Acholi Beads

I've spent the last couple months working with my mom and older sister to set up a new, socially proactive business. We call it Acholi Beads. We've hired some displaced people from the Acholi region of northern Uganda to make beautiful beaded jewelry, which we are now selling in America!

Over the last week I've been setting up a website for Acholi Beads. I'll be slowly developing it in the coming months, but I'd love for you to take a look if you have a moment. I just changed the color scheme and added some photo ablums, for your viewing pleasure.

And by 'slowly developing it,' I mean pushing through my own e-ignorance like swimming thru molasses, then updating the site at Gulu-net speeds, which compare to internet speeds like a pogo stick compares to the Starship Enterprise.

BIG thanks go out to my good friend Aaron for his guidance and help in all of my e-dventures, and this one in particular.

Live in the place where you live

Wherever you live, if you are not a part of a trusting community of people you don't really live there. You live in your own little world.

This is something that I've learned here in Uganda, where wealth differentials, culture disparities, and language barriers make trust a hard thing to build. But if I don't trust people here and invest in them and let them invest in me, then I'm not really here. I'm just passing through this place, like a breeze: inconsequential, quickly forgotten.

The same goes in America. You exist where you build trusting community. That's why, in a culture where most people don't talk to their neighbors, people's worlds have shrunken to their immediate families, their houses, perhaps their offices.

If we are going to make our communities better, we have to start by really living in them, building relationships based on trust, developing understanding. The larger you want the impact to be the more barriers you'll have to trust across - socioeconomic, geographic, ethinic.

But you might want to start with your next door neighbor.

Where the soul breathes

Lake Bunyoni, Uganda. Where I soaked for the last five days - in sun, water, and peace. The island on the left, if you're wondering; that's the one I stayed on.


My friends (from back to front) Gilbert, Kevin and I paddling a dugout canoe across the lake. These round-hulled beasts are near impossible to steer and will cause no end of laughter or frustration, depending on the amount of sleep you got the night before.


Taken while rowing aforementioned beastly canoes. As you can see, the efforts are worthwhile.


Me. Rope swing. Bushara Island.


My good friend Kevin doing some sort of aerial maneuver off the swimming dock on our island.


Backflip. Same dock.


Sunrise. In the foreground is the roof of our room - a "geodome" according to Byoona Amagara. In the middle, a dugout canoe makes the morning commute.


Sunset.

Someday

Someday I'm going to escape to some exotic lake somewhere, maybe Africa. In fact I'll go to the most beautiful lake in all of Africa! And the deepest. And I'll stay on an island on the lake and look out over the waters at the steep green mountains. I'll row a canoe across the lake on a whim and climb one of those mountains and stay in a village on its top. And I won't worry about a cell phone or the internet. I'll just lay there and marinate in the glory of creation.

And someday, as it turns out, is tomorrow. So if you don't hear from me for a bit, just wait longer, I'll be back.

One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days when time becomes a mirror and you look at yourself and think, 'Is this really my life now?'

This month has been one of those days.

Espresso as Revolution, served by the shot

Has anyone had this experience? You sit down at a coffee shop with a friend, begin sipping the just-boiled beverage and making the smallest of talk. How's work? Not bad. Sip. Internet was down. Oh, lame. What's Melissa up to these days? Still nursing. Sip. Got four days off last week. That must've been fun. Keep sipping. The drink cools. Sip faster.

Next thing you know your friend and you are parading through Marxist ideology and its influence on liberation theology. A quick transition to international politics and America's Roman position, and how the president could benefit from a little liberation theology. A short conspiracy theory and then off into globalization and its various ups and ills.

And then, the epiphany, the plan. "Here's what we should do," you begin, or he does. It doesn't matter, you're both thinking it. A plan to change everything. Hatched conspiratorially there on the patio, over lukewarm mochas. It's all so simple, so palpable. The world spins by the stir of your spoon.

But somehow later that night, when you're eating plain cold bread slices by the light of your refrigerator and your head hurts a little, nothings quite so plain. Maybe the world suffers from a chronic shortage of caffeine.

A Friend in Need

If we're talking about helping other people in other countries, and we do talk about that every now and again, I think the best place to start is friendships. If you're worried about people in some neglected part of the world, first go make friends there.

Don't go to help, or worse save people there. Go to listen to them. Go to understand. Go to make friends. Offer nothing but your ear and your heart. Accept everything that is given to you.

Then you will have an idea of your role in addressing the problems of your new friends. You're probably less necessary than you think, but probably more important as well.

The Problem of Security

We really want to know, as a carved in the stone fact, that tomorrow we are going to be at least as comfortable as today. And anything that threatens that knowledge has a mighty mountain to climb if it's going to gain our acceptance.

But somewhere under our layers of assurances we are already know that our lives are tenuous. There is always flux, disaster, surprise. We will never know what tomorrow holds until it becomes yesterday. And if we are expecting homogeneous comfort, we're going to get rocked.

James, the New Testament writer, tells his readers to face unexpected problems with joy, because once they push through enough of them they will be able to handle anything that this precarious life throws at them. Perseverance will have finished its work.

It seems to me that the best way to live is not to build a life that blocks out trouble, because trouble will find a way in. Instead, embrace insecurity. Don't back away from a challenge. Push through all the troubles in your way. Eventually they won't look so big.

This I Believe

Check out this "manifesto" from ChangeThis.com. It's by Tom Peters, a business Guru who's been writing books and consulting for years. For his 60th birthday he wrote 60 "This I believe" statements about business. I think they apply to a lot more, though. I was inspired.

This I Believe

Charity and The Answer

The non-profits (or NGOs) here in Uganda are doing some amazing things. We are serving and saving a lot of people. But not all of them. In fact, not close.

And this place, Gulu, may be the best they can do. All the big boys are here (UN, Red Cross, AVSI, MSF, and scores of others); it's pretty peaceful now; there's a limited population living discrete, accessible areas. But still we can't reach them all. Again, not even close.

The NGOs are doing amazing things. But they are not The Answer, they will not save the world, or even change it all that much. Why? Because we are only a few people trying to fulfill the responsibilities of millions.

The world won't be changed by millions of people writing a check and going about their lives. It isn't changed by projects and programs. The world is changed when people change. Millions of them. When they care enough to get involved with the people around them. When they see the needs of their neighbors as their responsibility. That will change the world.

Faith Alone

The faith of James – not me, but the one who wrote part of the New Testament – was a faith of praxis. It was a faith of action. It was a faith of doing what Jesus said, changing everything in the ways Jesus extolled. Because Jesus’ message was a message of action. It was a description of the right way to live. Right then. And right now.

Faith without works is dead. Because if someone says you have to jump, and you don't jump, you don't believe him.

The You Venture: A Meaningful Compass for Stormy Times

I’ve been reading a lot about business creation and management lately, and one theme that pulses through my selections is: Get Meaning.

If your business doesn’t have meaning, doesn’t aspire to something greater than making payroll and profit, it will likely stagnate and fail. If you’re starting a business, make sure it is meaningful. If you are managing a stagnated business, imbue your work with new vision, new meaning.

I’ve also been thinking and talking a lot lately about vocation, in both uses of the word - what we do for a living, and what we ought to do; and how those two meanings interact. My friends and I are in our 20s, after all, and these are the usual questions. But it seems that such questions are becoming ever more applicable to people of every age. Markets are tumultuous and people switch occupations now more than ever.

In a labor market with such uncertainty there are no more company men, no career women, no lifelong workers. Everyone is an independent contractor, an entrepreneur. You are managing a small, extremely adaptive start-up: The You Venture. And managing this start-up is your de facto vocation: it is what you do.

So the big idea here is: if your start-up is going to be successful, just like any other business it must be animated by a deep and lively meaning. Something you believe in. Passionately. Something that will sustain you. Something that will fill your chest with enthusiasm and your voice with delight.

Then you will have your guide through this treacherous labor market. If you keep this meaning in mind and set your course by it like a compass, the start-up that is your vocation, the venture that is you, will be successful for the person to whom it matters most.

You.

The Difference

Just came across the Acts 2.42 Project. They are experimenting in meeting physical needs through the church. Their current project is compelling. The progress is less so, as illustrated by The Difference.

I love the idea and the effort. Check it out.

The Power of Proactivity

For a stunning third post in one day...

Seth Godin's blog has become a regular stop on my (painfully low-bandwidth) internet rounds. This post titled Random Acts of Initiative caught my wonder today. I've written a bit about the power of proactivity, making positive decisions in a world of limitless options, and Seth's post highlights how powerful, and rare, such a quality is. Here's to the blind step.

How To Be Creative

Some advice from Hugh Macleod, business card doodler.

Check out some more of his cartoons if you have time. Funny stuff.

I Need Your Help

I'm trying to get a handle on all of the conflict in the middle east, but I find that my background knowledge is sorely lacking.

If anyone knows of any good books or websites, please leave them in the comments or email me.

Thanks!