Beat it!

A group of friends of ours got fed up with our inability to respond to their offers of help. They designed a t-shirt that people who know us and want to "support our cause" could get. To be frank, we felt a bit embarrassed about the entire thing at first but we also understood that this way people could feel like they are contributing. We probably would have felt the same if we'd been in the same situation. The shirt was going to look like a sports t-shirt so our friends asked for some input what number they could put on it. I gave them the magic number 20. They put in addition the text "Beat it!" on the shirt.

Just before Christmas two of our friends stopped by our home to tell us how many people had gotten the shirt, and to show us photos of people wearing the shirt. We were astonished. We had not realised how many friends we have and how many people my story had touched. We also got a list of e-mail addresses of everyone and we sent out a thank-you mail nd Christmas wishes to everyone. Many had been wondering about the number on the shirt and this is what we wrote about the magic number 20:

Well, it's simply the number the Norwegian footballer Ole Gunnar Solskjær played with during his many seasons in Manchester United. He's probably the most successful Norwegian footballer ever. So thank you for supporting Norwegian football! :o) Well, there's something more to the story. Ole Gunnar was a great football player but turned more into a second choice for the manager Alex Ferguson. However, he never ever complained and always tried to make the best out of the situation. In fact, he became very good at coming in at the end of games to make last minute goals. This positive attitude and "try to make the best out of it" are then two issues that are important to me as well at the moment.