Archive for the 'Staff Blogs' Category

Its the Circle of our Lives

Published by meagan August 5th, 2009 in School of Leadership, FB, Staff Blogs, Think Day, Mainpage, Student Zone and Featured. Closed

Think Day, Hero Holiday, School of Leadership, ONE Book … Absolute.org has a variety of interesting programs, but are they related, tied together somehow? Absolute is like a ring, no no not the one ring…you know the one…”in the darkness bind them?” That’s not us, that’s some other guy. At Absolute.org every one of our programs support and lead into the other. Someone asked me today what I do for Absolute, in what capacity I work for them. The truth is that my job title is irrelevant. Each of our jobs support and are connected to each other’s. Absolute is a circle.

I just returned from a Hero Holiday trip in the Dominican Republic. I met some fantastic people. There are few things more surprising than how content the people of Dominican Republic really are, compared with someone living in a developed country. Even more surprising is the effervescent joy that overflows and spills onto us from the displaced people of Haiti living in Dominican Republic. There are too many stories to tell here and now. For more on Hero Holiday, please visit Hero Holiday’s site or subscribe to 52 Stories. What I’ve come to realize is that my job, my official job at Absolute, is incredibly tied into Hero Holiday. The members of Team 3, my Hero Holiday team, had students (and one mom) from all across our fine country. Almost every province was represented by Team 3’s members, and we even had a girl from the Yukon! Most of these participants were there because of Think Day, a multimedia motivational experience that visited their schools. That is my job, Think Day. I am a Road Team Manager, along with my husband JP. We travel with teams across Canada from September to June (we break for Christmas of course!) tirelessly (most days) driving, setting up, performing, speaking, running workshops, discussion groups, etc etc etc. We tell our stories to bring hope and courage to our listeners and to let our generation know that they have value, that their voice can be heard, and that we want to join our voice with theirs to change our world!

On my Hero Holiday trip I saw those values not only realized in the lives of our participants, but applied to a people who are considered regrettable and forgettable by a world who has done very little to better their situation. All year I talk, and I talk, and I talk about social justice and trips like Hero Holiday, telling Canadian students that they can do something about the injustices they see in their world, and that it is just that; THEIR WORLD. And here they were! All 19 of them on Team 3 asking the same question I asked myself over and over again this year. “Have I actually accomplished anything? What is it that I’ve really done?”

The answer to my question was in the 100+ students who participated in Hero Holiday Dominican Republic Week 1, and more directly in the 19 members of my team. Not all had been at the shows that I spoke at, but there were quite a few who had been, and most of them had seen an Absolute show or had known someone who did, and that was why they were there! Their experiences in Dominican Republic taught them, not just told them, that they matter to the world. They matter to that stateless Haitian child, or to that Dominican Grandmother. They are actually making a difference.

My purpose in Absolute was reflected in the eyes of a girl who had been given the power and opportunity to help when she thought she couldn’t. When she thought she was helpless to do anything about the situation she saw in front of her, I got to help her realize that we’re stronger together and that we really could help this life, this girl, this time.

Hero Holiday had changed my life before I had ever been on one and experienced it for myself, but now it’s not just stories, it’s real. I got to work alongside some people I had met briefly in a gym somewhere in Canada and had asked “Now that you know, what will you do?” and they showed up. That gives me 19 new reasons to keep going. To keep telling my stories, stories about myself, and about the people I have met and been inspired by. To keep touring, and driving, and setting up, and tearing down, and talking and talking and talking, because though you may not all come on a Hero Holiday, some of you may. Some of you will hear for the first time that you are valuable, that your life counts for something, and you will take that message with you wherever you go, including a Hero Holiday.

I will step out onto the road again with fresh perspective on what it is that I do. 19 faces and stories to keep me going, and this is the cycle, this is the circle: Think Day, School of Leadership, Hero Holiday, 52, One, Think Day, School of Leadership…

So watch for us this Fall. Are we coming to your school? If we’re not and you want us there, CLICK HERE .

Is Mexico Safe? Our perspective…

Published by charles April 30th, 2009 in Mexico, Staff Blogs and Mainpage. 7 Comments

Charles (and the boys)

My name is Charles Roberts and I am the Director for Hero Holiday.  I, along with my wife and three children, the Bernardi family and the Boyce family, are all currently in Mexico representing Hero Holiday here.  Over the past couple of years, my wife Tricia, our sons, and I have been living here off and on.  Our boys know this as their home.  We know this community very well and have many friends here.  We have been fortunate to be able to partner with local government agencies and authorities to better assist the people we are here to help.

Considering the media coverage of the Swine Flu, and the Drug War along the northern Mexican border, I feel it is important for you to hear from us on a personal level.  We are living here, day in and day out and would love to share with you, from our perspective, what is really (or not really) happening.

Safety has always been, and will continue to be, our number one priority for all of our trip participants.  Safety is always at the forefront of every decision we make and every trip that we facilitate.

I am continually saddened by the media in Canada and the US.  Their overreaction and selective coverage to the Swine Flu and to the Drug War stories in Mexico have created and continue to create an incredible amount of fear in people.  Considering the media’s business approach to ’sell’ stories to the public, we are constantly seeing more and more ’stories’ that are slanted to instill fear in their listeners.  Looking at it carefully, it is clear that ‘fear’ sells.

When hearing news stories, always remember to use a personal filter and your own common sense to read between the lines of what is being reported.  When considering traveling to other countries, the most reliable information is official government information that they publish for our safety.  It is direct, to the point and usually not ’selective’ or ‘over-dramatized’.  A few trusted sites that we gain our information from are the following:

  1. Canadian Foreign Affairs (http://www.voyage.gc.ca/countries_pays/menu-eng.asp )
  2. Canadian Health Agency (http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/index-eng.php).  )
  3. The World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/en/ )

These three are highly respected government agencies, and are accountable to people for what they say.  Our Canadian government will ALWAYS air on the side of extreme caution when it comes to travel advisories.  If there is any reason for concern at all, our government will clearly communicate that to us, again, sometimes to an extreme.

Today, April 29th, 2009, the World Health Organization communicated again that there is no need to advise against regular travel.

“WHO advises no restriction of regular travel or closure of borders. It is considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention, in line with guidance from national authorities.”

If you are a Hero Holiday participant, concerned about traveling to Mexico on your trip, please do not be alarmed.  I understand that the media is making a big deal about this, and it may appear that the world is falling apart.  However, I encourage you, as I did earlier, to please filter what your are hearing, use some common sense, and research this a little further on your own.  Please do not believe everything you hear, and do not just take my thoughts on this either.  Look into it for yourself via trusted sources.  I am confident that a lot of your concerns will be eliminated.  The worst thing you can do is to make a quick, uninformed decision, based solely on something you have heard/seen on TV.

Thank you for your understanding.  I hope you are encouraged by this.  I am available anytime if you would like to contact me personally.

Charles Roberts

Hero Holiday Director

Mexico Cell: (to dial from Canada) 001 521 (616) 109-9404

US Cell: (for when I am in the USA) (619) 370-6303

Email: charles@heroholiday.com

From One Coast to Another…

Published by nettie April 9th, 2009 in Mexico and Staff Blogs. 35 Comments

Our friends from the other side of the country have arrived yesterday in one piece.  Tina Smith and her group of students from Newfoundland’s Booth Memorial Secondary School arrived safe and sound after 12 plus hours of traveling. One of their first requests was to put their feet in the Pacific Ocean.  So, […]

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Blog from Danielle

Published by christal March 20th, 2009 in Staff Blogs and Other Sites. Closed

The following is a blog from one of our paricipants, Danielle Clouse, who has been on our Hero Holiday Thailand trip with us:
Christmas came early this year. The gift of giving has left me humbled and at ease. These past two weeks I’ve spent my time meeting amazing new people from all over the […]

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Penticton Youth arrive safe and sound.

Published by nettie March 18th, 2009 in School of Leadership, Mexico and Staff Blogs. 2 Comments

  After a long, but fun bus ride, the youth groups from Penticton, BC, arrived to sunny Mexico. The team of approx 70  students and their leaders left Canada on Saturday and made the 36 hour bus ride along the scenic Pacific coast line. They arrived late afternoon on Monday afternoon. They may have […]

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60 Seconds of Love

Published by christal March 16th, 2009 in Staff Blogs. Closed

The following entry is from Heather Bourque, one of our adult participants here with us in Northern Thailand. Heather is a flight attendant with Air Canada (which is how she first heard of Absolute: she was on one of Vaden’s flights!) and she is also a professional photographer. Much of her work can be seen […]

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Conversations on a Tuk-Tuk

Published by christal March 14th, 2009 in Staff Blogs and Other Sites. Closed

My apologies, but we are currently unable to upload our photos to this blog site from where we are at. We will do our best to get them up asap!
When you are on a Hero Holiday, there is no telling what kind of adventure is waiting for you around the corner, across the street, or […]

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Team 1 is full of fun!

Published by nettie February 20th, 2009 in Staff Blogs and Student Zone. 0 Comments

My name is Adam,and along with my fiancée Lindsay, I lead one of our road teams. We just joined the Absolute team in January of this year, and we are really excited to be a part of everything. It has been a couple of weeks of steady shows for us… a lot of fun… […]

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Bernard’s Castle

Published by christal December 8th, 2008 in Newsletter and Staff Blogs. Closed

This past summer I went to Haiti and I witnessed first hand what paralyzing poverty looks like, what it smells like, and what it even tastes like. In Haiti, my heart was changed and my memory was etched forever with the experience. I met people who were former slaves, who were destitute and who were […]

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Thinking of Garcia

Published by christal November 6th, 2008 in Staff Blogs and Mainpage. Closed

arroyo-seco.jpgFours years ago, Vaden and I were driving down a road that seemed to go nowhere: it was washed out in places, had almost no traffic except for the odd motorbike or donkey, and it had houses lined along the side of it, full of people who shyly waved at us as we rumbled along. Somewhere along that place we found a man with a  dream, and his name was Garcia…

Garcia is a musician, a husband and father, a pastor, and a man with a vision bigger than what was in front of him. He had a community back on that road that we  found ourselves on that day, and he traveled  every day of the week from his own village, Maranatha, to serve that community and help it move forward in whatever way he could.  He came to help out because he loved them and believed in them. They had a local area where they had a church, held community meetings, and one day hoped to have a school. It was  a small area, about 20 feet by 30 feet, and it was covered by four posts and a tarpaulin. All around the area, many feet out, was a trench that had been dug at one time, but was now covered in by weeds, grass and life. Five years earlier, Garcia had inspired some men in the community to dream of what a school could like in that place, and so together, they dug the trench, in hopes that someday they might see a school for their children.

In that area, we, like Garcia, saw what could be, but not yet was: a school that could change the future of the hundred plus children in that community. This is what faith and dreams are made of  and what Absolute wanted to be a part of, so the following summer, our Hero Holiday teams began to work with Garcia and the people in Arroyo Seco to accomplish this dream. It is a labor of love that has filled our lives with laughter, warm memories, huge community parties, and tearful good-byes. And in some way, it has changed us all.

This past summer, we put the finishing touches on the school. As we drove away, I looked over my shoulder and saw a bunch of children waving good bye, with Garcia and his family in the middle of the crowd, smiling and shouting out blessings…It felt good to be a part of something so incredible. Over the time that we worked in their community, over 700 Canadian teenagers and adults who joined us on Hero Holiday had witnessed the fulfillment of a dream, and it inspired us all.

Yesterday, however, I got an email with an update of what has happened in Maranatha, the community where Garcia lives. This past Friday, while many of us got together with friends and had Halloween parties, Garcia, his family, and the thousands of people that live in Maranatha, his own village, fought for their lives and homes as they faced a flash flood. Many of their homes were covered under two to five feet of water and sewage, and many of them lost every last earthly possession that they had. Garcia and his family lost most of their possessions, but managed to salvage some valuable items such as beds and food. However, the local grocery store, where many of them were only able to buy their supplies on credit, was swept away and food is scarce.  Like so many of the world’s poor, they are now forced to rebuild their lives and start over…at the beginning.

Why is life so blatantly unjust? Why do the poor always keep losing, and the rich get drunk on the excess of the world? How is it that our governments can find trillions of dollars to bail out multi-national companies in a financial crunch and still manage to employ hundreds of thousands of people at salaries that keep growing, and yet many of the world silently slips away and struggles moment by moment to exist? What is my part in all of this? How do I live my life in light of what I know to be true both here and there?

I don’t have all the answers, I just have a conviction that I can’t give up: I can’t stop doing what I know I am called to do, and I MUST NOT quit just because things seem difficult where I am at.

So, Garcia, when I see you again, I will tell you this in person, but until then, I will put it in black and white: you are a great inspiration and friend, and your struggle is my struggle, and we are linked by a common faith and purpose that is deeper than culture, skin color and economics. I will continue to pray for you and will do what I can to help ease the burden. You and your family have done so much for a community, their children, and their future, and now it is time for a community of people to do something for you.

If you would like to help us get some money to Garcia and his family, please email me and I will let you know what you can do.

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