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It's currently November, Someday, in the year 2005. At 12:28 am.

I'm writing you from Addis, Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa.

I am currently 7 years in the past, but also hours 8 (from home) in the future. I am lost in translation. Laying on a small wooden sofa in the reception area of the guest
home. My only company are the dead cock roach I've killed & the sleeping receptionist on a small mat in the corner of the room.

My mind is racing. & my heart is heavy from all that I have seen today.

How can I possibly describe the indescribable. How can I make your ignorance comprehend. What can I do or say or shout or scream to make you take one moment away from your life to understand mine.... And more so to possibly care for the lives that mine has intersected.

I have seen the destruction of Disease. The wear and tear on mothers and their eventually orphaned children. I've seen weary eyes. Naked and famished. I've seen Hands and feet eaten away by leprosey. I have passed by a trash dump city, where many people receive their only food supply. I have seen hopeless eyes asking me to meet their very next need.

I have walked amongst the least of these...

My heart broke today. I felt it well up & literally burst in my chest. It came flooding out through an ocean of tears. As I felt helpless under the great weight of need. I can feel the groans of despair in gravel that is their very road.

How do I leave this place and return home to cooperate American Christmas? Coined by excess and extravagance. More more more.
Me me me.
How do I go back to my life and just live knowing this need is still running rampant.

As a photographer, I am struggling with trying to capture what I am seeing without potentially harming the people. How would I feel if I was laying naked in a street, starving....& someone walked up to me, photographed me. & walked away.

I feel that my purpose on earth is to make the least of these known. Known, in order to compel others to action. To make a difference and to be the change. But at the rate of preserving their only dignities, I have left many frames pass by, captured only in my memory...

This juxtaposition is tormenting me. & leaving me frustrated asking God what my true purpose is here.

Trust me. Within this great suffering is an even greater joy. It radiates from the smiling faces of those who have all of the world, yet in our eyes, would be seen as the lowliest. Yes they have no material wealth. Yes they are disease ridden. Yes they are weary and each heavy burdened....

But Jesus is their everything, because He is all they really have. It's easy for them to authentically love me when they first meet me, because of the overwhelming love they feel from Jesus. It's easy for them to talk to me because they are more focused on a relationship with me than my socio economic status or my career. It's easy for them to break into uninhibited worship because they have zero distractions in their way...

I envy the way they walk in freedom.

I am challenged by their endearing smiles that have greeted me each day. I am even more challenged by their faith. In that they shall truly inherit the earth...

To the one that has been given much, much will be required...

I am learning this tonight.


Love, me