Let Your Life Surprise You

  This week, I received an email from one of my best friends, Autumn, who is living and working in South Sudan amidst one of today's most pressing humanitarian crises. Refugee camps are overpopulated with men, women and children who lack clean water, sanitation, and sufficient nutrition - causing outbreaks of cholera, hepatitis and impending famine. And outside the camps, violence continues with killings in hospitals, churches and mass rape.

And my sweet, dear Autumn is on the front lines doing her part to address the immediate needs of our South Sudanese brothers and sisters, despite the horrific conditions.

This was her mode of transportation from a recent visit into the field.

But there's something you should know about Autumn: Humanitarian work was not her original career path. It wasn't even her secondary or tertiary path.

In our early twenties when we lived together, Autumn worked for a music label, a recording studio, and even as a makeup artist. While she gleaned great life experience, she continued to be dissatisfied with how she was spending her days.

This is us, with our other roommate Amy (whose incredible story I will tell you about later).

Autumn continued to ask the good and hard questions about vocation and calling. And then she took brave steps to actualize her convictions to be in proximity with the poor.

She left Nashville for a job with a social business in California, applied to grad school at London School of Economics, began internships with major NGOs in the UK and has found her way to coordinating emergency responses to water, sanitation and hygiene in South Sudan's refugee camps.

Her most recent email stated:

"Most days I feel completely inadequate to lead the response efforts in such a crucial way as this. Other days I feel blessed that I get to be here in this moment, and there is nowhere else I would rather be but be in the midst of all that is South Sudan. I feel like when I'm here I'm seeing a picture of love, suffering and life that most people don't, and I'm so challenged and changed by it daily." 

I am so proud of Autumn, for being courageous and persistent. For listening to her heart and following that calling. For serving in a moment in time even when the rest of the world's tragedies have overshadowed the very real and horrific one that she is living in. And for choosing hope even when everything in her days tries to convince her otherwise.

As I remember our years together in our Nashville apartment filled with angst and uncertainty about calling and direction, I don't think Autumn could have imagined that this is where she would be today.

Don't count yourself out of the tugging convictions within. Listen to them, seek them out. And let your life surprise you.

(This is in one of the camps that have flooded. And because of open defecation and poor sanitation services, she's literally knee deep in it. With a smile and all.)

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More information about the organizations Autumn has been working for and how to help, go here and here.

(All photos courtesy of Autumn Petersen)

African Leaders Summit

This week, our nation and president are hosting more than 40 African heads of state in Washington, DC. This is the largest summit of its kind, intended to strengthen ties between Africa and the US. There will be many discussions surrounding trade, energy, food security, and innovation.

To our surprise, Jars of Clay and I were invited to participate in the kick-off event for the summit, which was focused on the role of faith-based organizations working in Africa. Jars was asked to play music as part of the program; I was invited to sit on the panel to discuss the role of faith organizations working in Africa.

In a room full of members of Congress, US government officials and African ambassadors, nobody really knew much about us. In fact, I was a last-minute addition to the panel after much deliberation. I don't blame them - the other panel members were established people like the South African Ambassador to the US, and the moderator was the Senior Director of the National Security Council. I'm sorry - Blood:Water who?

Washington isn't used to having a band in their meetings or an unknown person on their stage. But I'm proud of what we contributed to the kick off of this historic gathering. The Jars of Clay guys picked a perfect set, and their song Oh My God stopped the room. The lyrics spoke to so many people there. The room paused before clapping. It had tapped something deep.

A lively discussion on the panel followed the band. I felt small sitting among such significant people. But I just tried to stay faithful and honest in my answers. And then at the close of the panel, the moderator looked over at me and said, "Jena, as a young leader, I think it's appropriate that you be the one to provide the final remarks for our time together."

I looked out at the room of important people. I think I forgot to breathe.

I don't remember exactly what I said but it had to do with letting the young leaders of Africa be the champions. I know so many creative, hard working, compassionate individuals across Africa. I think it's our job to believe in them, invest in them, raise them up and let them be the heroes of their communities. Let's do our best in partnering with them, and then move to the sidelines and cheer them on along the way.

It struck a chord with people. Administrator Shah came over to thank me for what I said. (BTW, he's a remarkable person - 41-years-old and running USAID's $22 BILLION operation - dang!)

As I think more about it, I am reminded that inspiration goes a long way. Stories, lyrics, ideals, moral imagination. That's just as important as the grandiose; sometimes it's most important.

Here's to a special week of the African Leaders Summit. I am honored to have been a small part.

---- Schedule for the week NPR story on the Summit

What It's About

I greeted Saturday morning with a bad attitude. My alarm went off at 5:15a, just 25 minutes after I had gone back to bed after nursing Jude. I threw my bags together and hustled out the door to join the Jars guys in a van with a trailer, headed for Atlanta.

We had a benefit concert that night, and I was slated to make the pitch from stage. Though I speak in front of people frequently, I still feel anxious and ill-prepared for such a task. It had been a long week, and I just wanted to spend my Saturday morning curled up on the couch with my baby and my husband.

The goal for the night was to raise $10,000 - enough money to provide a well for a community in Zambia. With an expected audience of 1000, I planned to ask each person to consider donating $10. It seemed a simple way to get there, not asking too much of anyone.

But when the opening act began, the auditorium was pretty empty.

Like awkward empty.

Like this was supposed to be the most happening place on a Saturday night, but you were duped because everyone apparently went somewhere else kind of empty.

I felt duped, too.

"We can't ask for a well tonight," I told my colleague Jake. We'd be asking for too much. Reluctantly, I walked on the stage and told the scattered crowd about a community called Koloko, in Zambia.

I pulled these photos up, for the audience to see. They were taken that day by our team in Zambia.

There's Josh rolling the drum of water.

Community members use this to transport their water, over 2.5 miles away from their homes.

There's Courtney, accompanying a mama and her child on the walk for water.

Children under the age of 5 are dying unnecessarily from water-borne illnesses.

And here's the dream, I told them: that walking miles for water would no longer be necessary, that preventable diseases and deaths would disappear. A well could help them do that.

Despite the fact that I knew we wouldn't get the full $10,000 that we needed that night, I boldly asked the audience that we try.

So we passed the popcorn buckets through the aisles, and people placed dollar bills into the buckets. It was a beautiful sign of generosity.

But it wasn't going to be enough.

Until a man pulled me aside and handed me a blank check to get us to the $10,000.

A blank check.

In ten years of asking for money on behalf of my friends in Africa, I have never been given a blank check. It was a shower of mercy for my doubtful heart. A lifetime of water for a community we love.

It's moments like these where my narrow worldview continues to change because it's not about the thousands or the crowds or being in the hippest place on a Saturday night. It's not about demanding a guarantee of success before giving up a precious day for myself.

It's about remembering that God is bigger than our wildest dreams. That sometimes you don't need a thousand new supporters; but rather, just the faithful ones. It's about the stories we tell. And the faithful actions we live out despite our unbelief.

I guess, too, it's about being bold enough to ask, even when it feels foolish. And it's about letting love surprise you - because when I went back on stage to announce the good news, my colleague Michael ran up to tell me that another person had just donated $10,000.

And just like that, this small but mighty crowd had done something extraordinary. Koloko was now bound up in us, and us in them. But we had to have the audacity to ask. My own doubtful heart turned upside down.

For the Mothers and the Babies

"Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days..." - Isaiah 65:20

Eight days after I delivered Jude, I suffered from a postpartum hemorrhage. While it was a terrifying experience to bleed out in a public restroom and be taken by ambulance to the emergency room, there was an easy operation that fixed the problem. I stayed in the hospital for two nights and have fully recovered since. Meanwhile, postpartum hemorrhages account for more than 30 percent of all maternal deaths in Africa. I could have been one of them.

This morning I will be sharing a stage with Melinda Gates and Senator Frist, standing in solidarity of the 287,000 women around the world who die every year due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been leading the way in bringing awareness and support to vulnerable mothers and children in developing countries.

Following their lead, James and I have joined a growing coalition of faith-based organizations and advocates to make a stand for access to contraceptives and healthy family planning because of our commitment to save the lives of mothers and babies. We have also written an op-ed that unpacks the complexity of these issues in places like Kenya. Blood:Water is already actively supporting clinics and making safe delivery possible for thousands of mothers and babies. The babies in the photo was a celebration of a mama with preeclampsia and her twins' survival thanks to the clinical care they received.

But we still have a long way to go.

It seems fitting that on my first day back to work from maternity leave, I will be spending it at a gathering on behalf of mothers and babies worldwide who deserve a better story. I dream of Isaiah's vision of the new heavens and the new earth where never again will a baby live but a few days or a woman not live out her years. It was personal for me before, but now as a new mother with dreams for my own child, I wish it even more for our women and children around the world.

Everything Changes

James has been in East Africa for the last two weeks while Baby Jude and I have held the fort down in Nashville. While James' time in Africa is the shortest he's ever taken, it has felt quite long for all of us.

Our seven years together have been nothing short of amazing - the adventure of travel and mission, the missing each other and the reunions, the intentionality of a stash of hand-written letters for each day that we are apart or the shared book we read while away or the end-of-day emails we send to each other. I'm proud of how we've found a rhythm - a way to stick together even when we are miles apart.

But now, everything changes. Because how can you maintain the same kind of presence or intimacy with your three-month-old son when you're halfway around the world?

You really can't.

I think we knew that truth (which is one reason why it took so long for us to try to have a baby), but we didn't really know it until we have lived it out over the last couple of weeks.

We are so grateful for Face Time so that James can watch the dramatic growth and changes that seem to occur on a daily basis. But it is no substitute for cuddling with your baby in the mornings or holding him when he cries at night.

We don't know what the answer is. For us, it's a bit of trial and error. Of trying and learning. Of fumbling along the way. And of trusting that there truly is a way to live out commitment to both family and mission.

Dreaming of Mandela

My introduction to Africa was as a college student on a study tour to South Africa in 2004. I did my best to understand the complexity of race, economic disparity and a devastating history of apartheid. Nearly a decade later, I still don't understand it. I continue to feel as uncomfortable in South Africa today as I did as a college student.

Roger Cohen provided a beautiful op-ed in the New York Times, reflecting ironically on the ease he had growing up as a Jew in South Africa, while blacks endured the crippling violence and oppression as victims of apartheid. While Cohen's family picnicked on Table Mountain, Nelson Mandela spent another day of his 18-year imprisonment on Robben Island (27 years total imprisonment). The juxtaposition of free and oppressed was real, and it was cruel.

We continue to rejoice that apartheid is no more, at least legally. South Africa is still broken today and separation continues to live on - just as it does in every place where there has been a history of violent oppression.

And yet, Nelson Mandela has unified a nation in a way that most people didn't believe possible. He is a hero, a man who transcended the underbelly of injustice with vision, patience and endurance. He made us believe that we can triumph over the depravity of others, and of ourselves, with love.

We need heroes to call us to our better selves. We need them to remind us that we can love better, that we must love better. I am not ready for a world without Mandela in it. I know none of us are.

"I have been dreaming of Mandela. An old idea: He who touches one human being touches all humanity. I have been murmuring his name: He broke the cycle of conflict by placing the future above the past, humanity above vengeance.

He reminded us of what is most precious in Jewish ethics: What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man — or, as the Mosaic book says many times, you are to treat the stranger well for “you were a stranger in a strange land.” Repair the world. Be a light unto nations.

The truth is we did not deserve him. We could not even imagine him. But, as I learned young in South Africa, the human spirit can avert even inevitable catastrophe."

- Roger Cohen

A Lost Cause

When I was in high school, I was voted most likely to devote my life to a lost cause. I was mildly offended, but ultimately took it as a compliment.

Because sometimes the most important work in the world looks like a lost cause.

Day-in and day-out, a commitment to a person or an ideal can certainly feel like a lost cause, too.

Yesterday, Reuters reported that seven African countries have cut child HIV infections by half.

It's a remarkable piece of news, and a tell-tale reminder that the fight against HIV/AIDS is not a lost cause. Twenty years ago, we couldn't have dreamt of such a concept, and now it is within our reach.

In fact, it's so close that hundreds of thousands of us are committed to live in a world where there will be no baby born with HIV by 2015.

We still have a LONG way to go, but the end of HIV/AIDS is also within the reach of our lifetime.

It's why we can't wait.

It's why we can't slow down.

It's why we can't get distracted by naysayers or by complacency.

It's why, one community at a time, we walk alongside Africans in their commitment to ending HIV in their home villages.

You can consider it a lost cause if you want. I consider it a cause worth waking up every day to fight for.