I’m moving this little blog to a new home. you can find it at www.conomocity.com/journal. I’ll be posting more of my travels and adventures around the world, there. be sure to update your rss feed if you keep up with me that way.
Thanks and have a great new year!
eric
I was hoping that I would be able to make a trip to the Big Easy this winter to do some volunteer work. Not being sure who I would go with or how it would work, I just sort of let life happen. Lora, my girlfriend told me that she was going and I asked if I could join her group. I drove my car and this is what it all looked like. Well, most of the week will be shown here. I’m going to make a movie of the time we spent working on the house, so you won’t see that here, but I will be sure to post the movie when it is finished.
The 2nd half of the drive down: Day 2
we freaked out.
beautiful sunsets after a long day in the car is superbueno. this is somewhere in Louisiana.
my boy RJ (now goes by Josiah) likes playing with my camera. I let him.
Day 3
Isaiah and I were walking to have lunch at the pastor’s house.
this clock never looked like it was working, but the hands were never in the same place.
Day 4
a container in the musician’s village. it’s my number.
me taking a photo of the group i was with. no one believed me that we were all in the photo. my camera is good like that though.
my girl takes good photos.
Day 5
my pants broke so some lady thought it would be a good idea to duct tape them and write this on them. i accepted the kind gesture.
Day 6
the french quarter of new orleans.
this place has good coffee from what i hear. I didn’t try it, though i did have a beignet. um, heaven in pastry form.
gotta have a shout out to Canada, just for Danielle.
she’s wonderfully fun!
it was the big easy, though i never ate there, i just thought the signage was nice.
must learn the Lindy Hop. these guys and the band that was playing were AMAZING.
…to south carolina with family. 12.20.2007
…to new orleans with RUF and Trinity Fellows program from cville. 1.5.2008
…to napa for jake’s wedding to olya. 1.21.2008
…to nicaragua for amazing adventures with orphans and students from colleges in virginia. 2.28.2008
…somewhere, to do something, with someone/people. 6.1.2008
and will continue happening whether I am on here writing and showing you pictures. i’m going to keep on living and working and playing and doing the things I enjoy.
Life has been real busy. That is nothing new for me. Sorry for not being able to keep you as up to date with my life as I would like. Know though, that I am alive and kicking, rocking life to the fullest and loving most minutes of it!
a couple years ago i walked across nicaragua with some friends to raise money to help open a feeding center for kids in a refugee camp.
on our way home after the trip i said, “well guys, whats next?” not really thinking anything would be next, but a year later I was talking to a friend and I asked him if he would want to bike the Pan American Highway with me. It runs from Alaska to Argentina. Without hesitation, he said he would love to do that.
so the story began. we started talking about things and decided we would leave in june of 2008 with another friend who would be graduating then. the othe friend backed out from the whole trip, but wants to be involved a little bit.
we will be leaving in june, for alaska, where we will then start biking to argentina. it’s going to take about 555 days or so. we will go through 15 countries and hopefully meet a lot of people.
in the last year or so as we have been planning and talking about things, my life has been transformed and I see things in a different light than i used to. God has been gracious to me and given me talents and abilities and i need to use them. i need to use them to show the hurting and suffering but also the joy that abounds in this world.
i have come to realize that we, mankind are all a lot closer to each other than we think and are dependent upon one another. we all have gifts that we need to use and together we can accomplish a lot more than we can on our own.
my goal with the trip is to find people that inspire me, bless me and question me. i want to be a light in a dark world and i want to connect with people. i know that on my own i can’t do much, but with the help of other people and with God on my side, I can move mountains.
the bike trip is more than a trek from alaska to argentina. the destination isn’t really argentina. the destination is christ. Jesus told the disciples to go, to take their staffs and go out into the world. in essence we will be taking our bikes and going. Only God know where it will really lead and what will happen 2 miles into the trip.
i want people to come with us, whether it be for a day or a week or 6 months or the entire journey. i feel like we are creating an opportunity for people to join where they can bring to the table whatever talents and abilities they have and use them in different ways. i will be using my photography, reilly will be writing. perhaps a videographer will come and shoot with/for us. maybe you will come and drive a support vehicle or ride a bike with us.
we want to be in community with people and learn from each other and work together to do good in the world.
this trip is a lot bigger than i am and there is so much more that needs to be done, that i will never think about. that is why i tell people, to get them excited perhaps about what God is doing and hopefully have them see that they can get involved with us, or with someone else.
hopefully that gives you a little glimpse into what we will be doing when we leave charlottesville come june 1, 2008. i’d love to hear your thoughts about it.
My friend Lora is living with her cousins here in Charlottesville. The other week they were talking about wanting to get some photos taken of their baby girl Carolyn. Nicole (the mother, Lora’s cousin) didn’t really want to take her daughter to the studios the have in stores. You know those stores I am talking about. Regardless of where it was, she didn’t want to go there.
They asked me to come take some pictures of their daughter, so yesterday I hung out with Nicole and Carolyn for a little while and took some fun snapshots of the two of them.
Here are a couple of my favorites:
I’ve given up on giving up slowly, I’m blending in so
You won’t even know me apart from this whole world that shares my fate
This one last bullet you mention is my one last shot at redemption
because I know to live you must give your life away
And I’ve been housing all this doubt and insecurity and
I’ve been locked inside that house all the while You hold the key
And I’ve been dying to get out and that might be the death of me
And even though, there’s no way in knowing where to go, promise I’m going because
I gotta get outta here
I’m stuck inside this rut that I fell into by mistake
I gotta get outta here
And I’m begging You, I’m begging You, I’m begging You to be my escape.
I’m giving up on doing this alone now
Cause I’ve failed and I’m ready to be shown how
He’s told me the way and I’m trying to get there
And this life sentence that I’m serving
I admit that I’m every bit deserving
But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair
Cause I’ve been housing all this doubt and insecurity and
I’ve been locked inside that house all the while You hold the key
And I’ve been dying to get out and that might be the death of me
And even though, there’s no way in knowing where to go, promise I’m going because
I gotta get outta here
Cause I’m afraid that this complacency is something I can’t shake
I gotta get outta here
And I’m begging You, I’m begging You, I’m begging You to be my escape.
I am a hostage to my own humanity
Self detained and forced to live in this mess I’ve made
And all I’m asking is for You to do what You can with me
But I can’t ask You to give what You already gave
I fought You for so long
I should have let You in
Oh how we regret those things we do
And all I was trying to do was save my own skin
But so were You
So were You
sometimes we need to just sit back and relax. too often we get caught up in the going going going and forget that we need to take a break.
just be.
i sit here wondering what it would be like if life were the way it should be. thinking about the days when there was no shame and there was closeness with God that we will not see until we are on the other side of this life. a time when mundane details of daily living won’t get in the way of the eternal life we will be in the middle of.
daily there is something that bugs me. there seems to always be a detail i miss. something that should have happened that i failed to remember. i am bothered by the amount of junk i have, by the vast array of shoes i have seemed to collect over the years since my feet stopped growing. i contemplate the fact that i have 20 pairs of shoes and my friend in Nicaragua has no shoes. why is it like this? i am not quite sure i will understand, though i do know one thing and believe it to be true. these words came from a good friend named jackson. he went through life in sudan over the last 3 decades. he went through more than i could ever imagine. he was tortured and beaten on a daily basis. his home and family was ripped away from him. i feel like he should be bitter, or angry and even a little miffed, i would. wait, i am mad that this happened. it doesn’t make sense to me.
he isn’t anything of the sort. he is a loving father to 3 kids and the head of a church in a country that didn’t know God before a civil war ripped his country to shreds. he sees people returning to his country and beginning life anew. communities are being formed as they never were before. people used to live on land and be very spread out. now these people are coming back to sudan and living in close proximity to each other. they realize how important a close knit community is, especially in a country where your neighbor could be gone in the morning.
jackson isn’t the only person i met with a different perspective on life than i have. there is moses too. he is an amazing man with vision of community and plans to bring people together in ways unheard of in sudan and uganda. he says his people are lazy. they need to work and it needs to be for more than themselves. they need to be a part of something that is bigger than they are. that is why the church is in the middle of the community.
these men are leaders of the church in sudan. they are revolutionaries in a land where there are few. they are in the middle of the kingdom and are working at building their communities around God. they know this life and what they are doing isn’t about them, but rather about a higher calling than they can grasp. they try to take hold of what they know to be true and work to bring about change to a broken place.
jackson doesn’t ever want to see social levels and borders broken. he won’t wish what has happened to him, on anyone, to be taken back. too much good has come out of a horrible thing to ask for it to be taken back or removed from his memory. he will though continue asking God to create opportunities for people to be blessed and be a blessing on their brothers and sisters.
there are rich people and poor people. black people and white people. tall people and short ones. big and small… all with different things to offer this global community. everyone has a story and that story needs to be told. he believes that everything happens for a reason, as hard as it is to swallow that fact sometimes, it is true. he was born in sudan and went through all he did for a reason. he is a blessing to the people in uganda and sudan.
he is a blessing to me. i am honored to sit in a hut in the middle of a refugee camp and listen to him and others talk about God’s grace and how He has lavished His riches on them. as he tells me that i am a blessing to him, i am taken back. how can anything i ever do or say be a blessing to him? i have more than i can handle. i am selfish and greedy and take from others. how could i ever be a blessing to a great man like jackson?
he says, ” you are sitting in sudan. you are here. you care and that is a blessing to me. you have come to hear our stories and take them back to your american friends, in hopes of making a difference in the lives or a hurting people.”
wow. i thought i was just traveling to a remote place, an unfamiliar land to take pictures and see what God is doing. I didn’t expect to be a blessing to sudanese people.
i have traveled across the ocean to meet sudanese people who have gone through hell. i am in a place where nothing makes sense to me. i am here though, with jackson. listening to him talk to me about how God is faithful and His plan is perfect. He knows there is more to life than having stuff. when he was with us, he carried a small jansport backpack for a week and wore the same two shirts. He didn’t bring much. He doesn’t own much, he doesn’t want much, but He has a lot more than I have.
he has a perspective on life that I can only dream of. he knows that God is faithful and will continue doing His work no matter what. he knows a secret. hopefully one day i will learn that secret. maybe it will wreck my life and transform me into what God intended me to be. His child, recklessly chasing after His heart. digging for truth and wrestling the enemy and coming out victorious.
maybe one day, maybe.
