{"id":757703,"date":"2018-12-06T12:58:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T18:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?p=757703"},"modified":"2018-12-07T14:27:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T20:27:09","slug":"a-point-of-light-honor-for-a-mercy-ships-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=757703","title":{"rendered":"A Point of Light Honor for a Mercy Ships Family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2018\/12\/Gary-Parker-and-family.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2018\/12\/Gary-Parker-and-family-150x150.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-757704\" \/><\/a>LINDALE &#8211; As the funeral for former president George Bush was being held, his Points of Light organization honored a family working with Mercy Ships, which is based in Garden Valley, in northwestern Smith County. According to a news release, Mercy Ships volunteer Dr. Gary Parker, his wife, Susan and their two children, of Seattle, received the Daily Point of Light Award.  Dr. Parker is the chief medical officer abord the Africa Mercy. It is the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest charity hospital ship. When Dr. Parker first volunteered, he thought it would be a 3 month task. Thirty one years later, Dr. Parker, and his wife, who he met on board, continue to provide help to those living without access to safe, timely and affordable surgical care.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Gary, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, specializes in the treatment of tumors and other deformities of the face, head and neck \u00e2\u20ac\u201c giving his African patients a second chance at life. And while the Parkers are changing people&#8217;s lives, the are the first to admit that the patients have also had an impact on their lives. <\/p>\n<p>According to Susan, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can sometimes become preoccupied with situations in my life that aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going the way I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like them to, or something I miss back in the States. And yet when I take the time to walk down those three flights of stairs to the hospital ward and I see the conditions people are suffering with and I spend time talking to them and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re smiling and thankful \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reminded about what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really important in life and that happiness truly is an inside job. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been given a gift by living here \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s developed in me a lifestyle of gratitude.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LINDALE &#8211; As the funeral for former president George Bush was being held, his Points of Light organization honored a family working with Mercy Ships, which is based in Garden Valley, in northwestern Smith County. According to a news release, Mercy Ships volunteer Dr. Gary Parker, his wife, Susan and their two children, of Seattle, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=757703\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Point of Light Honor for a Mercy Ships Family<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":757704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-08 07:55:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=757703"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757769,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757703\/revisions\/757769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/757704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=757703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=757703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=757703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}