The Casey Lartigue Show!

  This was one of the most hilarious meetings in the history of my life. TNKR (now FSI) wasn't an official organization at that point. I had many people telling me in 2013 and 2014 that we needed a website. Of course, none of the people suggesting it tried to set up a Website. So I made a Website. Then people were constantly analyzing it, mainly asking the question, "What kind of Website is that ?" The same kind of thing was happening with Social Media. I joined Facebook in July 2012 after years of avoiding it. Once I got involved with North Korean refugees, it seemed that Facebook could be a place to recruit volunteers, so I joined. Then people were telling me about many other various social media sites that I needed to use. Of course, when I set them up, people were criticizing me for not understanding how to run social media campaigns. As usual, the world is full of talkers and critics, so social media remained something for me to do after finishing work. In early 2016...

2020 reflection: This was a special moment, but also one of my Old Uncle Moments! I had met Hwang Cheol on March 20, 2016, at an International Volunteers Workshop that TNKR had co-organized. I was moved by his story about trying to rescue his father from North Korea and vowed as he spoke to get involved. The main purpose of the Workshop that day had been for volunteers to join up with the six NGOs presenting about their activities. We had 185 people participate in the workshop and so much enthusiasm in the room. Naturally people want to help NK refugees directly, so we weren't sure if anyone would want to join Mr. Hwang's campaign. I was delighted to learn that many had signed up. Feeling urgency about the case, I followed up about 2 weeks later to check the progress. As I suspected and have seen on many occasions, none of the eager people had followed up. I don't know what it is about conferences that gets people so excited that they sometimes pledge their lives be...

  I flew from Seoul to Texas to attend the funeral of my late Great Aunt Ceil. I got the bad news last week, then after I got the date of the funeral, I started making plans to be there. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2016/03/137_200579.html I'm glad I came here. I last saw my Great Aunt in March 2014, at her sister's (my grandmother's) funeral. There were tears during the funeral, but the funeral was as she had lived--love, joy, optimism. We had a lovely time reflecting on her life, older relatives telling stories. I learned many things about her and about my family. The best thing was seeing my aunts and uncles. One of my uncles threatened his patented "bear hug," but he was not alone in carrying out the threat. * * * Last year one of my lovely aunts passed away (and one of her sons passed away around the same time), but I was busy with so many things that I didn't return to Texas. I could only send condolences, and greatly regretted it. * * * Some ...

   KBS has a weekly 15 minute show called "Sharing Happiness, Donations."  Yesterday they featured (TNKR) Teach North Korean Refugees for one of those 15 minutes! I have attached some screenshots, and have a 2021 update below the photos. * * * www.lovetnkr.org/donate This refugee is still anonymous, but he has been working on a book! This refugee preferred to be anonymous at the time, but she is now a YouTuber! 2021 update below the photos :  1) It appears that the show is off the air. The archive only goes back to 2018 (of course, their links could have changed or they could have renamed the show, etc.). Whatever, it does remind me that when KBS came to us in 2016, we were shuttling between using office space of two other organizations at that time. We were trying to settle down into becoming an official organization. One of the KBS reporters asked me what I thought TNKR was going to be doing five years later. That is a question a lot of reporters and allegedly smar...