Blind to the Beautiful

Happy new Year everyone!

Here's to wishing you a Happy and amazing 2012. I have a feeling there's going to be something awesome about this year- maybe it's the end of the world, maybe not- but either way, it's started off quit busy.

I just got back from spending quit a bit of time in the field. I kind of have this love/hate relationship with the field. I love it- but I don't like the process of getting to there. It's mostly bad roads long hours- and not exactly conducive if you're a girl and have to go to the bathroom. So, before we left there was just so much going on, causing us to leave late. So, here we are on this 7 hour drive to the middle of no-where.


We get there and I'm a bit motion-sick. But I saw mountains for the first time in Somaliland. Like somewhat proper mountains!

Ok. It might not look like much, but it was really beautiful and cool! I even had to use my little zip up hoodie- which is a great feeling- so different from the typical day of sweating so much. So we sleep and wake up the next morning to do an assessment while the nutrition team did a distribution.

One of the elders was showing me around and said- oh, well, the other wells that we go to are way over there- by that mountain. But it's so far. And I said, "oh, well. can the car go there?" and they responded, "no. there's no road". "Oh." I replied. "I guess that means we walk!". So we started walking. After the typical cordial chat, it was pretty silent. All I could hear was our feet hitting the dirt as we continued to walk. My focus on the lack of sounds was interrupted by the elder saying "you walk fast!".

I see all the things that I need to see and we start walking back. My thoughts drift back to days in Liberia when we walked like 18 hours to do assessments in such a rural community. That was the first time in my life I thought that my feet were bleeding from walking so much. And I remembered that walk. And I remembered Johnny- one of our WASH guys- singing "I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart, I will enter His courts with Praise. I will say this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice for He has made me glad." I think because of that trip- that song remains one of my favourites today. As we walked back, I started humming that tune as a smile came across my face of good memories.

I stayed awhile, and took some tea. I really like this place. I still do. I came back and found this quote that I had written on an index card a while ago from a church I went to when living in California....." We can learn to appreciate anything- good or bad. We can be trained to appreciate the mundane and to be blind to the beautiful". (Erwin M). I took that card and put it up on my wall.

Of all the things I've seen, do I forget to look for the beautiful? Do I literally see glimpses of beauty everyday and have just become blind to it? I looked back through the pictures I took during the field trip, of so many berkads and wells and there was one i took of this little boy. We were playing hide and seek. (well, the guards tend to not let children or anyone else, for that matter, close to me so we did the best we could). So I took this picture when he wasn't looking:

This child, is one definition of all that is beautiful.

So, as another year begins, may we all be aware of the beauty around us. Whether that beauty is in the cold, the rain, or even the desert....May we appreciate the good. Even if the good we do may be forgotten. May we train ourselves this year to find beauty all around us....because maybe....the beauty's been there all along.


Until next time,
Patty