Amazing Lives

Team Hoyt

  Rick Hoyt was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, cutting off oxygen to his brain.  The result was brain damage and a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy.  His parents were told he’d be a vegetable all his life, with no use of his limbs, nor his voice.  The doctors said to put him in an institution.

But his parents said no.  They raised him just like they raised his two brothers.  As normal as possible.  In fact, they fought to get him admitted into public schools.   “Because he couldn’t talk they thought he wouldn’t be able to understand, but that wasn’t true.” The dedicated parents taught Rick the alphabet.

 Using money the family managed to raise in 1972 - a group of university engineers built an interactive computer that would allow Rick to write, using slight head-movements. Rick called it his “communicator.” A cursor would move across a screen filled with rows of letters, and when the cursor highlighted a letter that Rick wanted, he would click a switch with the side of his head.

   Three years later, one of Rick’s high school classmates was paralyzed in an accident. The school organized a charity run for him. Rick typed , "dad I want to do that". His father, wondering how he would manage to run 5 miles himself, agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair. They finished next to last, but the smile on Rick’s face was worth a million bucks, said Dick.

Nic Vujicic

   The following story I want to talk about has blown my mind away. When you watch the video above it will be hard for you to stop being touched by it.

His name is Nick Vujicic. No arms, no legs is what can describe this young man from the first sight. But when look closer into his story you will understand that Nick is a living example of the people who possess the strong attitudes a human being can be blessed with.

Hopeless, alone, pointless to live is what it used to feel for Nick when struggling through his life. There was no point to do anything like going to school, not to mention going to the university.

    However, despite the feeling of coldness and bitterness inside of him, Nick Vujicic has found the strength to get up and live a happy life. Not only does Nick portray a life of a happy man but he also inspires millions of others to want to live a fulfilling life. There is no doubt that Nick’s family has made an incredible contribution to what he is today.

 Helen Keller 

 The story of a child who, at the age of 19 months, suddenly lost her hearing and vision, and who, against overwhelming odds and with a great deal of persistence, grew into a highly intelligent and sensitive woman who wrote, spoke, and labored incessantly for the betterment of others. So powerful a symbol of triumph over adversity did she become that she has a definite place in the history of our time and of times to come.

Quotes

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

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Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

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It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.

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All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.