Two days ago all foreign and domestic non-governmental organizations (NGO) were told to pack up and get out of the quake zone of Qinghai, China by the government.  This comes after a week of stepped-up government response and an official day of mourning, but also increased competition with Buddhist monks as seen in this series of articles from the New York Times,

“Chinese authorities confirmed Friday reports that they had asked Buddhist monks to end their relief work in Qinghai, the province in central China’s highlands where an earthquake last week left at least 2,187 people dead … In a written response to questions from The Associated Press, the central government’s State Council Information Office expressed gratitude for the monks’ rescue efforts. But “it would bring more difficulties to disaster relief work if lots of unprofessional personnel were at the scene,” the statement added.” (NYT)

“Relief convoys were so thick earlier this week that they caused a 24-hour jam on the only road that links Jiegu to the provincial capital 500 miles away. Would-be volunteers have been ordered to stay away.” (NYT)

The massive relief effort being coordinated by the Chinese central government is commendable and necessary, but the decision to expel monks and NGO’s from the quake zone is misguided when it comes to humanitarian work.  There is a short-term benefit to be gained by restricting vehicle access on clogged arteries to official use only, but the long-term result of expelling established NGO’s and religious groups will be increased suffering for the people of the Tibetan plateau.

Although the Chinese central government has expressed the need for professionals to take over the reconstruction effort from volunteers, the need for volunteers only increases as a humanitarian crisis shifts from the rescue stage towards relief and reconstruction.  Volunteers are the only ones who will be able to meet the needs of the thousands of people who are isolated from the main centers of relief, whether by distance, disability, or discrimination.  Only committed humanitarian groups are able to give the care needed to meet the personal emotional needs of people who have been through trauma.  An earlier NYT article quoted a survivor in Yushu, “The government can help us rebuild,” she said. “But what they can’t do is heal our heartache and pray for our dead.”

OperationSAFE is a humanitarian non-profit organization dedicated to meeting the needs of children who have suffered trauma around the world. We are partnering with a local NGO in Qinghai to help children and will hold a Mt. Fuji Charity Climb to support OperationSAFE camps there.

Just got off the phone with our team in Sichuan preparing to help the quake survivors in Tibet/Qinghai – Here is a brief report from them.

“I just spoke to our teammates who are in the hardest hit town of Jiegu in Yushu county Qinghai. These friends partnered with us in Sichuan in 2008 and they said, while the quake zone is not as wide as Sichuan’s the destruction is much worse than they saw two years ago. There are still lots of needs. While the government is, once again, doing an amazing job responding to physical needs, there are tens of thousands of Tibetan friends there with serious emotional needs and more.

Our partners from the UK have a building just 4 hours away from the epicenter where we will be staging our team from next week. This week we are purchasing the most requested items. Next week we will take the 4 day drive up to the earthquake area to deliver the medical supplies and blankets. Temperatures at night still drop below freezing, and when your home is rubble and you are sleeping in a tent it can get pretty cold. The plan is to have a van, two jeeps and a truck load of supplies. It will take 4 days on a very dangerous road to get the supplies up there. Death toll has risen above 1100 and the injured is in the 11,000 range.

Please be lifting us up for:

1. Good health, there are lots of disease there, and the altitude is over 13,000 feet.

2. Good mechanical functioning of our 4WD, it’s very old and this may be the last big trip it makes. We have worn it out in the Sichuan Quake.

3. Team unity, and a powerful heart of compassion for those grieving.

4. That the victims will see our Father’s heart in our relief efforts and be drawn to him.

5. Good connections and rapport with the authorities there especially the principle of the primary schools for doors to be open for the emotional care camps we are planning for this summer, after the physical needs are met.

7. For the financial resources needed to make all this happen.”

Our team are great people with compassionate hearts that have been serving tirelessly since the quake hit Sichuan to bring both physical relief and emotional care to the survivors.  Please consider making a donation to help them make this vital preparatory work for OperationSAFE camps later on this summer. We are holding a Mt. Fuji Charity Climb on July 10th to support the work.

http://www.firstgiving.com/operationsafe

(I originally wrote this prayer guide for the quake in Haiti but thought it would be good to update it for the recent quake in China.)

There is an old adage that goes like this, “Well, I guess all that we can do is pray…”  I approach prayer quite a bit differently and perhaps so should you.  Prayer always comes first – before we can even attempt to do our “little bit” we should make sure that we have called in the “big guns”.  Here is my prayer list for the recent earthquake in the Qinghai/Tibet region of China.  If it is helpful in organizing your thoughts feel free to join in and pray with me.

1. Pray for those in need of rescue that it will come swiftly.

There are many who are in need of miracles.  That teams would arrive an hour sooner, that dogs would catch a faint scent amidst the stench of death, that the right piece of concrete would be moved.  For all the training and effort that the courageous rescue teams put in, at this point they need miracles more than anything else.

2. Pray for the rescuers – safety, rest, encouragement, in the midst of horror and unrelenting pain.

The job that the rescue teams face is completely overwhelming and they will fail many more times than they will succeed.  Rescue teams suffer great personal trauma and often become suicidal months after an event.  Pray for these courageous men and women now and after they return.

3. Pray for families that have witnessed the unthinkable, are worried about loved ones, and fearful for their own safety.

For every person who is missing, dead or severely injured in the quake there are ten more who care about them and find themselves unable to do anything about it.  Pray that emotional needs would receive attention amidst all of the physical needs.

4. Pray for children who need comfort and safety, hugs and reassurance – even if they are physically “fine.”

Children are the most vulnerable amidst the aftermath of a disaster.  Every child whose world has been disrupted, seen the death of another person or lost friends or family is in need of emotional care, even if they have not suffered physical harm themselves.

5. Pray for governments and authorities.

The Tibetan plateau has been a poor region for a long time and there are many problems that were there before the earthquake.  While the attention of the world is on Qinghai, it is time for governments and authorities to act for the good of the people and not to promote their political agenda.

6. Pray for relief agencies to have wisdom and compassion to make a lasting difference in Haiti.

The earthquake is a great opportunity for aid agencies to make forward progress in an area that has long been neglected.  Long lasting change will come through courageous and wise decisions that deal with the source of problems.

7. Pray for those around you that they would respond not just with what they can do, but with their heart.

The temptation that we all have is to give a small donation and call it the best that we can do.  We all have many reasons why we cannot give more.  Pray that hearts would be moved and that people would be truly generous.  For those of us using social media like Facebook  or Twitter, this means that we should get involved, make connections and let it be personal.

8. Pray for yourself that you would have a heart of compassion – start now and it will grow.

A true heart of compassion is not just ready to give when the need arises like it has now in China.  A true heart of compassion seeks out ways to help even when no one else notices that there is suffering.  People have been suffering on the Tibetan plateau for a long time, but now the attention of the world is upon it because of the disaster.  A true heart of compassion will allow itself to continue caring long after the world has lost interest.

Once you finish praying, ask yourself two questions.

• How can I become personally involved with helping the people of the Tibetan plateau?
• How can I financially support someone who is personally involved?

It is important in the early stages of a disaster to fill up the coffers of those organizations that do rescue and relief work.  They will use that money to stay ready for the next disaster that comes.  But in the age of Twitter and Facebook, find someone who is giving their time, energy and life to help those who are suffering and give generously or become that person and give your heart to those who need it most.

(OperationSAFE is working with established NGO’s within China to bring trauma care to the children of the Tibetan Plateau. On July 10th we will be holding a Mt. Fuji Charity Climb.)

Trudy trains Haitian OpSAFE staff

Howdy All,

We’re at it again.  Next week we’ll be sliding into our normal routine, actually a new routine for Trudy.  She’s going to slow down.  She’s going to slow down or I’m going to shackle her to a large rock.  Some of you may have considered her in that condition already but we’re not talking about me.  She’s got three things to worry about: working a full time English teaching schedule, being a full time Mommy and getting everything in order for TC’s adoption.  It’s time to put TC’s adoption at the top of our list of things to do.  It’s almost hard to imagine but that has often given way to other needs.  Much of what was already done must be done again since we moved from our original.  My sense is that she must also get things in order as this summer looks to be very busy, already.  Boss willing, if things pick up, she will be available to help with additional Operation Safe training.  There are calls for the training coming in from all over the world; Africa, Haiti, China and others.  Jonathan has done a phenomenal job putting these materials together.  To see some of what was going on in Haiti and other OpSafe presentations take a look at www.youtube.com/user/operationSAFE.

Getting Trudy to sit down and give us a good idea of what took place in Haiti, the things she did and what she saw, has been like pulling teeth.  I understand that.  After responding to Thailand’s need following the tsunami and being on the ground a couple days after the Sichuan Earthquake, I understand a little of what she went through.  On the other hand, things were radically different with respect to the way the relief effort in Haiti is organized.  Of even greater impact is the condition of Haiti before the quake.  Its weak central government and crushing poverty meant that prior to the quake 1 in 4 children were malnourished.  Though there was progress under the latest regime it was barely a stirring of hope that real concrete progress was a possibility.  In the aftermath of the earthquake, hope has been dashed.  Desperation has begun to take its place and man’s ability to be inhumane is glaringly obvious.

The Operation Safe Camp went very well.  For a first effort in a new language and presented to a new culture of children, it sounds as though it went extremely well.  Trudy said it was difficult to get through the sobriety of the kids.  When they did laugh they lit the place up but very quickly they would sober and retreat into their shells.  She added that they were beautiful, a wonderful privilege to work with, to share with.  At the same time, it was impossible to ignore the reality of the situation that produced such sobriety in these children.

Among the things that are lacking in Mizak is the most basic necessities; food, clean water and shelter.  Already scarce before the quake, the thin margin between subsistence and starvation is being newly challenged.  Even the volunteers were on a nearly subsistence diet for the time they were there.  Limited to two meals a day, breakfast and dinner, Trudy said that even that was more then many around them were eating.  Breakfast was bread and piece of fruit or cereal.  Dinner was beans, rice and a chicken leg.  Anyone around them getting such regular food, meager though it was, would have been blessed.

Coming from a culture of excess that we do, seeing such hunger and poverty was horrible for Trudy.  From the moment they hit the ground it pervaded every moment of the experience.  She writes in the FRM OFH Newsletter:

When we came out of the airport with our luggage carts, it was complete chaos.  People were screaming at us.  Some were trying to help with bags so you would pay them.  Others were asking for money, food, etc.  We pushed across the broken asphalt road through mud and slime.  One of the nurses was in front of me.  She kept dropping her bags off the cart.  Another person in front of her was also struggling.  All those weeks of practicing French were lost in this moment of desperation.  I was so rattled that the only thing coming out of my mouth was Chinese.  I shoved bags back on racks and helped push their carts as well as mine.  When we pushed through to the main road, the rest of the team was no where in sight. One person was getting a little hysterical and crying,” Where are they?”  “Just push forward a little. Don’t worry we will see them.”  In a sea of dark faces it would be easy to see the foreigner; I knew this from living in China. You can always spot a foreigner.  A worker came back to help and direct us.  When we got to the van, the nurse began to cry. I hugged her.  She said that she was okay but just gets a little teary.  Even as we sat in the van, people came to beg.  IT was the same everywhere.  They are hungry, starving.  You can see it in their gaunt faces and bony frames. Oh that I had the power of Jesus Christ to break out 5 loaves and two fish and feed those empty bellies.   Finally, my French lessons came back and yet all I could say was, “Je suis desolee.”  “I am so sorry.”  Against the rules, I gave away an apple I had in my pocket.  Others in the van shoved their sandwiches and power bars out of the window into the hands of the hungry. How could I refuse a cry for food?  Welcome to Haiti! I thought as we drove away.

Poor people, desperate people, their need driving them to beg for the things they need.  That is something that is understandable.  Even stealing to feed loved ones I can understand. Proverbs 30:8-9 says,

I can understand what a man or woman might do to feed their families or even themselves but there are horrible things happening that hunger or desperation can not account for.

Among the group that went with Trudy was a team of doctors and nurses.  Their experience seems to jibe with what is in the news.  Gunshot wounds, rapes of both adult women and children.  Other sexual and physical abuse of adults and children as well as spousal abuse is on the rise.  An argument between two adults escalating to violence, perhaps a husband and wife, I get that, but the sexual abuse that is going on is out of control.

Perhaps it is the living conditions; boundaries in the makeshift camps may be difficult to maintain.  Perhaps the pressure of circumstances completely out of their control has caused people to snap.  One woman wanders the countryside, insane.  She can not care for herself and has abandoned her child in the HAPI compound.  Under these conditions perhaps it is understandable that people would give their children away if there was any hope that they might find a better life even in another country.

Getting Trudy to talk about this experience is not easy.  The stories come in bits and pieces as I press her for concrete details.  Pressing her, despite her desire not to talk about what she saw, is very important.  She needs to be able to get those concrete details out so that she can examine them, respond to them in a healthy way and put them behind her.  Please keep her lifted as she works through this.  Please lift the whole team that they each have someone to that will listen to what they say.

Please lift up the people of Haiti.  The news stories will taper off as interest wanes.  The road blocks to relief are simply too numerous to list and too complicated to try and put down in a “short” note.  Despite all the lack, what they need most is to know the son.  This tiny nation cries out for relief.  Please take time to see if the boss has called you to answer their cry.  Some will send; others will go.

Helping Children in Haiti with Trauma

UPDATE! You can sponsor our volunteer OperationSAFE trainers for $6 an hour. We need sponsors for 1000 hours. Please sponsor today!

Beginning in March, OperationSAFE will start bringing smiles back to the children of Haiti who have suffered so much in the recent earthquake.  Children who have experienced trauma need more than just food, shelter and medicine – they need hugs, hope and help.

According to a recently released study of children affected by Hurricane Katrina published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the estimated prevalence of serious emotional disturbances (SED) among residents of the affected areas was 14.9 percent. Of those, 9.3 percent of youths were believed to have SED that was directly attributable to Hurricane Katrina. Characteristics of SED include inappropriate behavior, depression, hyperactivity, eating disorders, fears and phobias, and learning difficulties for children younger than 18.

We are partnering with Haitian Artisans for Peace International (HAPI), a community development non-profit organization that has long-term work in the mountain village of Mizak near Jacmel.  This video was made by one of their volunteers before the quake, of the village and the work they are doing in helping impoverished families start economically viable small businesses.

Impressions of Haiti from Katie Major on Vimeo.

Since the disaster much of their focus has been on immediate needs and they are bringing in relief, medical and construction teams to help the community rebuild.  OperationSAFE will train and supply teams that will work alongside the medical component with the children, with the goal of rapidly passing on the ongoing trauma work to Haitian locals.

Teamwork

Already we have become a team of international proportions with Japanese, Chinese, American, Canadian, French and Haitians helping.  Materials are being translated into French/Creole, and posters, storyboards and character medallions are being produced to help children remember the important lessons they will learn.  Games, songs and crafts all need to be localized and leaders need to be trained.  We are bringing in our best trainers from China, where they have been using the material for two years with children who suffered trauma in the Great Sichuan Earthquake.

Although we will not be able to accept volunteers at this time to go to Haiti, we still need your help on this team as well.  We have a very short time to prepare everything needed for the camp beforehand – nothing will be available locally in Haiti.  We also have little time to raise money before we start training in late February.

1. Your generous donation today will help us bring Haitian children their smiles back,
2. You can spread this appeal by hitting the Retweet button or the Facebook Share button.
3. You can add your comment to this post to send your encouragement to the children in Haiti.
4. You can partner with OperationSAFE — donate your passion and creativity!

With your help Haitian children will know “I am not alone”
Thank you,

Jonathan Wilson

OpSAFE International

OperationSAFE

http://opsafeintl.com

It is now almost three weeks since the devastating quake in Haiti. Much has been accomplished, but great challenges still remain.  In the response to every disaster some needs are constant but others change as time goes by.  Please use this guide to continue to pray specifically.  (A good way to remember to pray is to bookmark it and put it in with the sites that you check daily).

1. Pray that relief would come swiftly to those who need it,

The logistics of relief are mind-boggling.  Desperate people trying to get food can create an even more dangerous situation for themselves and relief workers.  Pray for creative solutions, organization, grass-roots distribution that works, and that all for those with special needs to get relief as well.

2.  Pray for the safety and morale of relief workers,

Relief work in such a tragic situation as Haiti is morally draining.  Every child that you cannot help far outweighs all of those that you did help in your mind as you go to sleep exhausted and know that it probably won’t be much better tomorrow.  These workers need encouragement, support and angels of mercy.

3.  Pray for families who are facing an uncertain future,

After the initial shock of the quake there is a brief time when everyone is simply grateful to be alive, and have little time to think about anything but survival.  In the coming weeks, people will do more waiting than anything else – and while they wait the future will look very bleak indeed.  Pray for hope, for clear information from authorities, for solutions that provide not just for present needs but for future possibilities as well.

4.  Pray for children

Children continue to be the most vulnerable after disaster and new threats are starting to emerge.  Pray that children could be reunited with families, that orphans would be cared for and not end up trafficked or on the street.  Pray for emotional care for children who have experienced trauma.

5.  Pray for the Haitian government and for international authorities.

Haiti was the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere before the quake and many of the problems they are facing pre-existed the current crisis.  Pray that wisdom and compassion would prevail and corruption and greed would be overcome.

6.  Pray for international aid agencies.

There are as many as 500 international groups responding to the disaster in Haiti and a great outpouring of aid and support has been generously given.  Pray for these agencies to cooperate well, to be generous with each other, to use these funds wisely and compassionately to make a lasting difference for the people of Haiti.

7.  Pray for ongoing compassion

Pray for all those who have given of time or treasure to not grow weary in doing good.  Pray for all those who are working in the field volunteering that they would overcome “Compassion Fatigue”.  Pray that we would not forget Haiti or be distracted by the next thing in the news.

8.  Pray for yourself!

A true heart of compassion is not just ready to give when the need arises like it has now in Haiti.  A true heart of compassion seeks out ways to help even when no one else notices that there is suffering.  People have been suffering in Haiti for a long time, but now the attention of the world is upon it because of the disaster.  A true heart of compassion will allow itself to continue caring long after the world has lost interest.

Once you finish praying, ask yourself two questions.

• How can I become personally involved with helping the people in Haiti?
• How can I financially support someone who is personally involved?

Last month I shared some thoughts about how people use Twitter according to their personality types and used the Wizard of Oz as an example of three basic types -

1. The Scarecrows, who are information-centric and primarily use Twitter to discover what is happening, get the latest news, and to share knowledge,
2. The Tin-Men (and women!), who are relationship-focussed and use Twitter primarily to connect with interesting people and make friends, and
3. The Lions, who are results-oriented, who use Twitter mostly to make a difference and meet objectives.

Some of the best users of Twitter obviously have a great grasp of all three, but I have a suspicion that most of us are heavily weighted in one or two but find the third to be a chore.  We would rather use the limited time that we have on twitter to concentrate on what we enjoy rather than having it become another job to do.

As I have been working on a social media strategy for OperationSAFE and our work with trauma children I have come to the conclusion that the potential is truly amazing, but the amount of work involved is also just as amazing.  If we are really going to make a difference we need your help.  And I have seen just how helpful that can be.  We are preparing to partner with a community in the remote mountains of Haiti to provide trauma care for about 300 children.  In just a few short hours on Twitter we were able to find a number of helpful volunteers who translated all of our materials into French over the next couple of days.  But this was not just the work of a few translators, everyone helped by RT’ing the appeal, by spreading it to French speaking tweeters and making personal introductions.  The point being that everyone helped in their own way!

Over the next few months I would like us to get organized and start using our personal strengths to make a massive difference for trauma children all over the world.  I have some very specific objectives that I will be sharing (the Lion in me!) but of course we can all start with Haiti and the desperate need there for trauma care for children who have been through not just the earthquake but the aftermath as well.

Here is how!

1. Scarecrows! Want to help trauma children? Help me research, find news items, and educate to raise awareness.  Find articles for me, blog posts, tweets from people in the field.  The main causes of traumatic stress for children in the world today are war, abuse, trafficking, disasters, extreme poverty and displacement (refugees) – find current and compelling information and let’s make it known to the world.
   
2. Tin-Men! Want to help trauma children? Introduce caring people to our work at OperationSAFE.  Find the people who care and help them to be part of the solution.  We need to meet the people who are working with children who have been abused, who are on the ground in places around the world where children need our help.  We need to make partnerships with charities and ngos who need our help to meet the needs of these children.  You are the link between us and them.  We want to make this as personal as we can, so that each of you can make a real difference.
3. Lions! Use your passion for trauma children to help us raise awareness of the problem and recruit others to join our cause! Start grassroots campaigns, organize teams, find new ways for us to get the message out.  See something that we aren’t doing yet – jump in and help us! And of course RT, RT, RT!

So which one are you? Please comment below and join the team – could you commit to spending an hour a week doing what you love to do already for truama children?

Over the last month I started taking an interest in the new List feature of Twitter, and wondering if it could be used to provide leverage for non-profits and charities.  I noticed that despite being new to Twitter and at the time having fewer than 2000 followers, @OperationSAFE was on a relatively high number of TwitterLists (about 1 list for every 10 followers).  I believe that this was true because those people who follow and then interact tend to care deeply about the work that we do with trauma children, perhaps resulting in higher interaction per follower.  I decided to try two experiments to see if the list could be made to work to strengthen the experience more than just recruiting bulk followers.

Experiment #1 The OpSAFE Twitter Team

I started asking people to help our cause by joining the OpSAFE Twitter Team through an act.ly retweet campaign. Act.ly had just expanded their service from petitions to RT’s and designed it to help people to promote causes.  I decided to tweet the link and ask people on the act.ly page to retweet it again to join the team.  The second step of retweeting to make a commitment to favorite and retweet @operationSAFE tweets got them recognition on the act.ly page and added to the opsafe-twitter-team TwitterList.

Experiment #2 The Make a #Charity TwitterList for Christmas Campaign

When I noticed that we were on about 1 list per 10 followers, I was curious to know how that compared with others on Twitter.  I checked on Listorious’ ranking of the top #140 most listed and discovered that they listed much further than the top 140 and found myself down where I thought I would be, way down the list!  But what surprised me was that many in the top 140 actually were on fewer lists than I was! How could that be?  It turns out that Listorious only counts those lists that are registered with them, “to check for quality”.  After registering all of the lists that I was already on, I was much further up the ranking than I thought possible and decided to encourage a campaign for Christmas to make as many charity Twitter Lists as possible.  My thinking was that it could give every charity listed a little boost in awareness and might actually rank @OperationSAFE in the top #140 most listed.

Things worked out much better than I had imagined.  In the space of a little less than a month,

• 192 people joined the OpSAFE Twitter Team.
• Our act.ly campaign has been the most active campaign for the month of December.
• The OpSAFE-Twitter-Team List has become the 4th most followed Charity List – just after such notables as @mashable and @alyssa_milano.
• I have become the 4th top Charity List Curator – again after @mashable and @alyssa_milano.
• The highest I was ranked on the top #140 Most Listed was ….. drumroll please…. #12! Actually ranked above Alyssa but nowhere close to Pete Cashmore who is still hundreds of lists ahead.
• I was able to count at least 154 charity lists that were created, although I was only able to track the ones that included @operationSAFE on them.

So what does this really mean and what good will come out of it?  Not quite sure yet, but here are a few observations.

1. Rankings and Statistics Can Be Easily Gamed – But Can Also Help Motivate!

Most of the people on the #140 Most Listed ranking have 10 to 100 times the followers that we have and are also listed much more than we are on the actual Twitter site.  Simply by registering all of the #charity lists that were made we gamed the system.  I think the much more valuable statistics are the follower rankings for charity lists, as these are based off the same data as on Twitter itself and also show that while many of the whales may be listed umpteen thousand times, most of those lists are themselves never seen except by their own creators.  The value of lists has yet to be seen, but one of the value of rankings is motivational – they help make campaigns fun by giving people a goal for which to aim.

2. Lists Can Help Make Stronger Connections and Interactions

While I am sure that I will fall back down the ranking of the 140 Most Listed, the OpSAFE-Twitter-Team list will probably become the core of our social media strategy.  I found that this list became my starting place on Twitter, the people that I interact first with, retweet and who of course were committed to retweet our message as well.  I now tweet regularly on how to make a strong team and recommend that everyone on the team help those who are just starting out.

Everything is still so new on Twitter that I am not sure what to make of it all.  But I do believe that the platform has real potential for non-profits and charities.  Lists are a great way to start making sense of the stream and connecting more deeply with those who are passionate about the causes that we support.

I just finished watching “The Wizard of Oz” with my kids.  What a delight!  There is so much to like about this classic, but it got me thinking about Twitter and of course more than just Twitter, about people in general.

People tend to be motivated by one of the three things that Dorothy’s friends so longed for.  The Scarecrow was motivated by truth, testified to by his musical lament “If I Only Had a Brain”.  The Tin-Man was in need of a heart and demonstrated the second great motivation, love.  And finally the Lion thought that if he could only find courage then he would really be king of the forest.  The Lion was motivated by power.

On Twitter there will always be some people for whom the main reason they are there is to find or disseminate information.  These are the Scarecrows.  For others, information is all well and good but what really keeps them tweeting are the relationships!  They are the Tin-men (and women!)  And finally there are some who Tweet because they want to make a difference.  They might be championing a cause, pushing an agenda, or trying to sell you something but they are all Lions.

So which one are you?

• Scarecrow – You use Twitter primarily to discover what is happening, get the latest news first, and to share your knowledge with others.
• Tin-Man – You use Twitter primarily to connect with interesting people and are really here for the relationships.
• Lion – You use Twitter primarily to make a difference and your main object is to see results.

I am a Lion through and through!  I have a great respect for truth, and am trying to grow in love but the reason that I am excited about Twitter is because there is potential to involve hundreds of people in helping trauma children around the world.

The real challenge comes as all of us try to travel this wonderful Twitter-brick road together.  If we argue about which is the correct way to travel the road the Wicked Witch will get us for sure!  But if we can work together like Dorothy and her friends and each help the other find what they are looking for, we will discover that we have what we wanted as well.

So which one are you?  Scarecrow, Tin-Man or Lion?

I am recruiting a TwitterTeam of people who love our cause to keep raising awareness for OperationSAFE. If you would like to be a part of the team, just click on the following act.ly box, RT and I will add you to our OpSAFE TwitterTeam list.

What does a TwitterTeam do?  Favorite a few of my posts that you like from @operationSAFE and then add them to your regular RT’s during the day.  Watch for campaigns and news from the field and spread it like wildfire around Twitter (and FB too).

Thanks!

“The greatest reward this side of heaven is the smile of a child.”

Quake victim shares smiles with OpSAFE volunteers