Simple Truths

There are so many things going through my head right now i am having a hard time even moving my fingers across the keyboard without being distracted. Thus i write...free-flowing writing, as not to impress anyone, or to get a grade, but for mere thought organization and for the faithful few readers to understand what has been going through my head and heart.

Today i had my internship at World Vision. I am working with the Acting on AIDS department where i am supposed to have the energy, passion and excitement to want to help people across the world affected by HIV/AIDS, poverty, hunger. I have learned a lot in my internship, but to be honest i think I've learned more about what I don't want to do, rather than what i want to do with my life. Who would have thought World Vision is 1200 people in a building with white walls and grey cubicles? Every single person in that building does something that makes this NGO work that is helping to save 1000's of people in hundreds of countries. Not to discount World Vision at all, but I have realized that i am more of a "hands on" type of person. Very few jobs at W.V. are field oriented, most of those jobs are done by Natives or by trained professionals with Ph.D's. Interesting. I want to be able to be creative, use my hands, feed a single belly, or provide a language or skill or smile to someone directly. It is difficult for me to sit at a computer and enter names of students who want to help people with AIDS. that means that i am at least 4 people removed from that actual situation. So, I am supposed to be passionate about this, and i think I am at a level, but I'm also supposed to care about poverty, genocide, malaria, homelessness, showing people love, human trafficking, fair trade...and the list goes on...not to mention school grades, job, friends, family, feeding myself and hygiene?? I feel as though I'm passionate about all of these things, but if i tried to care about all of them to the extent that maybe i should that i would run dry, and maybe wouldn't survive in this capitalistic society. Tonight i went to the newest movie by Invisible Children. after 4 or so years after the first movie, there are still children dying. On Christmas day this year, an entire community was killed by the rebel forces. 700 people...a massacre. Why aren't I doing something about this? Today 6000 children were orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. Why aren't I doing something about this? Today more than 2000 children died of malaria, a preventable disease from a mosquito! Why aren't i handing out nets right now?? Today thousands died from hunger?!? Thousands from lack of clean water?! Thousands are raped today. Hundreds, maybe even a thousand people are on the streets in Seattle tonight?! I know i can't possibly help all of these things by my own efforts. Maybe a good way to start would be to change my own lifestyle!? Sometimes i think it might be easier to go to the Indian slums and live amongst the untouchables with or without the clothes on my back than to try to change my lifestyle in the culture we life in. Interesting concept.

Graduation. Change, change, change. I don't handle change well. Let's be honest, I hate it during the transition, but always look back with thankfulness afterwards. The hardest thing I've ever done is move 100 miles from the town i grew up in (in my head i compare this to those suffering around the world from lack of clean water...but let's not go there). Come 8 weeks, I think i will go through a similar "change" experience as when i moved to Seattle. I will be leaving the 5 people i have lived with for the past four years of my life. I will be graduating from the college that I've attended. I will be finishing school, something I've known the past 18 years of my life. I will be leaving a place (theoretically/maybe literally?) that I have grown to love, that has brought me sorrow, but SO much growth in every single way possible (another blog possibly). The thing is, i don't fear change anymore. I don't like it, but i don't fear it. God has provided me with so much comfort, and assurance that he works things out in my life. One of my roommates recently said to me that "God has worked things out perfectly this far in your life Rachel, why don't you trust him that he will continue to work things out perfectly".... Come graduation, i think there is a lot of pressure to "figure out life". Our cultures perception of a "complete" person is to have a steady well-paid job, to have a family, a little house with a picket fence, a loving husband/wife, a social network, a nice car, a little black dress, and some spending money for that martini on the weekends. It is difficult to not get wrapped up in that. This week I had the great privilege of listening to JJ Heller in concert. She speaks truth through her lyrics. Simple truths. It is easy for me to get wrapped up in what I'm learning in school. How are sociology and theology related? can you have both? is there free will or do social systems make people the way they are? etc..etc...etc.... Simple Truths speak volumes. This song as been an encouragement to me this week.

"I don't need a thing, my Good Shepherd brings me all, You are all I need. You let me catch my breath, even in the valley of death, You are all I need. All I need, to be complete, is your love, your blood, it covers me. You lift up my head, you provide the wine and bread. You are all I need. There's no need to fear, even with my enemies here, You are all i need. All I need to be complete, is Your love, Your blood, covers me. Your goodness and mercy are following me, you are all that i need, you make a home for me, where pastures are green as far as i see, You are all I need." -JJ Heller