Making Lemonade: Sharing Sights, Sounds, and Stories from La Limonada

Unfortunately I haven't had much time to blog this week, BUT I am super excited to share that my friends over at Lemonade International are more than making up for my absence.Lemonade International is a really cool organization that partners with the community of La Limonada (which literally means Lemonade) in Guatemala City. I respect their thoughtful, heartfelt approach to community development and definitely think they're worth checking out.   And lucky for us, this week a group of bloggers are visiting and writing and sharing and capturing incredible images and stories that highlight the joy and pain, the gifts and the challenges, of partnering with people from one of the toughest areas in the slums of Guatemala to foster healing and hope for the future.I hope to one day visit for myself, but until then I will drink in the stories and details and reflections from this group of passionate and talented bloggers and artists and thinkers who are so generously giving us a glimpse into the incredible work taking place in this resilient community.

Photos from 2013 Bloggers Trip Photographer Scott Bennett

Just a taste of my favorite reflection so far comes from Katie Høiland's post, Day 1: Violence and the Aroma of Christ:

"As we debriefed tonight, the Director of Lemonade International reflected on the ‘power of presence’ to bring healing and follow the example of Jesus. When Jesus wept, he entered into the pain of death and gave relationship. Before offering the answer of resurrection to the problem, he entered in and acknowledged the suffering. By imitating Christ in this way, Tita and her team are visible signs of the same resurrection power. They are proclaiming in word and action the love of Christ causing hate to die. As 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” I could almost smell it." 

To read more reflections from the Lemonade International Blogger team (Tim Høiland, Katie Høiland, Paul Burkhart, Dana Byers and Scott Bennett) and enter into in to the sights and sounds and stories of La Limonada, click HERE. And I actually happen to be real life friends with Tim and Katie and Scott. I love their blogs, love their hearts, and love their work.  So please please please check them out and check out Lemonade International. Believe me, these stories will leave you far more refreshed then spending another evening developing an inferiority complex from mindlessly browsing wedding and baby and food photos on Facebook or Instagram. You won't be sorry.

Beyond the Buzzword: Sustainability

As many of you know, I'm pretty heavily involved in the non-profit scene. My day job, my volunteer job, my past job, all were in the non-profit sector. Most of my friends work for non-profits, and I often find myself writing needs statements, crafting newsletters, and obsessing about how hard or soft to make an ask--in my sleep.Lately my do-gooder friends and I have been talking a lot about non-profit philosophy, asking questions like, "Why are non-profits defined by what they don't do (make money) instead of by what they accomplish? When is a non-profit really self-sustaining? Is sustainability even the point? Aren't we supposed to work ourselves out of a job?" My head is swirling with unresolved questions and answers and ideas, which means, per usual, I will be attempting to work them out by writing them out. And so write, I did. A couple days I ago I shared my thoughts on one of today's biggest buzzwords, sustainability, on the SERES blog, an incredible non-profit where I'm spending my days here in Guatemala.I write,

"The big buzzword in both the development world and the green movement today is sustainability.If only we could get our development to be sustainable, our lifestyles to be sustainable, our projects and impacts and businesses to be sustainable.But from where I live in Guatemala, I look around at the shoe shine boys in the park, dark polish staining their hands, at the families who curl up to sleep outside, at the little girl selling sweets to tourists during school hours. I look at the horrifying statistics of poverty and malnutrition in the region and wonder who in their right mind would want to sustain or preserve, protect or conserve, this status quo.Instead of focusing on sustainability, shouldn’t we first work toward creating a quality of life that’s worth sustaining?"

Check out the rest of the post, Beyond Sustainable, here.I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas and non-tax-deductible two-cents on the topic of sustainability and world-building and do-gooding, whether here on Memoirs of Algeisha or over at SERES.How do you help build a world that's worth sustaining? Do you think sustainability should be our ultimate goal as non-profits and businesses, as  families and individuals? What's your experience with the non-profit world? 

T.S. Tuesday: Be Here

"Time present and time pastAre both perhaps present in time futureAnd time future contained in time past.If all time is eternally presentAll time is unredeemable.What might have been is an abstractionRemaining a perpetual possibilityOnly in a world of speculation.What might have been and what has beenPoint to one end, which is always present."--Burnt Norton, Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot 

Birds called in the distance as I panted my way up the hill, hiking one foot in front of the other to my favorite spot in Antigua, El Cerro de La Cruz. It's my favorite because there are trees and the hill curves upward and it reminds me of the foothills of Northern California where I grew up, where I first learned to pray in the hushed quiet of a forest blanketed with pine needles and smelling of Christmas. A soft haze hung over the city and my lungs burned and my legs burned and my rear end will not be happy with me tomorrow (although hopefully the stair steps will yield some perky results in the long run.) And I can't explain why, but it even looked like a better day.A day when God would speak. A day when light would pour in to the lonely places and the sad places and the hum drum and homesick places.A good friend of mine was just telling me that she misses doing things with people--active things like walking or dancing or making food. It's one of the deepest ways she connects and she feels she doesn't get enough of it.And it got me to thinking about how I connect. Not just with people, but with God. And it made me miss the salt and the spray and the startling beauty of the cliffs where I used to run in San Diego. Where I would pound and pant and start to pray again after a very long time of silence.

Somehow God always seemed to show up there, at the edge of the cliff, on the edge of the world, in my quiet morning workouts before the work day. He was in the lapping waves and vertical cliffs and smell of sulfur. He was in my lungs as I ran. He met me when I stopped.

I know I connect with God in nature, in movement, but I haven't really done it here. Not in this town where the streets are ankle-twisting cobblestone and people say it's not safe to run alone. Where the cat calls abound and I know women who've had their butts slapped and their dignity degraded on an afternoon jog.

But I'm sick of staying inside. I'm sick of treadmills and spraying down work out machines.But more than that, I miss hearing God speak.So today I ran up to the cross. Lungs burning and legs burning and heart wide awake.And you know what? God spoke. I've been wrestling with the temptation to focus on the AFTER, to stew in my discontent. Lately I've let myself get bogged down in missing my friends and my life in San Diego. In missing my church and holding hands across the aisle to pray at the end of the service. In missing my routine and my car and the relationships that give my life such fullness, grace, and color.I wrote it on Friday and it's a daily surrender: Be here. Be present. Don't miss this life here.And as the birds called to one another and the haze began to lift and my labored breathing began to slow, I looked out at the city I have chosen to call home for now, and He whispered,"Be here--because I am here."And today didn't just look like a better day. It was a better day.