Africa Part 2: when I saw miracles

Part 1

It was that summer, and I was that girl.

AKA: it was the summer after I graduated college and I, along with all my friends, had no idea what we wanted to do with our lives. So I did what all directionless college grads do…I decided to postpone the inevitable and work at a summer camp! 

 And for a good portion of the summer, I was the “craft lady”.

One week when I was pretty much over making hemp bracelets and decoupaging my 15th journal, the kids and I decided to start spray painting shirts. I felt a little edgy with a spray paint can (!) but after lots of trial and error, I ended up spray painting my love, Africa.

and a few kids asked me to make them the same exact shirt for them.

and a few more.

and soon half the kids at camp were running around with the African continent sprayed on them.

and a seed fell that summer.
a sprouted seed that said “why can’t a shirt change the world?”

So I prayed. And talked. And gathered. And researched.

And soon I started designing and selling t-shirts, and managing a website, and taking orders from all parts of the globe from people who wanted to see the world change with me.

Africa Hope Apparel.
for when they purchased a shirt, they picked an organization, and all the money from their shirt went to that organization.

And soon I couldn’t manage all the orders coming in. My sisters and mom and I would package the shirts and ship them out. I knew everyone that worked at that post office for I was that regular who touted a garbage bag full of awkwardly packaged t-shirts, a skinny brown-haired Santa Claus.

It was pretty ghetto, but I didn’t care.

Smile wide and eyes full I was washed in love by strangers I didn’t know, simply because they cared.

They cared. From far reaches of the world, people cared.
They wanted to consume wisely, so their fashion would impact lives.

And over a 4 year period, I was able to donate around $30,000 to the 5 different organizations that Africa Hope supported.

 Around the third year of selling shirts, I had just finished working for Invisible Children, and was living at home with my parents praying (with lots of tears) that a job would open up that would make my heart sing! I remember writing in my journal “Lord, my dream would be to work for a small non-profit that works in Africa that is centered around your love”.

And guess what?

Something did happen….

A few weeks later a girl from an organization called Empowering Lives International emailed me. She told me that she had met someone wearing an Africa Hope shirt, and was wondering if I might consider putting their organization up on the website.

One look at their website, and my heart beamed.

This. This was where I wanted to work. But, alas, they were not hiring!

So I put their organization up on my Africa Hope website, and then drove out to their office to meet the staff. I was in love. So I prayed that maybe, ohhhhhh, just maybe I could work for an organization like this!

And then, a month later, the CEO called me and let me know that a position had just opened, and that I was the first person they had thought of to fill it.

Speechless, I could NOT believe my ears. 

WHAT? It’s in the middle of a recession, freaking taco bell won’t even hire me, and now someone from my dream job is calling me up and asking me if I want to apply for this position?

So once upon a time I got this amazing job working for Empowering Lives International and after almost 4 years I’m still here, and we all lived happily ever after!

But really, it is the most incredible blessing working for an organization that does holistic development work in East Africa. ELI understands that poverty isn’t just about a lack of material possessions but also a lack of dignity, of people beginning to feel worthless and unvalued because they can't take care of their family. That is not the way God intended his people to live. That is why instead of just giving hand-outs, ELI’s heart and vision is to equip and train people to learn how to grow their own food or start their own business, so that they can begin to care for their own family and live with dignity.

We work in D.R. Congo, Kenya, Tanzania and Sudan. We have training centers, schools, children’s homes, Anti-alcohol programs, and health clinics. Truly, just writing it out makes me so thankful that I am able to spend every day being a part of God’s transformation in this world. And as you can see from the pictures, i've also been able to visit the places were we work and see empowerment in action!

{two income generating projects we teach at our training centers...bread oven and vertical garden}

My story with Africa is seeing God work miracles.
Miracles enough to use me, a girl who knows nothing about business, to sell shirts around the world and raise money for great organizations.
Miracles to place me in the perfect job during an economic crisis in our nation.
Miracles to allow me to GO TO AFRICA for my job.

Our God, yes, HE is a miracle maker.

Now that this post has turned into such a novel, I think I’ll have to add a Part 3. But if the suspense is killing you (and I’m sure it is), in the meantime you can check out where I work at empoweringlives.org. 

And ps- thanks for hanging in here for the story! I know it was long….

AND…. I’m sure you realize what the give-a-way might be? Get excited...

Love Katie 

and ps- if you were really wondering, I didn't actually apply at Taco Bell but i'm sure you all can relate to the woes of job-hunting...you start wondering if anyone will hire you, haha! But thankfully we serve a God who knows our desires and loves us deeply. 

Part 3

Africa Part 1: stitches on my heart

Blah, blah, blah. Here I was, my sophomore year of college and this girl across from me is droning on about how much she loves the African history course she is taking. Ya, I get it, you love africa, ok, I’m over it. Blah blah blah, I could think of nothing more boring or depressing to study.

Yikes. 

That was me. To even admit it now renders me red in the face with embarrassment. But I’ll admit it, growing up, Africa was not etched on the map in my mind, you know, that map that you dream of exploring and discovering. I had entered college studying International Relations, and minoring in Italian, and had big plans to travel every inch of Europe and Asia and South America. I wanted to be an ambassador or a politician (my nightmare now!), wear high heels (double nightmare!), make policies, and drink coffee with the best of ‘em. But Africa? I may not have ever been good at math, but I could tell you right then and there that Africa most certainly did not factor into my equation for the future.

And then I met him.

On a bus.

I was having a hard time getting my chair on the bus down, and with the whip of his hand, my seat was now functioning. I looked up.

Tall. 

 7 feet I thought. He was wearing a beanie in the cold Illinois air.

African. 

I knew next to nothing about the continent, but I knew Africa was his home.

Our eyes locked, and I couldn’t pull away. “Where?” I thought, then verbalized.

Sudan. His words sang softly and silently, openness.

Nothing registered in my head, blank.

Tell me, I breathed, your story.

And he did. Five minutes on the bus, turned into an hour in our hotel lobby. Those poignant eyes, dark and lovely, spilled stories of love and horror, of families, his family, torn apart- children walking across deserts with no food, mothers murdered. Devastation, loss, war. Of refugee camps in Ethiopia, then Kenya. Of chaos swallowing his country, his home.

“I am a lost boy” he says.

No words. Wide eyes flooded, I was beyond lost in his scars. I couldn’t shake the inevitable thoughts, “How does this happen? How do I not know anything about it?”

For the rest of the week at the conference, I shuffled close to Amal. He invited me to African dance night, where heart and soul and love for the mother land was palpable in the air, and I breathed it. Over 20 countries in Africa were represented, and with each drum beat and praise and prayer, a part of my heart began to beat differently. New eyes.

I will forever be grateful to Amal for sharing his story with me. His words, his courage and perseverance, but mostly his trust in God in the face of horrific pain, stitched a new story for my life.

And soon that fabric added Africa to the map in my mind, and my globe seemed to revolve around it.

I went back to college and started studying African history, and soon it easily became my favorite subject to study, it would be an understatement to tell you that I couldn’t get enough. I studied African film, I became entrenched in apartheid South Africa, I mulled over UN accounts of child soldiers from Liberia and Sierra Leone, I memorized geography and could tell you all sorts of facts about the Hausa and Fulani of West Africa.

And then I went. I spent a summer in South Africa and God continued to stitch love into a little heart. I was a sponge and just soaked. I saw the rhythm of the Holy Spirit move in ways I’d never experienced, and my South African friends ministered to me in ways I could have never imagined. They shared their hopes and dreams, and I literally saw beauty rise from the ashes of a system based on hate and prejudice. It was as if God’s redemption story was unfolding in front of my eyes, bold and brave and trusting in the only one who could give strength.

One night back in California, I showed up late to a Bible study and saw the end of a documentary that God used to stitch and stich more, Invisible Children. I had studied the LRA in my classes, but to see the devastation play out ruined me. I showed everyone I knew, hosting screenings on campus, and rallied a jog-a-thon, knowing that every little bit helped! A few years later I worked for Invisible Children for a year, and stories of transformation continued to unfold before my eyes. (As a side-note, if you have more questions about IC after all the Kony 2012 craziness, please don’t hesitate to ask!).

When I look back on these formative years where Africa and I collided most epically, I am drawn to the conclusion that God will forever surprise us with ways that draw us back to Him.

If I am called to love my neighbor and if we are called to carry each others burdens (which, newsflash, we ARE), then who I am if I ignore the rest of the world and live comfortably in my own little orbit filled with starbucks and the bachelorette?

But Abba calls us into a BIGGER story, out of ourselves, and into HIM. Where relationships and action and prayer for the world usher in HIS Kingdom.

And that is where I begin with Africa.

But my journey is not finished, and hopefully by the end of this week you will get to read
Part 2. Not only am I excited to continue sharing my story, but I also have a fun and meaningful give-a-way for you my dearest of readers of a product that is ever so near and dear to my heart.

Much love,
Katie

Part 2
Part 3

travel log: dingle part 1

i have been dying to share with you our most favorite place from our trip. 

Dingle, Ireland. 

ok, ok, go ahead and laugh. 

but that's really the name. 

dingle. seriously magic. 

we had NO idea going in that this place was so unreal. 

surreal to be exact. 

touching down in Ireland, there was no doubt we were in the green, orange and white. 

everywhere we look, green rolling hills. UHmazing. 

i seriously danced a jig when we arrived at the Kerry airport. 

and then we rented a stick shift car and drove on the left side of the road. 

true story- we actually got in the car, freaked out and went back in and bought insurance.

my jig quickly turned to prayers. and lots of them. 

K-dawg was a champ, but that's not to say we almost died a few times. 

ie: backing up on a cliff, or stalling on a hill with a bus behind us. scary. 

as we came into Dingle town, every color imaginable danced off tightly packed buildings in a melodious song of color. gaelic was written on every street sign, and i was dead sure i saw a leprechaun steal a pot of gold. for. real. 

we stayed in the most wonderful, quaint and adorable B&B. 

FYI, if you are going to Ireland, B&B's are the way to go. absolutely. 

Camilla and John, and their sweet son Niall greeted us with hugs and coffee, and a chat in their living room. we felt like family. 

we explored the town that night, and were blown away at the freshness and tastiness of the food. 

we adored the nightlife with it's authentic music and lively atmosphere. 

my new ambition is to learn the fiddle or the banjo. 

the west coast of Ireland is known for being a place where true irish culture is preserved. in this small town, there were no tourist traps or tacky music shows. just real irish musicians playing together in centuries old pubs, tapping their feet like their father's before them. 

the next day we were greeted by one of the BEST breakfasts i've ever had, and then began to drive the peninsula. this was one of the most incredible things i've seen or done. IF you go to Ireland, you would be cheating yourself by skipping the Dingle peninsula. 

it.was.epic. 

we started out at a fort from 500 BC. that was hard to wrap my brain around. 

i'll let these pictures whet your appetite for part 2 which shows more of the peninsula! 

enjoy dear friends!!

and ps- this is the start of many many pictures of my purple head band. i know you'll get sick of it, but when I travel I go for comfort over fashion. so let the love affair with the headband begin, ha! 

love Katie 

{our sweet B&B}

{a few views around Dingle, courtesy of yours truly}

{fish and chips, dingle style!}

 {beginning the drive}

 {pretending to be the soldiers at the fort...pretty darn convincing, eh?}

 {adore ireland, and love my baby}

see Dingle part 2 here