when you look at this picture: a beautiful, young girl or a haggard, old woman? The fact is that there is no incorrect answer to the question, only a difference in the ways that we see the very same things. If all that I have ever seen in this drawing is an old woman, then I am grateful to those who can show me a new view. It may or may not change the way I see the drawing in the future, but it’s valuable to be able to see it in a new way. On the other hand, it just may convince me that a different perspective is somehow of even greater value. But at least I have the benefit of both truths.
Such has been my education over the past several weeks. Once again, it has been intriguing, educational, introspective and refreshing in a curious way. It takes me away from seeing the world in status quo and gives me new reasons to feel thankful for the incredible blessings that I have as well as chagrined about that which I have overlooked, both of which are important realizations. I have discovered that, even without any traceable Scandinavian blood in my heritage, I have a world in common with these guests. Although they traveled here to be educated, they, too, have served as the educators. I have new insights, new energies, new friends.
The bus will load on Sunday and once again we will head our separate ways. I experience both happiness and sadness at the prospect: happy to have had the opportunity to make such connections and to grow in the process, sad to lose sight of new friends who have taught me a great deal about myself through their presence. And as I reflect on the emotions, I am suddenly struck by a sense of deja vu.
This is exactly the way I feel when returning from the south, from Nicaragua and from people who help me to so clearly see the realities of where we both live. Each time I pack up to return home, I am happy to be headed back to my family and the lovely community in which I now reside, and yet melancholy at separation from new acquaintances who cultivate my sensibilities so deeply. Both of these people connections have a feel of circularity, of completeness, of holism, that convince me of the dependence and oneness that define us as human beings. These are the moments when I am most hopeful for the future, when I see a clear means by which the human condition can be made well and strong, capable of overcoming that which so artificially separates us.
It is far too easy for most of us to avoid such self-confrontations by distancing ourselves- north and south, east and west- from the experiences and perspectives of others who are viewed to be so different than us. But therein lies the false assumption, the falsehood which prevents us from being fully who we can be and prevents the world from its true identity….
Steve Sheppard | July 3, 2009
I went to the television for some news this week.
I particularly wanted to see whether pictures from last weekend’s coup d’ etat in Honduras might be available, especially as I had just been scheduled to be there at the end of May.
Michael Jackson named Diana Ross as the guardian of his children if his mother is unable or unwilling to care for them….
I also wondered what the reaction might be from government officials concerning the rise in unemployment to 9.5%, with another 467,000 more people out of work last month, the worst such numbers since 1983.
Michael Jackson may have consumed as much as $48,000 a month in prescription drugs…
The crackdown in Iran continues to boil and I fear for and cheer the Iranian people engaged in their struggle for voice, so I sought to hear reports from that news-strangled country.
Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch covers 2,800 acres and he paid $30 million for it, though he didn’t live there anymore….
With the Fourth of July creeping up, I hoped to hear something about North Korea’s possible plans for an "event" of some sort on the holiday.
Three of Michael Jackson’s albums are now selling more than any other artist, current or past….
Michael Jackson’s neighbor remembers Michael as a very nice, caring person….
Michael Jackson’s manager says that the singer was in terrific shape for the upcoming tour….
Michael Jackson’s brother says that Michael will be missed….
Michael Jackson’s sister says that he was much more than an icon to her family….
A full five days following the announcement of Michael Jackson’s death, one hour of television news contained 48 minutes of Michael Jackson. The other 12 minutes were local weather and commercial messages.
Coup d’ etat. The people of Honduras deserve better than that….
