2010: Moving Out… Prepping for a Rally…
Searching for an Ordinary World…
January and February told a story of anger and spite, manning up and taking responsibility, finding faith and achieving the impossible.
January 8th, 2010. Start of a new year. As I walked off the plane, and took my first steps back onto American soil, I swore that this year would be different. That I would be different.
I had a car. That was a start. Next, I needed a place to live. So I did my homework. I visited every apartment complex I could find within twenty miles of my parents house. I needed to find a place that was cheap, relatively safe, and not too terribly far away from my school. Enter Normandy Apartments. $600 bucks a month for a single bedroom. Best price anywhere.
After doing some more homework, starting school… and literally doing homework, and taking out my first student loan, I was ready to move.
February 1st was to be move in day. So in the meantime, I studied (a little… I mean, c’mon, this is me we’re talking about), worked, and hung out with friends. Had my first kiss. Big deal I suppose. Life marches on.
Towards the end of January, two more major events transpired that altered my life. I attended my first LifeQuest meeting, and I got an email from Resolve Uganda. LifeQuest is a local organic church group in the Inland Empire. Very different approach to Christianity. LOVED it.
Resolve Uganda was an organization lobbying for a bill that dealt with stopping the longest running war in Africa. I had been involved with the issue before through an organization called Invisible Children. In fact I had gone and lobbied my own Senators and Congressman in Washington D.C. the summer before for this very bill. So I get an email from these folks, telling me that a Senator in Oklahoma has put a hold on our bill.
Without getting too far into the political nitty gritty, Senator Tom Coburn wanted to make a political example out of our bill. Make it into an issue dealing with the budget. This bill allocated a very small amount of money (at least as far as foreign relief goes), in order to stop the causes of this war from creating a new one out of its ashes. You know, open rehabilitation clinics for former child soliders. Thousands upon thousands of these children had been forced to fight in a rebel army called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). When they were abducted, many of these children were forced to commit acts of atrocity by their abductors such as killing and cannibalizing their own families.
So Resolve Uganda. They tell me in this email, that if I’m from Oklahoma, I need to write letters to my senator. I’m not from Oklahoma. So they tell me they’re having a rally in the capital city. I’m not from Oklahoma. So they tell me to come anyways.
As I’m sitting in Starbucks attempting to study one day, I get caught up in thinking about going. I think how badly I wish I could just go. How much I wish I could be one of those crazies. And I suddenly think two words that changed my life forerever. Why not?
Why not be one of those crazies? Why not go all the way to Oklahoma city for a cause that i would give up anything for? What was one singular good reason for not going? And I had nothing. So I talked to my friends. We would split gas. Drive straight there. Stay the night before the rally in a motel to get a little bit of R&R, and then leave right after the rally. It was crazy. It was insane. I was insane. What was I doing? I had no idea, except that I had undertaken the responsibility of getting myself and five other people to Oklahoma City. And BACK. All preferably in one piece. If possible.
I had never planned anything like this before. I had to figure out how we were getting there. Who’s car we would take. Who would go. What we would eat. How we would pay for gas. Where we would stay. Who would drive.
And just as the date was coming up, I went to a conference called Planet Wisdom. And what happened there, setup my life for massive change…
