Welcome to 2020, how are you going to fight and defeat the worst year of your life? Let's start at the beginning. 2020 was a promising year, for about two days because that's how long it took for literally the entire continent of Australia to go up in flames. Good thing global warming is a hoax, although someone should really tell Australia so it stops experiencing record-breaking heat waves and going up in flames like a gas can throw into a campfire. By the time the fires burned themselves out they had consumed over 18 million hectares or almost 70,000 square miles. That's an area even bigger than all of Florida, all going up in flames only unlike Florida important things actually exist in Australia. Over a billion animals died in the fires, not to mention the countless insects, and the fires put 400 mega tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In fact, up until the 2019-2020 bushfire season, Australia's forests actually re-absorbed all of the carbon that was released from bushfires, but this massive loss of forest is expected to irrevocably tip the scales so that future bushfires will release more carbon than forests can re-absorb. This means every year the risk of fires will only grow as carbon dioxide increases global temperature. At least fire is something that we can fight together. War though, now that's a different matter altogether.
2020's just begun- Things can only go up from here- only a week later
you start hearing rumblings of the international spread of some
strange new virus from
China. It's been spreading throughout China for a while now, but thanks
to the censorship of the Chinese Communist Party, not even the Chinese
themselves were aware of how serious the virus was, how easily it
spreads, and the death rate from infection. Even worse, the Chinese
Communist Party downplayed the virus to international health agencies,
so when the virus suddenly makes the jump to Europe and the US, both
regions are still struggling to understand how serious it is. By the
end of January, cases of this new coronavirus are already appearing in
Britain and New York.
Like a breath of fresh air, February at last came and surely things
would get better. Except no, they didn't, because as coronavirus
spread, rumors of national lockdowns began to circulate. Along
with the rumors of lockdowns a bunch of nerds with guns took to raging
on twitter and Facebook about how quarantines were tyranny and they'd
never stand for it. Then again, you never really knew how they were
funded, but apparently 2020 was the final financial nail in the coffin
for them. Oh, and a few days later emergency personnel in Texas got
attacked by a swarm of over 40,000 bees, which would itself be only
a precursor for worse insect threats to come...
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| Lockdown |
As March rolled in the lockdowns hit, and entire countries were
shuttered as people were forced to stay inside their homes. To
make matters worse, everyone was waiting for the gun nuts to take to
the streets and start the revolution, but thankfully, that didn't
happen. What did happen is that the NBA canceled its season for the
year, and that's when it really sunk in for most people this lockdown stuff was for real. As people were forced to stay home with the ones
they love most in the world, the domestic violence rate went
sky-high. Also, the internet all across Europe had to be slowed down as
hundreds of millions of people were suddenly stuck at home
with nothing better to do.
Over a billion people were indefinitely unemployed, causing a massive
economic backlash. In most countries the government stepped in
and provided generous assistance to everyone affected by the
quarantine, because that's literally why government exists to serve the
people it governs.
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| Unemployed during quarantine |
In April the quarantine rolled on, and the grumblings of a new
movement- the anti-maskers- began to stir across the internet. Now,
plenty of people had legitimate financial concerns over their
unemployment thanks to the quarantine, but many more people were simply
chafing at being forced to wear masks in public- which was pretty much
mandatory by now. The rest of the world pretty much just went
on wearing a mask, even if it was slightly annoying. Just as April was
done, the US government basically admitted that UFOs were real when it released
declassified footage of fighter jets chasing down strange aircraft in
the sky. As if a global pandemic and armed weekend warrior
militias weren't enough to worry about, now there was the threat
of alien invasion.
Of course, aliens would be preferable to literal murder hornets, which
appeared early on in May. These giant hornets inject so much poison
that if stung just a few times a person's heart can stop. While
rampaging killer bees were attacking emergency response workers in
Texas, the killer hornet invasion began in Washington. It seemed
like insects had just about enough of our crap, and were making a move
on the alpha life form on earth. If spiders join the fight, we
don't know about you, but we just straight up surrender, because
spiders are terrifying.
In
India the coronavirus lockdown saw tens of thousands of migrant workers cut
off from transportation to get back home, forcing
massive groups of these workers to walk hundreds of miles
with no aid or support to get back home. Britain had initially decided
that the
Coronavirus was no big deal, and the nation would just go on with business as
usual with a good old fashioned British stiff upper lip… until
the virus exploded across the nation in record time, forcing the
government to hastily respond to an unprecedented health crisis. Then Europe
decided that it was going to vent off all its frustration by
resurrecting one of its favorite hobbies: starting massive wars.
Greece and Turkey, which have been embroiled in one of the greatest
penis measuring contests in the world over some disputed islands,
nearly declared war on each other when Turkish research and
war ships entered waters Greece considered its own. With fighter
jets in the air, it was Germany who ultimately helped talk Greece and
Turkey down- but both sides remain ready for war and unhappy with
the situation on the ground. In a bid to deescalate tensions,
France has sent part of its navy to the region, but neither side is
particularly impressed by the strength of the current French fleet. As
if all of this wasn't bad enough, intelligence would reveal that Trump
was aware of Russian agents paying out bounties to terrorists and
insurgents who killed American troops, and yet would still fight
for Russia to be readmitted to the G-8 when the now G-7
nations met to discuss the economic impact of
Covid-19, leaving US service-members feeling less than ambivalent towards
their commander-in-chief. 2020 has been an absolute dumpster fire of a
year so far, and the good news is that there's still a few months
left and everyone knows that movies save their biggest twists for the
end. So how do you survive 2020? You leave. Seriously, get out. Get off
the planet.
Full Summary
As 2020 comes to a close, let's take a look at what the year was like
for all of us here at WINGS Ministries. 2020 began as usual,
with our teams traveling to hold our faith-based work and life
skills classes at three Santa Maria locations and at Henley State
Jail, the women's unit in Dayton, Texas. Then... Coronavirus! As
of March 11th. visitors were no longer allowed at any of our locations,
which meant our classes had to be suspended. But it also meant that we
were about to embark on a new way of doing things. Come early April,
we held our first WINGS program Zoom class. Soon all three Santa
Maria locations were online with us. Yes, there are limited class sizes and
masks are required, but do you know that the ladies wait in line
for the room to be open so that they can keep learning and preparing
for their new life ahead?? By the end of this year we will have more
than 30 graduates who have completed all seven modules even during
COVID restrictions. These women truly appreciate the opportunity to come to
class during such restricted times! Your generous donations make it
possible to give a highly valued Celebrate Recovery Bible to every
one of the women who graduates from our program. We're still receiving
prayer requests from all the Butterflies (which is what we call the
women we serve) and we're sharing them with over 100 prayer partners on
our list. Besides the adventure brought on by COVID, what other
exciting changes has our ministry seen this year? Lots of them! In July the
ministry founder Kate Callan stepped down from her CEO role and
moved to sunny Florida. The CFO Kathy Wortham took on a new role of
treasurer.
As you can see, although we've faced challenges this year, we've also
seen new beginnings and celebrated successes. Those successes
include our annual fall fundraiser, which was shifted from in-person to
virtual. Having never hosted an online event before, this first felt
like a bit of an obstacle, but in the end, it actually allowed us to
reach a broader audience, and God blessed us with success. Did you
miss it? That's okay, because now is as great a time as any to give
towards WINGS' mission, which is to help women discover and embrace
their true identity in Christ while learning essential skills necessary
to meet the challenges of life. We thank each and every one of
you who've donated to our ministry this year, who volunteered with
WINGS, who've lifted our Butterflies and our ministry in prayer,
and who've helped us reach the women we serve in any way at
all. We couldn't do what we do without you! Again, we say
THANK YOU! We wish you and your loved ones a
beautiful Christmas season and a wonderful New Year.
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