At any given time, millions around the world go about their daily routines and live out their lives under what they see as normal circumstances. Many others, however, face disasters that take place with varying degrees of predictability. One thing is certain, those prepared in advance for disasters and who navigate life with an appropriate degree of awareness tend to fare much better during extreme times than those who are unprepared and unaware.

There are at least two ways to learn from natural or man-made disasters. These include learning directly, and learning vicariously. Those who learn directly often suffer the consequences of disasters. Those who learn from the challenges others face often know enough to avoid the disaster altogether. Even if sudden disaster is unavoidable, they and their family generally have a much better chance of making it through these catastrophic times.

As outlined in the image above, so far August 2021 has proven to be a challenging month in numerous locations. Like many others in various roles, we are working hard to help ensure that those facing these tragedies can do so with the best chances of survival. As we do so, there’s not as much time as we would like for writing.

As we continue to work on these and other issues, the accounts of suffering remind us of the need for people everywhere to learn vicariously. In other words, to learn from those who were as prepared as possible to face disaster, and from those who were almost completely taken by surprise and were thus overwhelmed.

This is one of the primary reasons we developed the Panoplia.org Soft Skills and Tactics (SST) course. This course represents lessons learned from our own years of serving in challenging locations and circumstances, and from those we’ve helped through horrific times. It also conveys lessons learned from some individuals who did not survive.

Our desire to share this knowledge with others and to help them be prepared is also the reason that we’ve kept the cost of the SST course as low as we have. We want to make it as accessible as possible to all who have a desire to learn. We very much hope that if you’ve not done so already, you will take the SST course. Together with your own personal training and experience, we suggest that it will help prepare you and your family to have the best chance of thriving during extreme challenges and disasters.

We work and pray for those undergoing suffering right now, and we pray that we will all learn what we can from these circumstances in order to help others avoid such suffering in the future.