Mission Accompished

So if I don't write this now, I'll never get it out. You know when you have so much to say but nothing comes out – that’s how I’ve been since I got home about 5 days ago. Not to mention the fact that jet lag over took my life in ways I could have never imagined. So here goes…

I am just beginning to “re-understand” life in America - Even though I’m fighting it so badly in so many ways. I could have never imagined how much I hate getting dressed in the morning knowing that what people see me they’re actually going to care about what I look like. Who would have ever thought that would be a foreign concept. Anyway, I thought I would be able to tell people how this trip was but when I got home and was overwhelmed with the reality of it all, I realized that it was absolutely impossible to fully explain the impact that this time had on my life and how many things my eyes got to see.
I got back to LA. late Monday the 14th of March. Funny story – but by funny I mean not so funny. I got on my flight from Colombo at 4:30am (Monday) after waiting at the airport for 4 freaking hours. I didn't sleep at all got on my flight at 4:30 and had a whole 2 seats to myself. You’d think that would be good enough but get this - NO EXAGGERATION!
1. The guy's seat in front of me was broken so it wouldn't go up - it was always in the reclined position. 2. My window seat was broken so if I wanted to sit I had to sit in the isle seat. 3. There was a kid from HELL, literally Hell and he cried the ENTIRE trip, minus about 20 minutes. I am not kidding! The mom didn't care and he would even throw his little stuffed animals on me sometimes, but that was only when he wasn't kicking or pulling on my seat. I am not kidding in the slightest. So yeah, I actually slept because I could lay down a bit but if that crazy kid wasn't there I could have slept the entire time. But I guess I have to choose my battles. I got to London at 11:00 am and my flight was at 12 so when I got off the plane the woman from Sri Lankan Air told me I was going to miss my flight so they put me on another one at 3 instead. I got into LAX at 7 instead of 3 and because I had to switch airlines from Virgin to British Air they left my luggage in London. So yes, I got into LA 3 hours later than I thought, and by the time I got out of the 10 lines I had to wait in so I can get my luggage sometime this week it was SO freaking late. After finding my family, which I thought had left for sure, we went out for Mexican food. Freaking Mexican food in LA, how long have I been talking about joy like that? Yummy chicken burrito. Sorry everyone still in Sri Lanka, I know that's not nice to hear, but it's reality for me. I'm dealing.
I surprised the entire 400 and something Bayside senior high in Irvine on that Saturday morning and let me tell you, I have never felt so LOVED in my entire life. I had no idea that people really cared that much about me. For that I am forever in awe. We spent the week in a little village in Mexico loving on little kids and building houses for families that had none. I thought since I had been there before it would be such a great transition week back to the “real world”. Here’s the thing:
1. Jet lag kicked my butt so hard I could barely function some of the days and 2. Mexicali looks like a clean room at The Ritz compared to Kallar, Sri Lanka. I was once again reminded of the reality of what I just lived. It still takes my breath away thinking about it.

As we got back to Sac town in time for Easter I took some time to absorb, or try to at least, the LOVE I had been given and the words I had received from friends. I had no idea what was going on back here while I was gone. Who am I that people cared so much about me?

* My friend’s mom has passed this site on to her friend who has in turn, passed it onto her daughter in Texas who reads it with her friends. Come on, Texas.

* I met someone on the way to Mexico, that I spent a lot of the week with, who when I met her said, “Nice to meet you. I’ve been praying for you since you left and actually my entire church has too. Sometimes when we have nothing to do at church we’ll go onto the computer and read your blogs.” WHAT?!? Who am I? Seriously!

* I talked to my friend’s mom when I got home that night and she said that their entire church has been praying for me and that SHE was actually thankful to ME because through my faith and my willingness to go somewhere that I know no one and know nothing I’ve taught her mom, and that her life has been impacted because of me. WHAT? Are you for real? Do you know that I’m just me? Does anyone REALLY know that?

This has been one of my biggest lessons and by far my biggest gratitude. I am overwhelmed by all of you that have read my mediocre words and sent beautiful ones in return. I’m so grateful for the people that have shared their support for me – you have NO idea the impact you have had on my life! Yes, my life. I don’t know if you understand what that really means. If I could, I would tell each one of you individually how you single-handedly impacted my life but because I can’t do that I’m settling for this. I know it’s just a drop in the bucket of what it means to me, but I hope you at least get a hint of the power behind your LOVE, encouragement and cheer leading that has forever changed the way I look at living life for other people instead of myself. I never realized how many people would get behind me.

Thank you. Thank you one thousand times. You have become a part of my dream and even though Sri Lanka is now just a stamp in my passport, there are still a couple of pages that are too empty for me.

Don’t think this will be the last you hear from me. I’m just resting up until the next mission!

Love, Jasmine

Thank you Mom and Dad - your support is always louder than most!
Thank you Christine. You know there are too many words to express my LOVE for you and your passion for life. I'm blessed to have shared life with you and see you ALIVE with possibilities. I still can't believe you're in Africa. You are my super hero and I can't believe I actually get to know your secret identity!
Thank you Heather. Thank you for showing me what innocence is again and for living it without a second thought. Your friendship means entirely new things to me now and even though you slept through half our time there, I loved being awake with you.
Thank you my LOVES, my girls and my memories of Sri Lanka. You know how much this time meant because of you...probably the best everything in the world!
Thank you to Amal, Amita and Amritha for opening your house to 3 strange American girls and loving us like we were your own. Your love and protection were priceless and we couldn't have been there without you! You are our Sri Lankan family forever!
Thank you everyone I met from all over the world in Sri Lanka. Gosh, yes Dan, I said gosh, this would have been so much less enlightening without you. I would have NEVER watched Kill Bill; been scared of Tiger Sharks or showers; had funny test tubes down my pants while Katie laughed her face off; known that people have pet pigs named Uncle Jacob; shared a Valentines date with 2 other girls; discovered the disgustingness of Vegemite or Marmite; enjoyed banana pancakes for dessert and appreciated flushing toilets, hot water, endless buffets, salads or sleeping without mosquito nets so much.
Thank you to all my friends back home (coast to coast) who supported me financially, emotionally and spiritually with words heard and unheard. They were definitely all heard even if not by me.
Thank you to everyone at Bayside who cared enough to let me know. Especially the people I didn't even know. You are the people who deserve the treatment I got.
Thank you to the Smith's church in Jackson, CA
Thank you WACC
Thank you to everyone I've never met, never talked to or never knew was praying for me. You deserve more than I can ever give you.
Thank you.
I can't wait to see where the wind blows me next!

Change is...

Change is HUGE...
Change is GIGANTIC...
Change is Possibilities...
Change is Potential...

I am daily reminded that change does not only bring potential but CHANGE IS POTENTIAL!
What a blessing to have so many changes in my life.
I'm getting ready to embrace change once again.

And I Thought What I Felt Was Simple...

I am sitting in a chair in a little internet cafe on a busy street in Colombo, Sri Lanka...where are you today?

The funny thing is that I didn't even want to write my blog today. I'm tired, my head hurts, I have a huge mosquito bite on each hand and I'm hot. But, my email isn't working for some silly reason and so I think it's meant to be.

I guess I didn't think I had much to say but we have left Kallar for good and there is something to be said about that. Time is funny how it passes without letting you know really. One day you're just adjusting to life and the next you're trying to understand how it's all changing again. I wrote this in my little Sri Lankan notebook that I got from the kids as I drove away from Kallar in my little black van on Wednesday:

Saying goodbye is such a strange concept. There's such a sadness that floods your soul. I mean it's not there and then all of the sudden I'm sitting in a van driving in the opposite direction of what I've called home and I realize that I can't breathe the same. Life will never be that way again and it hurts. But I'd choose it any day over never living there at all.

I'd bet people who don't live life this way think that it probably hurts too bad to say good-bye that it's not even worth it in the 1st place. But what do they know? I wonder if losing a piece of your heart when you leave people you've come to love helps you grow a stronger, bigger heart that you can share with more people.

I wish I had words to articulate life better sometimes and how thankful I am for it. I mean, sometimes I can't breathe and I as much as I want to see I can't bring myself to open my eyes because the beauty I feel inside is too much to ruin with the mediocrity of the world. I am so thankful for so much. It's like I’m not even allowed to express it in words because they're not good enough. There's not really anything good enough though. So instead of even trying, I sit in silence with the hope that maybe just this time, the moment will last long enough to let go of some of the tears that want so badly to escape.

It's funny that I have to get all this out today, in this moment, in this rickety black van, before my next moments taint these. And they will - they always do. But it's not a bad thing. It's life. And life can be great if you don't forget what you've lived and the things that changed you. It's too easy to for the present, or even the future, to flood the past and make it like never existed.

This short time is like a dream and as I'm driving away it's like those short moments in between sleep and awake when you feel like you'll remember your dream forever but then all of the sudden life becomes reality and the dream isn't as real as it once seemed.

March has arrived

So wow. This is weird to even write – it's been so long since I’ve really sat down at a computer and because of all that’s happened since then, I’ve become overwhelmed with the idea of trying to share it all. But whatever – something’s better than nothing.

I’m working hard and sleeping well these days, mosquito net and all. Kallar is hot (I don’t even know how hot, I’ve never seen a thermometer and I haven’t caught the weather channel lately. PS, that’s a joke. I don’t even know the last time I saw English television). The past 2 days I have taken a break from the photography thing and I’m helping Alliance Development (one of the MANY Non Government Organizations in Kallar) build temporary shelters for the families here. Let me just fill you in on something before you create your own mental picture of this event for yourselves: when you stand in the shade you sweat. When it’s 9 o’clock in the morning and you’re walking the 5 minutes down the road to start the day – you sweat. When you stand in the shade you sweat. When you actually pick up a shovel to dig a ditch for the tarp to be buried under – you poor sweat. When you stand in the shade you sweat. It’s hot. So I, unlike the locals who are used to life this way, try to do most of my hard labor before 1 and after 4. However, the men kind of laugh when I even try and take the shovel out of my hands before I can get something really done. But I wised up. Today I actually walked over to another shelter and started digging while they were still sewing up the last one…I found the loophole. I’m not gonna lie, my arms were burning and I loved it. Hard labour is good for the soul – but who am I kidding, I’m not going to get carried away!

So most of the “cleaning up” has been done and the town is moving on to a new stage in the rebuilding process. It’s a cool thing to see the focus of the community and the volunteers change from physical rehabilitation to mental rehabilitation. Our meetings used to be so focused on water purification, shelter building, tearing down houses and cleaning up debris but now it’s shifted to focusing on the children and the ‘events’ for the community. The other day, I had one of the greatest most eye opening, refreshing moments of my time in Sri Lanka.

My surfer friend Dan, from England, had spent the week building a football pitch (translation for all my American friends = soccer field) right on the ocean’s edge. (Since the government is not allowing people to rebuild their houses within 200 meters of the shore there’s nothing there at all) When he finished the word was spread that there would be a game every day at 5:00 and a whole bunch of us walked down for the anticipated event of the week. Honestly, no one expected much to happen. Quick background on Sri Lanka: no one is EVER on time, seriously not in their vocabulary; no one does a thing, mostly everyone’s been in lazy mode since the tsunami; and people don’t EVER show up when they’re supposed to. But, when we showed up there were 10 –15 kids and a couple of adults just waiting for the ball. Within an hour there was an entire 2 teams playing with some of our international friends and at least 20 little kids (and girls – that’s just a no no) standing on the sidelines with us watching the game. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of healing I’ve seen in this country. To have an outlet to just play, and run and enjoy life as a community again was one of the best things anyone in the entire world could have given to these people. Yeah, we can build them temporary housing, and help them get clean water, but unless we help them rebuild their hearts and their minds none of that other stuff matters at all.

After the game we (all the volunteers from all over the world who live with us at the Y) all went down to the water for our daily swim at sunset except for Katie. She’s from North Carolina and doesn’t like to swim with her clothes on – no correlation…that I know of. Oh yeah, we have to swim with our clothes on because the Sri Lankan men cannot handle seeing so much white skin at once. It’s rather unfortunate. So I’m diving under a wave and as I emerge from the salty heaven I see this dark skinned figure in front of me and I’m not gonna lie – I did a double take. I have been swimming almost every day that I’ve been here and I have never once seen a Sri Lankan actually IN the water. Don’t get me wrong, I see plenty when the audience gathers at the edge of the sand but I have never once seen anyone one of them get into the water with us. Within 5 or 10 minutes there were 3 kids swimming with us and laughing like it was their favorite thing that’s happened in years. Later Katie told us that it was such a beautiful thing to watch because these kids were struggling so hard with the idea of even getting in – some haven’t been in since before the tsunami. Once we were in one brave soul took his shirt off and just ran into the sea while the others watched and built up enough courage of their own. She said it was such a freeing experience to see them be freed from something that had had control over them. It was so amazing to know that just by being here and doing something that I love so much, just swimming in the ocean, has helped these people move on with their lives.

The day before yesterday, my friend Alon, from Israel, asked a guy if he would go swimming with him and when he said he hadn’t since before the tsunami he said he would meet him tomorrow and asked if they could go together. Yesterday we saw Alon walk up to the shore with someone and he actually came in. So along with an Israeli, 3 Americans, an Australian, a Britt and a Canadian this man conquered his fear and swam whilst the sun set on Sri Lanka. Does it get more beautiful than that? Seriously. Who am I and whose life am I really living right now? Not only that, he came back to the Y with us and we set him up with a job building shelters every day. It’s so amazing that we could help give this man courage and monetary stability all in one day. Are you kidding me?

The girls and I are getting close to our departure date and will be getting details very soon but for now I am taking every moment and letting it etch itself into my memory because it’s not going to be like this much longer. California doesn’t even have water like this.

I will be in touch, probably more once we’re back in Colombo and can frequent our friendly neighbourhood internet café and not pay up the wazoo to do so. I do miss America sometimes though and I can’t wait to eat Plutos. The girls and I play this mean game with each other where we randomly just have to say the one thing that we WISH we could have. Lets be honest – it’s definitely ALWAYS food and we miss it a lot but Sri Lanka is something I will never let far from me. What a beautiful experience life is when you really live it…

Until Colombo. Email me, it will be as wonderful as a cold coffee milkshake. (j10m@hotmail.com)

Jasmine

Yum Yum

Hey everyone.

Not much time, well dial up is just making me want to pull my hair out, but I wanted to drop a quick hello since I heard there was another earthquake in Indonesia. We didn’t feel it here and I didn’t even know it happened until someone said it in conversation this morning like it was nothing. At this point, I still know nothing about it, except that my mom emailed to see if I was ok. So that was enough to make me
share with y’all that I’m fine and still going strong.

We’re back in Kallar at the YMCA with a couple new internationals but sad because some left while we were in Colombo. Anyway, we’re back to eating lots of rice and Sri Lankan dinner foods. The girls and I actually went over to this woman’s house for lunch today and man, I wish I could explain how hospitality is here. It’s pretty much rude not to eat what’s on your plate and for those of you that really know me – well let’s just say that’s a HUGE task for me. I’m really doing a good job of adjusting to spices and things like that but for some reason my stomach was so small today. She served us too. Christine and Heather took chicken first and because they didn’t take “enough” the woman put almost 8 pieces on my plate. On top of my extra servings of carrots and onions, rice and green mushy stuff. Then she made a speech about how people should NEVER waste food. Especially since this community didn’t have ANY food at all for a week after the tsunami. What the hell do you say to that when your plate is overflowing with food and you can’t breath because you’re so full. I asked Heather if it was worse to leave food on my plate or throw up on the table. I seriously almost threw up on the table. NO JOKE. She was wonderful but the experience was a bit intense for the day. Not to mention that I had to eat Christine’s 2 servings of ice cream (yes, she refilled ice cream too) because she doesn’t eat chocolate. Blahh. I’m still recovering.

However, and this is AWESOME news, we have a fridge, so get this – we get to drink COLD water now! It’s awesome! I guess you’d have to be here to fully appreciate it but just know we are ecstatic about that! We haven’t decided exactly when we’re leaving here but until then, we’re enjoying and trying to enjoy every moment that we have here.

Keep praying. Daily life is great but some days longer than others.

Love you….

Jasmine

To Kallar and Beyond

Oh my gosh, where the heck do I even begin. SO much has happened in just this past week that I don't know what to say without overwhelming you with words...who am I kidding though, that's inevitable.

Well for those of you that don't know, the girls and I decided to join up with the YMCA (yes, take a minute, sing the stupid song and get it over with) last week and took the 8 hour drive to the other side of the country to a small town called Kallar. Oh man, you could never imagine this drive, even if you tried. It was the bumpiest, windiest (wine-d-est), small road, monkey filled ride I've ever taken. We finally got to the YMCA in Kallar late Saturday evening and took our first little stroll around the village. All I can say is that you have to take a few huge breaths every once in a while or you'll just stop breathing all together. The damage is incredible but, and I'm not exaggerating when I say this, the people's spirits overshadow all of it. They are so resilient and the kids bring SO MUCH joy to the community...as the week went on, I learned that first hand.

We have met some amazing people, who have since come and gone and are still coming and going, from Australia, South Africa, Palestine, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Hong Kong, France and England. It's such an awesome thing to hear at least 3 different languages a day! If nothing else it gives me a BAD case of the travel bug and it makes me think I won't be back in the states for long. Together we are doing amazing things to help get the community back on it's feet in the areas of water purification, destroying houses that are deemed unsafe, children's programs, food/clothes distribution, electrical, medical distribution and education and lots more.

Here's a little bit of what this past week has been like for me:

I start every morning underneath my frilly pink mosquito net that is blown by the wind entering through a small window to my right of what used to be the library for the YMCA, on a side street about 1 km from the ocean (which we just realized is really the Bay of Bengal. How cool is that?) in a little town called Kallar. After I realize how hot I am already at 8am I get changed in our little changing room and go down stairs to our communal room and dine with my international friends. I wish that it was all as glamorous as it sounds but I sleep on my sleeping bag on a thin pad on a bamboo mat, our changing room is really just a small concrete square that has about 1,000 water bottles in it and dining really just means eating white bread from the corner store over and over again for each meal. I'm not lying when I say that the majority of the things I eat now are either white bread or white rice with this food called dahl. Look into it, you won't be very impressed. But on the bright side, I've never enjoyed the variety that peanut butter brings so much.

One morning we unpacked what seemed like hundreds of boxes (apparently they heard we were good at that) of children's school supplies in our big room and hundreds of kids at a time have come in throughout the week. It has been one of the most amazing things to see these kids faces light up over getting a new drinking bottle, back pack, notebooks, 2 pens and a pair of shoes. Honestly, you'd think we were giving them gameboys or shopping sprees. When in actuality, these kids have no possessions left at all. Because there is a little peninsula right off the coast of this town, it's formed a little lagoon and when the tsunami came these people were lucky enough to have a little bit of a warning and not many people died; however, the damage was still done to their houses. So even though these kids are blessed to have most of their family and friends around, no one has clothes or homes. Everyone within 3 blocks of the ocean lives in tents or with family further from shore and pretty much wears the same thing every day.

The beauty in this culture is beyond me. It's so simple and yet so overwhelming at the same time. Without children this village could never rebuild itself. I've never seen so many smiles or heard so many laughs even from kids back home. It's like a parade every time we walk down the street because you'll hear laughing and "hello's" from every direction. It's impossible to not stop, wave and smile at these kids whose smiles are 100% contagious. I will never again underestimate the power that a child holds.

It's hard to remember that girls in America are wearing make-up, buying $70 outfits, living on the computer or TV and spending most of their day trying to impress boys at 12 and 13 year olds when on the other side of the globe the girls here are wearing the same clothes everyday, living in tents with no running water and barely spending much time with boys at all. They have some of the most natural beauty I have ever seen in my life.

The beauty of the beach is another story all together. We try to walk over to the beach every day as the sun sets. As we do we walk through piles upon piles of unusable brick, glass and trash that have been moved by the ocean. We walk past families that know our faces because we helped set up their new canvas home, which most people would just call a tent but is much, MUCH more to them. We walk the quarter of a mile across the barren sand, that seriously looks like desert because of the flattening the ocean has done to the beach. It's something only nature could do. Since we don't bring anything with us, we just flip off our shoes and run in. I'm amazed at the temperature of the water every time, as if it was my first and I look back at the beach to see the glowing silhouettes of the palm trees behind the black outlines of the people who have come to watch the white people swim. It's without a doubt my most favorite part of the day. I don't know if words in general, let alone mine, can really describe the beauty that my eyes get to see every day.

I've since been put "in charge" of photography/journalism for our YMCA. I'll continue taking pictures of what's going on in the community, and hopefully some surrounding towns, and potentially getting a web site to constantly share what we're doing with the rest of the world. I might even be putting presentations together to share within the country to show the great physical and emotional rebuilding that the YMCA has helped bring Kallar. I'm sure specifics will change but it's great because I get to do what I am really passionate about and share some really great news with the country and hopefully the world at the same time.

So at this point, we are back at "home" in Colombo with our AMAZING family. Man, we love them so much and I couldn't imagine being here and not knowing them. We'll be in the city until around Wednesday or Thursday renewing our visas and stocking up on supplies to bring back to our new home. Once we get back there, our internet/phone access is pretty limited - which is good because it keeps us completely focused on life there. Which is obviously a 180 from almost everyone who reads this. We don't know for sure how long we'll be in Sri Lanka, but for now it looks like we're exactly where we're supposed to be...and that's peaceful.

Be in touch for the next few days if you can (j10m@hotmail.com) and hopefully I can get some lovin' before I take my rickety little van back to the beach.

Love, Love, Love on this Valentines Day!

Jasmine

Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own

Wow. It seems almost arbitrary to try to explain life here to everyone using only words on a computer. My world is filled with people, animals, music, colors, smells, tastes and feelings and if I could use all of them then, and only then, could I really share life here with you - wherever you are. But hey, we'll have to take what we can get so I'll try...

The girls and I just got back from a 2 day retreat in the mountains of Sri Lanka in a place called Kandy where we hoped to find refuge from city life in Columbo and direction as to where to go and what to do that will be the most effective for us and for this country. We arrived EARLY Tuesday morning after a breath-taking 2 1/2 hour train ride through the country. We had a little breakfast at the hotel and the girls crashed and let the the omlettes digest while I read and listened to some of the greatest words of wisdom the world has to offer. I'm sure you're thinking I listened to some sermon or message on my iPod but that would be too simple-minded. If you are reading this and you do not own How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2, stop reading this right now, go to the store and buy it. Sitting at my little table in the middle of a country I never knew was a country until a month ago and drinking pineapple juice through a little pink straw, was one of the most awesome moments of life here. Knowing that God speaks through everything if our eyes are just open is something that everyone should experience and live in everyday. I don't know if many church services have been as real as some of the lyrics on that cd.

I am learning so much everyday (some more than others for sure) but that's how God works - in His time. I'm learning to see the light when it exists and I'm learning to hold onto it for the times when there is none. Some days are harder than others, but as a friend pointed out, attempting to send "comforting" words to renue my hope sometimes lack the power that a simple child or an old man washing his clothes under a rickety bridge can bring. The words that are sent though, literally mean the world to me and I can't imagine being here without them! There are moments of fear here and there but who am I kidding - I was made for this...I'm the wind.

I'm reading The Alchemist again (only one of the best books EVER). I'm glad to see you're rockin' it back home and thinking of me Kara! Since the girls are packing up to leave our little cafe, I'll leave you with some pieces of me. If you want to know me and what my life is about, read the Alchemist. It's a story of my life - in boy form! I have chosen to be a shepherd and travel the world. And by shepherd I'm not talking about leading Christians or herding people in my leadership, but about following my heart and not what the world thinks I should be doing at 23. The people say I am "just" doing something until I get back to school make me sad becuase they've missed the point and I hope they understand what "just" means. It's just plain silliness...

Here are some parting words from Bono and co to keep you encouraged about what's going on here...It worked for me!

I’m on an island at a busy intersection
I can’t go forward, I can’t turn back
Can’t see the future
It’s getting away from me
I just watch the tail lights glowing
One step closer to knowing

Thanks for your LOVE. It means everything.

Jasmine