Rory Feek’s wife sadly passed away when she lost her struggle with cancer, at that time her fans were completely dismayed and saddened, everyone wondered what would happen about their favorite duo, the next couple superstars. A full year and a half after this, Rory didn’t feel the same without his one and only and had found it so difficult to perform again. ‘This Life I Live’, his website, has kept his fans busy though! Rory blogs as if he is writing an open diary, recounting his life after the terrible loss after Joey’s death. There are good reasons why the fans keep coming back, one is Rory’s daughter Indiana.

Three years old and with special needs she is full of energy and smiles and keeps Rory grounded and happy when he needs it most. Just to show how much show is his latest blog post, he surprises his fans by telling us how deeply his love is for his daughter and her mom. At school, there is an awesome team of people, teachers and therapists right by Indiana’s since the first day she started to help her learn everything that other children the same age do. However, Rory thinks this isn’t what Joey would have desired… Rory said:

“If Joey were here … she would be homeschooling Indy … she would be way more interested in Indiana learning to be a good person than being a good reader. To love God and the life that He’s given her, more than what a lot of the world is telling us to love. And in her mind, home is the best place to learn those things.”

Rory really wanted to fulfil Joey’s dream, so much so that he deiced he was going to build a school on his farm, and give Indiana the best of both! He used an old schoolhouse built around 1892 in Kentucky as his inspiration, Rory has started constructing his one-room schoolhouse, right there on his land! Rory said:

“Fifty or more people… descended on our parking lot at 7 am this past Saturday morning with hammers and saws, hamburgers and hotdogs and hearts full of love. They were here to help build something big for someone little.”

The school when finished will have the room for about twelve children and as well as teaching the kids to read, write and mathematics, rural skills will be a big part of the curriculum. Rory said:

“… the kids will have a playground and their own garden … a hen-house/barn with chickens and other animals to raise and woods to build a birdwatching hut and make trails that the teachers can take them for walks in. And across the pasture, we have horses that they can care for and learn to ride and a concert hall where they can learn about music and put productions on the stage.”

This will definitely be great for three year old Indiana, just look how the community comes together to realize Joey’s dream and see it materialize!

It doesn’t take much in todays world to discourage some people, just a good look at the news of the day is usually enough to make most people feel down.

Somebody was held at gunpoint, an elderly person was conned out of money, thugs broke into the family home…

Most news sources use shocking events that occur in everyday life to catch the attention of their readers and to keep them interested, but more rarely are their reports of nice things that less people want to ready about.

Though, with all these negative vibes we are surrounded with, there are many acts of kindness that we do not hear about. Whether the media decides not to report them or not, we must think to ourselves that there are more good people than bad.

Beau Collins, an Australian resident, had not long ago had his faith in humanity restored, it was a complete surprise to him.

Just think about how it feels in the grocery store, the cashier totals up your full shopping cart and you see the amount in the display as you reach for you wallet.

Now picture that feeling of all the blood suddenly draining from your face, we all know that feeling!

Your wallet that you thought was safely in your pocket, or purse in your handbag is nowhere to be found. Standing there you can feel yourself turning white, then red, no way to pay your bill and frozen in a stupor how to deal with this situation.

Collins had assumed that his daughter had played a joke on him and hidden his wallet, but actually he had misplaced it. In the US over 1000 purses or wallets are stolen every two minutes, but Collins didn’t want to think about it.

He now accepted that he would have to get a replacement drivers license and credit cards, any cash he would just consider lost!

Collins had not been expecting a package, but one arrived at his house…

He opened the package, but was shocked by the contents, his wallet!

Everything that was in his wallet was still in there, safe and sound, nothing missing at all.There was only a note in the package, unsigned…

He didn’t know who to thank for the safe return of his wallet, and their honesty, so he went to Facebook to find the person that had so thoughtfully returned his wallet to him, but so far he has had no luck finding them.

It looks like the anonymous person that returned his wallet was going to stay anonymous!

Its a great thought to know that despite everything we hear in the news, that this story of kindness, although little hear, is here to inspires us all! Let’s share this amazing story and hope it inspires us all a little more!

All children have heroes they look up to and admire, fictional or depicted by an actor, in sports, possibly a prominent political figure, film actors and many others, in essence, somebody to look up to, even perhaps a cool relative of a friend of the family. Role models like these are so essential for reinforcing good values in the young minds of children and young people, who of course copy their every move. Children want to be just like their heroes as they grow up and copy what their heroes do, of course, they can do no wrong! One of the greatest of these role models, at least in boys is his older brother, who holds, in most cases admiration and a sense they the younger of the two want to do as they do, especially when the older brother in a little more advanced in years. An 11 year old from Carnegie Elementary School, in Tulsa, called Damon Chiodo had not seen his bigger brother Devin Tomei, 25 years old, for more than a few days since March 2015. His brother was an Army Specialist in Basic Training and Damon holds his brother in such high regard.

Devin completed his basic training then after this was deployed in Germany, he worked on the CH-47 Chinook helicopters there. The brothers kept in touch with Skype and of course Xbox! They really didn’t get to see each other though… At school, Damon was asked to write an essay about his hero, so of course, he decided to write, without a second thought, about his brother! Damon didn’t have a clue that the assignment was not a real one… It was planned by his teacher and the school principal very cunningly…

Devin realized that he was coming home, the Army was sending him stateside to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, his mom set a plan in place and Devin was in on it! Daemon stood on stage, he began reading his essay, if only he knew what was coming, his older brother was hiding just the other side of the curtain… Devin stood there listening to his little brother read his essay for at least 15 minutes, who read: “Hundreds of Army missions depend on these helicopters, and my brother must make sure that all of them are safe and ready to fly.” Then when he finished his speech Daemon turned round to find his brother there, in the flesh, the hero he had just told his class about. He was completely stunned at first for a second, but then leapt into Devin’s arms. Devin was trying his best not to cry in from of the room full of sixth graders, he said: “He was begging me to come home most of the time, telling me about all the stuff he’s doing” When Daemon finished reading the essay he was allowed to leave school for the day so he could spend time with his brother. Devin will be stationed over in Kentucky, which is still a fair distance away, however, he can now get home more often. Daemon sent a recent post to a television show, Ellen, DeGeneres, he said: “Hey, Ellen I was wondering if you knew me. I’m Damon Chiodo from the national news and I was wondering if I could show them what happened and have a conversation.” “I have always wanted to meet you and I think I can show you some things me and my brother like to do and show everyone the resemblance cause everyone always said that if I was born with Devin we would be twins but I think it would be a surprise for Devin to be able to see you because of him surprising me I want to surprise him.” What an awesome display of brotherly love, I think they will have definitely made their parents proud!

Do you remember going to school? Sitting in class through lunchtime breaks and Physical Education and all the different events through the year, perhaps talent shows too. Simply the idea of being on stage was intimidating! OK, so talent shows consist of either singing, dancing or playing an instrument and that pretty much covers it, but apart from showcasing talent the shows were a great way to show off to your schoolmates, the attention you got was pretty good too! I really do think that these 10 year old boys that come from New Braunfels Christian Academy really did just that, they entertained, they impressed all their schoolmates, they, all in all, put on a great show in their school’s annual talent show. These four boys had put a lot of time and effort too into their preparations for the amazing performance together and were really excited to see if their schoolmates would love it as much as they loved performing it. The performance starts mysteriously with just a very big black sheet, everybody in the audience it quiet! Then the sheet is pulled away, then there is nobody that is not laughing. The boys didn’t go for the traditional talent show kind of thing, by singing or having an instrument, they thought up an original and incredibly funny performance, as babies in onesies and bibs, looking a little like puppets! As soon as the music started it will crack you up, they are awesome! The way they perform, right to the props and the choreography is just great, you will remember it for sure! Have a look at their performances and you will see exactly, 1:50 will have you rolling on the floor!

As parents, we often take actions to prevent harm to our children, sometimes without thought to ourselves of the repercussions! This is just one of those times as this 56 year old mother jumped in with a knife in her hand to fend off three men gang raping her daughter. One of the men died and subsequently the woman was arrested, however, the courts have now decided that she will not receive any time for the murder! A South African woman was told by a friend of the terrible thing that was happening to her daughter, being gang-raped by three men, inside an empty house in part of a village called Qumbu. The woman, 56, whose daughter was suffering the attack searched the house frantically only to find the three men and her distressed daughter. Without a thought, she quickly grabbed a knife and stabbed the three men to get them away from her daughter, one of the rapists died after the incident. The mother was arrested and faced charges of murder and attempted murder for the part she played in the ordeal. In South Africa, the case received a lot of attention, as well as international media too! The brave mother was nicknamed “Lion Mama”. There were a lot of people who sympathized with the mother and there was a crowdfunding campaign set up to show their support and to pay her legal costs of around USD $ 10,000. The mother’s lawyer said: “She still needs to go for trauma counselling for her and her daughter. We have transferred the money that was paid to us to her for her wellbeing” The Magistrates Court, Lady Frere, made an announcement that the woman was not going to be charged with the murder of the rapist and the other two men were arrested and await prosecution. Talking publically to hundreds of her supporters outside the courthouse the mother said that she was completely touched by the public’s reaction and support. She said: “I felt like an old baboon that has no friends, but today you showed me I have people and that I was not alone. Thank you” You can certainly say that this mother needed to save her daughter from the violence and stepped in without a thought for herself. What would you do? Should she be locked up for the murder, share and support her!

Homeless people do have a way of drawing in those who want to genuinely help. Many of us only look at how they look outwardly but some of us make assumptions about them form how we think they ended up in the streets. Nevertheless, even considering how that homeless person might have ended up on the streets, we find the love in our heart to give to them selflessly. On this note, there was one Facebooker who realized how important it is to do this! A realtor in Jacksonville, North Carolina, called ShelbyLynn Henry Alexander went into detail about what exactly happened to her in January. She saw, while sat waiting at some traffic lights, a raggedy man standing with little clothes and it was only 30 degrees outside! He had handwritten in big letters on a cardboard sign:

“Need a little help. Will pay it forward.”

Alexander went over to the guy, he had a dog that he wrapped in a blanket and decided to give him some money. She wrapped three bills around her real estate business card, and then for the times to come, maybe he would be in a better position and need a home. Alexander drove off and as she did she said a prayer for him, she said about him:

“I never caught his name, but I remembered his face.”

Looking forward eight months and Alexander saw how much a simple prayer could change things, sure enough, she received a call one night from a client, at her office. When Alexander arrived at the meeting with the client she noticed a dog poking his head out of the client’s truck. As the guy opened the truck door she noticed that is was the same guy she gave the money to earlier on that year. This time around the guy was clean and dressed nicely, Alexander had a fearful thought that maybe it was a scam from the beginning, but then the guy, with tears in his eyes handed her back her card wrapped in three bills! She was left completely speechless, she learned that he was homeless following a bad divorce. Present day he has a new job as an engineer, his life was back on track! That day Alexander really learned to not judge anyone without knowing all about them and their circumstances, just pray and let God decide!

Do you remember the last time you left something important at home and had to turn back to get it? It’s completely maddening when this happens don’t you think? There are some people that believe in fate and that there are no such things as coincidences, then there are some that things happen for a reason, like a grand ordained plan. Earl Melchert, whatever he believed before the September the 5th he now won’t ever grumble about such a mistake again. Earl returned to his house in Barett, Minnesota at lunch to pick up diesel, in the distance he saw what looked like it could be a deer, but as he got closer he realized it was a person! That deer that was a person was really a scared 15 year old girl called Jasmine Block, soaking wet and very nervous to take refuge inside Earl’s truck. Earl recognised the girl straight away, he had seen her picture on the television news, flyers and all across the internet, missing from her home Alexandria, Minnesota since August 9th. Jasmine said that the father, who was 32 years old, came to her housemate at night looking for her help with his son. Jasmine got inside the truck he was driving and went with him to his house in Carlos, Minnesota. Jasmine was tied with zip ties one she got there! For a whole 29 days she was sexually assaulted by Baker and his two friends Michael Samuel Powers and Jason Lee Holby, 21 and 31 years old respectively. She was moved to many different locations regularly. Jasmine feared for her life all the time she was kept there and told investigators that Baker tried to Kill her three times, once in a bathtub, but he was not strong enough with his cerebral palsy. The 5th of September the two men transported Jasmine in a duffel bag in a pickup truck… Completely scared, Jasmine found her chance to make a run for it when the two men went inside a store, so when she was unsuccessful in getting help in nearby houses she swam across a lake to get to land near Earl’s home… Her captors were looking for her, desperately, and she knew it, she was desperate to get inside Earl’s Truck, she pointed the men out to Earl and he called 911, when the police came, ultimately leading to the arrest of the three captors. Powers came out and said that he had spent two weeks at baker’s house and been involved in sex with a child. Baker only admits to heavy alcohol and drug use but denies accusations of knowing Jasmine, and even denies picking her up or holding her against her will. For Earl, and his part in helping the girl and calling the police he received $7,000 from Alexandria Police Dept which he immediately gave to Jasmine’s family as an anonymous donor! Earl had retired the wekk beofre really surprised everyone when he just smiled and handed his cheque to Jasmine and gave her a huge heartfelt hug. He said: “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” “What a retirement present, to hand over some money to people that really need it.” If Earl had not left something at home and hadn’t had to return, then he would not have been able to save Jasmine’s life, The next time you double back just think, maybe it’s fate or part of a bigger picture!