I almost got killed by a black mamba.
HA! This actually happened a couple months ago in Botswana, BUT KATIE, CARSEN, LUCIE, AND I SURVIVED! Google Black Mambas for real- they’re ridiculously deadly. I totally just click bated you, BUT! Now that you’re here, and I didn’t die from the longest snake I’ve ever seen in my entire life (not being dramatic; later one of the locals told us it was about fifteen to twenty feet long) slithering towards our hammocks, stay a while and keep reading!
This past week I’ve been waking up at 5 am to get on a bus full of babies to help at a pre-school (South Africans call it a “creche”) that is owned and founded by a woman named Martha that we met the very first week that we got here in South Africa as we were doing street evangelism in the afternoons. Martha is one of the most incredible women I have yet to meet in my life; I don’t say that lightly. This woman loves children so deeply and believes in the upliftment and care of them in a way that I have never seen. She started with just one cook/maid named Monica and one teacher named Violet- the three of them have been devoted to their preschool since 1996. Went from just ten students to now about 600 enrolled students! I’ve been blessed to of been placed in Violet’s class as her assistant teacher just for the week, out of all of the classes I could’ve been placed in I can’t tell you how fortunate I am to of been chosen for Violet’s!! That woman is teaching me how to teach. Never have I ever seen a woman with such respect from a room of 5 and 6 year olds while simultaneously emitting obvious fun and exciting love for them- a beautiful mix. I could go on and on about how refreshing it has been to be embraced by women such as these, a band of sisters who are passionate about youth and setting a firm foundation for their futures!! And don’t get me started on how incredible and relevant their curriculum is…
But. Because of little sleep and hundreds of babies, I am exhausted and have decided to post some old thoughts that I never finished to completion, but think about and talk about very, very often.
I’ve been dreaming big dreams in these past six months that I’ve been on this Race. We all have been. Especially my team, my six girls: Semper Fortis. Constantly seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling new things is inspiring in and of itself, but add a heart of missional living and a crazy community and you’ll find yourself immersed in a mixture of aspirations and convictions. I’ve never felt free-er to want big things; I’ve never felt more supported or capable to achieve those big things. Inspired and encouraged.
Been wanting to put these inspirations out there a couple months now for several reasons: one being that God has yet to smack me in the face with what I should do next year once the Race ends, so I’m really open to anything right now…two being I want other people to get passionate about these things too
so that we can fight for worthy causes together and see real change in our communities (and maybe, just maybe, the world).
This is a messy mixture of the world’s needs that I’m seeing and my passions, we could call it A Collective of Memories and Inspirations:
Safe Places for Women and Children: this has already been done, there’s nothing original about this dream. I just couldn’t sit down and put into words all of these deep desires I’m having for this world without mentioning this.
I remember September. I remember floating in those aqua clear waters of the Dominican Republic. It was on one of our adventure days that our hosts had planned for us, so it was this incredible day of cliff and waterfall jumping/sliding in this insanely lush jungle of the DR and we decided to stop at the beach on the way home. We stayed there for about four hours. Thyme, Taylor, Dasia, and I walked about a mile down the shore together. Once we reached the end of the strip of shops and food stands, we were all in a state of distress. We had together seen an ungodly amount of women selling themselves and old, male tourists littering the shores, drinks in hand, waiting for the sun to set so that they could have their evening with their pick of women (you can look more into sex tourism in the Dominican Republic online if you’d like to know statistics and information about all of this). It drove us crazy- we were angry. We were sad. We were screaming to God in our heads and hearts. I remember feeling so, completely helpless on that beach. So we sprinted into the ocean and swam as far as we could. We swam hard and fast. I remember feeling so angry I wanted to scream, but knowing that if I screamed, I’d cry. I didn’t know if I could cry and keep myself from drowning, so I caught my breath and looked over. I saw a strip of colorful houses lining the left shore. There was this one. This one house caught my eye. I was floating and I began thinking. I all of the sudden wanted to move into that little white and bright yellow house, the one on the shore with the yellow flowers and nice, big windows. I wanted to make that house a home for all of the women on that beach that were selling themselves- their bodies, their temples- giving a numeric value to themselves, drowning in something so dark, desperate for money, but ultimately desperate for something deeper: love. My heart wanted (and still very much wants) for their souls to find REST and for PROTECTION and SECURITY to give them that peaceful, golden Hope that our God gives in full. It was something about that yellow in those flowers and on the walls. Something about that water. Something that gave me hope and made me dream for just a moment. What if people moved into houses off shores of beaches like that beach and did real saving of real lives? We need that. We need that bad.
School House Ministry: Empower teachers internationally.
Back in the DR, I would go on prayer walks through the little mountain town of Lajas de Yarao that we were living in almost daily. If I took a right out of the gates of our home, Hope Mountain, I’d walk past half a dozen corner stores and vibrantly painted houses until I reached a basketball court. That court had a little school neighboring it. As we played on that court with the kids of the community and went door to door offering food and prayers to people living on those hills across that court, I’d often times hear the sounds of the classroom. I heard the voices of teachers and the choir of response from the little voices within her walls. All in Spanish, of course. I did not understand the words themselves, but I understood something much deeper: the influential power she held day by day by day. In very real ways, she held the power of those little one’s futures. I wrote this down in my journal months ago: “Dreams I’m Having: School House Ministry: Empower teachers…Re-inspire them! Remind them of their POWER! They are educating the children of today, the future of tomorrow! Education can inspire a kid enough to do something that could repave generation’s worth of history. And all of this is in their hands, their mouths.” I realize just as I’m sure you do how astronomically different American society is from the Dominican Republic and all third world communities out there in the sense that, especially in Forsyth county- even more specifically in Lambert Highschool, education is abundant and the privilege to not only dream and aspire for big careers and lives, but then tangibly chase them down is not attainable for the youth of the Dominican in the ways that it is for Americans. With that being said, education itself- the most elementary of maths and literatures- are more urgent because with even the littlest bit of these things, they are automatically more capable of a career that will provide for them and their families in a way that could lift them out of centuries worth of poverty or socioeconomical stagnation. That is not a common reality of Americans. But. That does not mean that the power you hold as a teacher is lesser than that of a teacher in a third world country. You are fighting different battles- invisible battles of self worth and materialism and deep confusion in a world of abundant information and little interpretation, complacency, etc- while international teachers are fighting the tangible battles of poverty, starvation, sex trafficking (although, this is a reality all throughout the earth, in every corner of society; I could say a lot about this, but that’d take ages), and all the hardship that accompanies impoverishment. In some ways, I am coming to believe that the battles of America are more fatal than the tangible battles. Apathy destroys all good and holy things about this life that God created us to live and live to the FULL. America is intoxicated by a spirit of apathy and it has my heart broken. You, as a teacher, have the ability to lead by example- to counter apathy by empathy. To be sincere in your cares and concerns of the real lives of the kids sitting in those desks, in your class instead of being passive and distant. Sincere concern is one of those things that at surface level doesn’t hold too much obvious value, but the heart behind it is wildly counter-cultural and screams the Gospel. The kids in your classes, some of them, they have broken homes with distant parents, so they keep their phone in their hand at all times to distract them and give them value to overcompensate for the lack of love within their families and surface level friendships, and none of this ever brings real satisfaction so they continue on, sometimes drinking or smoking or trying to fall in love, other times committing all that they possibly can to their school work so that they can both have control in their often times incontrollable lives and also get themselves out of the unsatisfying life they’re living- in their academic endeavors and overall feeling of unsatisfied, most end up in a mix of anxiety and depression. That is the invisible war raging all around. Those are the kids sitting in your classes. What would it look like to email one teacher right now? To email them and uplift them and remind them of the undeniable power they carry by simply being a teacher. I feel like God wants His people to recognize the power they’re living in.
Why wouldn’t you uplift the educators of your world if you have the capability to??
Change/Revolutionize the Treatment of Women: At the time I began this blog, I was sitting on my little mat in my little room in Botswana, but the second I along with any of the other girls with me stepped off of property, if any one of us as females were to interact with a man, we wouldn’t be allowed to look him in the eyes. If I were to walk into one of the homes in the community, I would not only not look any man in the eyes, but I would also have to address him and any other men first before the women. If we were to sit down, I’d have to make sure that every male had a seat before any woman sat, often times leaving women on the floor…leaving women “at their rightful place,” as the inferior, second class citizens we women are.
Back in Boca Chica of the Dominican Republic when I would walk two blocks to the sandy shores of the beach or make any kind of public appearance outside of the hostel we were staying in for the week, men of all ages would turn into animals- they wouldn’t just whistle or make degrading comments, they would hiss like snakes and bark and howl like dogs or clap like monkeys. All because young girls were passing their way. Never have I ever been in a more horrifying environment as a woman. And the thing is, it’s not just an “environment,” it’s a country! It’s an entire city!! It’s a population of men raised up from the earliest stages of their youth to follow their dad and older brothers and grandfather and every other male figure in their little lives in their animalistic antics that lack respect, honor, and fidelity of any kind. And no. No, none of the girls on our squad were “asking for it” by wearing promiscuous clothing (one pieces and ministry appropriate shorts with tshirts are about as modest as a girl in ninety degree heat can get), and even if you had reason to believe a young woman was scandalously dressed, she doesn’t “deserve it” either. Unjustifiable. Don’t you dare creatively justify the unjust verbal or physical assaults seen all across our globe to women. This is a timeless trial of the female gender: women are oppressed and taken advantage of and objectified and weakened.
I remember Haiti. There was an afternoon where we evangelized in a village just off of the coast. We had been walking from house to house for hours by the time that we found ourselves in front of about five women. The women began to explain to us that they did not think that they could be Christians or go to church because they could not read. I remember something within me shattering as Silvano (God bless this man! what a warrior! one of the six insanely amazing translators that stuck with us that whole month!!) translated these words. I immediately told these women before me that while the Bible is a really sweet gift, it is not required for your salvation. Literacy has never been and will never be a make or break for our God. I started to explain that the Bible is full of stories of men and women who were incapable of a lot of things, yet Jesus chose to love all. He placed hands on the “untouchable,” he sat at the same table as sinners and tax collectors, he washed dirty feet, and he spoke with people from prostitutes to widows and orphans. Some could read and some could not, that didn’t mean a thing to our Jesus! As we headed down the mountain side and climbed onto Shamma’s (our ridiculously tall friend and driver and translator AND the church’s drummer) bus, Silvano explained that only within the past few years has it been normal for girls to go to school and get an education. If we had come even twelve years earlier, the school yard that we went to and played at and preformed skits and sang songs and taught lessons at would’ve barely had any girls there because women have been kept in the home for centuries now. He said most families were just stuck. Stuck in poverty to the point that barely anyone could afford to send their girls to school. This day has been and still is powerful for tons of reasons, but the most powerful reason being that I was standing in the victory of this age old catastrophe of illertacy and neglect! I was standing in the school yard where hundreds of boy AND GIRLS were educated Monday through Friday! I was holding onto and running around with and getting my hair braided by girls who’s mothers must’ve been inexpressibly proud of their babies; they as mothers may not be able to read, but their little ones sure would be able to!
And it brings me to this: Feminism in America is ridiculous (I bet that ruffled some feathers- I’m generalizing here- I will always support justice for all and honorable treatment to all races, genders, religions, etc..I’m talk about MOST of the time, just hear me out) while women in Botswana can’t make eye contact and girls in the Dominican are hissed at and girls in Haiti are sold and stolen for barely any money and women of the Middle East can’t even show their faces in public let alone vote or drive or are looked at as capable in any way beyond sex, pregnancy, and tending to the home!! What if the women of America fought just as hard and just as loud for the rights of out fellow women and sisters internationally?! WOMEN NEED TO SUPPORT WOMEN! What if we committed our efforts to a global sisterhood? What if we championed them onward, restoring their value and encouraging their beauty and brilliance, passion and potential, nurture and natural allure, strength and sincerity wrapped within a sensitivity that rather than weakens Woman, for whatever reason only increases her power? What if?! What a glorious ‘what if!’
Apathy: what a preventable atrocity!
Emotionally starving ourselves. The thing about apathy is that if apathy was not something we allowed in our lives/world, all of the other devastations in this world would automatically become something that we could fix or maintain. We have got to fix this. We have got to wake up, to re-sensitize ourselves. The weapons to this apathy are: empathy, sincerity, passion, love.
What if we lived out the phrase “do for one what you wish you could do for all”? (I’m not thinking anything extravagant here, you don’t have to be in the peace core to live out this mentality)
What would not leaving ‘these kinds of things’ up for massive organizations and doing what little you can to help the people in front of you look like?
I want to fulfill these dreams.
I want to do more than throw money at these problems.
I want to do more than pretend to not know about or see these things.
These are just four out of eleven of the thoughts/dreams/aspirations I have began to contemplate on and attempt to put some words to since back in December. I may post more of them as time goes on, but for now, if anyone that reads this has any ideas on how to run with this abundance of thoughts and wants within me or knows anyone who can make any of this happen, comment below or send me an email! I’d honestly be interested.
Now, go. Dream your dreams and make things happen!
