invisible

so i knew i would write this blog from the moment i stepped foot back on american soil after returning from uganda. i think i've waited this long because i've been afraid that i wouldnt be able to properly explain this. i'm still afraid that will be the case. and i think there may be people that read this that will be offended by parts of it. if that is you, i do apologize - not for these words, but that you would have that reaction because this isnt about that.

in december 2003, i graduated from the University of Dayton and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. it was quite the random move, as the only person i 'knew' there was buried 6 feet underground at The Hermatige. and while i dont remember particularly why i never considered staying in ohio, i wasnt afraid to move to nashville unknown. i was eager for the challenges it brought and anxious for a new beginning. sometimes hindsight isnt 20/20, but that doesnt change that the past is indeed the past. questioning 'how life might have been different if' doesnt really do any good.

i lived in nashville from january 2004 through april 2007 (minus the summer of 2004), so just over 3 years. those 3 years felt like 30. challenging doesnt even begin to describe it. i met a few amazing people while i lived there, people who are still shining stars in my mind. but i spent most of my time in nashville feeling like i didnt belong. for a long time, i thought it was just because this was 'life after college' - that i couldve moved anywhere and done anything and would have still felt lost and invisible so often. during my 3 semesters of school in nashville, i was rarely with the same people - i describe it as spending each semester with a different class (freshman my first semester, sophomores/juniors my second semester, and seniors the third). it wasnt anything like school in ohio. at my job, my responsibilities required very little interaction with people [relatively speaking]...maybe i just didnt like 'work' and wanted life to be lived with other people. i didnt find that at work, and even in 3 years, i didnt really find it outside of work. i recall feeling like the odd duck regularly. i remember one time someone called to invite me out w/ 'the group' that night. when i called to get the details, i heard someone in the background asking who was on the phone and the person answered 'melissa rau' and the person in the background going 'who?'... these were people i'd hung around with on a more regular basis than anyone else at the time... i really thought they'd at least recognize my name. those little things ate at me, discouraged me, and confused me. i'd never been 'miss popular' but in 20 years, this world my path came across just left me dumbfounded. even my parents couldnt understand how i could try so hard and not have a good group of friends.

by the fall of 2006, i was desperate to leave nashville. i wanted to leave without looking back. in april 2007, that's basically what i did. i'd told the people at my new job they could send me anywhere (except fargo) and they rerouted my life to little rock arkansas. i cried [of course] on my last day with EMI... i generally cry when i move on in life (even if, like this case, i was desperate to go) because closing the door announces to my brain and heart that any opportunity from that way is gone, missed, passed up, etc. i feel like moving on equates with giving up and its hard for me to deal with that. but after crying out, i was still ready to leave nashville. i was desperate for life.

little rock turned out to be a blessing i couldnt have asked for. i remember when the fdic first asked if i would interview for a position in little rock... i said yes, hung up the phone, went into my coworker's office and said 'i'm interviewing for little rock... i'm really afraid its going to work out and i'm going to move there and love it and have to tell people i'm from arkansas!'... it still makes me laugh, because of course that's how it is. and better is that i SO prefer to be 'a bank examiner from arkansas' [which most people equate with... well, nothing fancy to put it mildly!] than to 'work for a record label in nashville' [which wowed most people not from nashville]. but even here, life still has its challenges, i still am about as big a fan of work as i was in nashville, living is still a struggle.

so maybe at this point you're wondering... maybe many things. why is this post titled invisible? and what in the heck does it have to do with uganda? anything?? yes... sort of.
invisible... ah, it gets rough here... there are so many times in the past 5 years i've felt invisible. it happens regularly at work... someone will walk in and say hello to my coworkers and there i sit, basically invisible. it doesnt offend me, i normally just laugh...
this is so hard to explain. maybe if i try the uganda route... so, i sign up for this trip, so blazing excited... i've said to many people - once i heard about this trip, it wasnt really a question of whether i should go, it was just the natural course my life was heading -- it fit right in. i've done enough things in life without knowing anyone else involved, so that part of the trip didnt really concern me. the fact that most of them were from nashville...that concerned me. not anything against them, but simply b/c i spent 3 years trying life amongst nashvillians and it didnt work. going to uganda - my goals were simple: meet a need and see the lives of the ugandans for myself. those goals were met [they were pretty much inevitably going to be met, but still, it meant my expectations were realistic, and so nothing was disappointing. that's a new one for me]. anyway, something else neat happened that i didnt forsee.

coming home from uganda, in the newark airport, i spoke to my mom on the phone for like 2-3 hours... i think it was more words than i'd spoken during the whole previous 9 days. seriously. i actually wondered if my trip-mates in the airport were surprised [well, okay, really i wondered if they even noticed... inivisible remember]. i spoke more to complete strangers sitting next to me as our planes were delayed than i spoke to the team in uganda. i spoke so little during the trip that when i came back, my words had become but a whisper. it took me a while to notice the pattern of people asking me to repeat myself.
for most of the trip, i felt invisible. not in the sense that i was ignored by people, just invisible. like i could have walked off into the bush & while they might notice i'm gone, they wouldnt really think anything of it. it didnt hurt my feelings or anything like that. it was a little odd - almost surprising that it felt like life did while i lived in nashville. by the end of our trip, i was ready to go back to arkansas, like i'd been when i moved in 2007. but for the first time, i saw things differently, understood them in new ways.

i didnt intentionally try to NOT become friends with the team; i didnt intentionally not talk... but that quiet person - a bit withdrawn - it was just naturally who i was in this circumstance. and like seeing myself from a third party perspective, i could see that i was not myself on this trip. so much of the personality God has developed within me - its like an entirely different person than i was during this trip. a few years back, someone said to me something along the lines of: 'i think you're this great person that most people will never know'. i think he meant that he saw me... saw this unique creation... but could also see that most people didnt see that - or that ... like i was a ghost that he could see, but no one else could. aaah, trying to explain this is not working. i dont think any of us are made to be invisible. and i think most of us have so much to us that very few people will see. but what i learned about myself on the trip to uganda was that there are places where who God has made us to be shines more brightly than others. in nashville, i didnt shine. not that my light wasnt welcome, it just wasnt the right spot for me to be planted. little rock is different.

maybe giving up isnt always a bad thing. instead of being confused and feeling defeated, i've had the opportunity to better understand who i am, what i believe. and going to uganda, with this particular group of people, instead of frustration, i saw who i was, who God has made me to be, and it turns out - that's a good place to be.

The Playlist.

I love music. It holds a very special place in my heart. Leading up to the trip to Uganda, I kept an ear open for songs that inspired me along the way, for lyrics that said what I wanted to or wished for or could relate to. It turned out to be a small playlist, only 8 songs, but every time I listened to it in Uganda, and every time I've listened to it since returning home - it somehow uplifts every ounce of me. Like I cant help but smile and sing and just enjoy being cheered.
I thought I'd share it with you. I'd burn you a cd, but I think my old boss would hunt me down and hurt me! So, the lesser of the two evils, I'll just post the list here & the lyrics to one of my favorite songs. [feel free to pay $8 and buy the songs and create the playlist yourself!]

"Sweep Me Away" - Charlie Hall
"The More" - Downhere
"The Word" - Sara Groves
"The One Thing I Know" - Sara Groves
"Incorruptible" - Watermark
"Give Me Words to Speak" - Aaron Shust
"Trinity" - Jennifer Knapp
"Beautiful Redemption" - Joy Williams

"The More" by Downhere, off the album Wide-Eyed and Mystified
I met you like a little child
Wide-eyed and mystified
That you could love even me
So I'm here to testify
That it's been an amazing ride with you
And I have never walked alone
Wanna give you every moment, every minute
It takes a lifetime to know you, to know you

And the more you show me, the more you grow me
The more your glory becomes all there is
And the more I know you, the more I need you
The more I love you, the more you become to me

Fast-forward to the golden years
A smaller pride and a bigger fear
But still, no way are we done yet
I pray that you would keep me mystified,
In every way that I will still abide in you
Till you come to take me home
Wanna give you every moment, every minute
And take a lifetime to know you, to know you

Wanna give you every moment, every minute
I'll take a lifetime to know you
Hold me Lord, keep me
Draw me closer every moment of my life

Home Sweet Home

Dear friends, family, and anyone else :)

It's 7:43pm Little Rock time on Saturday, August 1st. I'm quite proud of this fact. This is the first time I've actually been awake to see evening hours in the past 3 days since I made it home. In traveling to Uganda, my body had one heck of a time adjusting. Sadly enough, it's having an even harder time adjusting back. I know this adjustment period is normal, but that doesnt make me like it any better! My only peaceful meals so far seem to be breakfast. My stomach argues with everything else the rest of the day. And its been such a fight to merely stay awake long enough until its reasonable to go back to bed - a sad waste it seems where I have not spent the time journaling & recording & processing my genuine thoughts from the trip. And then there's my poor friends here in little rock. I've only seen 3 of them so far and I havent been much company! More like the zombie I'm sure my teammates also resemble in some form or fashion. Hopefully they've been more personable that I have! To the ever so expected first question, "so, how was the trip?", my grand thoughts (note the sarcasm) have come out in one word... normally "fine" or "good". Weak I tell you! Oh, and not to mention, one would think I've lost my voice in addition to my inability to speak. It seems i've lost the typical loud speaking volume. Not that I considered myself an overly loud person to begin with, but most people I've interacted with have had to ask me to repeat myself because the first time I spoke too softly. That was something that seemed odd to me...the whole speaking outloud feeling odd.
Anyway, all this to say, amidst my attempts to stay awake long enough to begin building my thoughts about the trip, I have been thinking much of those of you who helped make this trip possible, whether through financial donations, prayers, encouraging words, etc. I am eager to share many things with you, it's just a bit of a slower process than I forsaw. So please bear with me and keep checking back :) Thanks!

Time to Go!

here we go! this is it! my first flight takes off in just a little over 12 hours.
as far as i can think, my packing is done. so all that's left to say is that from here, i wont be blogging here during my time in africa. for the next 10 days, please switch to the main Sweet Sleep blog

sweetsleep.blogspot.com

i think someone will post there when we've arrived safely, and then various team members will blog during the trip. so thanks for keeping up with this process... surely MUCH more interesting things to come when i get back! til then :)

Advice & tips for the trip?!

well, here I am, just finishing my breakfast before my final day of work before the trip. it's pretty exciting. I havent really let myself think a lot about the trip this week because when I do, nothing gets done and I cant sleep. So it's quite the nice thought to know in 10 hours, I'll be able to completely focus on getting ready. I'm a little nervous about getting my medicine refilled... they've been a bit of a hassle recently but hopefully when I speak to them today, it will work out. I'm eager to get to packing, to get to shopping for all the random stuff I need to pack. So I guess my question for you all is: for anyone that's been to africa (or is there now!) or to anyone who's been out of the country recently, I'm looking for traveling tips, best ways to pack you've thought of, or advice you can give on things that made your trip better! Thanks in advance for your tips & thoughts!

Paid. In. Full. and more.

at last! today is the big day! well not the big day, but a big day still! Today marks the end of the money process! Tomorrow I will mail in my remaining balance to be PAID IN FULL!!! Looking back over the past 2 months, it's pretty incredible and my gratitude cannot be put into complete words. What has been so amazing to me and what I've been eager to share is the range over which this $4,500 and supporting prayers come from. 12 [my favorite number] states to my knowledge. I'm an incredibly lucky girl. So thanks to the following states, and those that represent them!
Arizona
Arkansas
Colorado
Indiana
Missouri
Nebraska
Ohio
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
Wisconsin
And I know many more of you have been sending thoughts and prayers my way. I just cant tell you how grateful I am.

As I mentioned originally, I hoped to go into this money part using my savings for some and hoping others would join in the journey. Some of you may be curious how it ended up - 42/58! God has done great things and taught me much in this process. I havent felt stressed at all about the money side of this, and yet even now I'm realizing how fear has held me back. Sitting here, I can think of 5 people off the top of my head who said YES they wanted to help financially and I was too afraid to follow up! Oy! Silly me! the good thing is that whether you donated, prayed, contacted me, or perhaps did nothing at all, if you're reading this, you ARE a part of this! I'm thankful that you even know about it, that you might get to learn about a place and a people you've never considered before. I couldnt begin to imagine what each person who's heard of this trip will gain/think/consider/etc. I guess that's why I'm so excited. Because I'm not one for irony & coincidence. If you're reading this, it's for a reason. And to know that something is happening in your life - no matter how big, small, intention, unintention, no matter when it shows up or makes its reason known - its a crazy great thing.

And so here I am. July 10, 2009. I fly to uganda in TEN days!!!

Before I hang up for the day, in case there is anyone reading (not sure how likely this is, but just in case!) this who is upset that you didnt get a check in the mail, there are still ways to be involved. Financially speaking, you can still mail a check - but it would need to be made out to me & it would no longer be tax-deductible. OR (and truly the better option) you can mail checks directly to Sweet Sleep (or me & I will pass them on) - made out to Sweet Sleep but with nothing in the memo line - this money would go directly to helping build more beds (and there is always a need for more beds!) Everyone else, prayers are always welcome and maybe start doing some research of your own if this has piqued your interest. Maybe next time, you'll be the one going :)

2 weeks and counting.

Hey everyone/anyone :) just a quick note. Two weeks from right now I'll be on a plane to Brussels with 20 strangers (well... I guess like 300 strangers, but you get what I mean). I'm definitely counting down the days (okay... again, I guess I've been counting down the days since April). I just had a good friend get back from a mission trip from Greece and while I dont know if I'd categorize this trip a mission trip (somehow that term only seems appropriate if going through a church, which this is not) but still, it makes me excited still.

I'm currently out of town for work, so sitting in my hotel. I'm hoping and praying that a little more support/donation money will come in while I am out of town working. I have just shy of $1,000 to go... so anything that comes in this week will be amazing, and then I'll cover the difference. If no further donations come in, that would put me about 50/50 - 50% donations, 50% savings. But I'm not begging for your money, just offering an outlet if you're looking for a way to make a difference, which your money toward this cause will certainly do.

Either way, I leave in two weeks and am eager to see what happens from there. I'll probably start packing this weekend, simply out of excitement, and wanting to make sure that absolutely nothing is forgotten... and hopefully that will give me time to also not overpack!

Well, dear friends from Wisconsin will be here soon. On vacation in Texas, they decided to route their return trip through this little town I'm camped out in all week - so incredibly generous of them. If anyone reading this wants to make a last minute donation, email me immediately: theugandajourney@gmail.com and I will tell you where to send the check and please let me know if a check is in the mail so I can know how much my portion of the last bit will be.