I arrived safely last night after a really long travel plan. Was overnighted in Philly, Dulles and almost Addis Ababa, but after an half hour of three big black men yelling foreign questions in my face, I somehow ended-up with a hand written boarding pass and the last seat on a flight (which found me next to an African woman dressed in full garb with piercings out of every hole to be seen).

Waited at the Entebbe airport for three hours before my driver, Abdula, arrived. I told him this is kinda like "fashionably late" in America. From there we made a three-hour trek through trafficed streets of Kampala to our eventual landing point in Jinja. Last night I couldn't see this, but the city is bordered by Lake Victoria and happens to be at the point where the Nile begins and heads north to Egypt. It's HOT here and although well populated (second largest city in Uganda), still very primitive. I've not seen the class differences, or horrific ghetto-like areas like in Soweto or Capetown, but it's almost as if the city as a whole (and the route from Entebbe to here at least) lives in a less severe, maybe, form of poverty--but deep poverty nonetheless.

The volunteer quarters I'm staying in are in many ways what I predicted, and in many ways not. There are about fifteen of us there now, who sleep in an open room on cots (decorated by mosquito nets) and share a cold-water shower and bathroom. For an introvert who enjoys alone time, this will surely lend me some lessons...people seem to come and go as they please though and really respect one another's space. Sometimes we'll eat dinner together, but for the most part, we're on our own for breakfast and dinner and eat traditional Uganda meals for lunch at the orphange. My schedule will include 8-5pm shifts (with the premies :)) on MWSat and TThur mornings I'll spend 1 on 1 time with a toddler (taking them to town for a meal, walk, play games, etc.). Fridays and Sundays I'll have off, and the afternoons and evenings are at my disposal.

At this point at least, I can't imagine a more fitted schedule for where I am with myself and the Lord right now. With loads to process and further work into from the last year, in particular, unchallenged hours of prayer, journaling and strolling the steets of Jinja are again, more than I could've asked for or expected. And to be allowed to do so on the fringes of caring for orphaned babies somehow puts icing on an already matchless dream.

Internet access is available, but really, really slow. Responding on this site might be your best bet, but I still can't promise repsonses. I will update it often though and know that even if you don't hear back from me, your words are truly encouraging to my days and experiences here.

I pray that you are well, whereever you are today and look forward to talking soon. Thanks for joining into this summer with me. It clearly has a lot in store for us.

Love, abbie

It's been a really special day in Philly, celebrating my grandfather's life and the lasting legacy he leaves behind. We enjoyed a packed Quaker meeting this morning, which spilled into a really nice afternoon and evening with the family. The weather couldn't have been more stunning and truly, the only missing piece was the celebrated one, himself.

My sister and brother-in-law will take me to airport in a few hours for a 6am flight to D.C. From there I'll make a 20ish hour trek to Ethiopia, and then a final five or so to Entebbe, Uganda. Not terribly psyched about this air-time, but "a process is required," so I'm slowly learning, "in order to reach a true destination."

I'll be in touch when I'm able.
Blessings to you,
abbie

Dear Friends,

I hope this email finds you well.

Wanted to pass-along my whereabouts and warn you of a lacking correspondence through August. Freshman year of grad-school is complete and I’m grateful to share that my summer will be spent in Jinja, Uganda. The first week will be sporadic in location and service, but my remaining time will be at Amani Baby Cottage (www.amanibabycottage.org), which houses orphaned and HIV/AIDS infants. Days will take part in mundane and massive roles like sweeping floors, changing diapers and holding babies—a dream and honor that exceeds words.

Time online will be sparse, but I’ll update the journal at www.keepingyourfaith.com as often as possible. Snail mail will be an option, too (delivery ranges from 2-3 weeks):

Amani Baby Cottage
Att: Abbie Smith
P.O. Box 1799
Jinja, Uganda

May the Rest of God go boldly before your summer.
With Love,
abbie

I didn’t cry much as a kid. One memory that stands out though, was New Year’s Eve, 1989. I was traveling with my family, lodging at a Day’s Inn somewhere between Charlotte and D.C. Approaching midnight, my young senses were tiring, yet a fresh determinacy latched to my eyelids. “The end” was growing close and I was growing more and more desperate to be with it—to be with 1989. It seemed the end of an era to my eight-year-old mind, and I was crushed. Devastated. How could it leave!? How could it depart so quickly and never come back!? Was it really never coming back!? I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t want to deal with it. I was mad at the year. Angry that it would enter my life so richly and yet hold the audacity to depart. Tears poured as the television dropped the Times square ball. I simultaneously made every effort to “save the year” by scooping its last breaths into a salad dressing bottle. 1989 was gone. Death had confronted me.

And it did so again last night.

After 89 incredible years (I didn’t put that number connection together until now), my grandfather died. It wasn’t a painful death, or an unexpected one, but it has been painful and unexpected, because it was death.

I went for a walk after I found out. I was at a friend's house, who lives on a street that somehow never ceases to catch my emotions off-guard. Massive trees shade it by day, while night decorates it with hints of moonlight, painting an exceptionally magical glow. Daylight was still at hand though, as I departed in search of some cognition of the dangling news. As the road neared its end, I turned left down a side street, intrigued by its backdrop of the day’s setting sun. Memories of my grandfather were flowing at this point, with strands of life’s questions sparking like fireworks. Red roses flirted with emerald grasses and blue-hued birds painted the landscape. I felt stunned. Awed. Challenged by life and death. And channeled toward some essence of greater Life and Governance over death. I couldn’t help but recall the day before, too, when similar feelings engaged me at the ocean. Waves so protective and unending…yet so intimate and aggressive in their pursuit of my presence on the beach.

I settled on the curb to watch the remaining beams of sun dip into the horizon. David Gray’s lyrics of, ‘…life in slow motion…somehow it don’t seem real,’ reverberated in my mind. It was the longest sunset I’ve ever seen. Minutes felt like hours and if it weren’t for brisk air and friends I wanted to return to, I would’ve stayed for the remainder of the night. I was paralyzed by the moment—the moment entering sorrow and death, and off the same fence, entering satisfaction and life.

I feel a lot like I did that New Year's Eve. My tears are challening the reality of my Grandfather's passing, fighting so hard to make death un-die. I just want to be with him. I just want to be with his life. But I can't. His time on earth has passed. Like 1989, his year is finished. What I know now, however, that I didn’t know as an eight-year-old, is that 1989 would never fully leave me. Given memories and memorable shapings (and being stuck in a glass jar in my attic), the reality of that year's existence can't leave me.

When we let reality in, it scars us. When we let ourselves be real, and let something be real with our selves, we’re touched in a way that can never fully leave. Though death became a man named my grandfather last night, etchings of that man’s life will never be fully lost. To that end, I am grateful.

"Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling"...

One of the best books I've ever read.

A MUST for any teacher, parent, student, or person concerned with humanity.

Have you ever felt inconclusive? Unable to synthesize, or tie-up a thought? Here I stand. And mind you, I was never one of these people. Especially in writing, I’ve always been able to begin, body and conclude a work quite easily. Not anymore—in writing, or otherwise. The Lord has brought me to new frontiers, where bearings and clarity are yet to be told. So take the following two entries for what they’re worth—unfinished and undone in many ways, but believing, by faith, that Sight is coming.

***

Behind the Sunglasses and Script

Hope. A word overused, yet underrated. Four letters capable of taking a life, or letting one live.

I’ve never allowed myself to attach to hopes as I have this semester. In the same breath, however, I must say I’ve never gotten comfortable with the blind risk of such doing.

I’ve intentionally hoped in a lot of things lately. And doing so has forced me out-of-control, a haven I’ve rested in for far too long. But what do you do when your hope doesn’t respond? When your heart’s longing doesn’t pan out? I liked a boy. I hoped it would work out. It didn’t. I hoped my drug addict friend would find shelter, security and a Savior. To my knowledge, she hasn’t. I’ve hoped in various decisions, grades, mirrors and what felt like monologues with God lately, to no avail. I’m still waiting. Still “hoping” in the dark. Believing in a seen hopelessness. There may not be a more crazy phenomenon.

Hope never fails and yet hope never promises. It never ceases to exist, and yet never shoves its existence. It’s a choice. A surrender of sorts. To what though? To a desire …to an end…to God? Where is hope leading and where does it come from? And how much deference can a hoping heart take?

I’m writing this in a posh coffee shop in Beverly Hills (Peets, if you’re ever hoping for the best latte known to man). I don’t get to this part of town too often, but I always seem to learn a lot when I do. In a matter of minutes, I’ve been confounded again by the hurry, the hiddeness and the hurt exposed by this population. They’re no different than the rest of us, really, but seem that way due to exaggerated investments in sunglasses and sullen faces sealed with masks and masking agendas. Their hope in the next deal, or the next distraction, diet, or dream is just as deep as ours—just more glamorously displayed.

Everyone wants to look like they’re going somewhere. Like they have a purpose in walking through the door. Everyone hopes they’ll look the part—they’ll hide the fact that in actuality they’re a big act. They’re not the real deal. Everyone hopes they can keep the lie covered—the lie that they’re not the person people think—they’re not the put-together persona that people assume.

But what if people found that out?

What if people realized we weren’t what they thought? We weren’t what they hoped for? Could we stand it? Could they stand us?

To hope that no one ever sees ‘the real us’ is to hide from life. And to hide from life is to die.

Leaning into hopes and hoping into what feels like pure desire—and then seeing hopes and desires fade, or take-on rejection, hurts. And hurting feels bad. It needs help. It’s tired. It cannot do life alone. But as we mentioned above, no one wants to take-on such an existence, so we hide behind sunglasses and scripts. But what I’m starting to see is that hurting holds just as much Life as healing. Pain carries just the same weight as pleasure. Neither can ultimately exist without the other.

The death and resurrection of Jesus was one movement. They go hand-in-hand—one doesn’t work without the other. To die in Christ is to be born again. And to live in Christ is to continue dying. To continue hoping. Hope can wait, but it never fails. Hope can hurt, but it never dies.

Lord, help us keep hoping—help us keep believing Your end as the primary mover of every hoped for beginning.

The Lord has brought me on a journey of purging this year—purging through minutes and months of sought after pleasure that used to hold me—but now don’t. Used to keep me full, but now do quite the opposite.

Why would God do such a thing? Such a purgation?

Well, I can’t answer that question in full quite yet, and maybe won’t ever be able to on this side of heaven, but what I can say is this—the stripping that has taken place and that which is in process, or in denial, is right. It’s true, valid movement that I wouldn’t change for anything. That said, however, it’s been the hardest of my life. Not because I moved to California (surfing is fun), or fell into a community that ushers me toward knowness like never before. Such “externals” have been sweet. Internally though, by far, it’s been the most stretching of my life. But also the truest, deepest and maybe first in which I’ve actually lived “alive.”

Life to this point had been a series of experiences and exposures where I discovered a great love for loving people and a greater love for doing so in the name of God. Whether through relating, discipling, writing, serving, or performing, I learned to love and “let be loved” a “saved” Abbie. (In case that’s not as clear as it needs to be, I didn’t need Jesus to love or be loved…I had “been saved” and was thus attempting function out of that position). You can see then, that most of my love was out of, or into, a hiding space, a space of strengths and outward ability.

A lot of that has died this year. Some by choice and some by the grace of God’s stripping. I’ve died to a lot I thought I knew—knew about my self and the world and my self in the world. I’ve died to a lot of habits—habits I knew were bad and habits I thought were good. I’ve died a lot of prides, positions and presuppositions. And I still have a lot of dying to go—a lifetime, in fact. But the irony here—the Greatest irony of All, I think—is that in choosing these deaths, I’ve started to live. By Grace’s allowance encouraging me to die, I’ve actually started to live. To truly be with people—to behold the weights of friendship. To truly be and be alone—in its wholeness and its state of sorrow. Only a Divine Spirit can shadow these risky landings. Only a Savior can hold them. I need the saving grace of Jesus if I’m going to live today. No longer do I spend days medicating with gifts and identities done with excusing masks that’s it’s, “for the glory of God.” Rather, in learning to cry-out for a Savior, I’ve been able to be weak—to embrace my given nature of weakness and need. To laugh. To cry. To be scared, to be hurt and to be helped.

Don’t let me get off this easily though—the last month, in particular, has found me running back to old ways of coping—old wavelengths that separated me from my self and others. I will go to a lot of extremes to avoid the Truth. To avoid being known, loved, liked, or seen. I will empty my life for another, in order to avoid letting another see my emptiness. My imperfection. My confliction. My desperation. But what I cannot negate is that I have tasted truth this year. I have tasted enough of a freedom in weakness—a peace in surrender, that I at least know it’s ‘there.’ It’s willing, if I let It.

The choice, then, remains one of my will.
Am I willing to choose God, when He cannot be felt?
To choose Him, when His ways are yet to be seen, or certainly understood?
Am I willing to trust God?

LORD, moving into these final weeks of school, help us be mindful of Your perspective.

***

"The Faith to Persevere"
Oswald Chambers: My Utmost to His Highest (May 8th)

Because you have kept My command to persevere...—Revelation 3:10

Perseverance means more than endurance— more than simply holding on until the end. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, "I can’t take any more." Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God’s hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).

Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life— throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.

God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him. There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet— places still untouched by the life of God. There were none of those places in Jesus Christ’s life, and there are to be none in ours. Jesus prayed, "This is eternal life, that they may know You..." (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.

i’m wondering this morning, Lord. Wondering where You are? Who You are? And what, in fact, it means that YOU ARE (by way of participl’ing “I AM”). I’m wondering what it would mean to “be with” You. To be with I AM. To engage with YOU ARE. Can I? Should I? Are you worth the risk? Am I worth the right?

“I will come and heal You. But truly, truly I say to you, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

born…but I was born—am born—what does it look like to be born again?

“In order to be born, you must be willing to die. To let go. To go back. In order to be born, you must be willing to leave what you see. To loose what you understand as living. To lose control. To lose power. Leadership. Destiny. Destination. Security. Entitlement. Balance. Structure. Safety. Solidarity. In order to be born, you must be willing to Trust—to take assurance in things hoped for, and surrender to that which you cannot see. To that which is Me.”

but who are you?

I AM.
Keep faithing. I AM coming. That is what I do.

what does that look like? how do I live?

“When you lose the world, you gain the Truth. When you let go of the seen, you see the unseen. You see that I am here. You see that I am He. You see.
You find what you were made for. You learn what you are worth.
Become like a child. Let me raise you. I have food to eat that you could not conceive. I have roads for your life that astonish your deepest dream.
I want to lead you. I want to let you. I want to Father your heart.
I wonder if you will let Me?
I wonder.”

***

“When the woman saw that she had not escaped his notice, she came trembling and fell down before Him, and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”