Susan Powell's Family Thanks You

Thank you all for joining the group. Thank you all for your prayers, support and suggestions. We read them all and pass them on to the WVPD, as appropriate. I know the frustration many of you have expressed in not being able to do more, and the pace of the investigation. Progress is being made and no possibility is being ignored. Every tip given to the WVPD is being worked, please know that your tips are important. With every new group member another set of eyes and ears is involved in finding Susan. This gives great comfort and hope to Susan's family. I appreciate every word of support, every prayer, and positive word. Tips are great but speculation about who did what, what the investigators are doing or not doing only slow the investigation and can potentially sabotage future legal action. I can assure you that the WVPD is actively working the case and using every resource available. Thank you for your support and patience. We share your frustration with how long it is taking, we love Susan and want her reunited with her family, but we know we must be patient. It is so very hard for us as the family to wait. We worry we are not doing all we can. We worry that Susan is waiting for us to rescue her and that every minute lost is priceless. Currently begging for your help and patience and providing tips and information is the best we can do. Your support and prayers help us through each day and each hour.

Thank you. (Susan's Father and Family)

Join the Social Media Blitz to Find Susan Powell

Our friend, Susan Powell, a beautiful 28 year old Utah mother has been missing since December 7th, 2009. We’re asking you to help us find her.

Want to help? Here’s what you can do:

If you have a twitter account, follow @FindSusan (http://twitter.com/FindSusan) and then tweet about her with a link to this blog post, using the hashtag of #findsusan – please also ask your followers to retweet your message.

Go to the official YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/susanpowellcase Watch the videos, memorize Susan’s face and features. Look around – do you see her? If you do, note her location and condition and call 9-1-1 right now.

Here is the link to Susan’s missing posters: http://picasaweb.google.com/dancingfrostie/MissingPersonSusanPowellRewardPoster# Again, please memorize Susan’s face and look around right where you are. If you see her, please note her location and condition and call 9-1-1 immediately. There is a $10,000 reward for finding her. Please also consider printing out a few and posting them at your local supermarket and other places nearby.

Email findsusanpowell@gmail.com with “I want to help” in the subject line. If there’s a specific service you can provide for us, if and when the time comes that we can use that help, we’ll email you and let you know.

Email 5 of your email contacts with the contents of this message and “Find Susan Powell – Please forward to 5 people” in the subject line. We’re not asking you to spam your friends, family and co-workers. Just email 5 people and if you choose to add more than 5, that’s great.

Join us on the Friends and Family of Susan Powell Facebook Page here: http://bit.ly/findsusan

You can also pray for Susan and her friends and family.

Thank you for anything you can do. We appreciate you!

The Friends and Family of Susan Powell

Employment Alertness

Welcome to Service – The Action Form of Love

Many of us are enduring some pretty rough financial seas. Earlier this week, I told you about Dan and Barbara, a couple who relocated to Utah for Dan’s job only to be laid off shortly after arriving. Now they’re packing back up to move again, this time at their own expense. $2500 or more down the drain.

In one way or another, we’re all experiencing some fallout from the current economic crisis.

So, what can we do to help?

How can we help in small and simple ways?

Today’s challenge is this:

Be alert.

Know of a job opening at your company or nearby? How about posting it on Twitter, Facebook or any other social media site you belong to?

Do you know someone who could fill that job? Why not cut to the chase and email it directly to him or her?

See?

Small and simple. Just like always.

Be alert for openings; pass them on to others who might be in the market for that job.

Thank you for reading and accepting today’s challenge. I really appreciate the fact that you understand the concept that by small and simple things, great things can happen (a paraphrase of one of my favorite scriptures).

Thank you also for being willing to pass this challenge to others. I know you pass it on by forwarding, by retweeting, by posting on message boards and by Stumbling. I’m truly humbled by your willingness to help others – because that’s what it’s all about.

Thank you especially for remembering that Service is The Action Form of Love

James

Reconnecting Live

I read an eye opening article in USA Today, today.

The article, found here: http://bit.ly/75p4P talked about the impact that social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is having on real live, face-to-face relationships.

One jolting pullout from the article really got me thinking and spawned the idea for today’s challenge.

Here’s the pullout:

For some highly connected people, especially young adults who have grown up with cellphones, their superficial online connections increasingly are their only connections.

And here’s today’s challenge:

Today, find ways to connect with your loved ones. I mean, really connect with them. As in facing them, looking them in the eye. As in turning off twitter, logging off Facebook and Myspace and YouTube.

Talk to them. Embrace them. Interact with them. Listen to them.

Love them.

Relate to them.

Spend time with them. Quality time as well as length of time is really important, especially in this day of short text messages and twitter updates.

Ask them questions. Answer their questions. Break bread with them and shower them with your real personality.

And then, avoid the temptation to run to your favorite site and tell us all about it.

Thanks so much for being willing to read and accept today’s challenge. I appreciate you! I’d love your feedback, but I may not reply for some time.

I’m going to focus on my in-person relationships today.

In the meantime, remember – Service is the Action Form of Love

James

Social Media and Service

Welcome back to my blog!

As you may know, I’m into social media – I have a twitter account, a facebook account and my wife and I met on a social media site in 2003. I love social media! There can be so much good done in the world, and though social media isn’t the only way to accomplish good things, it’s certainly an important component about getting good and positive messages out.

But, like any invention, from the discovery of fire to everything created after that, it can be used to do good or to accomplish evil purposes. Fire can be used to either warm your family or to burn down the neighbor’s home.

I’m sure we’ve all read the news accounts where people with apparently nothing better to do, use their myspace, facebook and other social media pages to trash-talk others. Teenagers are especially prone to this, possibly because this is there technology. Us older folks aren’t immune, however, and we tend to do the same thing from time to time.

So, here’s today’s challenge:

If you have an account on a social media site, find one of your connected friends and send them a positive message. Tell them how much you appreciate them. Remind them of something they’ve recently done that inspired you or helped you or taught you.

If you see something negative posted about someone else, no matter how well-deserved you think that criticism is, simply ignore it. Refuse to comment on it or pass it on.

I know you can do this.

You come to my blog to learn ways to be a better person, to learn how to serve others in small and simple ways. For that, I greatly appreciate you, and I encourage you to continue using social media for good.

Thanks for reading today! Feel free to pass this on, to forward it, to retweet it and to repost it wherever you like.

And remember, Service is the Action Form of Love.

James

Trashy

It’s Friday – a great day for service.

Have you noticed how much trash there is around you? As you drive, walk or take the train or bus, do you notice the stuff people leave behind?

Once, while waiting for a bus, I happened to look through the fence into the cemetery that was behind me. Among the beautifully decorated graves and strewn about on the nicely clipped grass, I saw a lot of things that clearly didn’t belong.

Aluminum cans.

Newspapers blowing in the wind.

There was even a long, broken piece of lumber.

The strange thing is that, despite the smallness of the graveyard, there were plenty of half-empty trash barrels around.

Knowing that I had only fifteen minutes before my bus came, I decided to do something. I cleaned the place up.

As I was picking up the trash, I noticed passers-by were giving me strange looks. Funny how something like that can really make me more determined to keep going.

I’m not telling you this to get any kind of accolades. The reward, for me, was in doing the deed. I’m telling you this in preparation for today’s Service Challenge:

This weekend, how about taking a trashbag along with you. You can even stuff a grocery bag or three in your purse, pocket, briefcase or backpack. Then, as you go about your day, if you see some trash, pick it up, put it in your bag, and dispose of it.

Simple, yes?

Do you remember my post “Family Service Challenge”? Here’s a short quote from that post:

***

When the family was cleaning up garbage at a beach in Eureka, California, the locals were rather surprised.A short quote from the book:“Hi… What are you guys doing?”“Oh, we’re picking up garbage here on the beach.”“Oh.” They would pause a second and then say, “How come?”“We just thought it would be nice to do, and it looked like it needed it.”“Uh huh. Where are you from?”“We’re from Idaho.”“Idaho?!” they would respond with a startled tone. “You’re from Idaho and you’re here cleaning up our beach? Why?”“We just wanted to help out.” (From “The Message – © 2001 American Family Institute)

***

To read the entire post, click here: http://serviceafol.blogspot.com/2008/09/family-service-challenge.html

So, what do you say? How about cleaning up just a little bit near where you live, work or play?

Can you imagine if each person just picked up one small bagful of trash, what a more beautiful world we’d be able to enjoy?

Remember, service does not have to be such a big challenge that none of us want to do it. It can be small and simple and easily accomplished.

Ask a friend or family member to help you. Share the workload. Have fun with it. You may get strange looks from others, but you also may be surprised at their willing to do the same thing because of your example.

Set the example.

As always, thank you so much for reading and accepting today’s challenge. I appreciate your willingness to do something nice and worthwhile. You may be the only one who knows of your efforts to clean up. That’s okay, too. You’re not serving for the accolades of others.

You’re doing it because you want to bring a little bit of Heaven to your world.

And I appreciate that about you.

Remember, Service is the Action Form of Love.

James

Warmups

Today’s challenge is easy.

Brrr! It’s a cold wintry day, today.

Warm someone’s heart. Brighten their day. Make their today a little better because you were there for them.

Either figuratively or literally, do something that will warm them and make them feel special.

You could do this for your child, a sibling, a parent, a coworker or even a stranger.

What warms someone?

A sincere smile.

A please and thank you when asking for something.

Offering to let them get it off their chest. Really listening to them, and caring about what they say.
A generous tip at dinner.

An honest compliment.

A cup of cocoa or coffee.

A pair of gloves.

A plate of warm brownies.

Use your imagination.

Have fun with it!

But do it.

Today.

As always, thank you so much for reading and taking today’s challenge. Please feel free to pass it on any way you can.

I appreciate you!

Remember, Service is the Action Form of Love!

James

Doing the Math

If you're a new reader to this blog, you know it's all about service. I am a firm believer that if each one of us did something to serve even just one or two other people, once a week, the world would be truly transformed.

Let's do some math:

There are 19 readers who subscribe to this blog.

If each one of you - and you alone - served two people a week for one year, there would be 1,976 beneficiaries of your service.

If each one of you subscribers passed this blog along to a friend who would do the same, there would be 3,952 recipients of service.

Now, I don't have a firm grasp on the actual numbers of readers, here, but I'm asking one favor of you.

Pass it on.

Let's make some Heavenly math.

Reach out to someone today, tomorrow, Saturday - all next week. Let's try to pass it on to at least one person every week between now and the end of the year.

That means each of us can try to get just 10 people - new people - to read this blog.

I have no idea how far and wide this can go - but I'm excited to try.

Start small and simple.

Email a link to my blog (use the http://serviceafol.blogspot.com/ link) and ask them to visit.

Or, email a link to this week's Service Thursday challenge:

http://serviceafol.blogspot.com/2008/10/care-coupons.html

Or, find your favorite post and send a link to that.

I hope and pray we can make service a success - and with you helping, how can we fail?

Are you in?

Thanks for taking the weekend challenge!

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Remember, Service is the Action Form of Love!

James