Until I actually experience something for myself, it typically doesn't resonate in my mind as real no matter how real I may "know" it to be. I was at the WTC in NYC a month before the attacks, but it was not until I visited Ground Zero several years later that I actually grasped on some level the horrific reality of what had occurred there on that dreadful day - 911.
In undergrad with my semester-abroad peers, I experienced something quite similar when I visited Anne Frank's home in Amsterdam and the concentration camp, Dachau, in southern Germany. I had heard the lessons, read the books and pitied the oppressed for a moment in time. However, when I was in the actual places where a heroic Jewish girl hid in fear for her life and when I actually saw and toured a concentration camp, did it actually compute in my mind on some level what these people had endured - living hell. Gas chambers and furnaces designed for humans. You can't go to these places and not be changed.
This same concept came in to play when I spent three weeks late last fall in Africa. I'd seen the TV footage, the National Geographic magazines, and had heard countless missionaries tell of what was happening in Africa - famine, AIDS, lack of water, infant deaths, illness of every kind. It was all very touching for another moment in time, but then you put the magazine down, flip the channel, offer a quick "bless the missionaries" prayer, listen to the last AMEN and you go about life as normal - your own drama. Family, friends, facebook, food, fun. I'll stop with the F-words before I get myself into trouble with my fellow evangelicals.
My last day of three weeks was spent in Kampala, Uganda. I had high hopes and expectations for this trip to Africa and while the entire journey was rewarding, something seemed missing until the end. I felt that something more was to happen on this trip. It did. Cari Nash, a social work major from Little Rock, had moved to Uganda 10 years prior to work with the orphans of the slums of Kampala. We had Little Rock and social work in common along with our shared love of Christ, but when we met I felt certain that she was one of the primary reasons God led me to Africa. How cool is God that on the last stop of the last day of a jam-packed three-weeks schedule that he led me to Cari Nash and brought my first mission trip full circle.
Cari said nothing to me on that day that I can quote as having changed my life forever. Her school and her ministry wasn't terribly unlike others I had seen in both Ghana and Uganda. I think what struck me most was Cari herself. My friend and distant cousin who was my traveling companion (actually, I was a guest on his yearly mission) had told me that we would meet a girl from the States who had started a school for orphans. Cari Nash was not at all who I had envisioned in my mind.
I was pleased to know that she was from Little Rock, a kind of second home town for me. Her story, much of it told to me by others as she is too humble to disclose anything akin to boastfulness, has continued to mesmerize me. She needed two non-major classes to fulfill her requirements for a bachelor's in social work. She could not wait as she knew she was being called to Africa to the mission field, though as I get it she doesn't consider herself a missionary, but rather simply a child of God choosing to live in Uganda. She's only been home one time in a decade. This is no mission trip, this is her life.
I promised myself, Cari, and God that I would try to help this school - Vision of Destiny - founded by God through his willing and unassuming daughter. I've been to her school. I've met Cari. We've become friends from a distance. My mentor knows her sponsor at Until All Have Heard based in North Little Rock. Cari and her school are the real deal and not once have I heard or noticed her making this about herself. It's been from day one about God and these precious children, many of whom think of her as mom. Rightfully so as many of them live in her home because if not, then they'd be left in the streets. Her mission is educating them, but her reality is also that she is raising many of them as well.
Several months ago as I was praying, I got an idea to do an art contest for Cari's students and especially for those on her waiting list. There are dozens of kids at a time who are waiting to get into Vision of Destiny. In Uganda, two meals a day and an education is valued even by small children. At a young age, they know that this is their chance in life for a big break. These students depend upon sponsors, primarily from the U.S.
I was pleased to know that Cari expects students' parents who are able to regularly volunteer in some way, be it sweeping and cleaning, serving food, carrying supplies, etc. to do so. Many kids have lost parents due to abandonment or AIDS as many of these young kids are "street kids". The kids, too, are asked to help out on the grounds. No one is getting a free ride. Most of these kids are destitute if not plain starving and dying, many from AIDS. This is not inner-city America where money is sometimes spent on Nikes instead of school supplies, this is Africa where only a very few among the elite have any access to currency at all. I saw elderly ladies placing passion fruit in the church collection/offering plates because that was the most valuable thing that they owned. They are making sacrifices to go to school to say the least.
Believe it or not, I'm not blogging this time to preach and not even to beg money of you, though I admit it's beginning to sound like it and given half a chance I might do both.
I'm writing because I need help in order to fulfill my pledge to help this school that has a hold on my heart. An art contest for starters. I'll tell you my plan, but admit that it has holes in it.
Cari has agreed to supply the kids on her waiting list with access to art supplies. I want each child to draw (paint, sketch, whatev) a picture, but I'm wondering age brackets and themes. Any suggestions? Also, for the kids who are already enrolled, I want them to participate, but in order to raise awareness for the need of general funds for the school - supplies, buildings, etc.
I don't know whether to do this on Flickr or some such site or to create a specific site just for this contest. I picture having each child's artwork displayed, then giving the viewer the opportunity to click on that picture and be able to read about the student-artist and be given an opportunity to sponsor that child or make a donation of any size in his/her honor. Voting on the pictures would be free, of course, but then each vote would lead you to a place where you could view information about that particular child with an opportunity to sponsor or donate. The winners of each division would be given a reward.
I don't have the technical know-how to pull this off online. I don't know what's the most fitting as far as a theme for the art contest.
My primary goal is to raise awareness of Vision of Destiny school - vodafrica.org . If even one child might get sponsored as a result, then I'd be pleased and consider this venture successful. Of course, I'm hopeful that multiple kids might get sponsors and that all of them get a kick out of people half way across the globe looking at and voting on their artwork.
Please send me any thoughts or insights or suggestions. I am excited to do this. The school term is starting soon and I would like to do this early this fall. I just keep getting stuck as I try to make it make sense in my mind. I can see the end result, but not the processes that get us there. Help, please!
Check out Cari's blog at www.footstepsthroughlife.blogspot.com and her website at www.vodafrica.org or www.untilallhaveheard.org .
