Every year at NSA we have some incredible speakers and entertainers. Today we listened to Nando Parrado. Not a household name but you know his story. You may know it as a book or movie called Alive.

From Wikipedia – Fernando Seler “Nando” Parrado (born December 9, 1949) is one of the sixteen Uruguayan survivors of the airplane crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 which crashed in the Andes mountains on October 13, 1972. After spending two months trapped in the mountains with the other crash survivors, he, along with Roberto Canessa, climbed through the Andes mountains over a ten day period to find help.

They had no food on the plane which took off with nearly 40 people. After the crash they were down to 29 (don’t quote me on the numbers) and 16 were rescued 72 days later. You can do the math on that. Horrible, Yes? Necessary, yes.

His tale is of teamwork, creativity, leadership and persistence. That isn’t a surprise. But it is also a tale of love. His closing point was to live each day to your fullest and to tell those you love that you love them. Don’t let petty things get in the way of life.

You think you have it bad. Think again. I am not saying you have it easy but bad? Probably not.

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