Hello, my old heart,
How have you been?
Are you still there inside my chest?
I've been so worried,
You've been so still,
Barely beating at all.

Oh, don't leave me here alone.
Don't tell me that we've grown for having loved a little while.
Oh, I don't want to be alone.
I want to find a home, and I want to share it with you.

Hello, my old heart,
It's been so long.
Since I've given you away.
Every day I add another stone
To the walls I've built around you 
To keep you safe.

Oh, don't leave me here alone.
Don't tell me that we've grown for having loved a little while.
Oh, I don't want to be alone.
I want to find a home, and I want to share it with you.

Hello, my old heart,
how have you been?
How is it being locked away?
Don't you worry.
In there you're safe.
And it's true, you'll never beat, 
But you'll never break.

Nothing lasts forever.
Some things aren't meant to be.
But you'll never find the answers
Til you set your old heart free.
Til you set your old heart free

some transparency.

Some people may look at my life and think I'm living it up, frolicking around without a care -- with lots of mulah to support myself. Although, close friends tell me I shouldn't care what people think, I do want to address that assumption a bit...

My time in Hawaii consisted of exploring the beautiful beaches and tropical landscapes, yes, but I also got a job (Daylight Mind Coffee Company) that I worked 5 days a week while trying to start a business; there's not much in my bank account that I can call my own (due to a lovely thing we like to call "school loans").  Josie and I made a simple decision to say "yes" to a call and the beautiful thing about our friendship and our relationship with that Caller, is that we are two crazy lady's that desire to make it all happen!

When Josie said, "Hey, I'm gonna visit you in Los Angeles... Hey, I'm gonna come to Ohio!" -- she did! I knew I had found a friend who was willing to lay down some things for a friendship with me and to pursue a deeper relationship with God together.

I have been reminded by many of my close friends, the freedom of just saying "yes" ...  Stepping out of your security and comfort and answering a higher calling. It's been tough financially, physically and emotionally in the last three months. But, I am beginning to name that fear inside my heart and replace it with hope. I am taking small steps in moving past being motivated by fear; the fear of missing out, failure, the fear of pain and loss of control. &when you step out of that safe zone, you discover what drives you... And you learn so much about people and about yourself.

Bottom line, if you want to do something... and it's a desire in your heart, and you hear a whispering, calling you to a scary place, I say... Jump.

a family craycation.

I went on a little, what we liked to call, "craycation" with my siblings and beautiful cousin Kelsey at the end of July. It was our first vaca with just the kids and the joy of my life, my baby niece -- Anna Jubilee. I was reluctant to bring my new camera and borrowed lens to the beach so here are the few shots I took of our last night on the beautiful Island de Amelia. What photos you see of the beach were taken with my Pentax K1000.

 I took quite a few more with my iPhone that I may share as well. You can find the on my Instagram (link to the right) under the hash tag #familycraycation.

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la belle aurore.

Ephesians 5:14

Wow, so please understand something. I haven't written a blog post in a very long time. But I just had to this morning. It is meant to be short and sweet and hopefully it is. 

It starts off with a random beam of light that hit my face this morning. As I sat on my couch, eating my bran flakes like any other day, a bright bright ray of light came crashing through my window with all it's grace and beauty. Now usually in the morning, the light hits my face just right as to basically blind me and I have to move to another position or seat. But today was different. It was golden but more subtle than most days and it made me think. First of all it made me think of song that I heard the other day about not appreciating something until it's gone. Well, after my return from southern California, I've been appreciating the sun significantly more than usual. Even on days when it's there, big and brightly shinning. So as I sat in this beaming glow, I closed my eyes and took it in. I know cheesy right? But I did, I drank it in with a deep breath. 

This morning along with eating cereal, I had decided to do some reading and a devotional. I am reading this daily devotion called, "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young and since today is February 11, I turned right to the page. It was a smaller passage than usual but it was way more impactful than most... should I read it to you? Pretend like I'm reading it to you... or just read it like your reading it to you.

It starts off...

"My PEACE is like a shaft of golden light shining on you continuously..."

um... what?

I will continue.

"During days of bright sunshine, it may blend in with your surroundings. On darker days, my PEACE stands out in sharp contrast to your circumstances. See times of darkness as opportunities for My light to shine in transcendent splendor. I am training you to practice PEACE that overpowers darkness. Collaborate with me in this training. Do no grow weary and lose heart." 

Okay, so usually when something like this happens, as in, when God blows me away and overwhelms with the realization that He is actually communicating with me... I let out a pretty big gust of laughter or sigh or a, "JESUS!!" ... in this instance, I picked the first one and sat there and soaked it in. 

I wasn't done reading so I continued to a book called "Life Together," by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one that I had just began a week ago. Chapter Two. It starts off with a passage entitled "The Day's Beginning." As I started to read I thought, now wouldn't it be funny if... 

"Ere yet dawn hath filled the skies

Behold my Savior Christ arise,

He hath chaseth from us sin and night,

and brings us joy and life and LIGHT..."

LIGHT?! light... LIGHT!!! .. uh what? Really? Light? ... another gust of laugter...

... well then I continued reading,

"Christ is the 'Sun of righteousness,' risen upon the expectant congregation (Mal. 4:2)" ...

"At the break of light ... it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostrate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind" ...

"What do we today, who no longer have any fear or awe of night, know of great joy that our forefathers and the early Christians felt every morning at the return of the light?" ...

"...God the Father and the Creator, who has preserved our life through the dark night and wakened us to a new day, God the Son and the Saviour, who conquered death and hell for us who pours the bright gleam of God's Word into our hearts at the dawn of day, driving away all darkness..."

So all of those quotes are from the same chapter, from the same page, and on the same day... WHAT?

All this to say, God IS in constant communication with you. Sometimes subtly in the form of nature or human interaction or sometimes it's in the form of major ray of light slapping you right in the face.

                

 >>>>>>>>>>(side note: the quote I had before on the photo above was just a lyric from a John Mayer  song. I think this one fits more appropriately... Also, the font I used is called "la belle aurore" ... I found after the fact that it means "beautiful dawn" ... again, what?!?!)<<<<<<<<<<<<

"...be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might." 

[Judges 5:31]

SoCal.

check it out >>>>>>>>

video by Sarah Gehman:


http://vimeo.com/58535869

John 1.23

Jubilee.

35mm Safari

Some photos to enjoy from an African safari shot with my Pentax K100.

These past few days have been pretty chaotic to say the least. We left Arua for Kampala yesterday. Goodbyes were extremely heart wrenching. The people of Arua have blessed my soul in crazy ways. I never thought I'd find a love like this. Thank God for His faithfulness. AND I never thought I'd be in a near head-on-collision-drive-into-a-ditch-almost-tipping-over in a bus going 70 miles per hour either. Thank God for His protection. 

We arrived in Kampala last night and it's a pretty rad city. The guest house we're staying at is quite cute and has provided us much comfort after a few months without warm showers, proper lighting and fresh coffee. 

Today we stopped at the Watoto Church, which reminded me of my church back home and then headed off to a nice little cafe down town. This place, Mish Mash, comes complete with an art gallery, craft shop, variety of gourmet food, chai tea, live music and a magical tree house. This weekend has been a little hectic but lovely for sure. And we officially began debrief today! 

Heading back to Hawaii on Tuesday and I cannot wait. I will miss Africa for sure but I'm ready to go home.

and Africa will see me again. Oh yes.

Stef.

Oh yeah, I instagram. My name: stefannagram.

“All our most lovely moments are perhaps timeless…”

This classic quote is from Sheldon Vanauken’s book, “A Severe Mercy”, an author who was dear friends with the renowned Christian author, C.S. Lewis. What a simple statement and yet so deep and true. It‘s a indication as to why I often find myself comfortably hesitant to write down my most lovely moments; ironically, the moments I truly desire to write about. Whether these moments are difficult or joyful, these  ageless instances leave me in the clouds, giving me no choice but to take time to write about them.

In all honesty, how can one truly describe a timeless moment and do it justice? But this is my attempt at writing about my “lovely moments [that] are perhaps timeless” here in Arua, Uganda

My journey began when I took a leap of faith to attend a media based Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Kona, Hawaii. After three months of training, the schools crux was to launch us into the corners of the Earth to declare God’s love. In God’s providence, He sent me to the place where I’d find myself; to the place where I’d fall in love with Him the most – Arua, Uganda.  

I first want to apologize personally to my supporters and my life followers for not posting updates about what I’m doing here in Arua. It’s my duty to keep everyone informed and my desire for you all to know what is happening. I wish you all could just live it with me while it’s all happening.

Me in a forest.

Here are a few things that have happened since arriving in Arua:

- It took us five days of travel to get to Uganda.

- The airlines lost our bags for four days after our five days of travel.

- Four out of nine of us have gotten malaria.

- We sleep in nets. Mosquito nets that is.

- Almost of all of us have had health issues at one point or another.

- We ride motorbikes every day (our taxi service).

- We live on a farm with cows, goats and chickens in our front yard.

- We didn’t have power (solar) for the first three weeks.

- We live in a community building/home with about twenty other people.

- I live in a small room with six other girls.

- We have community bathrooms with one toilet that doesn’t flush.

- We ran out of running water and have been living off rain water for the past three weeks.

- We have one day off a week where we retreat to a hotel called “White Castle” to drink English coffee and take normal (cold) showers. Normal meaning we don’t use buckets.

- We haven’t taken a warm shower since June.

- We started off eating all of the base food but bought a small gas stove and have been making food like campers ever since.

- We eat eggs and chapatti all the time (chapatti is basically a glorified greasy tortilla).

- Since our running water has turned off, we’ve been taking bucket showers (splish splash for sure).

- Children yell at us all the time, “Mundu! Mundu! How are you?!?” (Mundu means “white”…literally)

- I’ve never felt so welcome in my entire life. Mainly because everyone reminds you how welcome you truly are. No really, they say “You are most welcome,” even before you can say thank you.

- We are expected to preach and share a word from God everywhere we go. Yes you heard right, expected.

- We’ve discovered that Arua has the best fabric market around, and I had one of the women from the village make me a dress.

- I bought National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation in town for one dollar.

- My dear friend Jasen surprised us all with a visit. He brought letters from my family and all of our favorite American candies and chocolate. Oh and dryer sheets (life savers).

- We’ve gone two full months without looking at ourselves in a full size mirror.

- I’ve discovered my new favorite snack: Twix and a Coke.

- I’ll never go back to regular peanut butter. It’s all natural homemade here and its outta this world.

- I’ve had to try and unclog an un-flushable toilet. Since our toilet doesn’t automatically flush, it gets clogged easily. Amber and I took the initiative to fix it and failed. You should have seen it. Filled with pooh water. I’ve never gagged so much in my life.

- There was an Ebola outbreak in south western Uganda.  If ya’ll don’t know what virus that is, all you need to know is that it’s incurable and it’s fierce and you die. 

- I may or may not have fallen in love with my neighbors, the Craig’s. They are African missionaries from the UK, Ema and David, with their precious daughter, Amelie. I’m currently trying to convince them to allow me to follow them around and be their personal photographer and nanny. Check out their blog HERE. 

- I still haven’t bought my plane ticket home from Hawaii L which is not good… I need to see my new born niece as soon as possible or I may explode.

- I just killed a massive spider trapped inside my mosquito net with me. Literally 30 seconds ago.

- I dance so much here. The African music makes me dance. The children make me dance. The people make me dance. God makes me dance. I love to dance and I’m dancing now.  Weeeeee!

Ministry and Media happenings…

- We’ve put together a video for the ministries on the YWAM Arua base.

- Amber, Lea and I have developed a website for the tailoring ministry to help raise money for the women who are struggling to support their families.

- We are involved with the hospital ministry here where we pray for the patients in the TB ward. It’s intense and depressing but what all these people want is just to be loved. We love them.

- Jasen, Kyle and I are currently working on developing a support video to raise money for a truck for a forgotten village on a remote mountain in South Sudan. Crazy stuff. Look out for it!

Some more important happenings…

- I read a book called, “A Severe Mercy,” and fell in love with C.S. Lewis all over again.

- I discovered so much about God’s love while reading this book.

- I have read the book of Hosea a few dozen times since being here.

- Esther from the Bible has been on my mind.

- I’ve been reading Mere Christianity and I am daily perplexed by it.

- I have had many revelations about myself and my selfishness.

- I’ve realized I can actually tolerate and live with way more than I ever imagined (seven girls in one room folks).

- I shared my testimony and a message in front of a 200+ member church one Sunday. And it was terrifying but extremely encouraging.

- I’ve never learned so much about love until arriving in Uganda. Through the people and the encounters I’ve had with God.

- I’m realizing I have some type of call on my life to be a leader. And that’s both terrifying and intriguing.

- I've never been so thankful for just basic things, like water and electricity and good food.

- I’m determined to be an active woman of God.

- I’ve realized that I’m a very relational personal although I’m extremely introverted. That’s how I minister to people. I can’t just yell out a word from God, I yearn and desire to have a relationship with you. Then, let’s talk about why God rocks my world.

- I’ve realized that I put a huge wall up between me and those around me. A huge wall of pride and fear.  Behind that wall is a deep capacity to love. God is breaking that wall down day by day. It’s a work in progress but it’s so good to know something’s happening and God is faithful.

All this to say - God is good and he is continually pursuing my heart. I am falling in love daily with the creator of the universe. I have two weeks left in this beautiful place and am looking forward to more of these timeless moments with wonderful people and the lover of my soul.

It's moments like these.