baby I'm the worrying kind
Jag skulle vilja sprida lite glädje till er alla men jag hittar det inte riktigt inom mig nu så jag låter er få några ord från Oprah istället. (Hoppas att det går lika bra)
Every husband struggles to find the perfect gift for his beloved on Valentine's Day, but the gift one man wanted to give his wife of 17 years was beyond his reach—tickets to The Oprah Show. So Tom sent a heartfelt plea to Oprah herself. "My feeling is very deep that I would do anything for my wife, but this is one thing I'm striking out at. Please help," Tom writes.
Oprah producers called Tom and cooked up a crazy plan to get his wife, Gina, from upstate New York to Chicago without letting her know where they were going. Tom surprises Gina at the school she works at and whisks her away to the airport. To keep Gina in the dark, Tom outfits her in a blindfold, headphones and a sign that reads, "My hubby is taking me on a surprise trip. Please don't tell me where I am."
At the airport, everyone from the ticket counter staff to the flight crew is in on the plan, announcing only that the plane is headed for "the mystery city." Gina thinks they're on their way to Fiji and is still in the dark when the couple lands in the Windy City. They spend the night in a hotel room stripped of anything that could give away the surprise. There are no magazines, brochures—not even a television!
When the big day finally arrives, Gina has been blindfolded for nearly 24 hours! As Gina walks up the steps onto the stage, the entire studio stays completely silent until after she removes her blindfold and sees Oprah. "Oh my God," a stunned Gina says. "Are you real?"
Gina, who is wearing her Fiji sandals, says she suspected something about her surprise during the flight. "When we were on the plane, the pilot said, 'Welcome to our mystery city,'" Gina says. "And I said, 'The only person that could get a pilot to do something like that was Miss O.'"
"Isn't that a sweet, sweet thing he did? How sweet is that?" Oprah asks. "Now everybody's watching saying, 'What you going to do for me, honey?' Well, you've made it hard for a lot of guys, Tom."
When Emmanuel was 8 years old, civil war broke out in his home country of Sudan. When his village was invaded and soldiers burned his home, Emmanuel escaped into the forest. All alone, Emmanuel hid for 13 days, surviving on wild fruits and stagnant rainwater. Fleeing the rebel soldiers, he joined 26,000 other desperate children—now known as the "lost boys." These children wandered for three months, walking 1,000 miles across the desert in search of safety.
Eventually, Emmanuel found his way to a refugee camp in Kenya, but suffered from nightmares of what he'd seen. "I'd seen friends shot right on the spot, friends being eaten by lions and hyenas," he says.
Then, in 1998, Emmanuel met a girl named Veronica in the Kenyan camp. "I was captivated and all I wanted to do is just stand there and just watch," he says. Emmanuel only spoke with Veronica for a moment before asking a man with a camera, who happened to be nearby, to take their picture. (Above: Veronica is second from left. Emmanuel is on the far right.) To Emmanuel's joy, the photographer actually returned to the camp and gave him the picture for free.
"Something inside of me just kept telling me, you better keep this picture. You better keep it. Keep it well." For the next six years, Emmanuel carried that photograph for thousands of miles.
In 2001, Emmanuel came to America with only a shirt, a pair of pants, flip-flops, and what he called his "most important luggage"—his beloved picture of Veronica, which was tucked inside his Bible.
He started school and a new life in North Carolina, eventually enrolling at the University of North Carolina, where he is pre-med student with a double major in biology and psychology.
Emmanuel remained in close contact with his friends, who had been dispersed around the world. "It's the way the immigration works. They were sending people there [to] Canada, the U.S. and also Australia," he says. "The embassy would come and pick you randomly."
One Christmas, he traveled to visit friends in Canada. When he walked into a church, he was shocked by what he saw. "When I opened the door, looking into the aisle, I saw Veronica. I thought I was dreaming," he says. "I was jumping over the benches and I was running towards her because I recognized her face. We just ran into each other."
When Emmanuel produced the photo he'd been carrying with him for so long, Veronica began to cry. "I was holding onto the picture hoping that I would one day see her. … I just knew in my heart that I would see Veronica one day," he says.
After he returned home to North Carolina, Emmanuel and Veronica spent countless hours talking on the phone. He was ready to propose. Following tradition, he called Veronica's father in Sudan and asked him for her hand in marriage. In return, her father asked for 68 cows as a dowry, which translates to roughly $12,000 in American money. "How am I going to find $12,000?" Emmanuel asked.
When word of Emmanuel's plight spread, two of his friends, Cece and Kristin, came through. Wearing "Got Cattle?" T-shirts, they organized a fundraising walk for true love.
The "Got Cattle?" fundraiser actually raised $15,000, and Emmanuel and Veronica were married in July 2006 in Canada. Emmanuel and Veronica have big news they want to share. Although they are still waiting for immigration permission so they can set up a home together, Veronica is pregnant!
And that's not the only surprise. The Oprah Show arranged for a visa to let Veronica visit Emmanuel in America for Valentine's Day.
Following the devastating tsunami in December 2004 that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions in Southeast Asia, people across the world opened their hearts and wallets to help.
The affects of the tsunami were felt in many coastal countries, and not just by humans.
When Owen, a wild baby hippopotamus, was washed away from his herd on the coast of Kenya, he was left orphaned. The following day, nearby villagers came to Owen's rescue, bringing him to a local wildlife park. There the search for a surrogate parent led little Owen to Mzee, a cranky 130-year-old giant tortoise. The frightened hippo adopted the old tortoise as his parent. It seemed like love at first sight as Mzee, who was a loner for years, instantly accepted the baby hippo as his own. The pair began eating together and sleeping side by side.
Today, more than two years later, Owen still follows Mzee around the park. Owen and Mzee have formed such a tight bond, workers at the park are worried that Owen is acting too much like a tortoise. They have brought in another hippo to teach Owen how to act a little more hippo-like.
Kram på er!
All text och alla bilder är från oprah.com.
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Postat av: Madeleine
detsamma, detsamma till dig!
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