That Land

Being back in America is wonderful. I have been living my life, going to school and  hanging out with friends, but I feel like I am missing something. When I was in Uganda I felt so natural, so right. All of the people were so real and willing to open up. My heart is for people and being in Uganda, the people had been through so much. Their stories were in their faces, how they smiled, how they laughed, and how they laughed at jokes so humbly. The country was so honest. I envy that honesty and wish it was more present in our culture and in our community of Auburn.

a forever understanding.

My heart is open.

My body is killing me.

My spirit is in prison.

 

I want for my spirit to grow out of my body.

I want my body to be too small for my spirit.

 

I want to stop knowing my instincts.

I want to only know my spirit.

 

I want to know it

-its thoughts

-its heart

-its love

 

Why know our flesh, when we will be with our spirit forever?

 

I want to understand my spirit.

I want to have peace within myself.

grace.

     This summer I met a girl of six or seven named Grace. From the instant I met her I knew she would be one of the most beautiful people I will ever meet. Grace and her brother live at an orphanage in Uganda. They are thought to have lost their parents to the AIDS epidemic, which is killing 1.5 million people in Africa this year alone. Grace spoke little English and mostly spoke her native tongue of Lugandan. She was quiet when we first met her, but you could tell the other children looked to her for advice and encouragement. She had a certain wisdom as she played games and sang songs, as though she was not just experiencing the action she was participating in, but thinking about bigger things. She knew about life and had seen more than I will probably ever see. Sometimes, I could see her pondering at the never-ending sky – dreaming.

     Her eyes, a deep brown, were piercing as she lead worship for her house of 16 orphaned peers, the only family she knew. With her brother playing drums on old gas cans, Grace would belt out notes as if she was a thirty-year old woman in a gospel choir. As tears rolled down my team’s faces, I saw Grace close her eyes as she sang. A small girl full of true and genuine faith. As I spent the next week with this girl who was more like a woman, I was constantly taken back by her inner beauty and how her humble confidence was so evident in every little action. Grace wore old, ripped clothes and had no special possession of her own, but she still lived, dreamed, experienced joy, and was selfless to her family of orphans and to God.

     Before I met Grace, I felt bad for Africa and Uganda and I thought my trip was going to bless their community. When I looked into Grace’s deep eyes, my heart sunk and I new the roles had reversed and she was going to teach me more than I knew about life. I left with a new awareness of what my friends and family in America were going to gain from her story. Grace is a very real example of how living an honest, joyful life, even with very little, can effect so many people. She was just an orphan girl with a brother and 15 other family members with a similar story and now she is breaking hearts.

my journey.

Everyone has their thing, what stirs their heart, what they are obsessed with, what they love to think about and what makes a horrible day perfect in an instant. My thing is seeing other people show who they are and, in a small second of vulnerability, let their hearts loose. I want to learn about a person and what they are for, what gets them, what makes them have a complete moment of awe. When I see someone looking at a moment or a situation with a certain look in their eyes, I can not feel anything but close to them. In that moment, not only are they in complete awe of what they love, but I am going through that moment too. It is hard to explain, but from that moment on, I get that person. I appreciate them for whatever annoying characteristic they have and I only want to know them more. I love seeing how generous, good, loving people are when they are in love with the world and what they do. It is inspiring to me and I am compelled to cheer for them in their successes and my heart breaks for them in their trials.

I love it when I prove myself wrong. Often I will meet someone and say, “oh they are not for me,” or “I don’t like them,”or “I just don’t think we will relate.” Then I know it is time for me to be mature and learn, by putting myself around that person, that they have the same values, and interest, and about how amazing that person is. I find myself understanding how the people around me think, what they struggle with, and how similar we are as we experience the same world and we see the same love and the same problems.

I recently went to Uganda, and I fell in love with everyone I met. They were the most incredible people I had ever talked to and, in hearing their life stories, I was wrecked. Then, some months later, I traveled to New York and I met some precious and motivating people, who loved what they did and embraced every situation with the most amazing comfort in their actions. I then came home to Auburn and I met some more inspiring people in coffee shops and on the street. I wondered how I thought the world was so different and that people could be different just because they live on other sides of the world. It doesn’t matter where you grow up, if you live in a big city, or if you were a nerd or a nobody. People are people, and they are beautiful. I wondered how I could think that I would love the people in Uganda more than Auburn or New York. I soon came to realize what I love, what I was starting to understand was the inner person that is not conveyed in a person’s words, but can be displayed when someone puts their heart on their sleeve. Whether a person is actively pursuing their passion or not is not the point, but that everyone has a uniqueness, an inner beauty, and if this can be conveyed into writing, how it could be an inspiration to people who’s muse could be fading, or who’s life could be without that half hour of pure awesomeness, and for the people who can not remember what it was like to be a kid without cares.

I am on a journey to find the value in people. It’s my journey, to live out my passion, to continue understanding people, to bring understanding to the beauty of appreciation of people, to get heart’s stirred and to move some in a direction of inner evaluation, where they can find what is right and beautiful to them. I hope you will get excited for the people in the weeks to come and, I also hope your heart breaks. It is my intention that you feel compelled to root for them as they honestly show their hearts and stories and allow you further in than most will ever go.