Written 10/4/10 �" It just took me a little while to get around to posting =).

 

I'm in my living room, cuddled up with my dogs, enjoying a rainy day.  Yep, I've been living in California long enough to love rain again.  After being raised in Portland, Oregon I never though this day would come. 

 

I'm tired today, it was a long, crazy weekend but now I'm the good kind of tired that only happens after spending your energy on something significant. 

 

A few months ago I wrote a blog titled “Dangerous Honesty,” about how I felt like everything in my life was at a stand still or had fallen apart.  I debated posting the blog for a long time.  It's healthy to keep some things locked away in my journal.  Finally I chose to error on the side of disclosure.  In my opinion it's not fair or truthful to only blog about ministry “successes,” if those even exist. 

 

After a slew of comments, e-mails and phone calls, I realized a lot of incredible people were there to support me and many of my friends were feeling similarly about their lives.  I also realized more people than I though still read my blog =).

 

 

 

A lot has changed in the last two months.  I've moved into a new position at work, one that gives me much more joy and uses more of my gifting.  I'm now junior high associate director, which means I work directly with the students.  This weekend we were on a camping trip in the mountains, which was beautiful.  I love how Brian Day our junior high pastor runs the ministry and I enjoy the students a lot.  They are crazy, inspiring bundles of energy with untapped ability and raw openness, all wrapped into the awkward shell of adolescence. 

 

 

 

Fill-A-Belly has been a roller coaster for the last few months and finally seems to be stabilizing.  In August we were officially accepted as a non-profit, which was super exciting.  Then while I was in Africa, Fill-A-Belly was asked to leave our Carlsbad location for “zoning violations.”  Despite that, we are still meeting in parks every week in both Carlsbad and Encinitas.  We had a promising meeting with a city official, and hopefully will be able to feed inside again soon.  One thing is for sure; a little adversity is not going to stop us from feeding the homeless in North County. 

 

In a way this change has forced me to take my hands off the wheel of F.A.B., and recognize God's ultimate control.   I've also realized personally how much Fill-A-Belly is worth fighting for.  It's not about the organization, or the food, it's about life changing relationships.  Check out this incredible video that Nick Abrams and Nubie Porter made about F.A.B., it reminded me again why we keep pressing on.

 

 

 

Overall I'm amazed by how well this year's trip went and much ministry God allowed us to do.  We were able to complete many Legacy Books for parents dying of A.I.D.S. and run Kidsgames sports ministry for the children.  The highlight of my time there was seeing Thulane and Eliza some of the kids I met in 2007.  I loved witnessing how their lives were different because of the work that has gone on in Nsoko. 

 

I'm super excited because Brandon Jones, one of the guys from our N.C.C.C. Swazi team is going back to Nsoko to do long term work.  Check out his blog http://web.me.com/hola2brando for updates on what is going on in the community. 

 

Our group got to do a Youme clothing exchange while in Swazi.  Youme gives children new clothing in exchange for their rags and then uses the old clothing to make new shirts, which raise money for the kids!

 

I also got to help out a little with an incredible documentary called Never Neverland some friends of mine are making which tells the story of what's going on today in Swaziland.  It was so much fun to be a little part of what they are doing.  Check out the trailer for their film, Never Neverland (www.nnlfilm.com)!

 

Thanks for being such a wonderful support!  As always I would love to hear about your life and what's going on with you!

 

In Christ,

 

Morgan

I'm 29 today and feeling the usual birthday blues. I'm not a big fan of my birthday in general, but at the same time I want people to notice and pay me special attention. It's an odd combo. I feel exposed admitting it.

I've been back from Africa for five days, and combining the birthday blues with post trip recovery has not made for my most emotionally stable week. Since getting back my time and attention has been spent putting out fires. Space to process Swaziland with the energy to do it is a luxury I haven't been afforded.

It's odd, there are two ways I can view today, I can see at it as the end of my 28^th year on earth or the beginning of my 29^th. I've been looking at my birthday as the end of something and it seems pretty bleak. To be dangerously honest I assumed I would be married long before now, and the way I imagined my life looking at this age is nowhere close to reality.

Everything that I've worked for or towards in the last year seems to have fallen apart or be over. This is an overly pessimistic and very simplified way of viewing things even though it feels right. But as my favorite college professor said, “Feelings are real, but they don't define reality.”

About three or four months ago I felt like God was saying that it was time to push on every door I could and see what opened. I was hopelessly optimistic, annoyingly cherry, and felt downright unstoppable.

I pushed...

and I got pushed back...

Here I am, 29, today, and I work a part time job with no room for career growth. I run a nonprofit that the city is trying to shut down, because what we do is messy. The interpersonal conflicts take the biggest toll, and sadly there is no stud on a white horse anywhere on the horizon.

Truthfully, right now I'm a little bit of a wreck. I can glance at the positive things, which make me appear good. My life on the Facebook feed looks amazing. Some days I buy into that life. Than there are the days like today, where the losses seem to overshadow the gains. It's not that the losses are more, they are just closer at the moment pushing anything positive out of my frame of reference. It's likely that tomorrow I'll be able to see life in better perspective but today will be a day to get through.

I can also look at today as the beginning of my 29^th year. The start of something new. So many things have been wiped clean. I've spent the last year clinging to good things which gave me a false sense of security and identity. Now those things are gone. I truly hope God is clearing the path for something greater.

About a month ago I went up to be prayed for at the end of church. The woman asked what I wanted prayer for but I kept quiet. My desire was to hear what God wished to say to me. During our time together she said, “The greatest adventure in your life is knowing God more.”

That's my hope for this last year in my twenties. I desire to get to know and fall more in love with God than I've ever been and with so much of my life wiped clean, I'm ready.

Things are more intense here, the expanse of sky is vast, the sun is stronger, the sunsets brighter and the stars seem closer. The truth of life in Nsoko is even more intense than the land. Every day our team holds malnourished children and we are wrecked by the reality of poverty. Bit by bit we sense more of God's plan for Nsoko and understand small part of His redemption in this community. This place has such strong need and dynamic beauty.

Today I was holding Sinetemba who was left orphaned after his mother Dudu died soon after our last trip to Swaziland. I asked his Aunt why he was so fussy and she said, “He is just hungry.” It's hard to hold a small inconsolable child with tiny arms and legs and know that he likely has had nothing to eat for quite some time. But it's good to know that there is food at the Care Point and that he will get to eat at least one meal today.

One thing that's set this trip apart from others is that I have been coming here long enough to see the holes people who have passed away from HIV/AIDS have left. During my last two trips I spent time visiting with and talking to Dudu and now she has died. Last year we all fell in love with Maswane's courage as she faced dying of AIDS at 19 years old because she was raped as a young girl. It's odd to drive by her hut and know that she is no longer there, but it's good to know that she is out of pain and with Jesus.

During one of our first days this trip while visiting a remote Care Point we ran into the mother and daughter of Nora one of the women we did a Legacy Book for. Our meeting last year immediately came rushing back into my mind. The team was about to leave, we were loaded up in the sprinter when a truck followed by a huge cloud of dust pulled quickly into the center. Two women, one holding a baby, jumped down out of the bed of the truck, turned back and lifted a very weak woman out. I was immediately reminded of the Gospel story where the friends of a paralyzed man lower him through the roof of a house to get him near Jesus.

I got out of the bus to investigate and found out that they had traveled far to see our group. It was obvious that Nora was in the last stages of HIV/AIDS, half of her face was infected and her lips had sores all over them. Our entire team decided that what we had planned for that moment wasn't nearly as important as being with Nora and her family, so we prayed for her and invited her to participate in Legacy Books that afternoon.

I was so excited when I saw Nora's mother and her twenty year old daughter at the Care Point a few days ago. As Paloma and I were talking with them she asked about the baby and they both pointed upwards then explained that the baby had died. My heart broke. We took a photo of four generations (shown above) of their family last year and now two of those generations have been destroyed. It's also very likely that Nora's daughter has HIV/AIDS since her baby died so young. In my mind I see the photos from last year and the photos from this year and the holes are hard to reconcile.

One of the best things that's happened this year was talking with a beautiful woman who we did a Legacy Book for last year (pictured on the left.) She brought her book out and proudly showed us her families photos. She also told us how much she valued the book and how grateful she was to have it for her children. It was beautiful to see the fruit of the Legacy Books Project. Getting the news that Nora's granddaughter had died was really hard, but I'm thankful that we got make a book with her story and take pictures for her family.