Last year on August 24th, which was a Sunday I received a call from Sam who was my boss at Focus. He told me some very sad and surprising news, he let me know that some of our friends who had been traveling to Guatemala had died. I remember it like it was yesterday and I am so happy the company I work for cares enough to remember it!
These are my thoughts from last year and it brings tears to my eyes to remember this time.
2008 thoughts: We had 5 Focus employee's traveling to Guatamala to do a yearly Humanitarian project for a village down there. They had arrived in Guatamala City Saturday evening and on Sunday morning boarded a small airplane that would take them to the village where they would give service. The pilots reported engine trouble and went in to make an emergency landing in a field but they weren't able to. Four out of the five Focus people died and the survivor is in critical condition in a hospital in Guatamala. It really made me stop and think about how precious life really is. You never know when your time will be and every second of your life is so very precious. I think it will be something that helps me remember the important things in life and that we should take advantage of every single moment we have with the ones we love.
A year later Focus and the families of John Carter, Cody Odekirk, Jeff Reppe, and Lydia Silva have decided we want to celebrate their lives. We have put together a four mile race and one mile walk to honor these great people and raise money for scholarships in each of their names for other Focus employees.
I'm hoping that by posting this anyone who reads this will walk or run to participate and/or help me spread the word. The race is on August 22nd at the George Whalen North Park in Roy which is located at 4200 S. 1900 W. The four mile run starts at 7am and the one mile walk starts at 7:30am. The cost of the run is $20 and the walk is $15. Participants will receive a t-shirt and water bottle then be entered into a raffle to win a lot of awesome prizes. If you are interested in participating you can register by visiting http://www.focusfourrun.com/. At that website you can register online or print out the registration paper and mail it in.
