Fellow Patriots,
Welcome to the Patriot Express Newsletter (PENL) Edition #92. Thanks for stopping by to spend time with us. We appreciate your time and support. Hope for Survival grew more in the past 30 days since I started on this journey 21 months ago. From Boston to Texas, Montana to Florida, Oregon to Charleston, SC, we are growing our preparedness family daily. This is great but we must continue to build one family at a time to be self-reliant. So enjoy and make yourself at home.
Once again the PENL will be posted while I'm out visiting Patriot Groups on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully with timing and the Lord's protection I will be blessed to visit the Waynesville, Franklin/Rabin, Asheville, and then a stop to visit Festus in Crossville, TN, before heading on to Huntsville for a couple of weeks to join up with the CEO, Ms. Lucy.
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
One note for website users. I didn't realize it but several folks did not realize you can find folders set up on the blog page where all posted articles are filed in the folders. Example the PENL is filed under the Patriot Express News Letter folder. You can also find information and checklist for folks with disabilities and for children. There is also a recipe folder. Simply look for the word "more" near the top right and click down on the arrow. The folders will appear. Hope this helps out. Sorry for any past confusion.
Thursday Zoom Rallies – We are almost half way through January already and the Zoom Rally series Rally #37 continues. I appreciate everyone who attended and participated in conversation on the topics covered. I was sharing an email with the Zoom group this week and pointing out the vast collection of different skills within the group that could greatly enhance the knowledge of other preparers attending zoom. Zoom has greatly contributed to available access and opportunities to provide group training weekly virtually. If you wish to attend a Zoom Rally monitor the website for each weekly notification for the upcoming meeting.
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
Parler – Preparedness101@Preparedness101
Connect and give me a shout. Share with family and friends.
Moving along …
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.
As HFS continues to grow, I believe it's important to remind everyone respect and honor is important to the HFS family and mission. We welcome everyone aboard and hope you find a comfortable place to hang around and learn preparedness. With multiple platforms (Zoom, Signal, and Comment section in articles) to interact with other HFS members I remind everyone to treat one another respect. We all come from different backgrounds, ages, experiences, and desires. Disrespecting, demeaning or intimidating comments will not be tolerated on any account.
Let’s move along and get to some thoughts...
Thoughts for the week –
It has been one of the busiest weeks on record for Hope for Survival. Adding new members, packaging and shipping books sold, building groups and contacts, setting up Rally Group meetings in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee for the weekend, answering emails, getting the PENL ready to post while I'm on the road, and setting up the Thursday Zoom slides and conducting the event. I'm glad I have a fulltime day job to break up the work load. (Smile) In between these needs, we had a neighborhood Security Team meeting with the local Sheriff to discuss establishing our Neighborhood Watch Program. The Sheriff emphasized his thanks for our efforts to build self-reliance in our community. Sound familiar? The following night I met with one of our Patriot families to move our neighborhood "Preparedness" team ahead with further planning. I greatly appreciate this families time and efforts to carry the load to achieve these goals during my travel and time away. Thank you very much. This is awesome fellow Patriots. Sure its busy but this means more individuals and families are being exposed to preparedness. Our efforts to plant preparedness seeds to help the growth of preparedness and self-reliance is spreading. I am not complaining at all. I am simply sharing the good news that people are jumping on the preparedness wagon. Thanks for being a part of the movement to help yourself and others.
Ms. Lucy helped me start putting together the eventual Hope for Survival office in our East TN home which allows me to keep it a mess vs the kitchen table or any place I can find to spread things out. We emptied a guest bedroom out, painted, and then put in office furniture recently donated to our effort. Thanks Ms. Lucy for helping make this happen and putting me by a window facing Wilson's playground in the woods. A man can do some deep thinking staring out a window. Right? I can't thank Ms. Lucy enough for her support to me while I am on this Hope for Survival journey to help others. The relationships, friends, and preparedness family being built through time working together is priceless. I am thankful to God for His guidance and protection on this path. Your emails often land at night and they are uplifting and energize me to continue this charge ahead. Festus and I spend long hours digging and reading to try and stay ahead of things and put pieces together. It is difficult these past days as a multi level attempt on the disinformation campaign continues.
Keeping focused on the targeted objective is critical all the time and especially these days we are traveling through. We must focus on what we know and not what they want us to think. This is difficult and often overwhelming. Sometimes we must step back and refocus on our faith to clear our minds and hearts. Right? I will tell you through the election and since, my heart and mind has been pretty grounded. I accepted whatever the results yielded to be the path and to be prepared spiritually and self-reliant. We can't control most of what has weighted our minds and hearts. We can turn to prayer and personal efforts to plan and adjust to changes.
Sometimes when burdened and feeling heavy hearted we come to a dead stop and feel we are sinking. No matter how hard we try we can't figure it out. Have you considered maybe we aren't supposed to figure it out and our trust is being tested? Humanly we will never figure out high level decisions and actions taking place in the government. The government intends it to be this way. I have lived on the other side of this picture and misinformation and influential change to reach a different result was a daily objective. Negative or positive, it was a fact. People, power, and programs are designed to keep the masses off kilter and in the dark. Without a spiritual grounding I don't know if I would have been able to work through this period in my life. Many patterns and processes I witnessed then I see again now. Except it is our country in the crosshairs.
We all want to be in the know and sometimes the voice which influences others towards what we think. It is easy to get off focus and find ourselves wondering in a field mentally. We may even ask "how did I end up here?" It happens. I'm guilty. Just like during the past 90 days of election chaos and fear mongering from the fear porn world, we all find ourselves fishing with the wrong bait. We all try so hard and want to know now. We are depending on strangers to put answers before us. I often try to drop kind reminders to the HFS Zoom Rally Signal Group to keep grounded and focus on preparedness topics. I don't do this to be the snicker in the punch bowl. It is because of what I am talking about in this version of "Thoughts for the week." My purpose is to help keep myself and others grounded and on the path to do the work we know and can do to build ourselves and others to be stronger spiritually and prepared.
As a believer and follower of the word of God, I want to share the following with you. As I said earlier, sometimes emails are timely and powerful. I know everyone reading is not the spiritual type but are also good people. At the end of each PENL I put a "Prayers" header and in it I pray for all of you, saved and unsaved. I care for all of you equally. We all have a value and worth.
My brother Festus sent this to me a few mornings ago and it was my "bam" of the week. It fell right in line with what was on my mind to share this week.
"And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of the valor." (Judges 6:12)
"Gideon was not a very promising leader to all outward appearances. He was of the undistinguished and divided tribe of Manasseh, and "my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house" (v 15).
But that's exactly the kind of man God knows He can use, for "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty" (1 Corinthians, 1:27). God, therefore, greeted him thus: "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor" (text verse).
As a matter of fact, there were other qualities in Gideon that must have commended him to God. he was already busy threshing "wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites" (v 11). He was not sitting idly but was already doing what he could for his people. Furthermore, even though he lived in a time of great apostasy when even his own father kept an altar for the God Baal, he still worshipped the true God and was greatly exercised that "the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites; (v. 3). He was burdened for his people, but all he had been able to do was to try to feed them, hiding his wheat from the invaders. Before the Lord could use him further, however, he had to destroy the family idol and offer his sacrifice to the true God, even though he knew his family and friends may try to kill him. (vv. 25-32). God, did, indeed then "save Israel from the hand of the Midianites" (v. 14), through the hands of Gideon.
If we would be mighty for God, like Gideon, we must begin like him, poor yet faithful; burdened for the Lord's truth, and doing what we can. - Putting away every idol of our mind and acknowledging our Saviors sacrifice for us." HMM
We all invested our time and hope in a President and failed system in the hope of four more years and a sense of security in a man who stood up to the bullies as a bully and provided us mentally with a sense of protection and security. We wanted it to be our will for our own personal agenda. I had to often remind myself if this is not God's will, then I need to stay focused on His word and direction. We all are blessed people with many fruits to plant and share to help others, to include the most important part, sharing the story of our God and His promise of eternal life through savior.
I pray you will take these words in to thought and consideration, as do I, and when times become stressful and uncertain, remember the words above. We may not like how this earthly story goes but through faith and prayer it is an easier path to travel. If we are focused on earthly news and events and haven't prepared our families, we are on the wrong path with unanswered destinations.
Okay, lets move along to the news…
Preparedness News –
1. From Linda Loosli - Food Storage Moms - 13 Ways to Use Bacon Grease - Food Storage Moms - Bacon? Smell of bacon? If Ms. Lucy wants to get my attention she can scent the kitchen with bacon. Oh momma. I know, I know, terrible for us. Is there anything better tasting on a cold winter evening than some tasty bacon, eggs, pancakes, and some of our Roxboro, NC. Patriot sisters homemade jams and jellies. Or, some eggs, bacon, hot biscuits with southern gravy. So here is a good recommendation on some ways to justify having more bacon just to get the grease for these 13 reasons.
2. From Tracy Nawara - Ask a Prepper How To... - 8 Great Depression Era Recipes We Will Need Soon - Ask a Prepper - I know my Patriot brothers in Boston are probably thinking "those southern folk sure eat strange." I am certain on your mid shifts as First Responders you occasionally sneak a few of these recipes through the chow line. Many of these I had served during my childhood years and loved them. Chipped beef. This is the redneck version of country club steak with mushrooms and onions. The macaroni with tomatoes, beef and spices equates to what Air Force Basic Training called Chilli Mac (sorta). Five cents per bowl and I was in hog heaven. If you are hungry and have to live in the food supplies you have available, you will learn to love these options. Now is the time to start trying them out and figuring the best way to serve as part of your menu.
3. From Francesca Hernandez Singer - Homestead Survival Site -7 Homestead Items You Forgot To Buy - Homestead Survival Site - The good news is you will find all seven of the areas mentioned on the recently completed Hope for Survival Preparers Checklist (32 pages) available upon request.
4. From Tim Makay - Modern Survival Site -2 Clever Tricks to Recondition Old Gas on Your Own (modernsurvivalonline.com) - This was a topic recently discussed during a December Zoom Rally. When is gasoline no longer usable in our equipment and machinery.
5. From Lauren Dibble - Hillsborough Homesteading - 4 Healthy Tea Blends for Winter (hillsborough-homesteading.com) - Tea is a very enjoyable afternoon and/or evening drink. So why not make it a healthier drink? I enjoy adding elderberry and a dab of honey. I also enjoy warm tea with a shot of apple cider vinegar, honey, and cinnamon.
6. 1. From Pat Henry - The Prepper Journal - Home Fortification Tips That Can Save Your Life - The Prepper Journal - Most know I love talking preparedness. However, developing security plans is probably my favorite. Your home, duplex, apartment, farm, is your last line of defense. When the threat reaches the doors and walls of your dwelling you must engage most likely. Hopefully your developed security plan will deter the threat. Most robbers will not spend a great deal of time attempting entry. The stronger you can build your plan the better chance you have of deterring the threat. A plan should be built around the five D's of security. Deter, Detect, Deny, Delay and Defend. If you want to learn more on security you can read my book, Hope for Survival, or visit the HFS YouTube page video I put together on Security at (182) Bravo Echo discusses Security-in-Depth - YouTube . Or simply ask me your question.
Other News –
1. From Tyler Durden - Zero Hedge - OPEC Monthly Report Signals Demand Optimism, On Track To Drain Oil Inventories | ZeroHedge - A HFS Patriot contacted me yesterday from the East Coast to share the cost of unleaded fuel increased nearly fifty cent overnight. Several reasons could be blamed for the increase however when we are the one's paying the pump price, the reason is insignificant. It hits our wallet and drains our available resources.
2. From Dave Fairtex - Peak Prosperity - PM Daily Market Commentary - 01/13/2021 | Peak Prosperity - I have been fielding numerous questions on "what should I do with my retirement before the administration change?" I'm not a financial adviser nor do I desire telling others what they should do with their investments. I am open to sharing what I have been told and choose to do. Basically spread your investments so a major drop or loss won't sink you. Some of us are near retirement or retired so the time to recover lost funds is not available. Ms. Lucy and I invested in precious metals a few years back to help spread our funds out. A very smart investment advisor and Patriot Brother suggested investing roughly 25% to 30% in metals. He also stated to never buy gold if you can't touch it. I.E. If it can't be delivered don't buy it.
3. From Wolf Richter - Wolf Street - Stunning Brick & Mortar Meltdown, Manhattan Style: The Collapse of Retail Rents Before & Now During the Pandemic | Wolf Street - The national meltdown continues to slide south without relief in site. The box stores increased their 2020 profits to the multi-billions while Ma and Pa family stores boarded up windows and doors a final time. Big Tech continues to crush our former way of life. It appears the corner grocery mart of the past will continue to fade in to our memories.
4. From John Whitehead - The Rutherford Institute -The Rutherford Institute :: A Nation Imploding: Digital Tyranny, Insurrection and Martial Law | By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead |- If you have been asleep and just awakened, JW provides a fairly clear picture of what could rest ahead. No one is focusing on the Technocracy and Digital threat on our doorstep.
Drum roll...........
That's all my Patriot brothers and sisters. Stay alert and strong.
You survived another edition of the PENL. Thanks for your time to read the PENL and hanging out with us for a while. We all have different desires in news and what we read at different points in our day. Hopefully HFS has provided information to stimulate your thinking and the realities around us. It is important for you to keep your feet and minds grounded as the world continues towards an unknown destination.
Keep the emails flowing. I thoroughly enjoy reading your stories and hearing what preparedness projects you are working on. Reaching the objective in our effort is rewarding. Go bring new friends and help spread the word on Preparedness. Visit the HFS YouTube page and check out the numerous preparedness videos. Subscribe and hit like. It’s a minimal price to pay for free information.
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 in this new year. Please pray for our leadership to find answers and guidance to the problems facing our great nation as we continue to resolve our election. Please send up a prayer for one of our Patriot families who was laid off from her job this week and health insurance is critical to their circumstances. May your faith remain strong and answers to the unknown provided. God is good and may our prayers blanket and protect you and your situation. May peace be cast upon us and protect us each day through the unknown path ahead. I pray for each, and every one of our Patriots. May we all be protected from the growing evils surrounding and attacking our families daily. 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. Amen.
Keep charging and have a safe week. Don’t allow the events around us to create fear in your life. Stay focused and don't chase rabbits. Build your own self-reliance and focus on hope. We are a blessed nation and we must continue to be great people.
Blessings,
Bravo Echo Out,
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