Simply Abundant

10 Days Later

2008-05-29T12:05:00.001-04:00

So here I am 10 days later without the words to really express what has happened since my last entry. I have been wanting to write for a while now but nothing I can ever think to write about really can adequately put to words the things I have seen and experienced since I have been on continent, a place that is so rich in a lot of ways, but also just so so poor. I have to write something...so here is my feeble attempt at an update.

The last time I wrote, we were stuck in Greece for an extra 12 hours. Looking back it feels like it has been so much longer than 10 days ago since we were in Athens. We ended up flying into Cairo at 3am and we had to catch an 11 pm flight to Nairobi, so we had 20 hours in Egypt to see everything and attempt to catch up on the 8 hours of sleep we had lost flying through the night. To make a really long story short, we ended up renting camels right before sunrise to go watch the sunrise from a place where you can see the whole city of Cairo and three of the pyramids all in one. This was incredible, definitely one of those experiences I will remember forever. After that I was able to go back to the hotel and sleep for the majority of the day and get to the airport before we missed our flight to Nairobi. It was pretty incredible being in Cairo, but it was kind of weird to think that we were technically already in Africa. Africa is such an vastly enormous continents, each country has such a different feel, and Egypt just feels so much like the middle east. When I stepped off the plane it really felt like we had touched down in Jerusalem or something. I guess I just never realized how much of a middle eastern influence there is there.

From Cairo we went straight on to Nairobi where we met up with some of Sandy's friends who she had met on a previous trip to Nairobi. A guy named Moses picked us up from the airport. Moses was so excited to hear that I am from northeast Ohio... because after talking a bit I found out that ironically, he has been to Medina in the past to partner with a youth pastor in th area. How on earth do I run into a guy half way across the world, who it just so happens has been my little hometown in Ohio? So crazy! Moses dropped us off at the house of a missionary lady named Vicky. Vicky was so generous to escort us around Nairobi where there and let us crash at her house for a while. As soon as we got there we started talking about Invisible Children and Vicky told me that she actually lives in the house where Jason, Bobby and Laren first stayed at in 2003 when they first came to Kenya, before they found out about norther Uganda. I had only been in Kenya for an hour and things just kept getting more and more out of control. The next couple of days were spent in Nairobi going around the city to check the orphanages where the camp will be held and getting details put together with the people there. We met with a number of missionaries in the area and we got the chance to visit with a pastor who runs a church right on the edge of the second largest slum in Nairobi, a place where 50,000 live in a valley, slammed together literally like sardines, each family living in a tiny tin-roof hut. A place where tiny children can be found making bootleg gin in the trash filled streams of the slums. The largest slum in Nairobi is a place that 100,000 people call home; it is also where the majority of the violence broke out in Kenya earlier this year. Words really can't describe the disparity that that exists here, a lot of times Nairobi feels like a somewhat westernized city; but it is just so hard to believe when your drive down the road, where on one side you see average homes where people with money live and on the other side you can see across and entire valley of slums, rusty tin huts one after another just stacked on top of each other.

When we left Nairobi we went on to Uganda, the place I have dreamed of visiting for so long now. When you fly into Entebe Airport in southern Uganda, it is such an incredible view. Coming in over Lake Victoria with lush grass and forests for as far as the eye can see. What an incredible welcoming as you fly in to Uganda... this place must truly be the Pearl of Africa. We were picked up at the airport by Robert, our driver who would be with us for the remainder of our time in Uganda. We got back to the hotel where we would be staying in Kampa for a few days before going up to Gulu. When we got to the hotel I remembered that I was supposed call my friends who happened to be in town. A group of roadies who came over with Invisible Children, had been here for a week and they were on their way out of the country, but I could see them for a day. It was so good to see some familiar faces. I just couldn't believe that I was in Uganda hanging out with some of my best friends, who I had just spent the past7 months working at IC with. A few of them stayed in town for a few days so I was able to hang out with them on and off for the next few days. This was so great, it gave me the opportunity to go out and really get into the heart of the city... exploring around a bit, eating some of the best food in town, and of course taking my first ride on a boda (what a sight having three guys packed on a sketchy moped weaving in and out of traffic). It is so great meeting up with friends like that, people that you know so well, you can just be around them and they know what you are thinking. It is difficult to be on a trip like this without someone who knows what you are thinking about and going through. I guess it has made me rely that much more on God.

On Monday we left Kampala and hit the road for Gulu. The legendary road to Gulu...one that I have heard so so many people complain as being the worst road in the world. So I knew the road was going to be bad, but I didn't know how bad. I must say thought that I got pretty luck; most people take the big bumpy bus to Gulu, but we had Robert take us up in his little car. A car gives much better opportunity to dodge all of the potholes and speed bumps that constantly litter the road along the way. What a gorgeous drive though...a lot of the road is just incredible countryside where trees and grass sprout up out of Uganda's fertile soil. It made for a lot of great pictures along the way. The road is also scattered with small towns along the way where people try to bum rush your car with varies of food and drink to sell you when you slow down the slightest bit.

After a 6 hour journey, we were finally here... Gulu! I had made it to the city I have been learning about for such along time, but we only have a full 4 days to spend here...definitely not enough time. Since I have been here I have been able to see so much of the city and meet so many of the incredible Acholi people who live here. The Acholi culture is so rich and the people are so loving, it really breaks my heart how they have been so ravaged by this war for the past 22 years. I have been able to visit a number of schools, orphanages, and IDP camps while here. It has been great to talk with a bunch of different people who are working in different ways to bring relief to the the people of northern Uganda. It was especially so great for me to go and visit Invisible Children's operations over here; it so great to actually see the programs that I have been teaching people in the US about for the past few months, it just brings a whole new level of meaning that I can't describe. When I went to meet some of the bracelet makers, I sat with them as they made the bracelets and before I knew it they taught me how to make one for myself. Which they won't tell you this, but it is no easy task to make one of these bracelets. There is so much that I have learned from the people here that I will take with me for like. As far as I can tell it is nearly impossible to come back from a trip like this without having been changed in so many ways; with such a new perspective on life and so so much to think about.

Sorry this is so long but it really is just scratching the surface of my journey over the past 10 days. I love you all so much!

C Waite

Stuck in Greece...

2008-05-19T16:17:00.005-04:00

Surely, you say, being stuck in Greece can not be a problem... Oh but how you are wrong my friend.

Haha. :)

So here I am sitting in the airport in Athens waiting for my plane, the same place I have been for the past 9 hours. When Sandy and I got to the airport to day to check in for our flight to Cairo we realized that we were walking in the front door at probably the exact time our plane was taking off. Somehow we got lost in all of the treavel details for the next few weeks and got todays flight time mixed up. So we have been at the airport since 23o this afternoon and the next flight doesn't leave until 1250 in the morning. But I really can't complain. I have had such good luck flying over the past few years, that it really doesn't hurt for me to have a taste of misfortune in my travels. Although I must say that Greeces really is not a bad place to be stuck. The past few days really have been great, both taking a step back into history and getting a chance to experience modern day Athens. Since I have a few minutes and free internet I thought I would share a few pictures with ya'll. I hope you enjoy!

Street music.....love it!

ok so maybe just one pic for now...more to come

The Birth Place of Wetern Civilization and The Decay of Humanity

2008-05-17T16:49:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone...I just wanted to put up a quick note and let ya'll know that we made it across the big puddle safely! We are in Greece for the next few days taking in the sights here and getting ready for the journey to Uganda. It is so strange to be out of the United States for the first time in a few years. Greece is gorgeous though; pretty much everywhere you go in Athens, you can see the Acropolis perched up on hill in the middle of the city. It is pretty incredible to see how people just scurry around this city, racing from one thing to the next while they are constantly surrounded by so much ancient history. Buildings that have been aroudn for thousands of year, buildings that have seen more epic stories than anyone could ever imagine. That's what draws me back to these parts of the world. When you step foot into cities like Athens, you really become a part of the history here and you get to experience a small piece of what it was like to live thousands of years ago.

This leg of the trip is definitely so incredible but I really can't wait to just get on with it and do what I came to do. It is going to be such an exciting yet very frightening experience for me to sink my feet into Ugandan soil and really begin to experience the plight of the people who live there. I really can't help but feel that my world is going to get turned upside down in a few days. My heart has been with the Acholi people for a while now but the empathy that I feel for them will never be so real as when I am forced to meet them face to face and connect their plight with a name and a very real personality.

But until then.....Grace and Peace. Keep an eye out for some pictures soon!

Epic Adventure - Begins Tomorrow

2008-05-15T21:59:00.005-04:00

Two Blog Posts from me in one day? I know it has to be some sort of a record. I'm not sure if anyone is actually checking this thing but I am going to try to use it to keep people updated with my whereabouts in the next 3 weeks. I am headed on a plane tomorrow and I will not be satisfied until make it to Uganda. There will be a few detours along the way, but keep in touch it should be a crazy 3 weeks. Thanks for all of the prayers and encouragements, I love you all so much!

Oh and if you feel like dropping me a line along the way, send it to cawski@gmail.com

Back Where I Come From

2008-03-11T16:56:00.006-04:00

Life on the road...14,000 miles in 3 months, a new city everyday, and sleeping on a different couch every night. Growing up I always heard bands singing about life on the road and how they much miss home. So when I decided to hit the road for myself I thought I knew a little bit of what I was in for. Invisible Children does a great job preparing people for the difficulties of the road but there truly is nothing that can prepare a person for the constant uncertainties that lie ahead on the road.

Three months on the road sounds like a long time, and it is, but just like all of the other incredible things I have been able to experience in my life, my time on the road came to an end way quicker than I could have expected. Three months of living on the road came to pass in what felt like a quick road trip with my best friends. I am eternally grateful for the experience of the road. I will probably never be able to fully recount everything that I have learned along the way both from my incredible teammates and my new found friends that we met along the way.

Every time I go away from home for a while I am always happy to get out and take part in the crazy adventure that has become my life, but there is always a little part of my that is back home with my family. From the time I was born I was surrounded with such an amazing family that loved me and cared for me. My grandparents have always lived close by and I have a bond with my family for which I am eternally grateful. There are so many fond memories that my heart hold dear in this small Ohio town.

As our 3 month journey on the road was coming to an end, my life came screeching to a halt. I got a phone call that my parents had been in a serious car accident. They were going to be okay but they were going to need a lot of assistance for the next few weeks. I was so torn, we still had a solid 2 days of driving to get back to San Diego, then I still another week of responsibilities to see to there; but I wanted so badly to be there for my family during this time. I knew what I had to do, we would book it back to San Diego and I would catch an early flight back to Ohio.

This proved to be a difficult transition. I had to get back to San Diego, reunite withe the 52 most incredible people I have ever met, and then leave them to go home and be with my parents to help them see to the ordinary details of life, which at this point were too much for them. All of this while trying to process what the heck had just happened to the past 3 months of my life. Getting back to Ohio was great though, I would get to spend a solid 2 weeks with my family before I had to jet off again to Uganda.

My first night back in Ohio, I was instantly reminded why I love this place so much. There are two things that are especially close to my heart in Ohio, incredibly loving people and of course... the lake. Here's are a few pictures from my first nights at home....Enjoy.

The weather has been crazy lately.

Notice the father teaching his son how to fish. He caught his first fish that night.

The first docks of the season are in already.

2007-12-05T03:10:00.000-05:00

OCEAN MINDED

here are a few pictures from sunset cliffs and the beach... there's more to come.

Here's to the Crazy Ones

2007-11-21T15:09:00.000-05:00

Here's to the crazy ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,

disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

(I can't claim this as my own but I love what it has to say. I love the idea of stirring things up; being aware of the current state of things and not allowing yourself to become complacent with the way things are. Fighting to make the world a better place, a more loving place.)

The Beauty of Community

2007-11-18T13:40:00.000-05:00

This weekend seven of us from the house drove up to hang out in Newport Beach with my buddy Mike for the weekend. Going up there we had no idea what the weekend had to hold, Mike told us his family was out of town so we just figured that we would just take some surfboards and hang out on the beach all weekend. It had been a long week so we were all looking forward to fleeing the madness for a few days. So Friday night we rushed home from work, packed our bags, and hit the road. When we got to the OC we were greeted by Mike at his cousin's beautiful Newport home. The house was incredible, fully suited with a basketball court and in ground hot tub. We could tell it was going to be a great weekend. Saturday afternoon we all headed to the beach to take in some rays and check out the surf.

When we arrived at the beach we were introduced to this incredible community of people, who were assembling a Thanksgiving feast fit for more than a hundred people. Mike was introduced to this group of people through his friend Nado who he had just met the week before. Without ever having met any of us, they wanted us to come to this Thanksgiving party they were having. So we hung out on the beach all afternoon and helped the people get ready for the party on the beach. As we got to know these people it was so inspiring just how genuine and loving they were. As the sun set and people started to show up for the party it was incredible how community began to assemble. They had invited a so many different people to the party; close friends, random neighbors, co-workers, people from church, anyone and everyone. They really just wanted to gather people together to invest in their lives and bless them. It was really inspiring to me how they loved people and held nothing back along the way. The meal resembled something out of a move, a full course Thanksgiving feast; and there was live music with a beach fire surf videos playing on the side of the house. It was like something you would do for your best friends but they had invited everyone from every area of their life.

Not only was the weekend so relaxing and a great release from the day to day grind but it was just so encouraging to me, inspiring me to love people in ways like that. It was so refreshing to see community lived out the way I believe it was meant to be lived. Because of Mike's desire to serve us and have us up to relax for the weekend we were able to become apart of this whole other loving community. This is so much proof to me that God is always at work using us to love each other!

War Dance

2007-11-16T01:37:00.001-05:00

Ok so there is a new movie coming out called War Dance. The other night as one of our training sessions, our bosses were able to get the director of the movie to burn us an early copy of the movie to we could see the movie as a group. The movie is the story of a group of Ugandan children living in a displacement camp. It shows the day to day activity of the children and how the war in Uganda had affected their life. Each child represents a different hardship that has been inflicted as a result of the war. The children face so many harsh realities every day, but they are still able to find joy. Their joy comes through their time of singing and dance at school. Every year there is a national sing and dance competition in the capitol city. The children are determined to go to the competition and win it. I am not going to ruin the end of the movie for you but for me the movie was just very refreshing. It is a really heavy documentary but the film makers were able to capture the weight of the situation and turn it into a beautiful story in spite of the tragedy at hand. I feel like dealing with the situation in Uganda day in and day out, sometimes we miss the idea that the people in Uganda are just as human as anyone else around the world, almost like sometimes in humanitarian work you miss the capability and intelligence of the people living in these devastated areas. It is eerie to see a Ugandan children walking around talking trash about how they are going to beat another school in the completion. It just makes it soo real; like this could be any American kid living in a displacement camp in fear for their life every day. I really give the people living in areas of conflict like this a lot of credit for how well they deal with such grave tragedies. I really don't know how myself or any other American would respond to this kind of treatment. I highly recommend everyone going to see this movie when it comes out, it might just change the way you view the world.

Where has the time gone?

2007-11-15T01:20:00.001-05:00

So it has been just over a month since I left Ohio and moved out to San Diego. Looking back it feels like just yesterday when I was back home at the lake skiing everyday. But its crazy how times have changed. Since I moved out here it has been non-stop action all the time; I am constantly surrounded by this incredible community of people who have such amazing love for others. We are all here fighting for the justice of the Ugandan people but one thing you learn early on, living with 40 people in one house, it is impossible to love the people in Uganda if we can not love the people living around us. This is a pretty cliche idea that they teach us early on but it is so true. It is so easy for our hearts to break for the people thousands of miles away who are being so brutally mistreated but it is not so easy to love your roommate who slowly annoys you from day to day and finally sets you off when he neglects to wash his dishes one day. This is when love is really tested. Needless to say living with this many people comes with its challenges.

So after I had been here for a couple of weeks the city of San Diego decided to catch on fire. I had just gotten back from a weekend in LA when we found out that there were multiple fires surrounding the city and they were rapidly approaching our office and our house. To make a long story short, the next day we ended up having to move out of our house and our office and setup shop at friends' houses for a few days. This is a picture that I took of the fire the night we evacuated. This picture was taken on top of the hill by our house. Our office is down in the valley closer to the fire. The next day the fires started to climb over the mountain in the background and began come down the hill towards town. But miraculously the fires diverted to the south and spared both our office and our house. It is funny how no matter where I move in the country natural disasters just seem to follow me; whether its hurricanes in Florida, Avalances in Colorado, or wildfires in California.

Here is a picture I took recently at Ocean Beach. We have been going to the beach quite a bit and one day I was able to get some decent surf pics from the pier. This was during the fires so the sky was pretty hazy and the lighting wasn't the greatest but you get the idea.

This has been short and random but please keep checking back, I will try to be better about posting stuff up here. Take care, I love you all!

-C

The Waitopher Files

2007-08-29T23:48:00.000-04:00

Ok guys so here it goes.....I have been meaning to set this blog up for a while and now I am taking some late night time in San Diego, when I should be sleeping, to get this thing going. I want this blog to be a place where people can come to see what I have been doing and see some of my photography, which will hopefully be a work in progress.

I am currently living in San Diego working for Invisible Children (www.invisiblechildren.com). Before I got the job with Invisible Children I was given the opportunity to go visit my good friend Dave Bley in Texas. We took a bunch of ridiculous picture while there. So I have assembled a few select pictures from the collection and have them here for your entertainment. I give you.......The Waitopher Files:

Meet the Waitopher

Skiing in Texas, because we all know that I never get enough time on the water during the summer.

The WHATABURGER: surprisingly overpriced and dissatisfying

High impact trail blazing at its best

This was some random flea market in Cut and Shoot, TX.