Giving Thanks

Wow, has it really been so long since my last blog? My apologies. I've actually had a lot going on, but haven't felt the need to blog about it. I'll try to get in a "recap" blog tomorrow while I'm waiting for mom's delicious Thanksgiving meal to be prepared, but in light of the holidays, there's one particular opportunity I've been blessed to be a part of that I wanted to share with you all in light of the season.

I have a couple stories to share with you to lighten your heart for the holidays.

First off comes from my three year old niece. My sister, Stephanie, was watching the news back in Omaha and saw a story of a family who lost all their stuff in a house fire a month or two ago. Forgive me for not knowing all the whole story, but although thankfully no one died in this fire, the details were enough to bring tears to my sister's eyes. My niece came into the room moments later to find her mother obviously distraught and asked what was wrong. Stephanie told her this family's house caught on fire and now the kids didn't have any toys to play with. Annabelle immediately jumped up and exclaimed "We could give them some of our toys!" and ran over to the toy chest and began pulling things to share. Despite the fact that she pulled only her younger brother's toys aside to giveaway, her heart was still genuine and she continued to ask mommy about it for several days.

The second story is one of my own experience and comes in two parts. There is a local homeless shelter that our radio station supports called John3:16 Mission. We do several things with them throughout the year, but especially around this time of year we make a hard push for donations. The mission supplies a Thanksgiving meal to over 20,000 individuals between a Thanksgiving Banquet at the mission and baskets that are delivered to needy families. A couple weeks ago we were out on remote at a grocery store collecting canned goods and a little boy came up to me and handed me a sac full of cans and gave me a big hug to thank me. I'll admit it was a little awkward, but afterwards, I thought there must have been a good reason this boy was so thankful we were helping the needy. We saw so much generous giving that day including one individual who drove by and saw what we were doing, and went inside specifically to get cans for us. What he came out with was a shopping cart literally filled to the brim with cans of fruits and vegetables. It was great!

The second part of this story happened last week. One of our sales managers let me know that every year, the staff travels down to the mission to serve a meal and tour the facility. The schedule said we would serve the food, and then get a chance to eat before we toured the facility. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to actually eat food that was served at a shelter. It was anything but unnerving! BBQ pork, vegetables, potatoes, salad... a great spread. Probably better than any lunch I'd prepare for myself! These people eat great and its because of people like that generous individual who donated a shopping cart of food! The people we served were so happy to have us there too. It was a gratefulness that reminded me of the people of New Orleans on my visits shortly after the hurricane: even though we weren't necessarily down there to fix their home, our willingness to come down and help others truely touched them. And likewise, these people knew we did nothing to provide the food they were eating. They'd get a hearty meal with or without us there, but our presence just let them know someone out there cared.

My final story is one I actually stumbled upon immediately after starting to write this blog. My friend Anna (you can find her in my blog roll) had a very encouraging experience as well. Rather than retell it, I'll just direct you to her story. Its an awesome one!
http://adetrich.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/i-forgot-to-get-him-a-fork/

So this Thanksgiving, as you gorge yourself in mom's home cooking, eating enough to slip into a tryptophan-enduced coma, give thanks. Not only for the food and lifestyle God has blessed you with, but also for those who have a heart to bless others.

Matthew 25:35 "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in."

The Miracles of Science

Did anyone catch 60 Minutes last night? I saw what was, perhaps, one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. One of the segments was about the advances being made in measuring the neuron path of movement-thoughts. To way over-simplify it; your brain sends electrical impulses throughout your body to create movement. You see a pen in front of you, you think about picking it up, your brain sends those thoughts to the muscles in your arm and you pick up the pen, all of which, of course, happens in a split second. People who lose limbs often talk about "phantom limbs" which is your brain not recognizing there is no limb. Your brain isn't damaged when you lose an arm, so the impulses are still there. Science has already known which area of the brain motor skills are found, so all we had to do was determine which neurons caused which movements, and we can begin to use the brain to recreate those movements. They have developed something called brain-computer interface, or BCI which does just this. Its still in early stages of testing, but basically, they can hook a computer up to your brain and your brain can control a mouse. This of course gives you control of a computer, which with you can control nearly everything from the lights in a room, to the TV, and even wheel chairs! Imagine the possibilities!

They've also extended this research into bionics. They took a monkey and determined which neurons were firing at the precise time of individual movements. They then developed a robot arm that could duplicate these movements and interfaced it to the monkeys brain. They restrained the arms of the monkey and with a little training, taught him to use the robotic arm to get the food they placed in front of him. I'm sure with a few more years of technology and development, we will begin to see bionics used in day to day life.

They are already working on a way to reverse the signal. This means, not only will we be able to use our brain to operate a prosthetic limb, but we will also be able to use that limb to send signals to our brain, such as temperature and pressure. Its truly amazing!

Here's some videos!