Heikkila at Helal Chineh. (Photo: LT Davin Fischer, ZADT)

This blog is sporting a new title.  We’ve changed it from 10 Days in the Sand, to Bridging War & Hope.  Bridging War & Hope will be the title of the documentary that is going to tell the story of the Minnesota National Guard’s Agribusiness Development Team stationed in Zabul Province, Afghanistan.

Last week I wrapped up the interviews for the program, and I’m proud to say I have too much poignant sound to cram into the finished piece.  It’s an embarrassment of riches.  Last week’s interviews with Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Ghafar Lakanwal, a former high-ranking official in the Afghanistan Department of Agriculture help round-out what I recorded while embedding with the ADT.

A program like this needs expert interviews, but more-importantly I have interviews with nearly half of the Minnesota team on-the-ground in Zabul Province.  I think it is the sound of the Soldiers, those who are daily:

• walking into villages
• meeting with Elders
• speaking with retailers at the markets
• seeing how the Afghan government could help the farmers achieve more
• working with children
• continually comparing their lives with the lives of those they are trying to help

that will make this piece what it is.

I’m working with tpt’s Design Team to create maps and a key-image that will help viewers understand and remember the work the ADT is doing over the course of their 10 months in Afghanistan.  In my grand scheme of things it seems surreal that just a few weeks ago I was worried about what to bring with me and not I’m worried about I’ll have to leave on the cutting room floor.

Bridging War & Hope will air, state-wide in Minnesota, on Twin Cities Public Television in September, 2012,  The broadcast is going to coincide with the ADT’s return to US soil.  Not in Minnesota?  Not a TV-watcher?  No worries, the full-length program will also live on-line.  More information on all of this as it becomes available.

Thanks for reading.

In a small rural area , the members of of the Battery B, 151^st Field Artillery Division of the Minnesota National Guard Unit touched our lives personally as they deployed to the Middle East, not only once, but twice.  Every one of us, as the Tim Orth Memorial Foundation Committee, were touched by their courage, the struggles of the families they left behind and the gift of ultimate sacrifice some gave to defend the freedoms we all celebrate each day.   You may ask, what is the common thread that ties the Tim Orth Memorial Foundation, the Soldiers of Minnesota and our Minnesota Veteran’s together?

The Mission of the Tim Orth Memorial Foundation is to help provide financial assistance to children from the West Central Region of Minnesota who have incurred major medical expense due to illness or injury.  Our recipients wake each day to new challenges, hoping for a small step of progress in the journey of healing.  Each small step becomes a giant leap and they start over again the next day with the challenge of hope for another small step.  The goals become freedom from the next IV, freedom from one less Dr. visit and a longing for that special freedom that brings peace of heart for whatever lies ahead.

Our Service men and women and our Veterans have also embarked upon the hope of believing that a better world for all of us is not only a possibility but a journey worth the sacrifices they have made ( and continue to make) to fight for the freedoms we hold so dear.  We, at the Tim Orth Memorial Foundation, believe that their personal commitment to freedom is not in vain.  Because of them, we honor, each day, the very gift they continue to selflessly give to us – the gift of freedom.

We are all connected through this thread of freedom and our prayer continues to be “let kindness, compassion and understanding bring peace”.  Let freedom ring from our hearts as we strive together to become the peace we want to see in the world – believing that we can and we do make a difference.

So join us in combining our efforts to help to bring a ray of hope and the possibility of freedom to the Children of the Tim Orth Memorial Foundation and the Soldiers and Veterans of the State of Minnesota by joining us for the Let’s Ride Minnesota Event.  DO IT in honor and gratitude for the MN Soldiers who give us the freedoms we hold so dear.  DO IT in honor and hope for healthy children.