Kenya

A Beautiful River in Uganda

As most passengers triumphantly hoisted luggage off the belt, my mom and I watched and waited. Finally with a few lonely bags circling round and round in the increasingly vacated baggage claim, we acknowledged the obvious and filtered over to the airline desk to file our claim. Undaunted, we woke the next morning to the…Read more A Beautiful River in Uganda

Wherever I am on this Planet

Through all the glitter, tedium, and crush of this life... I’ve seen it in rural Vietnam in the shining eyes of parents who care for eight orphaned boys… ...in the joyful upturned faces of the persecuted church of Nepal, who gather without fear… ...in those who awoke in the desperate poverty of Mathare Valley, the second largest…Read more Wherever I am on this Planet

Let It Be Me – Response to Terrorism in Kenya

Horror still clutches my heart like an apparition from beyond the grave. “It is over,” Kenyan President Kenyatta assured the world on Tuesday. Some of the perpetrators are dead. Hopefully the rest are amongst eleven people detained in a sweep of Kenya’s exit points. And yet the echoes of their evil acts reverberate long after they…Read more Let It Be Me – Response to Terrorism in Kenya

Offering – Pondering the Lives of Mother Teresa Sisters

Kenya, 2001 (somewhere near Nairobi's second largest slum) Blinking in the transition from blazing equatorial sunlight to sacred shadows, we hesitate in the foyer. The sanctuary stretches before us, an ordination service for new Sisters already in progress. Rows of simple benches packed to capacity march along concrete floors. I spot an open space in…Read more Offering – Pondering the Lives of Mother Teresa Sisters

Camera joyfully in-hand

When I traveled to Vietnam in 2009, the country's beauty simply stunned me. I shot multiple rolls of film with my trusty old SLR only to discover when I developed them that I'd had a setting off and my images were ruined. I played around with Photoshop and managed to salvage one of my favorite photos of a bike, at least in…Read more Camera joyfully in-hand

Art collaborations with kids

Life is so very, very good. For of those of you who bore with me through my last couple of posts - thank you. This has certainly been a season of heart-searching and healing from the loss of my dad. An event I will never "recover" from, but also a journey of great beauty for me…Read more Art collaborations with kids

Where true joy can be found

I know a place where unhindered joy pulsates. But you won’t believe it when I first take you there. Perched on the edge of desolation, humble and inconspicuous, a gray cement block building crouches behind ramshackle shops. Barefoot children play on a pile of rubble, and rusty-corrugated-roof shacks lean on either side. Before we go…Read more Where true joy can be found