How did I get here?: The Long Version

As I gazed out the window onto the barren land of North Africa on a flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi on my 28th birthday I found myself thinking, "how did I get here??" and was immediately reminded of a moment that happened more than a decade ago.  

I vividly remember watching t.v. when a commercial aired about giving money to help impoverished children; some old guy with a gray beard wearing khakis was walking through some slums in Africa and on the screen were images that stunned and haunted me.  Children with glaring ribs and protruding bellies, with rags for clothes, sat on the ground covered in dirt and filth.  Their eyes were lifeless and despondent and they didn't even have the energy to swat away the flies that nipped at their noses and mouths.  How was it possible that I lived on the same planet as these children?  There I was in a big, beautiful house with food in the refrigerator, clothes in my closet, toys in the garage, and all the hope and opportunity I could imagine, while half a world away countless children would die from hunger or a treatable disease that same day.  In that moment I knew that one day I wanted to help those children; I didn't know when, or where, or how, but I knew that someone had to, and I was willing.

In the succeeding years I graduated from high school and went to Penn State, where I majored in journalism and political science and minored in French, with grand intentions of moving to Paris and becoming the European correspondent for a major news network. But... well... things didn't exactly happen that way and after graduation I moved to Washington D.C. where I lived for five years.  I liked my life.  A lot.  I lived in a lively neighborhood and walked to and from work every day.  I burned through too many pairs of Asics from running miles along the Potomac River. I had great friends all over the city and we made our way through the best restaurants.  I traveled regularly for my job and visited Puerto Rico and Santa Barbara and everywhere in between.  I joined an amazing church and had a wonderful support system with my parents living an hour away.  Life was everything I thought I wanted.

Then things started to change.  In March of 2009 the Dow Jones dropped below 7,000 and I watched as friends lost their jobs, neighbors lost their homes, and my own investments lost their value.  But I was repeatedly drawn to the verse of Luke 12:48: "to whom much is given, much is expected," and I was continually overwhelmed by how much I had and I realized that I wasn’t given much to keep, but so that I may give to those who have less. 

Around the same time I got a call from my best friend, Molly, who told me that my old church was planning a mission trip to an orphanage in Sudan and I should consider going.  Spurred by the call of adventure, the opportunity to visit Africa, and a desire to help the needy, I filled out my application and sent it in immediately.   Nine months later I stepped off a plane in Yei, Sudan and my world changed.  We stopped to get our visas at a mud hut - a mud hut -  and there they were, the children I’d seen on that commercial more than ten years ago.  Wearing clothes that I wouldn’t use for rags, their stomachs showing the mark of chronic hunger, they starred at me with hopeless eyes and my heart broke. 

Sudan is a place full of pain and suffering beyond anything I will fully understand and during my short time there I met too many hungry, shoeless children in ragged clothes who will never attend school, mothers who lost husbands during the civil war struggling to feed their children, and people crippled by polio because they don’t have access to health care.  Yet amidst such darkness is a place of light and hope.

Founded by Dennis and Lilly Klepp, an American couple from Wisconsin, Harvesters Reaching the Nations is an orphanage and school where hundreds of children have been rescued from the worst of tragedies.  Almost 150 children live at the orphanage and eat three hot meals a day, sleep in beds with mosquito nets, receive health care at the clinic, attend school, are loved and cared for, and learn about the redeeming love of a gracious God.  More than 450 kids from surrounding villages attend school at Harvesters, some walk six miles each way, and they eat lunch at the cafeteria, which may be the only meal they’ll eat for the day.  It only took a few days at Harvesters before I felt a deep desire to return, and after asking Dennis and Lilly if I could come back I started seriously thinking and praying about what it would look like to move to Sudan to volunteer for an extended period of time.  Since that initial meeting everything fell into place and God graciously provided confirmation, encouragement and peace every day as I planned, second-guessed myself, and prepared for the hardest and most exciting adventure of my life.

This blog will chronicle my life throughout the year: the daily happenings at the orphanage, my experiences in a third-world country, personal commentary on the political situation surrounding the upcoming referendum, and musings on faith, poverty, love, sickness and everything in between.

Thank you for joining me.

P.S. Future posts will be much shorter and have more pictures, I know you probably have a real job and don't have time to sit around and read blogs all day :)