New NEWS for Vets....finally a better understanding of PTSD

One of our churches biggest regional missions!

Water Missions

 http://www.watermissions.org/

We all can make a difference!

They do awesome work and there are lots of ways to help them...

even it it's just passing the word. I hope to be able to go soon....

TrueNorth Church sends teams of workers there all year round.

Help make Booms! Easy as can be!

BOOM FILLED WITH ABSORBED OIL....

AN EASY WAY TO HELP AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE NOT JUST MARINE LIFE....OUR EARTH...GOD'S EARTH!

INSTRUCTIONS - HOW TO SEND HAIR, FUR, FLEECE, FEATHERS, NYLONS...

Photos / Videos
GULF FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions Page

How everybody can get involved!

Even though OUR WAREHOUSES ARE FULL and we are concentrating on making and deploying boom right now, ALL salons, groomers, fleece farmers, hairy individuals, & pet owners can sign up to be on our database to recycle hair, fur, fleece, feathers, nylons in future. We do need more volunteers and funding for other supplies (zip ties, crawdad bags, anchor line...) Thank you all for supporting recycling of this renewable and useful fiber! Please be patient for warehouse addresses, we are making boom and clearing space. This Gulf spill will need boom for months, maybe years.

1. All donors sign up to our database program called Excess Access. It's FREE and It's FAST.

2. You will get an email, please click on activation link (check your spam folders). If you get the activation email, you know you'll get the important Gulf donation email. SIGN UP HERE - Thanks! And check out our Frequently Asked Questions GULF FAQ Page.

3. PLEASE SEE BOXING INSTRUCTIONS BELOW for recycling hair, fur, fleece, feathers, nylons, burlap,... 

INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO BOX YOUR DONATION - set aside ONE designated box (salons usually reuse a box in which shampoo was delivered)

- line the box with a plastic garbage bag so hair, fur, fleece, feathers can't slip out

- ideally, donate shampooed hair, it doesn't have to be. Just don't include filthy hair / fur that has stuff stuck to it.

- any length is fine

- every type of fur & fleece is fine. For hair (straight, curly, all colors, dyed, permed, straightened... all great) butonly HEAD hair from humans, please! Yes dread locks are ok to send - although we find they have fungus inside when cut open - so please separate in their own bag and mark "DREADS". They are handled separately. :)

- sweep in all clippings, JUST HAIR, but please NO OTHER GARBAGE (gum, metal clips, paper cups, wrappers...)

- remember volunteers (sometimes young students) have to stuff this hair into booms and don't want to feel garbage or anything sharp

- tie the top of the bag and tape the box shut

- we also accept washed, used (even with runs) nylon stocking donations in a separate bag, please.

- FUR and other "natural fibers" waste wool, alpaca fleece, horse hair, feathers... again, please, no other garbage or contaminants in with the hair/fur/ fleece fibers... (a handful total per bag of hay and seeds are ok, but no garbage and, of course, absolutely no poo!) Thanks!

- mark the box DEBRIS FREE HAIR (FUR, FLEECE, FEATHERS) and / or NYLONS (just nylons don't need a box, send however is convenient.) And please hold it and wait for our alert emails.

- WHENEVER BOXES ARE NEEDED FOR EMERGENCIES & THERE IS SPACE IN THE WAREHOUSES, we email out addresses of where to send nylon, hair, fur, fleece... Sign up HERE it's free and fast. 
Once you're on Excess Access you will be emailed information on:
- large scale emergency oil spills that need wide scale donations to temporarily donated warehouses
- an emergency oil spill near your area requesting hair, fur, fleece, feathers & nylons
- our small California warehouse (NOT CURRENTLY ACCEPTING - ALL DONATIONS ARE GOING TO THE GULF)
- any warehouse mailing address changes, please just make sure you're Signed up

ONE TIME HAIR DONORS, BOY & GIRL SCOUTS PROJECTS... THE BEST WAY TO PARTICIPATE:Please feel free to download and print our flyers below. We made them just for you!

Individuals: Feel free to sign up, you will get addresses to send hair / fur donations. And, also, tell your hair stylist / barber / groomer about our program and website. We love all your personal letters. For practical reasons, hair & fur in bulk from businesses saves us processing time and funds.

We do NOT recommend individuals collect and ship for other salons. If you want to go to salons & groomers and promote donating, please tell them they can sign up. Don't offer to collect and ship yourself. Donors are more careful about having no debris if they ship from their own busineses. And we only want very willing donors. Also it is very expensive to ship other peoples fibers, businesses can expense it. And thanks for spreading the word, that is a HUGE help!

Teachers and classrooms: We love getting hair from schools! Please collect and mail all the hair loose in one bag, rather than lots of little envelopes, as it saves processing time. And send us photos, we love them!

Hair Program_flyer

Teacher's Demo Page

Student Handout

Teachers Handout

DID YOU KNOW? OIL SPILL FACTS- FLYER

YOUTUBES - by Matter of Trust
Hair soaks up oil - 3:38 music: "Via Con Me" by Paolo Conte 

Another opportunity...

Volunteer for BP Oil Drilling Disaster Recovery

On Thursday April 29th, the expanding slick from BP's oil drilling disaster made first contact with land near the mouth of the Mississippi. This catastrophe has already endangered marine life like dolphins, sperm whales, and sea turtles, and now it is threatening coastal wildlife, and the Gulf’s vital marshes and barrier islands. A disaster of such epic proportions will require an unprecedented response from federal and state agencies, as well as those of us who care about the health of the Gulf coast and communities.

There has already been an incredible outpouring of support from those in the region, and throughout the county, in the form of kind words, donations, and, of course, offers to volunteer with clean-up efforts. It is critical that people are trained in how to help before heading down the bayou. The roads are narrow, and will likely be jammed with media, responders, and well-intentioned observers. The scale and scope of this spill are massive, yet the infrastructure in these at risk communities is exceptionally limited, so please don't come down without a plan and training. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be working with government agencies and other organizations who are coordinating volunteer efforts. If you are interested in helping with the recovery efforts, please fill out the information below, and we will be in contact.

First Name*

Last Name*

Email*

Phone

Zip/Postal Code*

Relevant Experience or Qualifications

Other Comments

By taking action, you will be added to GRN's e-alert system.  Don't worry, we never sell or share your information, and unsubscribe links are provided in all our communications.

A letter? A phone call? Something?

Human rights activist tries to stop death by stoning for Iranian woman

By the CNN Wire Staff

July 5, 2010 5:50 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Sakineh Ashtiani was sentenced to death on adultery charges
• Human rights activist: only international pressure campaign can save her
• Mother of two will be killed using a "barbaric" method, says her Tehran lawyer
• He says she was forced to confess under duress

(CNN) -- A veteran Iranian human rights activist has warned that Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, a mother of two, could be stoned to death at any moment under the terms of a death sentence handed down by Iranian authorities.

Only an international campaign designed to pressure the regime in Tehran can save her life, according to Mina Ahadi, head of the International Committee Against Stoning and the Death Penalty.

"Legally it's all over," Ahadi said Sunday. "It's a done deal. Sakineh can be stoned at any minute."

"That is why we have decided to start a very broad, international public movement. Only that can help."

Ashtiani, 42, will be buried up to her chest, according to an Amnesty International report citing the Iranian penal code. The stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately.

Ashtiani, who is from the northern city of Tabriz, was convicted of adultery in 2006.

She was forced to confess after being subjected to 99 lashes, human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei said Thursday in a telephone interview from Tehran.

She later retracted that confession and has denied wrongdoing. Her conviction was based not on evidence but on the determination of three out of five judges, Mostafaei said. She has asked forgiveness from the court but the judges refused to grant clemency.

Iran's supreme court upheld the conviction in 2007.

The majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women--Amnesty International

Mostafaei believes a language barrier prevented his client from fully comprehending court proceedings. Ashtiani is of Azerbaijani descent and speaks Turkish, not Farsi.

The circumstances of Ashtiani's case make it not an exception but the rule in Iran, according to Amnesty International, which tracks death penalty cases around the world.

"The majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women, who suffer disproportionately from such punishment," the human rights group said in a 2008 report.

On Wednesday, Amnesty made a new call to the Iranian government to immediately halt all executions and commute all death sentences. The group has recorded 126 executions in Iran from the start of this year to June 6.

"The organization is also urging the authorities to review and repeal death penalty laws, to disclose full details of all death sentences and executions and to join the growing international trend towards abolition," the statement said.

Ahadi, who fled Iran in the early 1980s, told CNN that pressure from Amnesty and other organizations and individuals is likely the only way to save Ashtiani.

"Experience shows (that) ... when the pressure gets very high, the Islamic government starts to say something different," she said.

In Washington, the State Department has criticized the scheduled stoning, saying it raised serious concerns about human rights violations by the Iranian government.

"We have grave concerns that the punishment does not fit the alleged crime, " Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley said Thursday. "For a modern society such as Iran, we think this raises significant human rights concerns."

Calling Iran's judicial system "disproportionate" in its treatment of women, Crowley said, "From the United States' standpoint, we don't think putting women to death for adultery is an appropriate punishment."

Human rights activists have been pushing the Islamic government to abolish stoning, arguing that women are not treated equally before the law in Iran and are especially vulnerable in the judicial system. A woman's testimony is worth half that of a man, they say.

Article 74 of the Iranian penal code requires at least four witnesses -- four men or three men and two women -- for an adulterer to receive a stoning sentence, said Ahadi, of the International Committee Against Stoning. But there were no witnesses in Ashtiani's case. Often, said Ahadi, husbands turn wives in to get out of a marriage.

Mostafaei said he could not understand how such a savage method of death could exist in the year 2010 or how an innocent woman could be taken from her son and daughter, who have written to the court pleading for their mother's life.

The public won't be allowed to witness the stoning, Mostafaei said, for fear of condemnation of such a brutal method. He is hoping there won't be an execution.

Mostafaei, who himself did jail time in the aftermath of the disputed presidential elections in June 2009, said he realizes the risk of speaking out for Ashtiani, for fighting for human rights. But he doesn't let that deter him.

He last saw Ashtiani five months ago behind bars in Tabriz. Since then, he said, he has been searching for a way to save her from the stones.

CNN's Moni Basu, Ben Brumfield, Bobby Afshar, Gena Somra, Mitra Mobasherat and Elise Labott contributed to this report.

An easy one!