It was a place where, to get somewhere, one walks; to get somewhere quickly, one runs. Deep in the jungles of southeast Asia, there are thousands of people who have never seen a piece of paper, never mind read a verse of the Bible.

Sometimes it felt like the treatment was worse than the disease. Avalon Park resident Sherice Eubanks-Ward, 32, is grateful her flexible schedule as a Realtor and the support of her husband, Kevin, allowed her to take care of her mother as she fought lung cancer.

Illusionist Dave Womach is always pushing himself to take his magic to the next level. The sometimes- Waterford Lakes resident (he is on the road about 300 days a year) says magic can be defined quite simply: “Make things appear, disappear, float, pass through each other, break and restore, change places.

Brian Tripp is en route to finding inner peace in low-tech travel. The Patterson, Calif., resident is partway through a global bicycling adventure —from his hometown across America, and then from England to Hong Kong — and has stopped to rest for a few days with his longtime friends, Ron and Danielle Reed of Stoneybrook.

To everyone at Christ the King Episcopal Church in Azalea Park, Beverly Baker is “Granny” — the epitome of grandmotherliness, a quiet, tender-hearted woman who has worked in the church nursery for 13 years.

Rob Pigman’s Sunday School class used to be held in the girl’s locker room of Eastland Christian School. The room could barely fit all sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade boys in the class and it was hot and dingy, but he made it work.

Turning off bustling East Colonial Drive near Bithlo, there is an almost instant transition from busy suburbia to quiet country. After a series of turns, large houses give way to small cottages and trailers with big, fenced lots, and the sounds of emergency sirens and honking horns fade to chirping birds and rustling leaves.

It’s not a career, it’s a calling. One woman is trying to raise $270,000 — the cost of four heart surgeries — for children who are achingly poor, for whom vital surgery is a luxury they would never have. They all suffer from correctable congenital heart defects and murmurs.

As far back as she can remember, Holly Troychak has always had a problem being overweight. In fact, it seems that a lot of other people also had a problem with her weight. At age 11, her mom pushed her to start on a Weight Watchers diet. But it didn’t take. By 14, she was crying to her mom about the kids teasing her.

Elenor Wiese could not wait to be born. She came fast, giving her mother, Julia, and her doctor little time to get to the hospital. In the rush, Wiese’s husband was not allowed in the delivery room and her legs were squeezed together until the doctor arrived — a painful preamble to delivery.