Neighbors Revisited: A church journalist’s life lessons learned from people of other cultures describes life lessons the suthor learned from people of other cultures during travels to six countries in Africa and Asia from 1981 to 1985. The six nations visited in Africa are South Africa (including visiting Soweto illegally during apartheid), Namibia, and Zimbabwe immediately after independence, and in Asia the Philippines, Papua New Guinea (10 years after attaining independence) and Northern Sumatra in Indonesia where the author celebrated Easter in ways he could not have imagined. he life lessons learned happened in places readers in the United States may not have visited.
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Bronson’s Flood: The story of how a talented beaver worked with his neighbors in the woods to save his village from a flash flood. This children’s picture book is designed to give children a preliminary glimpse of how storm survivors, long-term recovery professionals and volunteers may work together to overcome disastrous calamities. It also teaches young readers about the importance of discovering and making best use of one’s gifts.
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Mark, Lucy (now a young adult) and Lynn
A children’s picture book about a grandfather’s and granddaughter’s discovery of “buried treasure.” Guess where?
The cast – which includes long-term disaster recovery staff and volunteers – who bring Bronson’s Flood to life with audio:
from top left: Ramona Rousseau-Reid as Martha, producer John Kahler, the Rev. Bill Rex as Garth, Joe Valovage as Bronson, author Mark Staples narrates, Lynn Staples as Dori, and Julia Frank as Hannah
Mark A. Staples has been an author, writer and editor for more than 50 years. As a Christian photojournalist he has traveled on assignment to 13 countries and 30 states. He’s written about life lessons learned from people of other cultures in six African and Asian places. His life experience includes having served as a long-term flood recovery volunteer and as a shipboard visitor for 10 years in the Port of Philadelphia, certified by the federal Department of Homeland Security. His children’s picture book, illustrated by Dennis Packard, affords young readers an early glimpse of how disaster professionals, volunteers and survivors may work together to overcome calamities, and teaches about the value of one’s gifts. Mark lives in King of Prussia, PA, with his spouse, Lynn of 57 years. The couple has three adult daughters and four grandchildren. Mark and Lynn are members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lansdale, PA.
In April 2025 we capture images of a Harleysville father reading Bronson to his daughter and the author sharing the story with preschool children at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lansdale, PA.
Mark had a great time reading “Bronson’s Flood” to 35 preschool children at Trinity Lutheran, Lansdale, April 22, 2025. (photos by Lynn Staples)
Abi Shaw and daughter, Mishika, of Harleysville, PA, enjoy reading “Bronson’s Flood” together. (Photo by Beauty Shaw)
My training as a journalist from the time I was in my twenties has taught me much about the limitations of human perspective. It has also taught me to examine viewpoints from all sides. That can be a challenge to do in such a polarized time. But I try. We are all human and have limits of knowledge and understanding, though. Reformer Martin Luther once taught that we all fall short of what God wants us to be.
I am grateful to have done research and reporting in a dozen countries and 30 U.S. states. I once worked 10 years as a volunteer shipboard visitor with Homeland Security credentials. During that time, I regularly went to dozens of highly secure terminals to greet seafarers from all over the world in the Port of Philadelphia. They and the hard work they did to bring us “stuff” we need really inspired me and helped my perspective. I am grateful to Seamen’s Church Institute of Philadelphia and South Jersey for that opportunity.
Dockworkers offload bags of cocoa beans from the cargo ship Lady Anthula in 2012.
I watched cargo ships offload materials like fertilizer, rock salt, asphalt, cocoa beans and Kia automobiles from all over the world. Philadelphia has been the largest importer of Chilean grapes. Ships bearing bananas for the Philadelphia region are commonplace. No wonder. My research indicates the U.S. is the largest consumer of bananas in the world. They are grown in the U.S., but the largest purveyors of the fruit are Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador and Mexico. Favorable climate seems to be a factor for their leadership. We consume everyone’s bananas! Cocoa beans, used to manufacture a variety of U.S. chocolate products, arrive in the Port of Philadelphia regularly. The largest grower of cocoa beans is the Ivory Coast in Africa. (Yes, some cocoa beans of high quality are made in Hawaii. And that is wonderful!) Why are most cocoa beans in the world grown in the Ivory Coast and Ghana and not in the U.S.? I’ve learned that’s because the climate in those countries highly favors such production.
Kia cars have a U.S. production site in Georgia. But the cars or parts included in them are manufactured in Pakistan, South Korea (company headquarters), China, India, Slovakia, Mexico, Japan and Vietnam.
Research has informed me that in the U.S. rock salt is mined in Livingston, NY, Texas and Michigan. In March of 2013, a ship I visited at the Riverside Terminal in the Port of Philadelphia brought us Rock Salt from Brazil. That ship was one of 13 to visit the Port, as I recall, because of the unusually harsh winter. Municipal trucks were lined up at Riverside to get the salt, offloaded through large funnels onto a conveyer belt to reach the trucks. Why was rock salt imported from a place like Brazil instead of being furnished out of Livingston or Grand Saline, TX? I learned it was likely because the demand imposed by a harsh winter outstripped the capacity of the U.S. to produce enough salt on its own. Price was possibly a factor as well.
The iPhone I carry in my pocket has components or manufacturing involving 63 countries including the U.S., according to Columnist Tom Friedman of the New York Times.
Why write about all this? 1.) My experience as a journalist and in visiting seafarers in the Philadelphia Port has taught me that the world and its economy is a complicated, exciting place full of people who are striving to work together. That’s such good news! 2.) Historically I have found the world to be remarkably diverse, filled with people who are sometimes different from me, but from whom I can learn a great deal. 3.) I have always thought the reality that we are globally interdependent, neighbors serving and being served by neighbors, is something to celebrate. (I don’t believe all those countries are “ripping us off.”) Check out my book Neighbors Revisited, available through this web site, to get my thoughts.
Now it feels like the world view I have learned to embrace is often scorned and thrust aside. Is being myopic and ingrown becoming the new value?
Well, this might not seem like your idea of a good time. However, “undertaking” (good or bad pun?) this task may help loved ones to get through a time of grief more easily.
Having a chronic illness like allergic asthma, coupled with COPD and other complications, gave me incentive to think about taking this on. I just completed a shorter version in keeping with the times. Obituaries aren’t published the way they used to be unless you pay for it, and sometimes not even then. Of course, if unlike me you happen to be famous with much news having been written or broadcast about you, well getting obituary facts in order may still be a good idea for the sake of your loved ones, friends and colleagues. A funeral home or burial service, and a faith community, may be greatly assisted by the background your survivors provide, considered sometimes well in advance.
Here are suggestions to reflect on how to go about this challenge.
Based on what you collect, figure out a lead description for yourself, what is most important about you. Make sure what others are saying jives with what you want to emphasize.
I really spent some time on this for myself. In my lede I described myself as a writer and publicist who related to seven religiously affiliated initiatives over a career spanning five decades. In the second paragraph I spoke of once visiting a divinity school to consider studying for ordination, but felt “called away” from that direction and ended up working or consulting as a lay professional with Lutheran, United Methodist, Mennonite, American Baptist, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic and Jewish organizations.
I went on to describe that history a bit more, but briefly. Then I mentioned books I have self-published late in life. Don’t omit retirement activities of note. People are often living longer these days, and they may achieve some of their greatest accomplishments in “retirement.” Remaining details can include distinctive interests or activities and need to include reference to survivors of note and hometowns. Of course you won’t be able to write down details regarding your death. Others will fill in the blanks. If someone hasn’t taken a recent photo of you, it’s time to have one on hand.
Good luck thinking about this important step. Thanks for “listening.”