boxing

so we're having a garage sale this weekend. it should be a pretty big one, but i have a lot more to accomplish before we're even close to making it happen.

i've been digging through boxes for the last couple of days. i have managed to refrain from accumulating much in the 4 years since college, but this process is still trying. i am literally evaluating the necessity of every single thing that i own. is it going to africa? is it worth storing for X number years? if it doesn't meet one of these 2 criteria, i will no longer own it within a week.

it has been an emotional process as i come across mementos and memories, but it really is so freeing. i don't even like 'stuff'. it ties you down, and i certainly am not one to be tied down. at this point in my life i absolutely dread the thought of owning my own home, and i'm thrilled, thrilled, by the idea of not owning a car. (mine is for sale. anyone want it?)

i've come to believe that the purpose of things should be to simply enable us to carry out the indispensible movements and relationships of life. in an attempt to conserve our own time and individuality, we work so hard and acquire so much that we eventually lose the whole point... and we end up wasting some important things as a result; natural resources are one thing, but community and simplicity are even more detrimental sacrifices that we make.

so, we're having a garage sale, and i'll be glad to be rid of this stuff. but i remember that 'law of conservation of mass/matter' thing i learned in high school. matter can change form, but cannot be created or destroyed. and i'm strangely sad about that little bear figurine with the graduation cap and gown. it used to be something else, maybe even something useful, but someone decided to make it into 'stuff'. and while it won't be my stuff anymore, it will be someone else's. what a waste.

blepharoplasty

please excuse the constant changes to the face of this blog. i keep revisioning and revising, but the nagging perfectionist that lives in my head won't let me leave things alone. i promise i will stop soon. maybe not.

GOOD NEWS!

this is a typical saturday afternoon. 300 kids packed into the little church in kroo bay. the 'good news club' is always stressful and entirely exhausting, but SO MUCH FUN! my friend noah runs the club and my friends from the lighthouse program help lead singing and do a lot of the teaching. after the lesson they pass out boiled eggs and biscuits and then take care of minor first aid needs - or try and find help for people with more serious health issues. there are a lot of things i appreciate about freetown, but this little church is where it's at. when you come visit me you'll understand.

choitram market

this photo was taken at an indian-owned grocery near the 'kroo bay' part of town. you will hear me talk a lot about kroo bay because it is where some of my favorite people live, including these 3 rascals. they make up half of the 6 kids who i tutored in the afternoons. this grocery is one of only a few places where you can find soft-serve ice cream, and it is a bit of a luxury, so we only splurged on the very roughest of days.

aberdeen sunset

this is the view from the front veranda of the home i lived in. it is in an area of freetown called 'aberdeen.' the sunsets during the rain-season are incredible! the water you see is a warf that fills up during high tide. at low tide you can walk across it on dry sand, and it becomes a soccer field for the village on its bank. beyond the tree-line is the atlantic. you may notice that there are no lights on despite it being dusk. freetown operates power on a grid system, and our part of town didn't make it into the rotation very often. but who can complain with a view like this?

a de go bak!

just wanted to post a quick update. two weeks ago I was in omaha for an interview with word made flesh, and it is now official; I’M GOING BACK TO SIERRA LEONE! i signed a 3-year contract as servant team coordinator, which means that a big part of my job will be to lead teams like the one i participated on in 2005. the goal is to leave for freetown in august, but this will largely depend on how quickly i can raise financial support. i do know that it will cost at least $2000 just to get there, and i will have to raise that money plus 3 months salary before i can purchase my tickets, so that will all need to happen pretty quickly. feel free to ask about details in that area. i’ll post more when i know more.

now that blogger is more user-friendly and i’m all excited about returning to freetown, i figured it was about time to post some old pictures and attempt to give everyone some idea of what i’m getting into. i've been trying all evening to post some photos, but i'm having issues. maybe blogger isn't so user-friendly... i'll try to be more creative with my posts as i have time. thanks for checking in!

spring again

well, it's been quite a while since i wrote anything on here. a lot has changed. i'm still in lexington, but i moved in with my friends rachel and melissa, and i work as a case manager at a foster care agency. things are pretty good. it's spring, and i don't think i have to tell you again how much i love spring.

a very big life-change is on the horizon, but it is not official. i'm hoping to move back to sierra leone in the near future. i will interview with WMF in a few weeks, and then we'll know more about the when and how. i'm EXTREMELY excited about this possibility, but just this week i started to feel sad too. i know, it's a little premature, but i do like to be emotionally prepared. :) i'm not really into the other kinds of preparation, so i figure it's a good thing to just go with it when it comes naturally.

if anyone still checks this thing, i will keep you posted on the aforementioned happenings. much love.

spring in the LEX

i love spring. even when it rains... except when i have to walk a couple of blocks to or from my car. anyway, spring has sprung in KY, and that means dogwood trees and horses. and lots of frappuccinos (huh?) at the BUCKS. i should probably know how to spell that but who cares... not me.

i started a conversational spanish class at the literacy center last week. i suck. but that's pretty much why i'm in the class. it's been a long time since i had any spanish classes, but the hardest thing is that my brain defaults to Krio when it tries to think spanish. the two are not similar at all, which you probably guessed. so i sit there and stutter and get red-faced for an hour and a half every thursday night - but i guess it's helping me a little. it is at least exposing me to some mild humiliation on a regular basis. that is good for all of us occassionally. combine that situation with my favorite question - "would you like room for cream in your cafe estima?" - every 20 seconds and i'm more humble now than i have ever been in my life!

al stuery was in town this week, so that was fun. we did some apartment hunting, but i'll continue to look around for the next few weeks. she's coming in mid-june, so we have a little bit of time to figure it out.

i'm starting to look for job part 2. have found a couple of things that seem interesting, but i need to work on a resume. i keep putting it off, but my goal is to get it done this weekend. if you call this weekend, you need to ask me about it. if i'm not finished, hang up on me. my future is in your hands.

the winter of grief

i made an emergency trip back home last weekend. on thursday i received a voicemail message from my mom - my heart started racing before she finished a word... i knew it was bad news, i just didn't know who it was regarding. i called her back and learned that it was my uncle john - mom's youngest brother. i'll spare you the details, but he died unexpectedly in his sleep at the age of 43.

john was burried exactly six months from the day that my grandfather died. it rained most of the day, and that somehow seemed right. i will never forget the image of my mom and aunt standing on either side of my grandmother - each of them with a rose in hand, a shared umbrella keeping their heads, but not their eyes, dry. they walked through the mud from john's gravesite over to grandpa's where the dirt hadn't yet had time to settle. it was a disturbing but honest picture of the last year in my family's history. so much pain. so much loss. so many things to mourn and attempt to accept, if not understand.

but this sort of thing doesn't get easier with experience, and this situation was so much more abrupt and harsh in its nature. with grandpa's death we were given time to prepare ourselves and say what we needed/wanted to say. we were given an opportunity to celebrate a life well-lived. but we didn't really get that chance with john. too abrupt. too harsh. i still can't wrap my mind around the fact that he's really gone. i'm harrassed by the memory of my last interaction with him - he attempted to give me some uninvited relationship advice around Christmas and i was a total smart-ass and blew him off and i felt bad at the time but didn't make it right. and that was it. now he's gone. i didn't get to say that i love him and appreciate his perspective. but more honestly, maybe i didn't choose to realize that i love him and need his perspective. a lesson learned, but the regret is still with me. having a random well-intentioned soul (who i've never had a real conversation with) tell me that uncle john is dancing in heaven (while i'm staring at his body in the casket) doesn't exactly make me all cool with my caustic attitude a few months before. i still feel that i hurt him and i still feel that i deserve to be avenged in one way or another... that's a weird personality issue of mine... we'll save that for another time...

but the funeral was filled with a million trite little phrases and sayings and word-pictures about heaven that we Christians use to make us feel better. it's like pain medication. it will ease the discomfort, but it does nothing to actually confront the source. why can't we sit still and think about the bad stuff for a second? the truth is that this world is really ugly sometimes. yes, there are many beautiful things, like life itself for one, but there is so much suffering and pain. and we really can't pretend like it's not there. i think one of the most harmful aspects of the holiness movement is it's tendency (not accross the board, but please hear me out) to step right past good friday and into easter. sorry, but that's not how it works. i think that we really miss out on a huge aspect of the character of God when we are afraid to look at the suffering. i mean, the cross is the symbol of our religion, yet we have such little regard for what that means. this has all been said a million times and million times more elloquently than i can say it, but it is very real to me right now. if we cannot find God IN our disappointments and sadness and suffering - not just on the other side of those things - then we cannot know God completely.

i have mentioned before, maybe not on this blog, but on several occasions, that the last 9 months or so have been filled with little and big lessons about grief. i won't say that i have "a calling" because i still don't really know what that means despite 25 years in the evangelical world, but i think that i am in the process of learning the importance and value of our lament and tears. i think that i am strangely wired to handle the weight of this load, and somehow feel that in the same way that we should seek to use our hands where God's are already at work, we should also allow ourselves to mourn over the things that break God's heart - the things that were never intended for a single one of us on this earth.

so i mourn the loss of my uncle, my mom's little brother, my grandmother's baby boy. i cry because this isn't the way God intended things to go when adam was given life. and i grieve because i know that God does too. only when i am able to see God's reflection in my tears, hanging from the tree on that friday afternoon... only then can i truly celebrate the risen Christ who defeated death on our behalf. there will be joy in the morning, but there is sorrow tonight. the darkness may make God more difficult to see, but God is no less present.

___________
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

-from The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

inspiration

as i mentioned before, i started my training at starbucks this week. it has been surprisingly fun thanks to my 'learning coach', stephen, who is both exceedingly patient and witty. yesterday we were talking about our corporate giant sugar-daddy of an employer and he aptly noted that ours isn't your typical coffee-house. "i don't envision any inspired poetry being written in this setting."

unless it would be some bitter, 'i hate the man' slam poetry, i think he's right.

made a cappucino today, which is quite an accomplishment in case you didn't know. i mean, it's not something that should end up in the papers or anything, but it is worth mentioning in my little blog that no one reads. for me, an undetermined length of time from this point on will be filled with the making of cappucinos, so i felt that the first one was note-worthy. the rest will likely never be mentioned.

it is kinda hard to think about what i was doing 3 months ago as compared to what i am doing now... i had plenty to fill you in on then, and now i'm writing about hot beverages. but the consistency is that i feel like both settings and situations have provided me with an opportunity to build good relationships with interesting people who i might never have met otherwise. i hope i can maintain the learning posture that i was forced into in freetown. there are still people to learn from and questions to ask. the Jesus who i found around every corner in freetown is the same one i will find on the corner of west main and broadway.