Alive in Africa!

Hey Everyone!

I want to first start by apologizing for not being able to post for the last two weeks! For my entire stay in Uganda and Sudan I was not able to reach a computer and thus have not been able to update. This is too bad though as I have so much to say. I guess I will have to do my best to summarize basically a lot in a a little space. I hope it speaks millions.

Though I have only been here for a few weeks it is incredible the way that God has been communicating with me. As last time, Africa is proving to be a time of great reflection where I finally get a chance to sit back and really think and appreciate what has happened in my life in the last year. One of the things that has been the most pressing on my mind (perhaps a little later than most people) has been my future. Ever since last year I knew that I was being called by God to come and serve in Africa but since then the specifics of my calling have not necessarily been clear. When I got a chance to come to Uganda and Sudan to potentially work in an orphanage and help children who have had families killed by a rebel group, I thought that this was clearly God showing me where I was to work and specifically what ministry I was to work with. I am pleased to say that I was wrong.

From the day I arrived in Africa I was immediately thrown into an amazing philosophical and spiritual delima regarding the issue of nonviolence. I realized that throughout college I had spent almost all of my major studies focused on the concept of war and studying how the world, with its own views and agendas, use or fight wars to achieve their goals and wants. I had committed all of my studies with the assumption that war was acceptable and was a legitimate means of solving issues of international relations. Yet upon coming to Uganda and Sudan, two countries that for the last 20 years have been ripped apart by war to the extent that there was not a single person whom I met who had not personally been either hurt or had someone hurt/killed in the war, I was almost slapped in the face by God regarding the issue of nonviolence. I was surrounded by people who had all been violated in ways that I cannot in good conscience even describe and who, according to the world perspective, deserve more than anyone retribution for their pains and sufferings and justice against those who have wronged them, but was faced and challenged in ways that I find difficult to describe from type with the teaching of Christ which calls for us to be lovers and peacemakers, to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek and in the end to rely on God's judgement and to show mercy "as we have also been shown mercy" or, in short, to be NONVIOLENT.

Thus as I sat for days by myself surrounded by orphans and refugees, I wrestled with the message of Christ and realized that my conclusion would determine whether I would be able to work with the ministry that had so generously paid for me to go and see their work. I can almost confidently say that I have never struggled this much over anything in my entire life and I can equally say that I soon discovered that the pure purpose of my trip to Uganda and Sudan was to come to a conclusion on what I now realize had to be one of the most important philosophical and spiritual struggles of my life (both past and future) being that what my end conclusion on violence would be would dramatically determine my future being that if I came out against the use of violence I, in good conscience and ethics, could not work for any organization, either private or federal, that thus supports such an aim. Needless to say that also applied to the ministry which I was potentially going to work with and thus my determination on the issue would thus determine in reality if I would in fact work for the ministry I came over with or not.

Today I am now in Ghana and am a few days into what will be one of the most amazing projects of my life, leading a group of amazing people to build a library in a community that I am already in love with, thus granting the future of so many of the children, knowing that by building this library these kids will have a chance to educate themselves to the fullest extent, rise out of poverty, get an education, and return to help their family and friends. By the grace of God we are doing a project that WILL, if done wide scale, eliminate poverty in Africa, not by giving aid to the Africans but by empowering them THEMSELVES to rise and achieve their own futures!

I am also, however, now without a job for when I return because I have discovered that God is calling me to be a peacemaker and I cannot support any mission whose goal is to end the life of another. I have to admit that I have never been more uncertain about my future being that this job was supposed to be my plans for the next two years. But being here in Africa, seeing the pain that war causes and facing the radical challenge from Christ to LOVE, I have determined that I am called to be a peacemaker and that the answer to the evil that is war and the rebels here is not more killing but instead is love, education and dedication. By building this library I will do more work for those kids affected by war than I could ever do by killing a man who is evil.

I have just tried to summarize two weeks of the most intense struggle of my life into a few paragraphs so if you are lost I doubt it not but would love to one day sit and talk with you. But to summarize, God has shown me that LOVE is more powerful than war and that I am called thus to be a lover and a peacemaker. Though I now have no job because of this realization, I feel the warmth and excitement of now being able to fully throw myself in faith to God and see where I come out. But I have no fear for God is faithful and He sent me to Uganda and Sudan to realize things that could not have been realized any other way and I cannot wait to see what better he has in store for me!

A New Adventure Begins: Ghana, Uganda, and Sudan

As most if not all of you know, last year I spent three months in Ghana, Africa, building a library in a rural community while living with a chief and just experiencing what it was like to live and function in the totally different world that is Africa. While there God profoundly changed my life, opening my eyes to the amazing life that he had in store for me and truly revealing his message. 

When I returned to America, I was messed up.  Life as I had known it had completely changed because I had completely changed. I moved into a house by myself thirty minutes away from school, got a new job and totally new friends. I literally started a new life, moving forward with the life that God had intended me to live all along. At first I could not even imagine returning to Africa. But as time moved on and I began to really digest what had happened, my feelings began to turn and before I knew it I was once again obsessed with the continent and could do nothing but count down the days until I returned. I realized that Africa had truly become a part of who I was. 

Now, eight months later, I am sitting here writing this blog in preparation for my return. This time instead of going by myself I am taking a team of 15 Pepperdine students with me as part of an organization called the Ghana Rural Library Project. They will teach in the schools, build a library, and lead their own community development project, all while living with an African homestay. We will be there for six weeks that will once again not only further change my life but will change the lives of all those who are joining me. 

What makes this year different beyond the fact that I am taking a group of volunteers with me to Africa is that I will not just be going to Ghana but also Uganda and Sudan. I will be going officially as a member of a ministry called The Angels of East Africa. Dedicated to rescuing child soldiers in Northern Uganda and doing Darfur relief work in Sudan, God has blessed me with an amazing opportunity to serve those in the most extreme of need in the most extreme of places. 

So I write now as a beginning--a beginning of a new adventure. I am confused and excited, scared and thrilled, happy and sad.  My whole life I have been a student in school but now the real world awaits me. I go out with God by my side and His grace giving me all the tools I will need. Today my ministry begins and with it a new life. May God use me as He wills. 

Africa here I come! 

VERITAS ET AEQUITAS