Grateful

The children at Shepherds Junior School in Arusha, Tanzania were so eager to be seen and heard. Proud to be in uniform. Happy to be learning. Excited to host visitors. Wowed by new laptops and the idea of being connected to people across the world via the Internet. Grateful.

Last night I joined friends from Epic Change and The LAC Project online for a live video chat with Mama Lucy Kamptoni, founder of Shepherds Junior School, to help kick off TweetsGiving 2009, a global celebration of gratitude beginning today through Thanksgiving. Since 2003, Mama Lucy has grown this school to embrace and educate 350 students ages 3-13, despite limited resources and a slew of hardships. Thanks to TweetsGiving 2008, lots of people like you made small contributions that funded a new classroom for the school.

I guess that's really what it takes to make good things happen – a few hopeful and courageous souls like Mama Lucy and a lot of inspired people like us raising our hands to ask how we might help.

That Open Space

Hope inspires action, yet requires great patience and a certain amount of open space to help prepare you for what is to come when it decides to arrive. I've been thinking about that open space... the wait... and its capacity to lift or level you. I think about people like Odette hoping to be reunited with her children; people like Mama Lucy hoping to expand her school to make room for more students; people like Mupenzi hoping to find true love again. People like that don't give up. They take action, yet they know how to wait patiently in that open space.

Room to Jump

This sweet girl is one of six children living at Mama Lucy's hostel under the care of a matron, just a short drive away from Shepherd's Junior School in Arusha, Tanzania. A kind school bus driver comes to pick them up each weekday morning and returns them here safely to their gated home. While the hostel remains a special place reserved for very special children, many of the students at Shepherds Junior have expressed their desire to live here in this golden home among their friends.

It Takes Courage

It takes courage to push past firm boundaries and place yourself somewhere you've never been... to let yourself be vulnerable... to dig beneath the surface and claim the desire of your heart... to allow yourself to hope... to trust. It takes courage to raise your hand and answer the question knowing there's a chance you could be wrong... to follow your intuition down a crooked path with no end in sight... to act... to change the goal and redefine your strategy... to say the words you need to say regardless of how they will be heard. Yes, it takes courage. But it's in you.

Getting Schooled

Jen and I are here in Arusha, Tanzania on our second Picture Hope assignment this week. We've so enjoyed sharing time with Mama Lucy, founder of Shepherds Jr. School; kind teachers; and more than 350 children ages 3-12 thanks to our friends at non-profit Epic Change. As in Rwanda, I'm finding that relationships hold great value.  It seems that connections between people are stronger here in Africa, or perhaps these connections are just more visible when you strip away unnecessary physical possessions – when you cut away the clutter and focus on the person seated before you or beside you.

Africa is flattening me. She's taking me back to the basics. Asking me in a gentle and honest whisper to question long-standing assumptions about my life. She makes me cry. She brings me great joy. She makes me want to rebuild a better me. I'm eager to let the images speak to you over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for sharing this journey with us.