It is hard to find the words to capture the emotions that I feel when I think about what is in store this next year. I am humbled and overjoyed, excited and terrified, blessed and grateful all in the same breath. As I am called beyond my comfort zone and beyond my borders, I remember that he works in radical ways, comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable.
If I can sum up my journey for the next year in one sentence, I would tell you that I have been called to be a witness to love: to love and be loved. I truly believe that this is what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships and who know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.
I have seen this love in my own community: watching my peers rally together to build a school in Uganda or set a world record for the biggest hug in honour of a friend with cancer. Love is in smiles and laughter, tears and compassion. I have been shown so much love and I only hope that I can reflect a fraction of it into the lives of those I meet.
Over the next year, as I travel to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Saltpond, Ghana with a group of strangers, I pray that love is not just our inspiration, but our purpose and our goal. This love is not a destination and will not culminate at the end of the six month experience, but will transcend borders and time, transform communities and individuals.
The next year will be unforgettable. I don’t know exactly where I will end up -- maybe in an AIDS clinic, an orphanage, a neonatal intensive care unit, a school, a hospital, a shelter and or a nursing home -- but I know that wherever I am is exactly where I am meant to be.
I want to know what its like to really love others: without reservation or hesitation. So I’ve decided to spend the next year on the experiment.
Feel free to join me. We might just change the world.
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"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier." - Mother Theresa
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