THE FLAME OF HOPE

I want to start by thanking Brian Hartwig for letting me pay to use his web hosting for my site. It's hard to find servers that will allow both audio and video on their servers, so this is truly a gift from God. And if you have a need for audio or video on your website, I highly recommend Brian. He doesn't mind answering questions, and in this day and age, that is hard to find. So I Praise God that we met. His website is, http://www.twigs76.com/ and it's refreshing to me to work with a Christian host.

Hi, I'm Pastor Snoopi Botten and I have Cerebral Palsy. Out in public I can't control the first impressions that people get from me. I sit funny in my wheelchair, I drool, have muscle spasms, and my speech is hard to understand. And if I pull out my communication device, people mistake it as being a toy and walk away. So please, stay and look over my website and lets get to know each other. I have some things to share that could change your life.

You might be asking what Cerebral Palsy is. Cerebral palsy is nothing more than a brain injury to the Cerebellum. This makes it very hard to control your entire body; making it hard to speak, do things with your hands, and you have unexpected spasms all the time. To help you understand what this is like, hold a piece of paper to your forehead and try to write your name. This sounds easy, but you will find this very hard to do. The reason is, you have to actually write backwards in order to write your name. The signals coming from my damaged brain are scrambled. So just as it's a lot like trying to write your name, only worse. And it's easier for people to just walk away rather than to take the time to meet a new friend.

People like me have a normal mind, we just often can't express ourselves. Even with a computer, our typing is so slow that no one wants to wait for us to type stuff out. So companies make different communication devices so people like me have different ways to access vocabulary and speed up communication. This site has some videos to help you understand the fastest method that is most often used. It is my hope that the next time you see a disabled person, you will take the time to get to know them.

Now, I have something that can change your life and might even change the world. In 1989, I started programming a speech software program called Dectalk to sing. I started out doing it for my own enjoyment not realizing that I had made a way for any disabled person to sing. So God turned it into a worldwide Ministry for the disabled. But I've been asking, why only the disabled? Every day people often wish they could sing. So why not do karaoke with a computer? Or why not make your own avatar sing on the internet? Or create a new style of music that opens the door for anyone to be able to win a music award?

The songs menu is meant as a tease. It provides songs for the disabled so that they can sing. But, it also provides a free Dectalk program that anyone can download and run on there computer. The text files can be copied into Dectalk so you can see and here how songs are done. What I don't provide for free, is the instructions for programming songs, but you can order them. My friend Blake Roberts did. Blake is blind and now programs songs by ear. In fact, some of the songs are ones that Blake did. He programs songs by ear, so if I can't find sheet music for a song, he programs it for me. So if a blind person can program a song, so can everyone else. If you are interested in learning how to program your own songs, write me. Dectalk@aol.com

Everything I do I owe to God. I was said to be brain-dead at birth. My relationship with God has brought me far in life and I travel around helping people find Jesus. So if you write me, and as we get to know each other, I want to help you find God.