PENTICTON IRONMAN FOR COLOMBIA

Catching up on my blogging and updating everyone in advance of the big day on Sunday!  
It's been an intense few days, but we're settling in and feeling organized.  Arrived in beautiful Penticton mid-day on Thursday; checked in at the Ironman Expo, lots of excitement, familiar faces and new faces.  Profound sense of purpose and camaraderie here.  Have a fantastic support crew here, including my lovely wife Elaine.  First-time Ironman athletes who have trained alongside me are pals Mary Booth and Julie Menzies.  
You can follow our progress on Sunday on the Subaru Ironman Canada website:
Penticton Ironman: Follow an athlete
Got up yesterday morning to a beautiful day; weather is hot here, but little humidity.  Forecast for Sunday is 32C!  We're planning ahead and hydrating, hydrating, hydrating.  Hit the Expo; invested in an emergency tire-repair kit.  Ready for everything.  Donned the wetsuits and took a short (500m), slow swim in Lake Okanagan to get a feel for the swim course.  Water is perfect.  

Pat Ward, me, my wife Elaine, and Esther Pauls.

After a bite to eat, drove into the mountains to Yellow Lake to test out cycling legs on the 12k climb we'll encounter at about kilometer 160 of the Ironman. 

Friends in deed Gord and Esther Pauls and Pat Ward.

I have my work cut out for me!

On to a very short run to test the grade.  Conclusion:  it's steep.

...followed by a cooling dip in Yellow Lake.

Back to town for dinner, and an evening view of Lake Okanagan.

The 4k swim portion of the Ironman is out to the far point

and looping back.

Friday evening we rounded up friends and met at the Penticton Ironman Street Festival; live music, delicious food, excitement and anticipation.

A twirling dervish enjoying the music.

Elaine and I.

More posts to follow: the Ironman is tomorrow!

Leaving on a jet plane...tomorrow

Well, I am leaving for Penticton tomorrow.  The Ironman race is this Sunday, August 28th.  Please keep me in your prayers and thoughts.  This is the biggest physical goal I've ever tried to accomplish yet. 

Books for Starfish Kids in Haiti

Joy and Hope of Haiti volunteer group has a really good friend with a connection to the French School Board in Hamilton.  We have been blessed with  new surplused French books that can be used with the curriculum that is taught in the Starfish Kids Schools - actually 90 boxes of books!   We are hoping the French books will find their way to Haiti before the winter sets in and when the books get to Haiti, they will definitely be appreciated.  Today, I am involved with moving these boxes from Georges Vanier high school to our famous "Apple Barn" storage area.  We cannot do any of this kind of thing without an army of volunteers so thank you to all who made this happen!   

Mission Possible: Colombia

“Mission Possible” Campaign

Dear Friends:

August 28, 2011 kicks off the Mission Possible Campaign. I have chosen to take part in this campaign to help widows and orphans in Colombia.

Together, we can’t lose!

The “Asociación Confraternidad Carcelaria de Antioquia” (ACCA) located in Medellin, Colombia is a Christian organization that has as its mission to serve, train, orient, administer and improve the conditions in the community: both for those serving time in prison as well as for those who are victims of criminal activity within the Department of Antioquia (like a Province in Canada).

The ministries of ACCA are far-reaching. They minister to men and women who are living in Colombia’s grossly overcrowded prisons. They are bringing hope to the hopeless and helping transform lives. More than 40 ex-prisoners are now pastors on the outside. In addition, they work with the family members of those who are in prison and help their children with their studies, help them get health care and help them break the cycle of violence and crime. But perhaps their most amazing ministry is with the widows and orphans of pastors who have been assassinated by the drug cartels. They currently work with the families of more than 60 martyred pastors.

The campaign begins in Canada on August 28, 2011

Everyone can participate.

Bike, swim, run, lose weight…

The possibilities are limitless…

Make a resolution today with a purpose.

The total distance between Hamilton & Medellin is 4,000 kilometers. My goal is to help raise $100,000 at $25 per kilometer. Please join me in this goal by making a tax receiptable donation to OMS Canada. Please place project #70105 on the memo line of your cheques, or you can:

DONATE ONLNE AT: www.missionpossiblecolombia.com

Thank you so much in advance and wish me luck!


1-800-784-7077

email:  info@missionpossiblecolombia.com

website:  http://www.missionpossiblecolombia.com/

IRONMAN - August 28th, 2011

Call me crazy.  I am registered and going to swim 3.8 km, bike 180 km and run 42.2 km on August 28th in Penticton, B.C.

Yes, I've cleared it with my doctors and yes, I have been training, training  and training for this event and I am loving the journey.

If you look at my last blog posting - August 28th is mentioned because  August 28th is when the Mission Possible:  Colombia campaign starts.  I promised more information.  We will have a website up and running very very soon.  

My Mission Possible:  Subaru Ironman, Penticton, B.C.

Campaign - to raise $100,000.00 for mission work in Colombia.

Participants - anyone can join the campaign with a goal to achieve PLUS have a purpose  -  find sponsors to help you achieve your goal and at the same time help the Mission Possible Colombia Campaign.

4,000 km

That's the distance from Hamilton to Medellin, Colombia.

Divide 4,000 into $100,000.00. 

That's $25.00 per km.

Want to join the Campaign?

Want to sponsor me?

Email me:   aduerksen@mfmcanada.ca



Kick off starts August 28th. 

The Mission Possible Colombia Campaign ending in 2012 will be announced soon.....

Stay tuned.

We Can't Lose Helping Widows & Orphans in Colombia

More exciting news about some physical activities I and others will be participating in:

"We Can’t Lose!   Helping Widows & Orphans in Colombia"

August 28, 2011 will kick off

“MISSION POSSIBLE”

Campaign across Canada

Everyone can participate.

Make a resolution today with a purpose.

Change your life

and the lives of mothers and

children in Colombia.

Check out my next blog posting coming soon.

ARTHUR LIAM DUERKSEN (the 4th)

Elaine and I are the proud grandparents of our first grandchild:

Arthur Liam Duerksen (the 4th)

Born June 7th, 2011 at 12:47pm weighing 7lbs 7oz.

YOU'RE INVITED TO AN EVENT - JUNE 27TH - THE UNTOLD STORIES OF COLOMBIA: PIERCING THE DARKNESS

Jeannine Brabon, OMS missionary in Colombia and 11 of the Colombians involved in prison ministry with Jeannine at the Bellavista Prison in Medellin are coming to the Toronto area in late June for a Prison Fellowship conference. This conference happens once every four years. Their stories and experiences are incredible to hear.


You and your friends, family and neighbours are invited to an event with our Colombian friends.  Come hear gripping testimonies of transformation from those who were imprisoned in Colombia's Bellavista Jail, Medellin, Colombia:

Place: Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, 9280 Airport Road, Mount Hope ON. It will be a private function held in the main hangar http://www.warplane.com/

Date: Monday, June 27. Doors open at 5:45 p.m., dinner at 7:00 p.m. (the museum closes to the general public at 5:00 p.m. – for this private function, you have the opportunity to look around the museum before dinner and you will be having dinner in the same location as the planes are kept – main hangar)

Ticket Cost: $30 pp (including your museum tour, meal and a short program).

To purchase tickets or for more information, contact: Art 905-577-1936 (aduerksen@mfmcanada.ca) or Cathy Zavitz, 905-522-5494 (czavitz@mfmcanada.ca).

High Above Haiti, There is Hope (cont'd)

While Dr. Rodney Baptiste was in Ontario, there were many opportunities for him to share his vision and plan.  Approximately $25,000.00 has been raised to date towards seeing his vision and plan become a reality.  Here's a picture of one of the vehicles that's in the process of being transformed.

Unimog army vehicle to be transformed

High Above Haiti, There is Hope

Dr. Rodney Baptiste
(Picture by John Rennison, Hamilton Spectator)

High Above Haiti, There is Hope.

(Article first appeared in the Spectator May 10th, 2011,

written by Susan Clairmont, photograph by John Rennison)

Drive until the road ends. Then walk up the mountain for six hours.
There, high above Haiti in the village of Roque, there are babies needing to be born. Broken bones needing to be set. Cholera needing to be cured.


This is the world of Dr. Rodney Baptiste. A family physician for all of four years. Once a month, he leaves his home in Cap Haitien, on the island’s northern edge, and goes to some of the most remote villages in the nation.


Once, he treated 400 patients in one day. By himself.


Another time, villagers woke him at 2 a.m. A pregnant woman, just 17, was suffering from eclampsia, a potentially deadly disorder. She needed a hospital. But it was a day’s walk down the mountain. Up the mountain, two hours away, was the next nearest village. There, a man with a “tap-tap” – a truck - lived. In the end, the distance was too great. “The baby died. The young woman died”, the doctor says quietly, in English.


Dr. Rodney, as he likes to be called, is here in Hamilton for two weeks. It is the 35-year- old’s first time off the island that comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where he attended medical school. He has travelled here at the behest of the many Hamilton friends he has made, people who have been to his home to build schools or deliver medical care. They are great believers in the work he does and have found a way to help him help more Haitians.


They want to provide him with mobile clinics to take to the mountain villages.


A Hamilton-based non-profit organization called Empower Global is working with Dr. Rodney to open a stationary health-care clinic in Cap-Haitien in September, to start a health-care education program and to purchase off-road ex-military vehicles capable of driving up steep hills, through water and over rugged terrain.


One of these vehicles has already been purchased, but has been operating in the capital city of Port-au-Prince since the earthquake. Two more vehicles are hoped for to venture weekly into the rural areas around Cap-Haitien. About $40,000.00 has already been raised to buy, stock and operate the vehicles, but another $90,000.00 is needed, says Cal Schultz, director of Haiti operations for Empower Global. One off-road clinic – equipped with beds, oxygen, water, narcotics will serve 5,800 Haitians a year.


Haitian medical experts and visiting Canadian physicians and nurses will work alongside Dr. Rodney.


To help raise funds for his program, Dr. Rodney is spreading the word in Ontario, including at a sold-out event last Friday night that was attended by many members of the Hamilton and Halton medical communities. A Hamilton nurse who knows Dr. Rodney from her volunteer work in Haiti, planned to take him on a tour of St. Joseph’s Hospital. Another nurse, who specializes in disaster medicine, has arranged for him to ride with a Barrie paramedic team. He is also visiting some medical clinics and speaking at two elementary schools in Hamilton.


To anyone who will listen, Dr. Rodney will talk of the need for basic health care in Hamilton. “So many people die for nothing”, he says.


Cap-Haitien wasn’t affected much by last year’s earthquake. But those who were left homeless in the south of the country – in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel – have flooded the undamaged northern community. The people in the city and in the mountains need treatment for malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, malnutrition, tuberculosis. They need to be educated that the spread of AIDS can be lessened if precautions are taken. They need treatment for the cholera that erupted in Haiti after the earthquake when water became contaminated. Treatment that is as simple as hydration.


“They don’t have good water”, says Dr. Rodney. “Cholera makes me very sad because so many people died in Haiti. It is sad when you see people die for basic things”.


Already, the doctor has helped villagers in the mountains plant vegetable gardens. Now they have food. Now they can have medicine that must be taken with food.


Dr. Rodney shrugs when asked why he became a doctor. “When I look at the need of my people, I remember why God made me become a doctor”.


To donate to Dr. Rodney’s mobile clinics , call Empower Global at 905-334-9595.


Susan Clairmont’s commentary appears regularly in The Spectator. sclairmont@thespec.com 905-526-3539.