Tuesday, April 3, 2007

"Omnium rerum principia parva sunt."

"Omnium rerum principia parva sunt." - Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

Translation: "The beginnings of all things are small."

Now, I haven't used my Latin since Jr. year of high school but I think the translation is correct. However, even if it 's not the sentiment remains the same. Beginnings are deceptively small. I thought about that as I was reviewing my pictures from the World Harvest retreat. Every picture I took appeared insignificant to me. That is, until I remembered that they document my beginning. This is me before I live in a strange land; this is how I see the world; this is my small, humble beginning. The picture above is this beginning. I, and the girls who drove to NC with me, stopped at this rest stop for 5 minutes on our way down south. As we stood outside of my car stretching our limbs and eating our snacks we looked at each other and began to chuckle as we all realized at once that this was our beginning, an Exxon+Burger King road stop off of I81. What a small beginning for a time of service that is likely to color our thoughts and actions for the rest of our lives. I'd say it is ironic but I guess I never really expected it to be any different.

PS - I changed the settings so that anyone can comment on any posts even if they're not a "registered user." Let me know if you try to comment and have trouble.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

intro and interns

Dearest friends and family, I decided that the easiest way to keep you all informed and up-to-date on my trip to Uganda was to keep a blog before, and during my sojourn. I will try to post as often as I can while I am actually in Uganda but that may only be about once a week as I am not sure how often I will have access to a computer. This initial post is just to test out this whole blog thing and see how it works - I've never done this before.
The picture is of all the World Harvest Mission interns that are going all over the world this summer. Only three of them - Lindsay Liles, Carrie Coley, and Cassie Lundquist - will be joining me in Fort Portal. We just had an intern retreat in King, NC last weekend. It was great to get to meet everyone, especially the three girls I'll be living with. I was very encouraged by their genuine spirits. I believe I will learn so much, even more than I can imagine right now, from them and the experiences we will share in Uganda.