Marc Ashton

While explaining God to his granddaughter Daska, Horace Dade Ashton said, 'God was everything she breathed and walked on, everything that lived, everything she saw, touched, and felt. God was in every one of us.

In 1963, while my brothers were engaged in their lives, I call this period of my life 'my character-building years.' I adhered to the saying, 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Suddenly, in my mind I hear my father say, 'Mind over matter, son. You can do this. You can accomplish anything as long as you really want to.

Myriam and I are both hard workers, and together we make a strong team. We found ways to make a living, educate our children, and to take care of my parents until their last days, and we managed to have fun doing it. ...The friendships we made along the way were the biggest treasure of all.

Even though I left school at age fifteen, I loved learning and continued to learn through my careers as a photojournalist, filmmaker, and explorer. I was taught that education is the great equalizer and knowledge is power. I prefer to think that knowledge is understanding; the more one knows, the less one fears.

I wonder if my kidnappers know who my father was in Haiti, or if they know what powers they are dealing with.