Friday, September 3, 2010

Pictures of the well in Marale!

This has been a while in coming, but here are the pictures of the newly completed water system in Marale! It almost brings me to tears to think of what God has chosen to do through us. All of you, Matt, Morgan and Myself. I have been truly blessed to be a part of this...

Sorry for the different sized pictures, we had a few technical difficulties.




























































































Thursday, September 2, 2010

Coming Home: Matt's Final Thoughts and Announcement

For a few days I was downright embarrassed about coming home. I was embarrassed to be home. I was dis-eased, to say the least.





Before we left I let the lease on my apartment in Huntington, Indiana run out. I wasn't dying to stick around after college. I was also pretty sure that I was going to attend Oxford University's Master's Program of Sociology (a fact that I think greatly surprised my professors...I'm not sure if that speaks to their impressions of my intelligence or to the rarity of getting into a place like that). So anyway, I left without occupying a place to live in the United States.





A few days before the ride ended, I learned that funding was not going to be provided for school like I thought it was. That's never good news.



(I guess it was one of those times that comes standard with being human when you've got things all figured out and then all-of-a-sudden everything goes away and you're left with nothing.)



Being home was embarrassing. Instead of being the one who graduated from college and then went on to pursue significant things that were already set up as the next step toward a successful career, happy marriage, and long and fulfilled life (etc); I wasn't going to do anything. I wasn't going to get more smarter :), or get to meet a lot of famous world leaders (turns out that Desmond Tutu is a visiting lecturer at the college I was going to go to at Oxford this year), or do anything at all anytime soon. After coming from such high plans, from such a worthy journey, that takes a few days to recover from.



It wasn't until the first week had passed that I was able to settle down.



I went, somewhat reluctantly, with my mother to the farmers market one afternoon. Wednesday, I think it was. There were a lot of people who didn't look like you'd expected them to after reading about them from educated, affluent writers in The Atlantic. I think maybe they just get their food from the 'elite' farmers' markets. (I don't care who you are, $3.90 for a peach is always insane; compare to $1.00 for Swiss Cake Rolls).



A guy with an old Brett Favre Jersey kept making my mom laugh with his low, mumbling voice and somewhat off-the-wall comments. At one point he made my mother jump back, raise her voice, and say "No! I definitely do not want to try that plum!" I haven't seen my mom do that in years. She really likes going to his stand. Mostly for experiences like that.

Spending more time with my mother I noticed that her lifestyle has become quite trendy in many circles. She buys her food fresh, in season, and local. She makes a lot of her own things. She's healthy. She's made, makes, or is capable of making her own clothes, curtains, quilts, and just about anything else one needs that has a cloth base. She reads often, and is well read, yet asserts her intelligence upon others only when asked. And when creating any kind of a mood for a home, or someone she's in conversation with, it's always peace.

So I quickly remembered the lesson that riding through green forests beside a river in any mountain range, deer playing in the forest not 100 yards into the forest: this is a moment of life, treat it no differently than the rest of the moments.

I've never been a big fan of the idea that one should "live like they were dying." It seems like if I really did that I would quickly fall on much worse times, as I would not only fail to plan for tomorrow, but I would do things that would probably have negative consequences tomorrow, as I invariably wouldn't have to face them. I'd be dead. I think maybe what the writer of that song was trying to express is this: savor every moment of this life instead of rushing them all along because you're too worried about the future.

And so I'll savor the time with my family. I'll savor the time meeting people at my dad's new church. I'll put mental emphasis on the people around me, instead of the fact that I don't have much to do and the embarrassment that comes with that. I'll enjoy getting to pick on my sister Amy when she doesn't want to do what the rest of the family is doing. I'll enjoy shopping and cooking with Karen. I'll enjoy playing basketball with my dad on Tuesdays. I'll learn from both of my parents via observation. And I'll enjoy spending long evenings talking to them about nothing in particular. I'll enjoy taking care of Andy when he wrecks his bike and tears his face to shreds, just because he's alive. I'll enjoy changing the community and learning from our my parents' neighbor. And I'll enjoy being in eastern penn. It's a beautiful place. Because soon I won't have the luxury of being around these people. I'll have moved on to the next thing, and if I don't cherish this time right now, with these people around me, I won't get another chance to do that with these people again. Not ever again. And so I think I've taken a few small steps toward understanding connection.