by Hampton | Jul 14, 2012 | buildingaboat, buildingaboat |
This summer, while in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, we’ve met so many families living poured out lives for the sake of the Gospel. One thing that keeps standing out as we meet each new person is that the one valuable thing they have isn’t within themselves, but rather a complete surrender to Someone they happen to know well. Our Pastor back home wrote yesterday about the great purpose for each ordinary person, and as I read it I remembered how it seems a realization of our own brokenness happens oftentimes just before some of our biggest adventures in faith. He shared how he ran into old friends that are walking away from everything they worked for, everything they thought they ever wanted to make their lives about something more valuable. I feel blessed that God moves in the hearts of all of us. My prayer is that we’ll all learn to listen. Following costs each of us something different b/c our expectations and ideas are different , but we all gain the same thing. Hope in an eternal Truth that brings a freedom you can’t create, buy, or produce on your own. To get it, you search, question, fall, and learn to get back up. Then you learn to trust and to believe. You learn to jump into the unknown, and the adventure builds and builds until you’ve built such a story with the One that guides you that you have to share it. Spending time with the Rodgers family was a high point in our journey while here. Their story was one of longing to go, but...
by Hampton | Jul 5, 2012 | buildingaboat, buildingaboat |
Traveling on the Ticabus from Costa Rica is already slightly daunting, watching closely your bags, your children, your passports, and constantly checking to make sure they are all still with you. As you sit in the buses, you literally put all your bags at your feet, wrapping them around your legs and never in the upper bins at the advice of our Nica friends here. While traveling one day from Costa Rica headed back through a town called, Rivas, we were met by an American that currently lives here in Central America. Initially on the bus he takes the seat across the aisle from our Libby. It didn’t take long before an unsettling feeling was around us. He seemed unsafe although he looked perfectly normal. As we were approaching the border from Costa Rica where we all file out, get our passports stamped, and wait for a long time in the hot sun, I overheard a conversation in Spanish from this man on his phone. I understood enough to know he was speaking of children and money. Children and money. I thought to myself, “Not that, God.” I just kept listening and praying in my seat. I couldn’t be sure, but I felt a sense of danger. I always try to minimize things, and talk myself out of them. This is always my default. Could I have imagined or am I over-reacting? Did I misunderstand what I thought I heard? And all along, my hope is that I am dead wrong about this guy. We cross the border, and as we get back on the bus and...
by Hampton | Apr 12, 2012 | buildingaboat, buildingaboat, Uncategorized |
I recently wrote Sister Rosemary a letter, sending photos, dreaming about another visit, thanking her for spending time with us, for how she lives her life and looks so much like Jesus. She’s a woman that you can’t help but feel changed by when you meet her. It’s her joy, perseverance, and love of the people she serves that stands out. St. Monica’s was among the places we visited while in Gulu, and we had met her a day before one night on the deck of our hotel eating pizza. She had a great impact on me personally and our group as we listened to her and learned all she’s done for the people of Gulu. This video does a better job telling the story than I will, but this great work still goes on today and expands much wider now. CNN Heroes, Sister Rosemary (click link to watch video) Here’s a beautiful shot of one of the most beautiful women I’ve had the privilege to meet and becomes friends with: Sister Rosemary Gulu is a more peaceful place now. Many of the people there remember when it wasn’t, but will tell you that they feel much safer there now. Thanks to much of the work Sister Rosemary has done there, women and children have a new start and a new hope. There’s a great blog you should check out. Jim Gash and his family are living in Uganda helping reform some of the judicial practices there, and they have a great blog worth following. I enjoyed meeting them, and appreciated them sharing their experiences with us. Jim and...
by Hampton | Apr 5, 2012 | Uncategorized |
Its so late and I miss you! I’ll try to be somewhat brief since it’s after midnight here. We are going nonstop, but loving every minute. I’m putting two days worth of events.It’s all been pretty wonderful to travel with this small group and visit and encourage and love on people here in Africa. We started our day at Invisible Children. He met with the leaders here in Gulu, and out of respect for all they’ve been through, we put our cameras up. They have always said it wasn’t about them. It still isn’t. It’s about the children of Africa and trying to stop a great injustice. All I can really say is they are amazing, beautiful hearts and they love Jesus. We got to speak into them, telling them we still believed in them and to stay the course. Then we put them in the middle and prayed for them. It was powerful. Pray for these people and their families. We then headed to Sister Rosemary’s where we learned about all their mission there. I took photos, and a great portrait os Sister Rosemary, which I’ll post at some point. – travels and power outages make it difficult to write/post. Sadly, due to the death of a teacher, we went to her funeral. It was quite heartbreaking to watch the kids grieve. Kids were bent over crying, and it was so raw and we were all crying with them and among them. They do the burial there and it’s much different than the US. They have men digging, and when it’s time for the burial, they lower the...
by Hampton | Jan 2, 2012 | buildingaboat, photography, Uncategorized |
This year we went to Hondo to a place Jim’s family has and ‘camped’ in RVs, spending time with his parents and my brother and niece. We sat around campfires each morning and each night, went on numerous rides in the Kawasaki Mule, wrapped the treehouse with lights that Jim built, rode the zip line and had a great time. The picture above was taken after Libby created ‘art’ with fire and an old styrofoam cup. As I walked up to her, my intent was to tell her not to do what she was about to do… sticking her sparkler into the cup. But as I walked over, I loved how the only light on her, her face and the cup was from the sparkler, and stopped to grab a shot first. Not my finest parenting moment, but I did kindly ask her to stop once I snapped a shot. She and her sister continued making ‘sculptures’ all weekend with sticks in the campfire, melting plastic forks, cups, and styrofoam into shapes. On actual NY Eve, my brother showed up with his daughter, and I was so excited they joined. My brother below with Jim in the Mule, gearing up for zip lines. As we sent each kid down the zip line, we laughed for over an hour. Kelli fell out of the chair at least twice at the end of the ride, while Beck kept getting caught up in the chair trying to get out and Libby kept trying to go with her feet up and upside down. I’m amazed at how different and unique each child...
