[Billie]

Good Morning, Finest FRiends,

I'm sure you've noticed a new look in our introduction today, and there 's a reason for that. Over the last several weeks, most of our hostesses have had to cut back from a weekly presentation to one every other week, and though we are blessed with regular and not-so-regular guest writers, there still have been many days when we've had a hard time filling the schedule. I took it upon myself to fill the days that weren't committed by the other hostesses, and found that many times I was doing three different presentations in one week, two in the next, and then three again. I love creating beautiful things and hope to continue for a very long time, but....I have to cut back on the numbers. (It was getting so I could hardly spend any time on our threads, because I was busy working on the 'next' one.)

As a result of this 'awakening', I'd like to present a new schedule for the Finest (the other hostesses have agreed it's past due). Our threads have become increasingly longer and more and more elaborate, and one of the ways we can cut back on the loading of these long threads is to post ALL our wonderful military photos on one day, and then link to them the remainder of the week. On Mondays, this will BE our thread for the day.

In addition to setting aside Mondays for the Military photos, we have all agreed to lighten up a bit, occasionally posting something very simple and letting YOU, the Finest FReepers, do the thing that makes you our Finest.....pitch in, take over, carry the ball, entertain 'us'! (Tomorrow's thread will put you to the test!)

I love you all and thank you so much for being here all these months - we're going on one year very soon!

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Billie.

[Temple Owl]

We appreciate all of your good work. It is now time for you to take a little break. But, just don't go too far. We need you. Luv ya. Temple

[Lee'sGhost]

Smart move. Perhaps, one day, I might commit to doing someting on a regular basis -- if you wanted it. But I won't offer unless I feel confident I'll keep up with it.

Good morning, and God bless.

[LadyX]

Good Morning, All !!! And a fine one it is - -

Here is something lovely to start the week:

[Diver Dave]

Mornin' Billie. Change is our FRiend. :)

I tip my hat to all the hostesses for the job y'all have been doing.

[Aquamarine]

Good morning Billie! The new Military layout looks good, hope this will lighten the load a little for you and the other hostesses. The threads always look great and appear like magic every day but I've seen a few of them in the 'rough' and know just how much imagination and work goes into them.

[nicmarlo]

Good morning, Billie; I think you've got a good idea there....posting the military info. on Mondays with a link to it the rest of the week.....you all work very hard and it's appreciated! Having said that, you all need FReepin' time, too. Not to worry, meekie and he ain't no St.Louie are sure to keep things going on these threads....God knows they sure START things in here! And, of course, there's Pippin and Mo1 who egg them on pahlenty. : )

[dutchess]

Hi Billie....just checking in from work. Absolutely LOVE the new look and your introduction to "the changes". Can't wait to see what's in store for tomorrow....I LOVE surprises LOL! Will stop back later!

[lonestar]

You are much apprciated for all you do. And Weinie says she loves you all!

[The Pheonix]

About time, we all salute our boys and gals in uniforms

They are a great, patriotic and brave bunch of kids

and wonderful people

Our love and thanks

For defending the US and World's freedom

[dansangel]

(((((((((Billie)))))))))

Just *love* the new look! I'm hoping this will give you more time to "mingle."

Got your and ((((((((nicmarshmallow)))))))'s FReepmails. The answer is "Sure, I *love* to live dangerously!" ROFL!!!

[Libertina]

Thanks for all you do, Billie and FR's Hostesses! You are the best :)
Military Monday Salute to FR's Finest!

[MeekOneGOP]

Howdy, everybody ! Happy Monday !

79 degrees, headin' for around 81 today . . .

Have a cup while you FReep !

For those who prefer hot chocolate.....

[dixie sass]

I can't believe that it hasn't been a year. It seems that I have been tuning into the the Finest forever! It is the first thing I try and pull up, but because I'm on a dial up, it takes forever and by the time I've noticed that it is through loading, I've been distracted some place else.

Fr's Finest is always in the background, no matter what else I'm intrigues or involved with online. (even playing the puzzle games or working the crossword in the local paper.

I know that I can always find some of my best FReeper friends here.

GOD bless you all for giving us a place to "hangout" and giving me a place to come home to between times with the aunt.

Dixie

[Dubya]

Good idea Billie.

[Dubya]

Deadline near for food boxes
headed to Iraq, IMB says
By Mark Kelly


RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--Time is getting short for Southern Baptist churches
that want to send food boxes to hungry families in Iraq.

Southern Baptist relief workers say hunger is one of the major needs in
the country in the aftermath of the recent war. Churches across the
country were challenged in early April to send boxes of dry food that
will feed a family of five for about a month.

Perhaps as many as 95,000 boxes are headed for collection centers, but
more are needed and there is still time for churches that want to help.

The deadline for delivering food boxes to collection points in each
state is May 21.

Instructions for purchasing the food and packing the boxes can be found
at http://www.imb.org/missionspartner/foodbox.asp. Contact information
for collection centers in each state can be found at
http://www.namb.net/dr/pages/state_phones.asp.

"This is a great way to minister in a personal way to Iraqi people if
you can't actually go yourself," said Jim Brown, director of world
hunger and relief ministries for the International Mission Board. "This
isn't relief that is going to be mass-distributed in a refugee camp
either. It will be specifically delivered to hungry families in the
towns and villages of Iraq once peace has been restored to the
country."

The food aid will be delivered without regard to ethnic or religious
identity, Brown said.

The boxes will contain almost 70 pounds of staple food items: beans,
lentils, rice, flour, salt, sugar, loose tea and powdered milk.

The boxes must not contain other items or literature of any sort, Brown
said. Inclusion of evangelistic tracts could cause the aid shipment to
be rejected by authorities.

A label on the outside of each box will quote John 1:17 in Arabic: "For
the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through
Jesus Christ." It also will identify it as "A gift with love from the
Southern Baptist churches in America."

Disaster relief offices of Baptist state conventions will receive boxes
and, in partnership with the IMB, will coordinate delivery to the
shipping point, Brown said. Specific questions about the collection
process should be directed to those offices. People with other
questions may contact the International Mission Board.

Churches or individuals who would prefer to make a donation toward the
cost of the project can designate checks to "Iraq Response -- General
Relief" and mail them to: Iraq Response, P.O. Box 6767, Richmond, VA
23230-0767. Make checks payable to International Mission Board and
designate "Iraq Response -- General Relief."

[Dubya]

16,000 make decisions in San Diego,
including one led by 13-year-old
By Tobin Perry & Kelli Cottrell


SAN DIEGO (BP)--The shy 13-year-old doesn't seem like your typical
evangelist. His voice cracks when he speaks. He has yet to fill out his
not-yet-adult body. And pimples dot his face.

But May 9, during the second evening of Mission San Diego with Billy
Graham, Joseph Bekkedahl did something that the famed 84-year-old
evangelist would commend. He personally led a 14-year-old boy through a
prayer to accept Christ.

"It was good, but I forgot some of the words," said the humble teenager
from East Clairemont Southern Baptist Church in San Diego and a three-
year veteran of the FAITH program, a Southern Baptist Sunday School
evangelism program to help laypeople share their faith.

Bekkedahl was one of more than 20,000 volunteers recruited by San
Diego-area churches, many of whom were Southern Baptist, who made the
four-day mission one of the most successful evangelistic initiatives in
the history of Southern California. During the mission, more than
270,000 people piled into Qualcomm Stadium, including a stadium-record
72,000 on Saturday evening. More than 16,000 people made spiritual
decisions in those four days.

Mission San Diego was Graham's 413th crusade since his first in 1947.
Many expect it will be one of the Southern Baptist preacher's final
public missions. Although he has scheduled crusades in Oklahoma City in
June and Kansas City in 2004, Graham's health battles have caused the
evangelist himself to discuss his mortality.

During the four-day mission, Graham used timely illustrations to
explain a timeless Gospel. On the mission's opening night, the
evangelist who was born only four decades after Thomas Edison invented
the incandescent light bulb used a computer illustration to explain the
miracle of God's forgiveness. Using several well-remembered biblical
stories, such as the Prodigal Son and the Rich Young Ruler, Graham's
messages focused on God's free offer of salvation open to all.

On May 10 Graham continued a pattern in his missions that he started in
1994 by including a special evening focused on reaching area youth.
Four bands, including dc Talk and Salvador, brought the crowd to their
feet, dancing and jumping up and down before Graham quieted it with his
Gospel presentation.

"I came mostly for the music," said 17-year-old Casa de Oro Baptist
Church member Ashley Shriver. "I really enjoyed Salvador."

One of Shriver's friends joined 4,200 others who made their way to the
stadium field Saturday evening during Graham's invitation to pray and
accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Local San Diego church leaders started thinking about an event of this
magnitude after a school shooting in early 2001 made national news. The
recent war with Iraq made the mission particularly timely. More than 20
percent of the troops deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom hailed from
San Diego.

"This city has been broken by so much tragedy," said Thomas Gleghorn,
senior pastor of Mission Village Southern Baptist Church in San Diego.
"For someone to stand in front of these people and say I know there are
tragedies, but there is hope on the other side, that's powerful."

Patriotism and support for American troops dominated much of the
mission. One of the event's most enduring images was Michael W. Smith's
passionate flag waving during a song dedicated to the troops on the
mission's opening night. During the second night, Maj. Gen. Robert Van
Antwerp received a standing ovation when he gave his testimony.

Pastor Douglas Johnson of First Baptist Church in Imperial Beach,
Calif., said the mission could give an important burst to outreach
efforts in the San Diego area. During the mission, Graham cited
statistics that only 15 percent of the people in East County and South
Bay in San Diego have church homes.

"This will strengthen the churches," Johnson said "The churches have
shown such unity in putting this together. This shows the community
that we can come together as Christians and we care about them."

Gleghorn has attended three of the city's four previous Billy Graham
missions. He was 8 years old for the first one in 1958, a freshman in
high school for the second one in 1964 and now a senior pastor during
this year's mission.

"It's exciting our people; it's exciting our city," Gleghorn said.

Gleghorn said he encouraged the members of his church to invite others
to hear Graham. Of the 36 families involved in his church, 23 of them
participated in the event.

Johnson said he had members of his church serving as counselors,
ushers, on the finance team, picking musicians up from the airport and
in all sorts of other roles related to the mission.

"Being a pastor of a smaller church, we could never pull off something
as grand as this," Johnson said. "But we can be a part of it. Joining
hands with all of these other brothers and sisters, God can use us."

Navy man Eric Amesbury, a member of East Clairemont Baptist Church,
learned firsthand what it's like to play a part in a massive event like
Mission San Diego. He had an opportunity on Friday night to counsel a
couple who came forward during the invitation. While the wife wanted to
recommit her life to Christ, the husband began a first-time
relationship to Jesus.

"Obviously I didn't do a thing to bring them down here," Amesbury said.
"I didn't bring tears to the wife's eyes, but she was elated and
excited. God did that. It was great to be a part of it."

One of the most moving moments in the four-day event happened on the
mission's final day when Evelyn Husband, wife of Space Shuttle Columbia
commander Rick Husband who was killed in February, received a standing
ovation as she walked onto the stage for her testimony.

"After the accident I was filled with overwhelming grief and sadness,"
said Evelyn Husband, who has two children. "It made no sense to have my
husband die and still have hope. On Feb. 1 I knew right where to run
and His arms have held me very tight. He is trustworthy."

Throughout the four days, Graham focused on what he has focused on for
his past 50 years in ministry -- watching people begin personal
relationships with Jesus Christ. As the first night of the mission
ended, Graham gave his signature alter call, waiting nearly 17 minutes
as people streamed out of every corner and crevice in the stadium. He
likened the occasion to the day, nearly 70 years earlier when, as a
teenager, he made his first commitment to Christ at a revival in rural
North Carolina. He had been one of the last people to come forward that
night.

"We're going to wait until every one of you has come," Graham told the
audience. "There is still time for you to come."

[Dubya]

Bleak tales of army life in N. Korea
A defector from an elite women's unit speaks of tight control and fear of 'going soft.'
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - As a sergeant in the North Korean Army, Baek Yi followed a simple if harsh way of life: Don't mix with civilians. Never speak to family. Be ready to relocate at any time with 15 minutes' warning.

To see Ms. Baek today, nibbling a doughnut at a Seoul cafe and sporting stylish jeans, one would not guess that by age 17, she had learned to fire the North Korean equivalent of a Soviet antiaircraft gun. Proud tobe in an elite unit of female soldiers, the young woman had sworn to sacrifice all for the Kim dynasty.

Baek trained on the West Sea border, and was discharged in the 1990s. She then stepped into a marriage arranged by her parents, both doctors.

"I showed that if a woman makes up her mind to be an officer, she can be one," Baek says, telling her story for the first time. "It was very tough, but I liked it."

But when the 1997 famine hit, Baek found her model-soldier status didn't put cabbage on the table. After her middle child died of malnutrition, she sneaked into China to earn money. Several years later, she walked for 16 days through a Burmese jungle to Thailand. From there, she defected to Seoul.

Baek's story is impossible to confirm, and it comes after two months of intensive deprogramming in South Korea. But since arriving in Seoul late last year, she has stood out among defectors for her unusual background and interest in North Korean refugee causes.

The love of the cause
For Baek, now in her late 20s, the North Korean Army meant status, and a cause she loved. "I was doing the real work of defending the nation and being a model example for others."

After she joined, Baek was no longer allowed to speak to ordinary North Korean citizens, on pain of being discharged. She was told that mixing with civilians might cause her to "go soft," as she puts it. "Being soft is the worst thing that can happen to you in the People's Army," because it means you are not thinking from the basis of going to war.

During her time in the military, the USSR collapsed, and Baek was told this was because the USSR got soft. "The USSR wasn't able to keep its discipline, and its mental and ideological strength," is what her superiors told her.

By the first month, Baek remembers, no one in her artillery unit, including herself, "would do anything without orders. Comrades would not move from one place to another without orders."

For the full six years of her stint, Baek and her comrades could not go on leave, go home, or speak to their families. She missed her dad's 60th birthday - an important date in Korean custom. There were no phones in the small barracks where she lived. Only two soldiers a year in her 80-member unit were rewarded with a week's leave. Everyone strove to prove themselves worthy, "but in six years I was never one of the lucky ones," she says.

Baek, of course, missed her family. She sent and received letters several times a year, and remembers being required to read the family letters in front of the other soldiers, an exercise designed to develop close relations in the unit.

Low pay - but nothing to buy
In the People's Army, she earned two North Korean won a month - the equivalent of 100 South Korean won, or about 10 cents. It wasn't enough to buy a photograph of herself in uniform, she remembers.

But no one thought of money or ease. All soldiers were taught to think only of serving the state. "We never felt the need of money, and there was nothing to buy anyway." All her possessions were kept in a small sack, and when she was reassigned, twice during six years, she was given just minutes' notice to collect her things.

"When I joined, I was sent to the West Sea, and I felt I was on the front line. Not many women were in artillery, and I was very proud."

Her days began at 5 a.m. She washed, did exercises, went to roll call, had inspections. Breakfast was from 7:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. Then it was a political education class every morning for two hours. She was taught that the Kim family - Great Leader Kim Il Sung, then Dear Leader Kim Jong Il - were the "sun of our solar system, and we were the orbiting satellites. All our devotion and energy belonged to Kim."

She learned the US Army was the reason the two Koreas cannot unify. The US Army ruled South Korea, and the job of the North is to kick the US out. Baek says she was taught not to fight South Korean soldiers, only Americans.

From 10 a.m. to noon, she had military instruction. Tactics, equipment training, geography, war strategy. After a half-hour lunch, the soldiers went to their posts until 7 p.m., when they came back for dinner.

State TV and singing
The best time, she remembers, came between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., before the lights went out. There was a TV with two channels. The standard fare were old Soviet films and newsreels of foreign dignitaries coming to Pyongyang to meet Kim. "We thought the whole world was coming to meet Kim," she says.

For the recreation hour, the Army issued guitars and violins, and many of the women learned to play. There were also singing competitions, both solo and in choirs. "This helped us overcome the stress, and I spent a lot of time preparing for these."

Baek learned Russian and Korean songs. Her favorite was "My Hometown," a North Korean ballad of a soldier who goes home after the war, sees his town in shambles, and works hard to rebuild it. The lyrics of every song included references to Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il.

Her posts had little electricity. Her first barracks were near an electrified railway; the unit tapped those power lines.

Dinners always combined the same four dishes: kimchee (pickled cabbage), rice or noodles, a vegetable. Her unit planted cabbages and preserved the kimchee. Eggs were a holiday treat. The only time Baek ate meat was on Kim's birthday; but sometimes when comrades had a birthday, the unit used this as an excuse to collect money, apply for a special permit, and go to town to buy meat. Only pork was available.

She never ate beef until she came to South Korea; cows are a precious commodity in the North, and are owned by the state. As Baek puts it, "if a man is murdered, no one bothers. But if a cow is killed or stolen, there will be an investigation, and someone will pay a stiff fine or go to jail."

As a gunner, Baek practiced shooting several rounds. She did this only one week out of four to save ammunition. Her weapon did not use radar, but visual sighting. Targets included a dummy boat set in the ocean or a target trailed by an airplane.

"In the Army of the North, I was like a frog in a well," Baek remembers. "The only thing I could see was a small bit of sky."

[Exit148]

I think you've come up with a good idea. The work all of you do is amazing, and as much as everyone enjoys it, it shouldn't take away your chance to roam the threads as the rest of us do. You hostesses put so much into these threads ---- but it shouldn't become a chore. I'm glad you came up with this idea.

"Military Monday" -- I like it! Bless our troops! Every night I send up a little request for their safety.