May Stories
Listed below are the top stories from the month of may and the artwork they inspired.
Carnitas is Hope
by: Elizabeth K Kalama
San Diego
Posted: 5.10.2008
Last summer I had the honor and privilege of traveling to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and it was there that I a married couple who embodied hope. Simon Pierre, the pastor of a church in Kigali, Rwanda, and his wife Carnitas are a symbols of the life-giving regenerative powers of hope in a seemingly hopeless society.
Rwanda suffered from an brutal civil war that crippled the country and the conflict was between the Hutu's and the Tutsi's and this war has been know for its extreme brutality and efficiency in executing masses of people in a short period of time. Simon Pierre is a Hutu and his wife, Carnitas, is a Tutsi, so there marriage alone is a symbol of hope and reconciliation, however, during the war, Hutu's were murdering Tutsi's and Carnitas was caught one day by the Hutu extremists and forced to strip and was held at gun point. But just before the rebels could kill her, someone called the rebels and somehow some stranger paid for her life, bribing the rebels and so they let her go. Now years after the war, Carnitas and Simon were walking through Kigali, one of the hardest hit regions during the genocide which is evidenced by the sheer number of orphans living in the city, and they saw the man who held Carnitas at gun point. And Carnitas went up to him and said she loved him and forgave him, the man was afraid for his life so he fled. A year later Carnitas learned that that same man was sick in the hospital and she went and visited him everyday. Carnitas embodied hope, and true hope calls for action and everyday she lives this out. And through her actions she is changing her world and making it a beautiful place.
LIZ'S STORY INSPIRED THIS T-SHIRT GRAPHIC
What Is Hope?
by: James Braxton Powell
Oneonta, AL
Posted: 5.23.2008
I had arrived home from India only 3 days ago... I went with about 12 other friends as we journeyed to learn and share compassion with the people in Patna Bihar. I have traveled to several countries and lived in Ecuador for about a year. So, nothing was really catching me "off guard", not the poverity, the cast system, or other social injustices around me. See I had seen these things before... While I loved on the kids and we taught them about making better decisions I remained emotioanlly "safe". Then it happened! We were taking a "tourist" day and we were going to visit a place one of my heroes had impacted India... Mother Teresa's Orphanage. A statue stood outside and a memorial area inside. What a nice day...right? Until I entered where the children were... My heart was ripped out! Here lay almost13 babies. Some blind, deaf or crippled. As I watched our team love and care for each of the babies I was in a confused state of emotions! Where is the HOPE?
That's when I began realizing... Hope was in the warm embrace. Hope was the man saving one of the little girls from a pack of wild dogs (they had already taken one of her arms). Hope, Hope my friends is a gift. We all have Hope. It's not a feeling or an emotion. Because when Hope is that it is only selfish. I began to hug and play with the children and older patients... See something weird happened that day. I thought I was giving them Hope even though I knew I couldn't change their surroundings. Though they changed none of my surroundings, in the middle of them they changed my heart... They gave me... HOPE. Hope is a gift... what will it cost us? Will we give Hope?
JAME'S STORY INSPIRED THIS T-SHIRT GRAPHIC
There's Still Hope For Me...
by: Dave Hansow
Montrose, CO
Posted: 5.19.2008
My wife and I since we were in high school spoke of..jokingly of course..of adopting from Africa. Well, we got married pretty early by almost any standard, at 20 years old, finished school and had a son a few years later. A year passed and that funny little joke of adopting came up, but this time not as a joke. We began the process of adopting from Uganda (partially as a response to watching and helping Invisible Children)... no easy task! So this past year after working toward the adoption for over a year we decided that we should just move there! Again, crazy by almost any standard but we packed up, cleared up things at home and moved to Uganda.
While there, we did finalize our adoption of a beautiful girl named Jadyn. Also while we were there we met this group of women, Acholi's and most widows who made jewelry. So again, in our crazy fashion, after listening to needs and falling in love with this group of about 70 women, we decided that we were going to offer a consistent income to these women, of course..not having any idea what this would entail. Long story short, we are doing it.. today, a year later we have consistently offered a consistent income for the past year as well as telling their story in the states. ( You can see what this has become at www.lightgivesheat.org)
And there is where I saw HOPE! I went to Africa thinking there was Hope for Africa..and maybe somehow I was going to help bring some of that. Ha! Little did I know that everyone I met; widows raising 8 kids on their own, orphans living in orphanages without an end in sight and husbands without jobs for years all lived with more hope than I had ever dreamed of. I began to see that maybe hope looked a lot different than I had thought. That maybe instead of dreaming of hope for Africa, maybe Africa needed to teach me what hope looked like and that there was still hope for ME. And lastly that regardless of situation, HOPE is always a choice!
DAVE'S STORY INSPIRED THIS T-SHIRT GRAPHIC
