chiclets.

Periodic Uganda Update: This is the first of hopefully many reassuring and heart-warming follow-ups from this summer. But I am so excited/proud to announce that the chicks arrived to Rose & Paul's finally...November 18th to be exact. I just received this message from Paul:

Hey-Lauren,
   Am so happy to inform you that we received the chicks on 18/11/2010, but Unfortunately, due to he long Journey from Kampala to Buwala,we lost two chicks on arrival at the site.
So we thank you very much to gather with the team of Help-international for the great work you are doing to help this orphanage, we really appreciate so much and we hope for better results in the future.
GOD bless you!.

lovely,

PAUL and ROSE.

This is a promising step toward sustainability and true self-reliance. When we left this summer, the project wasn't technically "done." We placed the order for the chicks, but orders take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months to fill. Even with every detail carefully planned, there is always the chance that something, or someone, could go wrong. There were a lot of somethings and someones we had to depend on to ensure this project sailed smoothly into sustainability, so we've had our fingers crossed for weeks. We left money to pay for the chicks behind with a dear friend, Godfrey, from the Youth Outreach Mission. He worked with us to build the coop and developed a relationship with Paul and the kids. He agreed to help with the finances of finishing our commitments to the process, and provided a healthy "check and balance" to the contract. He emailed me a few weeks ago to update me that things were on track. Paul has emailed as well with periodic updates and to express gratitude and excitement. I have not been worried per se, but just anxious to see them make this significant step toward getting this chicken coop well underway!

Now that they have the chicks, they still have a long way to go. The brooding process is temperamental and they will have to carefully monitor the chicks until they are ready to lay eggs, and then carefully budget their income so that they can increase their brood, another critical step to ensure sustainability and financial growth. But each step they take in fulfillment of the plan we created together, which they committed to, is a step they take toward lifting themselves out of poverty and dependency. I firmly believe that they have every ability to be completely self-reliant, and as they work though this process, they begin to see that too, and that is the only thing of real value we helped give them. It's even better than the old "teach a man to fish" concept. These people already know how to fish, raise chickens, grow corn, etc. They do it better than we do in many cases. It's unlocking the mentality that these skills, their skills are the very keys to their own success. It's shifting perceptions away from the mentality that someone else knows how to do any given thing better than they can. With some planning, organization, sacrifice and hard work, they can be the means to their own success. We expedited the process a little, but ultimately, this was Paul's dream and he, along with some good friends and really cute kids, will be the one to make it come true.

Something to be thankful for. And on that note, now I'm legitimately hungry for fresh farm eggs.

where to start

So many good things to share.  First off, this is a little old, but it needs to get posted. My friend Steven Squire (an aspiring film/design student at UVU) helped get our team video all together for the HELP International reunion a couple of weeks ago. He probably didn't know what he was getting himself into when he agreed to help, but I am forever grateful to him for putting together this: our team video that does about as good a job as can be done capturing our experience. For anyone who has asked about my summer and hasn't had the time to hear me really tell you about it, this is about as good as it gets. Take a few minutes and watch the video. And thanks again Steven.

Next, the documentary for the Eye Camp we did in Uganda finished up as well! So many beautiful cinematic reminders of the summer, but this one in particular is incredible. A couple of BYU film students did an amazing job of capturing Eye Camp...and you can view a clip of their documentary or watch the full thing here.

It's impossible to even think about Eye Camp without thinking of Tipping Bucket. Tipping Bucket is an organization that helps connect people who want to give with really amazing and worthy projects, like Eye Camp. They helped us raise $3000 without which we wouldn't have been able to restore sight to more than 200 people, and literally change the lives of everyone involved, including my volunteers. Tipping Bucket won the BYU Social Venture competition in 2009 and is a fresh approach to fund-raising and non-profits in general. They use social media, fresh branding and grassroots communications to connect anyone who wants to give with projects worth giving to. They embody the mindset that a drop in the bucket does indeed make a difference, and that anyone with a dollar to spare and a desire to give can in fact change the world.

So where is all of this going you ask? Well here is the beauty of this whole story and life in general. (Another silver lining). Jackie Skinner (my old roommate) connected me with HELP International who hired me to go to Africa this summer, and it changed my life. My experience there was empowered and enhanced by Tipping Bucket, who helped me and our team raise money to successfully restore sight to people in Uganda. SaraJoy Pond who founded Tipping Bucket actually moved into my old neighborhood in Provo while I was gone and has been working tirelessly to bring the Tipping Bucket platform and vision to anyone who wants to be involved. SaraJoy hired my good friend Moroni to lead Tipping Bucket's marketing efforts. Moroni invited me to brunch the other day to help with an effort to raise $250k for Tipping Bucket through the PepsiRefresh contest so they can continue to fund projects, like mine, and change even more lives.

This is so simple and awesome. Pepsi took the money they would have spent on a Superbowl commercial and decided to give it away. Hundreds of good causes are competing for the money each month, and all you have to do is vote for the one you believe in. If you like what Tipping Bucket is doing (if you don't by now, I can go on...) then just text 104182 to PEPSI (73774) every day this month. If you have another minute to spare, go to Tipping Bucket's facebook page, Like it and vote there too. If you have ANOTHER minute, go to the PepsiRefresh site and vote there as well. That's it.

Last piece of good news, and another highlight of my life as of late. My dear friend Wilson, president and founder of The Youth Outreach Mission in Lugazi, Uganda, and one of our most loyal local volunteers for Eye Camp this summer was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints this last Sunday. My heart is still bursting with joy about this. This really warrants more than a paragraph, but very long story short, Wilson is truly one of the most inspiring individuals I've ever been privileged to meet. He founded TYOM to empower youth in Uganda to fight HIV/AIDS by living morally upright lives and giving back to their communities. He works night and day to serve his community, he attends a local university and he is 20 years old. Wilson is basically my hero. Over the past 3 years of HELP serving in Lugazi, LDS volunteers have apparently left a similar impression on Wilson, leading him to the missionaries, and eventually baptism. I'm so proud of Wilson, I'm in awe of the power that comes when people just live Christ-like lives, and I'm grateful that I could even know about this story, let alone experience it first hand.

The world is small and beautiful, karma is real, things always come full circle, most often in ways you could never have imagined, there are so many good people in this world, and truth and light will always win out.

peace & love ya'all.

*Oh yeah, and text 104182 to PEPSI (73774)

just a little treat.

And not the kind you have to don a costume and go a knockin' to receive. Surprisingly, this video from Feist, and not the haunted house that overtook my office at work, pretty much made my day. I got to see Feist at Deer Valley a couple of years ago...sigh. She's amazing and manages to collaborate with the most talented and authentic musicians. This latest documentary, screening in select cities this fall (I won't hold my breath for SLC, but puhlease?) can also go on your Christmas list as it will be released Dec 7 in the US, just in time for a much needed break from all the yuletide carols. It will definitely be on mine, although I probably won't be able to wait to get it gifted.

Feist at Deer Valley circa 2008

happiest places on earth.

Both of them.

 Tomorrow I'm going to my cousin Brittany's wedding. I haven't been to San Diego since last summer and I can't wait to see her, my family and of course this beautiful temple. How could my weekend get better you ask?

 Because Saturday, I'm going here! To the Magic Kingdom. With the second sister. For the first time in like 10 years. I couldn't be more excited. Seriously. Best. Weekend. Ever.

all delightful people.

Nothing as good as waiting and anticipating and NOT being disappointed by it at all. Subject at hand: Age of Adz Sufjan Stevens first song-based album in five years. FIVE YEARS. I've been listening to Come on Feel and Seven Swans and Michigan over and over and over and though I don't ever get tired of it, let's just say that I've been more than a little excited for this for some time now. Kind of like how I was excited for frozen yogurt all summer (also never disappointing). Let's just say, even if you've never had the pleasure of listening to Sufjan Stevens, and thus anticipating the next time he'll grace us with his musical odysseys, you should still get excited and go listen to this. Now.

And here's the figurative little cherry on top. I get to see him. Live. Here. In SLC. At Kingsbury Hall. On November 1st. For the bff's birthday. Cue groupie shrieking now.

With a name like Sufjan, what's left to say? Just go listen.

make yourself.

Not the Incubus song. Although that brings back a lot of memories...Lately (let's be honest, always) I've been thinking a lot about the all-important question: What am I going to do with my life? This is really not one question at all, but a series of questions...Where will I work next? Where will I go to grad school? Will I go to grad school? Who will I marry? Will I get married? And as potentially depressing as never finding answers to these magnitudinous questions may seem, spending precious time dwelling on these questions ranks in at slightly less fulfilling than spending a night in, alone, with a pet cat and Magic 8 Ball.

What has always struck me as puzzling about this all-consuming question is that it infers that at some point I will reach an arbitrary place at which I will start doing this thing that I have not until that point actually been doing: living my life. Kind of like when I was in college and no one ever asked me about how school was going until after they had received a disappointing answer to the real question, "So are you dating someone?"

I suppose there are some people who are lucky and know what they want to do at the forefront. Up until now, I thought I needed to spend time figuring it out and that the only way I could do that is to find myself. How can I know what I want to do if I don't know who I am? Which begs the question, how can I know who I am if I don't do something?

I found this the other day. The concept isn't new, even to me, and maybe it's just the punchy type font, but this really resonated with me in the profoundest of ways. Enough to write it down, and definitely enough to share.

*Not unknown at all...George Bernard Shaw

Life is happening every second, and every second we have a new opportunity to choose how we spend our time, and who we spend it with. Whether or not we do it consciously, we are in fact deciding what to do with our lives every single second. The more time we spend worrying about how the sum total of our decisions is going to pan out in the scheme of things, and worse, how it will be perceived by others, the more we risk missing millions of chances to live the kind of life everyone else is trying to find.

And if you still find yourself struggling to re-frame your frame of mind, just look back and look at all of the things you've done. Chances are, they're amazing. Give yourself a hug, and move forward. Life is good and the future is bright.

THE facebook movie.

Among other things (like watching General Conference, which was glorious) I saw the new movie The Social Network this weekend. Although my hopes were admittedly high, I was fully expecting it to be more than a little hyped up. To my pleasant surprise, it far surpassed my ambiguous expectations-I was excited to see it, but I had no idea why. While watching it I got this surreal feeling like, this is one of those things that changes everything, and it happened/is happening in my lifetime, and I'm watching it on-screen. Weird.

And then I felt kind of sad. The movie has a distinctly heavy tone. Mark Zuckerburg's character never really captured my sympathies, and billions of dollars later, he's left relatively friendless at the top of a company that thrives on social networking. Ironic. And then I thought about how many other relationships have taken a turn for the worst because of sites like Fbook. If left to my druthers I would have spiraled into a deep funk of thought for the rest of the night. Luckily I was with good friends, and a bowl full of Japanese tart yogurt later I had sufficiently snapped out of my social networking quandary.

I think the key, as always, is balance. And of course, using technology to enhance life and all of its elements, relationships first and foremost, and not to replace them. A significant portion of my new job requires me to get cozy with social media, which I spent the first part of my post-college life trying to tiptoe around. I didn't want to network socially online and I sure didn't want to have to tweet about it. Well, just this last Friday, I made my first little twittering, albeit anonymously via my company's profile. It was strangely exciting. It motivated me to create my own profile, which I did, and when I got to the part where it was time to send my first tweet into the atmosphere, for maybe the first time in my life, I had absolutely nothing to say! "Here I am world" or "Hey guys, sorry I'm late" were my best ideas. I guess I don't do well under pressure. Still waiting for something to come to me. I hope I'm not twitter-blocked for long...Stay tuned.

But to my original point, whatever it was, I guess what I'm trying to say is that in spite of heavy and potentially depressing themes, I really enjoyed the movie. It made me think about stuff, ironic and socially relevant stuff. And, I maybe find the lead actor strangely attractive. And, as motivating as that movie SHOULD be-I mean the sheer marvel of what one person can accomplish with only a 1600 SAT and Harvard education OR the amount of money said students can make by suing each other, is simply awe-inspiring (insert winky face here). Probably the most thought-provoking take-home is best summed up in a little tweeting by none other than Jimmy Fallon:

"It's about what one person can achieve, when they're not distracted by Facebook."

Jimmy, touche'.