The Beauty of Africa

I have added a new video to the website! It is called the Beauty of Africa. To see it, you can either visit the website here or watch it below. Africa is an amazing continent. Unfortunately, many of the people living there are suffering from HIV/AIDS, drought, and lack of education. Despite the many problems facing Africa, hope shines forth in the stunning beauty that is scattered throughout the land. It may be difficult to find, but amongst the great plains and deserts there is life.
God has not abandoned Africa, there are still good things happening there. If you would like to be a part of the good things, than I encourage you to check out the Dry Tears page on this site.
The majority of these pictures were taken by Chris LeCraw, and Matt Gibson threw in a few for good measure.

Darius Goes West

There is a new update to the site! You can see it at the website or on the blog.
I had to buy this DVD for class. At first I was upset, it cost $20! But after watching the movie, I know think it may have been the best $20 I ever spent. Darius Goes West is a documentary film about Darius Weems. In the film, he is a fifteen year old kid from Athens, GA. Darius was born with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. According to their website, DMD is “the number one fatal genetic disease to affect children in the world.” The disorder causes the muscles of people to slowly stop working until, inevitably, their entire system shuts down. People with the disorder rarely make it into their thirties and spend much of their lives in wheelchairs.
Despite the many problems DMD can bring into someone’s life, Darius does not let them get him down. He, and 11 of his friends, went on an epic journey from Athens all the way to California. Their first goal was to get Darius’s wheel chair “pimped out” by MTV. Their other, and most important, goal was to increase awareness about DMD and raise money to help find a cure. The film is amazing! It is funny, it is emotional, and it is a true story of hope in a often dark and dreary world.
Their goal now is to sell 1,000,000 copies of the DVD by Darius’s birthday on September 27, 2009. The movie costs $20 to buy, and for every DVD sold, $17 goes to help support Duchenne Research. The other $3 goes to produce more DVDs. Enough of my talk, you can find out more by visiting www.DariusGoesWest.org or by watching the video clip on this page. Think about it, you can help cure one of the most fatal diseases in the world. Now that is helping put broken things back together.

Soulja Grandma

We have an update to the website! A new video has been added and it is called Soulja Grandma. It is of my awesome grandma doing her version of the soulja boy dance. It is short and really funny. To view the video, you can either visit the website by clicking here.

Or just click the video below.

It Starts...

OK, so here it goes. My first legit blog post. Ever. And I have no idea what I am doing. So forgive the poor writing style and bad grammar.

Some people have asked me why I named the website www.notyetbroken.com. It's a good question. I try and explain it in the "About this site" section on the webpage, but it may not have been clear enough. 

So here is a little story from life that may help explain it. Last fall I was at the beach. I don't even remember how my mind got there, but for some reason, I just kept thinking about the problems of the world, and they were really getting to me. There just seemed to be so many issues out there, so many people seemed to be hurting, and it just made me wonder why we are even here. I don't know why I was slammed with all these thoughts at the beach, but for some reason that is where it happened. Typically, I find the ocean's waves very soothing. That day, however, they sounded like the thunderclap of impending doom and they were only getting stronger. As my mind thought through more and more ugly things in the world, I looked down at the sand dune and saw a few flowers sticking up among the dry grass. There were a couple of butterflies hopping around on the foliage and it was so refreshing. I literally took a deep breath and had a little chuckle, it was like getting that first gasp of air when you are swimming in the deep end. 

I stopped worrying about all the problems in the world, and I stopped being frustrated, and just sat there enjoying the beauty of that one moment. It was as if God was saying, "Hey, the world may be messed up, but I still am at work here. So take it easy until I solve everything, and if you ever start enjoying my creation, maybe you can even help fix things." That one piece of beauty was enough to remind me that everything in the world is not yet broken, and that there is, in fact, good here. 

I know that I am not the only one with problems. Everyone deals with them. Some are very real and occur in the present, while others may be vague and intangible. Whatever the case, I think everyone needs a reminder from time to time that the world is not completely broken. That is the major reason I made the website, to give people reminders of the good things in the world. To encourage people to find good things and make them grow. To give people a reason to hope and to show that God is still at work in the world. 

So I hope you enjoy this blog entry, and the rest that are to come. And if you're feeling down or bored or whatever, than take a visit to http://www.notyetbroken.com. Maybe you'll find something there that will make you smile and give you that deep breath, just like the flower on the beach did for me.

The first post

This is my test post. I am making this blog to complement http://www.notyetbroken.com.

It is a new website with different videos and other things to remind us that the world is not as broken as we may think, and can even get better. I hope you visit it sometime!