One Million Bones' Big Monday Announcement

We are over the moon to let you know that Carl Wilken will be one of our speakers for One Million Bones on the National Mall.  Carl was with us at the Albuquerque 50,000 Bones preview installation and it seems fitting and wonderful to have him with us at the culmination of all this work. As a matter of fact, during his speech at the preview, he gave us a quote that for all of us at One Million Bones, really sums up how we feel about this work we're all doing.

He said, "When you make something with your hands, it changes the way you feel, which changes the way you think, which changes the way you act."

Remarkable words from a remarkable man.  

This is what our Nevada State Coordinator, Misty Ahmic wrote about him:

Human beings as a species have evolved oven tens of thousands of years into a group of organisms that have the highest levels of intelligence on the planet earth. Through this intelligence we were able to domesticate wild animals and crops, develop into stable settled societies, learn to govern in ways that allow for everyone to have a voice, conquer the high seas, and develop means of communication to allow each person to express their individuality to one another in their own personal way.  This intelligence has also lead to some of the more atrocious acts one species has ever visited upon itself…
             

 Many of us have chosen to take an active role in doing whatever we can to bring attention towards the cessation of the murder and mutilation of people based on their birth race, religious beliefs, or inability to choose their sex at birth, or for any other reasoning the perpetrators would use to justify their unspeakable acts.  Many magnetic and amazing people have come together across a myriad of organizations to help one another to accomplish this goal.

In the beginnings of the genocides in Rwanda, Carl Wilkens witnessed the pleas of help to the UN, and the rest of the world in the midst of merciless slaughter by the Tutsis of Rwanda as they watched all of their American and European friends evacuate and flee for neighboring African Nations. Carl Wilkens is an individual who personifies a group of amazing humans.  He is a person who has stared genocide and poverty in the face without backing away from it.  In Rwanda when all foreigners were ordered to leave the country he alone stayed behind to assist those who were directly in the path of danger, people he had grown to love and care for.  In a situation where he was “ordered” to evacuate the country Carl chose instead to exist as a FREE human being, in order to help others become the same.  As a result of his efforts in Rwanda after the genocides began, he helped save nearly 500 Tutsis. His “shoes” are ones that many of us would be honored to fill for even just a moment and the number of lives he has touched through his efforts and ministry are almost unimaginable. That one man can give so much of himself and his life to the service of others is a shining example to all of humanity. If we can just learn to live our lives outside of our own shoes we may learn what it takes to live in the shoes of others.

Carl's website is World Outside my Shoes.  Please spend some time there, read his book, and come to see this amazing man at the Installation in DC.