Fellow Patriots,
Greetings and welcome to the Patriot Express Newsletter Edition #140. Thanks for sharing your time with us here at the PENL and Hope for Survival. We welcome readers daily from around America and beyond. We appreciate your desire to check out what we say and things we are doing to help preparers become self-reliant. The numbers are increasing which says more and more citizens are waking up to the world around them.
We are quickly approaching Christmas and the holiday season is in full swing. Are you ready? Do you plan to travel to visit family? Do you have a plan in place to include individual day-bags or even bug-out bags depending on the distance? Stop and give thought to the things that could go wrong to divert your plan or even drastically change it.
It was an extremely busy week for HFS, and I will address the details in the Thoughts for the Week section of the newsletter. The schedule remains busy over the holiday season and into 2022. People are coming aboard and realizing the need to be prepared because they accept things are changing at a rapid pace around our great nation. Are you preparing?
Thanks to everyone who emailed, mailed, texted or called over the past week. It is great hearing from you, and I appreciate your kind words of support and uplifting in prayer. The workload of research, writing, and producing products on top of travel and the planning time it takes to set up events and training, Festus and I are maxed out weekly. Thank you for your support and understanding. We are doing our best.
Let us move along...
Thursday Zoom Rallies – Rally #78 was conducted with the last meeting before 2022. To change up the normal process, Festus and me conducted a question/answer session to one another, and then opened it up and allowed direction questions to us from the participants. It is always fun to hear and answer questions from HFS members. We ended the rally with the regular "chatter that matters where participants can speak on any preparedness topic. Thanks to everyone who could attend.
Hope for Survival YouTube and Odysee Channels- If you have not already, please consider subscribing to the HFS YouTube and HFS Odysee channels. We would appreciate your consideration. Because I still work a full-time day job, time is limited, and I have not been able to set up a routine schedule for recording and posting videos yet. Thanks for hanging with me. Share the link with family and friends.
HFS Mobile Training:
If you would like HFS to come to your community to conduct training classes or speak on the importance of preparedness, feel free to contact me.
Communications: You can now follow HFS social media on the following outlets:
Facebook – Hope for Survival
YouTube Channel – Hope for Survival
MeWe: - //mewe.com/p/hopeforsurvival2
Odysee - Hope for Survival (odysee.com)
Rumble - HopeforSurvival (Platform established. Videos coming soon)
Connect and give me a shout. Share with family and friends.
Guest and Newcomers
If you are a guest or newcomer to the HFS journey, please check out this link for additional
information offered through HFS. https://www.hopeforsurvival.com/post/guest-and-newcomers-information-page
Hope for Survival books: Christmas is quickly getting to our doorstep. Do you have family members or friends who dabble with preparedness or someone you want to get started in preparedness? Then now is a great time to order and receive copies of my two preparedness books. In the past HFS members purchased books for family members who may be in their early stages of preparedness.
If you would like to buy multiple books of one type or both, email me to let me know and I will work out a special deal for you.
You can obtain information on the two HFS books at this link: Survival, Preparedness, Disaster Management for individuals or family (hopeforsurvival.com)
Hope for Survival - How Food, Water, Shelter, and Security Could Save Your Life (Book 1)
Hope for Survival - The Mindset (Book 2)
We must make this brief public announcement to protect the innocent.
Ding, Ding, Ding....Attention HFS readers..... Opinions shared in this newsletter are just that, opinions, and nothing more. Read at your own risk. The owner and author of this site is not responsible for hurt feelings or thin-skinned readers. I do my best to show restraint and respect to the best extent possible. I take as many precautions as possible and try to remain as nonpolitical as possible, however, there are times when I just can't help but point certain things out. Occasionally I use words only Patriots recognize and understand. It's not personal against any non-Patriot. It's just the truth. Sometimes we must pull up our spenders and suck it up. Just saying. Stay the course, read what you want, and avoid the rest. Avoid fear porn as much as possible and the day will be okay. When all else fails… Keep the faith and always have Hope.
Let’s move along and get to some thoughts...
Thoughts for the week –
Six hundred miles, severe weather and tornado warnings, four stops, one HFS brief, a new node/tribe/team, lunch with three HFS groups, and several hours with Festus and Mrs. Festus discussing today, 2022, where we are and where we want to go, homemade pies, a good meal of spaghetti with homemade sauce, lots of laughs (nice and much needed) and a good conversation lasting till nearly 2 amwas had. All in three days. Life is blessed. As Festus would say, "rock on."
HFS is blessed and honored to have met the fine Christian Patriots from Joppa, AL on the first stop of the road trip. Welcome aboard the HFS preparedness train. Thank you for inviting me into your church home and for the awesome chili dinner afterwards. It was wonderful to be with a faith-based group wanting to get prepared and so many who understand what is going on around the world and in America. I'm happy to announce the Joppa, AL family will be HFS Group #13 in 2021. Congratulations. I will be back in Joppa, AL on January 16 to do onsite preparedness training. I look forward to spending more time with these wonderful Patriots. I owe a big thank you to our Huntsville Patriot sister who connected HFS with this opportunity.
I share the following information with you to make a point and not to brag or pump out my chest or belittle others for any reason. I'm not putting anyone down in any way. I'm simply pointing out the information I will share to let you know the HFS plan and mission is working. It is up to you to get aboard and do your part to be prepared. We can only put it together and write about it or teach it to the individual, family. or group and then support their efforts. Self-acceptance and responsibility are an individual choice.
Stop two of the road trip was to attend a meeting I was invited to in Huntsville, AL. The room had at least 60 or more like minded individuals and groups. I was happy to see at least 20 or more from the HFS Huntsville group attending to include both team leaders of the group. Thanks for your strong showing at this event. The meeting included several preparedness groups to include Viking Preparedness, podcaster and group leader from Green Gregs, and a few other groups. The host asked a few of us to give a quick brief on who we are and what we are about. It was an honor to brief the HFS statement on our mission. The leader of the meeting had a very good brief on his vision and desire to put together a group for his homestead. The takeaway from this was HFS is way ahead of all the participants speaking and sharing group information.
The HFS Huntsville team leaders had participated in another meeting the evening before and shared with me the same perception. During the Saturday meeting I wrote a private note and slid it to the team leader stating "I'm not saying this to be rude or negative, but it is clear to me that HFS is far ahead of the others in our format of preparing food, water, shelter, and security" as a baseline. If you don't have the basics to preparedness what good is anything else? One groups approach is it is your responsibility to learn and have the food, water, shelter and security part concept completed on your own with no support and then come to the group to work on tactics. The mindset and approach at HFS are that everyone is not capable of learning and doing tactics or running and jumping in a foxhole. We all, regardless of age and capability, must have and understand how to put together food, water, and security plans and understand the differences in shelters if bugging out. Personally, understanding the basic foundation to preparedness is a must before advancing to the additional skills. I'm very happy to witness from others, HFS is on target and ahead of most. This was further compounded after this meeting when a few HFS folks approached me and stated the same.
On Saturday afternoon I met for lunch with the HFS Huntsville folks and had a good chat with our American Pride Firearms owner and HFS HSV co-leader before lunch started. I can't stress how much I appreciate the time and effort these leaders put forth to keep teams together and training take place. It is demanding. It was great seeing everyone again, in person. My seat allowed me to be with the host of the morning training and two individuals from another preparedness group. It was a great opportunity to discuss preparedness issues and goals ahead. My takeaway is most teams and preparers suffer in the recruiting area. How do I find likeminded people to vet for a group? If your approach continues to turn up negative results, step back and consider another approach. How do I vet people? How do we get folks from the training table to the training field? Many preparers talk the talk at the table and when training in the field is set up, they are no shows. This creates a problem on different levels. Another issue often not considered is training must be prepared based on initially on a survey of group individuals to identify strengths and weaknesses. We must also consider age, physical abilities and limitations, and the task at hand. If your group members still lack in food preparations and making water potable and you schedule a firing range course running from firing points, your training needs are out of order. These are all important but not in the right order. Just my perspective.
I departed Huntsville, AL headed for the hills of the Cumberland Plateau to spend the evening with Mrs. Festus and Festus. I can always count on a good conversation, good food, a few laughs, and warm hospitality. I can't thank them enough for the warm place to sleep. We stayed up till nearly 2 AM chatting, laughing at one another, and talking about faith, life, preparedness, HFS 2022, and some life realities at this point. Did I mention the amazing homemade pies Mrs. Festus put on the table? My goodness. The morning was crisp with the mountain chill but the warm fire burning inside was perfect. After some coffee/tea we went outside, and I got to see all the hard work Festus has accomplished the past months bringing down trees and clearing land. Even with personal schedules and things to deal with, the Festus family accomplished a great deal in their preparedness journey since my last visit to their home. It is great to witness those we care about being prepared and improving existing preparedness steps.
Around noon or so we departed to meet up with the Crossville group for lunch and conversations and we got a big surprise when the Monticello, KY team lead messaged me that he was in the area to join us. I leaned over to Festus and told him it was like Jake and Elroy from the Blues brothers getting the band back together. Mrs. Festus labeled us as the Three Wise Men. Funny. I knew at this point the afternoon would have great conversation and lots of laughs.
So, we got to catch up, have a meal that included lots of gravy (yum), and discuss preparedness. It was great because I was joining two HFS groups and leaders to converse and hear how things are going. Having a team is the easy step. What you do with the team to expand, and train is the hard part to develop. We talked the most about how to meet and get new members. As I stated above, the approach must be adjustable, and we have to massage our approach to the person we plan to meet and discuss it with. We are all different and how we approach the topic of preparedness. A team requires out of the box thinking and recognition of personalities we are dealing with. Some people believe they are a prepper because they read prepper books and websites, yet they stop at that point. Getting them to understand it is a personal and family insurance policy of being prepared for most events is the important part of the conversation. I believe no case is the same and having the ability to identify this ahead of time is key to success.
I want to thank everyone who came out to spend time together and make the effort to participate with HFS. We truly are a amazing collection of people. HFS is very fortunate to have the set of people who along the journey joined us to become prepared and then proceed to prepare others. Thank you and many blessings to you all. Keep charging and making a difference.
I arrived home to East TN around 7 pm with HFS work waiting on me. Fortunately, Ms. Lucy is out of town, so it allows for later working hours. It's Sunday night and I must close out the previous week and start setting up the new week with emails on the next rally in NC, prep the Newsletter for the next edition, get the zoom slides started, and answer emails. Oh, as one of our Patriot sisters emailed me to say, "don't forget to take a breath." Amen sister. Amen. I also got to add around 15 new Patriot sisters and brothers to the family. Thanks to everyone for a great trip that was information loaded. All is good and life is blessed.
The week ended with a trip to Waynesville, NC where Ms. Lucy and I had lunch with HFS Patriots. It was a nice time to relax and enjoy time together before Christmas. Thanks to those who could join the group for an awesome lunch of Italian food. HFS handed out a couple prizes for the best holiday costume in the spirit of preparedness. The winner was decked in holiday cheer which also included vegetable seeds and other preparedness items to include a copy of the judges last book, the Mindset. Hmmm, maybe it was just a coincidence she won. Just saying. First place prize was an American Patriot's Bible - The word of God and the shaping of America by Dr. Richard C. Lee. Congrats!!!
Oh, don't forget, Santa knows what you are thinking, and he knows when you aren't nice.
Preparedness -
I want to keep this short but point it out because it is important to everyone.
On several instances our HFS Group leaders pointed out to me they are collecting information on skills, hobbies, and things individuals need to learn. They take their own time to arrange and set up the training then those who asked for it and need it are no shows. This is a bit disrespectful to the leader and the team. It would be like your team being in a rowboat and having practiced the sequence of rowing commands. Yet, one individual or more failed to attend training, they then impacted the sequence of rowing when it counted the most. Now you impact the mission of the team, and your teammates will probably be angry with you. This is not good for team unity or positive outcomes when it counts most. Be a team player and participate to graduate.
Next ....
Occasionally I share websites I use to monitor for news and information to support ongoing topics and/or identify new topics of interest regarding world, national, and local events that supports preparedness concerns and my five-mile radius or the areas where HFS has personnel and teams. This is not an all the sites used but a few of the newer or more relevant ones. They would be:
Podcast -
And that is my thoughts this week. Let's move along now to some preparedness and other news for the week.
Preparedness News –
1. From Di-Anne Seebregts - The Hippy Homestead - Maintaining Temperature and Humidity Inside Your Greenhouse * The Homesteading Hippy - For those using or wanting to start a greenhouse this is good information, especially for those who do not have access to electricity. Several alternative methods exist but will take some work and creativity.
2. From Bob Rodgers - Preppers Will - Recommendations For Planting Fruit, Nut and Shade trees (prepperswill.com) - In all of my own preparedness efforts planting fruit trees and berry bushes may be the single step that forced me to learn patience. It is not like a magic bunny popping out of a hat. It takes time, reading and research, understanding of your climate and region, knowing your soil, finding a quality tree to plant, knowing what fruits you wish to raise, then watching the tree(s) grow to the point it starts to produce. Oh wait, that is several years. Now lets talk about competing with the environment, bees, wildlife and other things. I'm not trying to deter you but let you know it's not as easy 1, 2, 3.
3. From Kyt Walken - Apartment Prepper - 10 Italian Recipes to Preserve Your Vegetables Using Vinegar – Apartment Prepper - I know for many the thought of canning is to hard or not worth the result. I guess I have to wonder if the person ever tried it. Ms. Lucy taught me the basics of canning and now I'm a canning animal. I love canning. From my perspective, canning is like putting money in a savings account. As prices soar and shelves empty, we use our canning resources to offset both and add to our menu as needed. We are spending minimal at the local grocery store these days. Here's some methods to can and preserve vegetables.
4. From Derrick James - SHTF Blog - 4 Pilot Bread Crackers for Long-Term Food Storage (shtfblog.com) - Here is another process one can use to have long-term crackers. This would add a great resource to our soups. We love soup in the winter months and under SHTF conditions adding crackers to the soup would be a nice boost.
5. From Samantha BIggers - Peak Prosperity - Most Overlooked Preps for Long Emergencies | Peak Prosperity - Is it possible to find and know every item one should consider? It would mean spending so much time researching and less time working on the list you prepare. Be selective and determine what you would need and use based on your situation and circumstances. Don't buy what you won't use or cannot afford.
Other News -
1. From John and Nisha Whitehead - The Rutherford Institute - The Rutherford Institute :: The Christmas Baby Born in a Police State: Then and Now | By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | - Excellent read during this holiday season on where we have been and where we are today.
2. From Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge - Morgan Stanley Warns The Fed's Turbo Taper Will Trigger Market Chaos Over "The Next 3-4 Months" | ZeroHedge - Oh how the negative news keeps showing up. Will we ever get a bit of good news? Of course, we are alive and preparing to be ahead of the bad news if and when it happens. Keep your chin up and think positive.
3. From Wolf Richter - Richter Report - WOOSH, Shock-and-Awe Loss of Dollar Purchasing Power Hits Americans. Worst Inflation in 40 Years. Getting it Under Control Will Be a Bitch | Wolf Street - As I stated above, having resources on hand should help individuals get through these days of escalated cost. But, you must continue preparing resources needed. It is believed by many this is not a temporary thing we are going through.
4. From Jim Rickards - Jim Rickards Blog -
5. From Alex Newman - New American - Targeting Children With Propaganda & Tech: Transhumanism Part Three - The New American - This is only Part 3 because it focuses on Transhumanism and children. So many folks are missing this topic and it is not a secret and several platforms are sharing it. We even talked about it on our Thursday Zoom call last week.
6. From Ame Picchi - CBS News - A record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September - CBS News - I could have picked from over 25 sites to post this story so I went with a left leaning site which also is running the story. The point is these people are leaving on their own. Some are refusing to take mandated vaccinations. Many are choosing to go with a lesser profession. And others are simply retiring because they are tired of the political correctness and nonsense going on. The bigger picture is the matured workers in much needed skills are walking.
Drum roll...........
That's all my Patriot brothers and sisters.
Prayers - Please keep our great nation, our elected leaders, military and first responders in your thoughts and prayers. We pray for good health and wisdom. Please pray for our leadership to find answers and guidance to the problems facing our great nation. May your faith remain strong and answers to the unknown provided. God is good and may our prayers blanket and protect you and your circumstances. I pray for each, and every one of our Patriots.
May we pray for all the blessings and things in life to be thankful about and continued hope for revival around the world. We must continually pray for the unsaved, our family and friends who live each day without the protection for eternal life and salvation.
Even with all the worldly challenges, struggles, and heartbreaks we must always give thanks for the blessings in our own life and our family each day. Life can be hard and sometimes unfair to us, but we still have many things to be thankful for each day. We must not forget them.
As we have prayer needs for answers to health and family matters, we also have prayers of thanks for recent health answers and recoveries.
We all must pray strong and often for the citizens of our great nation. Many of our sisters and brothers are struggling daily with things they witness, encounter, and are surprised with out of the norm. Many times, we are in unchartered areas, however, we still must keep our faith and focus on the big picture. Our prayers and faithful strength together will be required often to battle the evils being thrown upon all of us minute by minute.
As Patriots we must stay strong and never give up. Our home, community and nation needs us now more than ever. Stay focused on your local community and things that will impact you around the nation. Don't allow the events around you to create fear in your life. Build your own self-reliance and focus on hope. Remember we are a blessed nation and we must continue to be great people today and make a better tomorrow. Keep charging.
Blessings,
Bravo Echo Out,
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