McHenry County Blog

One of the natural resources of McHenry County is Gary Christ.

He invented a way to use old tires and plastic sheeting to create emergency housing. That’s how I first met him. He ran against me for the 2002 Libertarian Party nomination for governor.

Gary Christ in Cambodia with his landmine detinating machine.

And he has devised a way to eliminate land mines in Cambodia.

You can read about that here or come see and hear him in person tonight at the McHenry County Student Peace Action Network at 7 in Room A221 at McHenry County College.

MCC STUDENT PEACE GROUP TO HOST
EVENT EXAMING THE USE OF LANDMINES

[April. 20, 2010.Crystal Lake, IL] The McHenry County College Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) will host its last informational seminar of the semester on

“When is a War Really Over?”

featuring local Crystal Lake inventor Gary Christ.  The event is scheduled for Wednesday, April 28th at 7:00pm in Room A221 at McHenry County College.

Gary Christ is working to make a better world. In February of 2001, he began volunteering his services by installing septic systems at orphanages in Cambodia. However, in 2004 a landmine was discovered at an orphanage he was asked to excavate. This dramatically changed his focus and he has been building demining prototypes ever since.

Every day Cambodians are killed, maimed and threatened by millions of landmines and tons of unexploded ordnance left over from Southeast Asia’s many conflicts, wars and invasions occurring from 1965-1998. Meeting dozens of Cambodians maimed by landmines, grieving the loss of a loved one or fearful of farming the land inspired Gary to revolutionize humanitarian demining methods for Cambodia’s specific needs and realities.  He calls his de-mining machine “Peacehammer”, “wherever it hammers, there will be a peaceful place to walk.”

This machine was successfully tested near Siem Reap, Cambodia in 2008. Educating people about the long term effects of warfare, as well as getting support for de-mining Cambodia, will be addressed in a new video format, known as Pecha-kucha.

The event is part of SPAN’s Current American Issues Information Seminar Series. SPAN is made up of students promoting peace nationally and locally through action and education. The event is co-sponsored by the Future Engineers and Scientists Society, McHenry County Pax Christi, and the McHenry County Peace Coalition.

The college is located at 8900 U.S. Hwy. 14, Crystal Lake.  The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the MCC Student Activities Office at (815) 455-8772.

I was going to put Gary Christ’s first name in the title in parentheses in front of “Christ,” but I concluded it would be sacrilegious.

You can see one reason I didn’t use the play on words in the following paragraph from an email that Gary sent me:

“As for me, I am full of faith that this creative mind God blessed me with will be focused on doing the Father’s Will.

“This latest invention, a land mine destroyer, may provide a platform for ministry in Cambodia and other places, I will check out Angola.

“The Cambodians have become so good at de-mining they are hired to go to other countries to teach their skill.”

My first big memory of Gary goes back to when he was promoting a way he had designed to use old tires and plastic to build cheap housing.

He even erected one on his family’s farm near the power lines in what is I think is now Sunset Park. (Well, it’s a park in name only. The Crystal Lake Park District is still growing crops.)

Then, I ran into him at the Illinois Libertarian Party convention in 2002.

He ran against me for the party nomination for governor.

Since we both shop in Crystal Lake, we see each other once in a while. The next time he was taking apart a barn to ship to Cambodia.

And, right before I wrote this article (over a year ago, maybe two years ago) while purchasing some movies at the old Wal-Mart, we found each other again.

This time he filled me in on an invention to dispose of land mines, which he had just finished field-testing in Cambodia.

It is a big steel box, several feet long and wide and about 2 feet high. It is open on the bottom.

This contains the explosion.

The box is attached to the front of a small tractor.

To detonate the bomb, there are 8 pound hammers attached to chains.

As the hammers drop, they activate any land mines.

The force of the explosion pushes the hammers and chains back up into the box.

And is Gary Christ finished?

What do you think?

“I also have plans to restore old water wells, as that is a huge problem in Cambodia and many other places.”