http://jesse03.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/321301
Peace to you my brothers and sisters!

A lot has been said and written about the just concluded elections and the violence that erupted thereafter. I wish, to comment on the following as a common Kenyan mwananchi (citizen):

• I commend the government on its role in restricting the media on coverage of events during this tense moment in our country. I am from Eldoret. Much as there is freedom of press, I believe that this freedom can be constructive and at the same time destructive. It was very unfortunate to watch in the news in one of the TV stations, people celebrating in Central Province because their candidate had ‘won’ the presidential elections, just when the tension was too high in Eldoret. To me, this was ironic and disturbing. No one in Eldoret was celebrating; people were running helter-skelter from their burning houses! Those who watched the news and felt that their candidate had won the elections yet had been unjustly rigged out felt ‘more cheated’ and vowed to continue with their vengeance.

This restriction has to some extend assisted in bringing down the violence. During live coverage, while ordinary Kenyans were busy going for each other throats our leaders were busy arguing on the unfairness of the elections; fighting for power!

• At the moment, there is nothing like peaceful demonstrations. The situation is still tense; people are angry, hungry, hurt etc. Fine, there are those who mean to be peaceful in the demonstrations but there are some of us who are going through a lot during this time, so in the cause of the peaceful demonstrations, some shops are looted and the whole circle of violence is repeated once more. Personally, I agree with the government, no demonstrations whatever until peace, a very precious commodity is found. My grandma, saw a group of people who were coming to burn her house, this has remained intact in her mind. Therefore, watching a group of people marching again on the streets, she is quick to ask me, “Have they come back?”

• Fair and just elections: while a lot is been said and written about how unfair and unjust the elections were carried, I would like to ask the government and the opposition to put their selfish interests aside and give priority to that mwananchi out there whose house was burnt and his/her family killed. What just can you profess to that woman whose child was burnt in that church? To that woman, who had managed to escape with her child but the attackers vowed not to let that child live and threw the poor kid back to the burning church? What justice do we profess to all those who lost properties and dear ones? Can we see justice in this? Can we first establish the root cause of this? Can the ‘silent voices’, the inciters behind this be apprehended and charged accordingly?

• Personally, what happened the first two days after the elections was purely elections violence but after wards, especially in Rift Valley, it was purely Tribal Clashes. And yes, the whole operation was well organized and coordinated. Young boys armed with bows and arrows were used and in return paid about Kshs. 500 – 1000 to burn a house and kill! From my previous experience, this is the worst tribal clashes to have ever been experienced in Rift Valley! I challenge our leaders and my fellow Kenyans to visit some of these affected areas to see for themselves what their brothers and sisters are going through. Maybe, this will bring them back to reality.

• It is a high time the government came up with a lasting solution to this problem. Since 1992, it has now become apparent that after every 5 years this kind of violence must/is experienced.

• You are your brother’s keeper: To the members of my support group: Achieng, Mbula, Nyongesa, Wangeci, Ngige, Omondi and Kiprop, I care and love you. Thanks for your continued support. May we grow strong from this experience and bring up our children in the unity and love of ever knowing that they are brothers and sisters in the Lord. To my brothers and sisters in TIG especially in Kenya, when did you last see Achieng, Ngige etc. Are they ok? If living positively, are they having their ARV’s or due to the current situation they can’t access medication? Do they have food and clothes? Are you there to listen to them, to cry and laugh with them? Please, let us all unite, regardless of our status, tribe or political divide and fight this disease that is now destroying us. Let us care and assist one another. We need one another!

May God grant us Peace! God bless Kenya!

Wanjiru Grace

]]> Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:59:00 EST http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/321301 0.5166667 35.28333330.516666735.2833333 http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/278237 By CLARE NULLIS, Associated Press Writer

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Old drugs, outdated tests, empty promises, new threats. Such is the bleak reality surrounding an international tuberculosis conference opening Thursday in a city scarred by a killer combination of TB and AIDS: an already nightmarish scenario worsened by the spread of virtually untreatable strains.

The 3,000 delegates will spend four days discussing the challenges posed by the dual epidemics of TB and HIV — which are still often treated separately, although they feed off each other. About one-third of the world's 40 million people infected with the AIDS virus have TB, the vast majority of them in Africa. TB kills more than 1.6 million people every year.

"Unlike bird flu, the global threat of HIV/TB is not hypothetical — it is here now. But the science and coordination needed to stop it are utterly insufficient," said Veronica Miller, director of The Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, in a report released ahead of the Cape Town conference.

The only available vaccine was invented more than 85 years ago and fails to protect most people beyond childhood. Antibiotics used to fight TB are more than 40 years old. Testing methods used in most developing countries were developed 120 years ago, are notoriously slow and often fail to spot TB in AIDS patients.

Health activists charge that rich countries and their pharmaceutical industries have shown little interest in developing more effective drugs because TB primarily affects poor people in poor countries.

In a report issued Wednesday, the New York based advocacy Treatment Action Group accused the United States and other donor nations of backsliding on commitments made last year to step up the fight against TB.

It said that international spending for TB research and development remained stagnant at US$413 million — less than half the amount called for in a much-vaunted 2006 Global Plan to Stop TB to increase funding for research on new TB diagnostics, drugs.

The contribution from the U.S. National Institutes of Health — the biggest funder — declined slightly to US$120 million, it said. Mark Harrington, executive director of the Treatment Action Group, said that with the U.S. budget problems and overspending in Iraq, TB wasn't "even on the radar" of the U.S. administration.

"Current funding levels for TB research and development are vastly out of proportion with the scope of the TB epidemic," said Dr. Mario Raviglione, Director of the World Health Organization's Stop TB Department.

The Treatment Action Group said the lack of funding was especially alarming given the global spread of multidrug resistant TB and extensively drug-resistant TB, which was identified in 2006 and is now present in more than 40 countries.

The spread of the drug resistant forms of TB is largely the result of poorly managed TB care and patients who don't take the full six-month course of treatment.

In South Africa, for instance, the cure rate for patients who stick to their treatment is just 50 percent, while WHO's target is 85 percent. In some areas, it is as low as 30 percent, according to Greg Hussey, head of the University of Cape Town's Institute for Infectious Diseases. People who are not properly cured are prone to develop multidrug resistant TB, which requires a two year treatment regimen.

South Africa hit the headlines last year when an outbreak of HIV and extensively drug-resistant TB was identified in 53 people at a clinic in Tugela Ferry in KwaZulu-Natal. All but one patient died within two weeks.

Because of the poor diagnostics, there are no reliable statistics on the number of South Africans who have been infected with extensively drug-resistant TB. The majority of them die before they can be tested or treated, according to Gilles van Cutsem, a project coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres in the poor Cape Town suburb of Khayelitsha, one of the hardest hit areas.

Little is known about the situation in neighboring countries like Swaziland and Mozambique, which also have high HIV and TB rates but don't have proper surveillance or laboratory facilities.


]]> Thu, 08 Nov 2007 02:03:00 EST http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/278237 0.5166667 35.28333330.516666735.2833333 http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/278193 By LINDA A. JOHNSON, AP Business Writer

TRENTON, N.J. - New data on an experimental AIDS vaccine that failed to work shows volunteers who got the shots were far more likely to get infected with the virus through sex or other risky behavior than those who got dummy shots.

The new details, released Wednesday by drugmaker Merck Co., don't answer the crucial question of whether failure of the vaccine also spells doom for many similar AIDS vaccines now in testing.

And researchers weren't sure why more of the vaccinated volunteers wound up getting HIV than those who got dummy shots.
"One of the possibilities is that the increase in the number of infections was related to the vaccine," meaning it could have made people more susceptible to HIV infection, said Dr. Keith Gottesdiener, vice president of clinical research at Merck Research Laboratories. He couldn't say how likely that was but said other factors, even coincidence, could be the explanation.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., announced on Sept. 21 that it was stopping the study because the vaccine didn't work. It was a stunning setback in the push to develop an AIDS vaccine.
The vaccine is made from a common cold virus with three synthetic HIV genes tucked inside. It's designed to stimulate the immune system to kill any HIV-infected cells encountered in the future.
However, the researchers found that volunteers with pre-existing immunity to this particular cold virus were much more likely to get infected with HIV if they got the AIDS vaccine than if they got the dummy shot.

Some 3,000 people, mostly gay men and female sex workers, had volunteered to get the experimental vaccine or dummy shots. All were warned to protect themselves from AIDS exposure.
At the time the study was halted in September, Merck said 24 of 741 volunteers who got the vaccine in one segment of testing later developed HIV; 21 of 762 participants who got dummy shots also were infected.

New data released Wednesday showed that to date, 49 of 914 vaccinated men became infected with HIV, compared with 33 of the 922 men who got dummy shots. Only one woman and a small number of heterosexual men were infected.

"In my mind, this doesn't damn anything," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the vaccine's failure. "It tells you you need to be very careful with every aspect" of vaccine design and testing. The international testing was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Merck's head of medical affairs for vaccines, Mark Feinberg, said it could be a few years before further data mining and results of other drugmakers' vaccine tests clear up the mystery.

In trading Wednesday, Merck shares fell $1.79, or 3.2 percent, to $54.20 amid a broad decline in the stock markets.
]]> Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:12:00 EST http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/278193 0.5166667 35.28333330.516666735.2833333 http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/262789
Men are expected to be strong, that is why when a boy is crying he is usually told “Men don’t cry!” Women on the other hand, are emotional; they cry, though this does not mean they are weak!
Personally, when I tested positive, I never kept my status to myself, no! I shared my status with my family, friends and of course to the man who won my heart! Most men, not all, will never ever share their HIV status with anyone. If he is single, he will keep it to himself and go on and marry a very cute girl and even get children. Several years in marriage, he starts ailing and doesn’t tell the wife. The wife when she realizes she is infected, she consults the mother, sister or even a friend. Through sharing she gets to know more about HIV, she gets the support and health care. A man, on the other hand, since he is supposed to be ‘strong’ and fears stigma keeps every little feeling to himself. He refuses to admit he is sick and even to seek medical attention! And with time he fades……..and goes to the grave!
My brothers, when we acknowledge our sickness and share it with appropriate people it doesn’t mean we are weak. And to us, the people of this universe, let us not knowingly infect others with the virus. Let us know our status and once we know, may we promise ourselves that we are not going to infect others and to re-infect ourselves! Those who have kept the promise, God has continued to provide for them in all ways!
]]> Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:54:00 EDT http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/262789 0.5166667 35.28333330.516666735.2833333 http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/239551
Finally fed up, God said, "THAT'S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job."

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.

They moused.
They faxed.
They e-mailed.
They e-mailed with attachments.
They downloaded.
They did spreadsheets! .
They wrote reports.
They created labels and cards.
They created charts and graphs.
They did some genealogy reports.
They did every job known to man.

Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off. Satan stared at his blank screen and
screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed.

Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming:

"It's gone! It's all GONE!
"I lost everything when the power went out!"

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work.

Satan observed this and became irate. "Wait!" he screamed. "That's not fair! He cheated!

How come he has all his work and I don't have any?"

God just shrugged and said, JESUS SAVES

]]> Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:04:00 EDT http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/239551 0.5166667 35.28333330.516666735.2833333 http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/235581 can go to the height of the eagle. When Moses went to commune with God on the mountain, he left the crowd at the foothills. Stay away from sparrows and ravens. Eagles fly with Eagles.

2)Eagles have strong vision. They have the ability to focus on something up to five kilometers away. When an eagle sites his prey, he narrows his focus on it and sets out to get it. No matter the obstacle, the eagle will not move his focus from the prey until he grabs it. Have a vision and remain focused no matter what the obstacle and you will succeed.

3)Eagles do not eat dead things. They feed only on fresh prey. Vultures eat dead animals, but eagles will not. Steer clear of outdated and old information. Always do your research well.

4)Eagles love the storm. When clouds gather, the eagles get excited. The eagle uses the storm's winds to lift it higher. Once it finds the wing of the storm, the eagle uses the raging storm to lift him above the clouds. This gives the eagle an opportunity to glide and rest its wings. In the meantime all the other birds hide in the leaves and branches of the trees. We can use the storms of life to rise to greater heights. Achievers relish challenges and use them profitably.

5)The Eagle tests before it trusts. When a female eagle meets a male and they want to mate, she flies down to earth with the male pursuing her and she picks a twig. She flies back into the air with the male pursuing her. Once she has reached a height high enough for her, she lets the twig fall to the ground and watches it as it falls. The male chases after the twig. The faster it falls, the faster he chases it. He has to catch it before it falls to the ground. He then brings it back to the female eagle. The female eagle grabs the twig and flies to a higher altitude and then drops the twig for the male to chase. This goes on for hours, with the height increasing until the female eagle is assured that the male eagle has mastered the art of catching the twig which shows commitment. Then and only then, will she allow him to mate with her! Whether in private life or in business, one should test commitment of people intended for partnership.

6)When ready to lay eggs, the female and male eagle identify a place very high on a cliff where no predators can reach. The male flies to earth and picks thorns and lays them on the crevice of the cliff, then flies to earth again to collect twigs which he lays in the intended nest. He flies back to earth and picks thorns laying them on top of the twigs. He flies back to earth and picks soft grass to cover the thorns. When this first layering is complete the male eagle runs back to earth and picks more thorns, lays them on the nest; runs back to get grass lays it on top of the thorns, then plucks his feathers to complete the nest. The thorns on the outside of the nest protect it from possible intruders. Both male and female eagles participate in raising the eagle family. She lays the eggs and protects them; he builds the nest and hunts. During the time of training the young ones to fly, the mother eagle throws the eaglets out of the nest. Because they are scared, they jump into the nest again. Next, she throws them out and then takes off the soft layers of the nest, leaving the thorns bare. When the scared eaglets again jump into the nest, they are pricked by thorns. Shrieking and bleeding they jump out again this time wondering why the mother and father who love them so much are torturing them. Next, mother eagle pushes them off the cliff into the air. As they shriek in fear, father eagle flies out and catches them up on his back before they fall and brings them back to the cliff. This goes on for sometime until they start flapping their wings. They get excited at this newfound knowledge that they can fly. The preparation of the nest teaches us to prepare for changes; the preparation for the family teaches us that active participation of both partners leads to success; the being pricked by the thorns tells us that sometimes being too comfortable where we are may result into our not experiencing life, not progressing and not learning at all. The thorns of life come to teach us that we need to grow, get out of the nest and move on. We may not know it but the seemingly comfortable and safe haven may have thorns. The people who love us do not let us languish in sloth but push us hard to grow and prosper. Even in their seemingly bad actions they have good intentions for us.

7)When an Eagle grows old, his feathers become weak and cannot take him as fast as he should. When he feels weak and about to die, he retires to a place far away in the rocks. While there, he plucks out every feather on his body until he is completely bare. He stays in this hiding place until he has grown new feathers, then he can come out. We occasionally need to shed off old habits items that burden us without adding to our lives...

Author Dr. Myles Monroe Edited

Isaiah 40:31
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

]]> Mon, 23 Jul 2007 04:55:00 EDT http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/235581 0.5166667 35.28333330.516666735.2833333 http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/235579
She knew this was the last time that the roses would appear. She thought, he ordered roses in advance before this day. Her loving husband did not know that he would pass away. He always liked to do things early, way before the time. Then, if he got too busy, everything would work out fine.

She trimmed the stems and placed them in a very special vase. Then, sat the vase beside the portrait of his smiling face. She would sit for hours, in her husband's favorite chair. While staring at his picture, and the roses sitting there.

A year went by, and it was to live without her mate. With loneliness and solitude, that had become her fate. Then, the very hour, the doorbell rang, and there were roses sitting by her door. She brought the roses in, and then just looked at them in shock. Then, went to get the telephone, to call the florist shop. The owner answered, and she asked him, if he would explain, Why would someone do this to her, causing her such pain? "I know your husband passed away, more than a year ago,” The owner said. "I knew you'd call, and you would want to know. The flowers you received today were paid for in advance. Your husband always planned ahead, he left nothing to chance. There is a standing order, that I have on file down here, and he has paid, well in advance,
you'll get them every year. There also is another thing that I think you should know, He wrote a special little card...he did this years ago. Then, should ever I find out that he's no longer here, that's the card that should be sent to you the following year."

She thanked him and hung up the phone, her tears now flowing hard. Her fingers shaking, as she slowly reached to get the card. Inside the card, she saw that he had written her a note. Then, as she stared in total silence, this is what he wrote...
"Hello my love, I know it's been a year since I've been gone. I hope it hasn't been too hard for you to overcome. I know it must be lonely, and the pain is very real. Or if it was the other way,
I know how I would feel. The love we shared made everything so beautiful in life. I loved you more than words can say, you were the perfect wife. You were my friend and lover, you fulfilled my every need. I know it's only been a year, but please try not to grieve. I want you to be happy, even when you shed your tears. That is why the roses will be sent to you for years. When you get these roses, think of all the happiness that we had together, and how both of us were blessed. I have always loved you and I know I always will. But, my love, you must go on, you have some living still. Please...try to find happiness, while living out your days. I know it is not easy, but I hope you find some ways. The roses will come every year, and they will only stop, when your door's not answered, when the florist stops to knock. He will come five times that day in case you have gone out. But after his last visit, he will know without a doubt to take the roses to the place, where I've instructed him and place the roses where we are, together once again!

Sometimes in life, you find a special friend; someone who changes your life just by being part of it. Someone who makes you laugh until you can't stop; someone who makes you believe that there really is good in the world. Someone who convinces you that there really is an unlocked door just waiting for you to open it.

This is Forever Friendship. This is the sacred RED ROSE.
]]> Mon, 23 Jul 2007 03:55:00 EDT http://jesse03.tigblog.org/post/235579 0.5166667 35.28333330.516666735.2833333