Greetings...

I have been posting less frequently lately. Mainly this is due to poor internet access and various struggles associated with living in rural Namibia.

Not having internet access has pros and cons; with one of the major benefits being that it is helpful in getting over tech addictions! (Has anyone seen the “technology loop” on Portlandia?)

As my service slowly draws to an end, I have been reflecting on the experience, and some of my original reasons for joining. They are as follows:

- To serve

- To understand and experience poverty

- To have an “experience from the margins”

- To foster and develop solidarity with those in the developing world, those with whom we primary work with when engaging with human rights and international development work

- To experience living as a minority

- To inform and shape my work in international development and human rights

Today, I read the following quote in Forward Day by Day:

“It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking everything is scare when God’s abundance is everywhere. In times of real scarcity, love remains in abundance.”

I think back to my life in the U.S. and how often I would complain, or feel sorry for myself, or suffer from my own negative thinking. I am grateful for friends who would often remind me to think in terms of ABUNDANCE not SCARCITY. Here in Namibia, it is so different, the second part of the quote above really resonates here. As I said in a letter home, people here are smiling and open. They do not adopt a victim mentality even though many of them face a lack of material resources. There is material poverty and there is spiritual poverty. While many in the developing world enjoy material wealth, there is often a spiritual poverty that can be present. I am not trying to make blanket statements or to judge or categorize, but rather trying to share comments and observations about what is a complex reality, especially after having lived abroad for two years in a remote and impoverished Namibian village, and when comparing it to the wealth and abundance back in the U.S.

Finally, I wanted to include the following prayer from Alan Seale’s book, Intuitive Living:

The essence of God

Lives in me

The essence of God

Lives in all

Oh Great Spirit,

Prepare me and move through me

As I serve you among

Your people

Bless me and strengthen me

For the journey ahead

Give me sustenance –

All that I need.

And give me time –

Time to sit still and be and listen

So that You might

Create in this world

Through me.

Some photos are also included below…

The ones below of the boys and the wire vehicles are some boys at my school who made the cutest donkey carts out of wire! They are SO creative!