Extraordinary

I love getting to visit my parents. They’re also my friends and my teachers. I love the way we can sit around for hours talking, the conversation often turning towards spirituality, church, missions, etc. I love the way it just naturally happens and how they are truly living their lives in God and so, topics that have to do with our Creator come up constantly.

My dad gave me the book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, to read. He said that I wouldn’t be able to put it down once I started. I took it dubiously, thinking that I would be able to put it down, because I had a midterm to study for and a lot of other school work. I was wrong. I finished the 214 page book in one day. I could not put it down. It is the story of a woman that survived the genocide in Rwanda. Immaculée Ilibagiza is her name, and she wrote her story in English (which is her third language), and Steve Erwin fine-tuned it/rewrote it with her in order to truly capture her story so it could be published. It is AWESOME to hear about her faith in the middle of the horrible atrocities that took place. What awesome faith! She spent three months hidden in a tiny bathroom with six other people (all sitting on top of each other) while the genocide was taking place. During that time they only dared to speak a couple of times and they did not dare to move except for every 12 hours, lest they make some noise and be discovered by the killers. At that time old friends and neighbors had converted into killers. She spent her days in constant prayer from the moment she woke up until she went to sleep. Her faith grew even to the point of forgiving her family’s killers, the killers that didn’t merely shoot her loved ones, but chopped them up with a machete. Her story is extraordinary. I highly recommend this book.

Mountains Beyond Mountains

“Of all the world’s errors, he [Paul Farmer] seemed to feel, the most fundamental was the ‘erasing’ of people, the ‘hiding away’ of suffering. ‘My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember,’ [said Paul]” -Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains p. 218-219

“I feel ambivalent about selling my services in a world where some can’t buy them. You CAN feel ambivalent about that, because you SHOULD feel ambivalent.” -Paul Farmer quoted in Mountains Beyond Mountains

“Giving people medicine for TB and not giving them food is like washing your hands and drying them in the dirt.” -Paul Farmer quoted in Mountains Beyond Mountains

Moutains Beyond Mountains is a great book, and I highly recommend it, especially for anyone interested in medical missions and humanitary aid.

Change the World

"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have." -- Margaret Mead

Invisible Children

I WANT TO GO AND DO SOMETHING!!! When will preparation ever end? I want to tell you all about the Invisible Children of northern Uganda. In order to avoid being kidnapped out of their homes at night by rebels and forced to fight, these kids walk miles to stay the night in a safe place (it’s been a while since I watched the film but I think it was in the basement of a hospital or maybe it was a warehouse, either way the conditions were bad and everyone was crammed into a space not nearly big enough for them all to sleep on concrete floors). Many children have already been kidnapped, and many more will continue to be, unless the world takes a stand. And the world starts with each of us. I know it’s hard, sitting here, to see what we can do. I feel that way to. What can I do right now? Well, what I can do is continue to tell their story, so that they won’t be quite so invisible, and I can give money to help support the cause, and I can pray for them. Some guys went to Uganda to find the story and ever since have been spreading it across the country. I saw the film at the World Missions Workshop at Harding last fall. The film is AMAZING, and you can’t walk away without having been profoundly affected. You can learn more about the cause and can purchase the movie at www.invisiblechildren.com.

Evolution of Dance

This site is so funny! Have a great day and enjoy!

Getting over it

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I have plenty going on in my mind to write about, it’s just finding the time to figure out what exactly is going on in my head to write about it and the will power to focus. I have a million things racing through there these days. But one line of thought clouds over everything else and keeps me from being able to sit down and write about other stuff. Life is exciting and I’m getting ready to make some big decisions about where to move to, but at the same time, that’s really stressful! I have to make decisions about where to move to! On the plus side, I am well loved, and so I have lots of friends and family in different places around the U.S. that are putting in their bids for me to move close to them. Of course, I’m only having to make this decision now, because one person didn’t want me to move to where he is. And that’s how this all began. I was going along, thinking I knew where I was going (at least in the immediate future), and then *wham* the breath was knocked out of me, and suddenly I only know where I’m going in the way off future and don’t have a clue as to where I’m going in 3 months. Funny how life goes. I’ve read more craziness in the news, but I just haven’t been able to focus myself to write about them. I hate that I have been so incapacitated lately by my own disappointments in life! It makes me mad at myself for being so wrapped up in me! One of my friends assured me that it is perfectly fine for me to be wrapped up in this right now, because it is important to me… but that doesn’t really make me feel better. I just want to get over it. Life goes on! Big fat hairy deal! People are dealing with a lot worse stuff. I know that 4 months from now I’ll be over it, so why can’t I do it right now!? Gggrrrrrrrrrrr.