Finding Momentum

Since I’ve been here last, things have changed. I grad­u­ated from col­lege, went to Africa, started work­ing in the City, changed churches, moved homes. In the span of one week, I’m in San Fran­cisco, then Emeryville, then Saratoga, then Oak­land and back. I’ve said good­bye to friends, made new ones, and redis­cov­ered old ones.
I gotta be […]

Jack: where you going to be this weekend

me: oh man
it’s gonna be com­pli­cated haha
i’m stay­ing here in sf tonight
babysit­ting w/ sarah sat morn­ing
meet­ing with [] in fre­mont on sat after­noon
then back up to sf for din­ner
come back on sat­ur­day night
church on sun
(gscc)
then back up. for church in oak­land.
sun night

Jack: do you have the unlim­ited gas cheat

I’m here in San Diego with my Mom and sis­ters, just hang­ing out. I know I lose man-points for say­ing this, but I’ve really missed them.
Remem­ber fly­ing kites in the back­yard?
Isn’t Dad such a char­ac­ter?
Remem­ber that cherry tree in the back­yard? And the swing we put on it?
We miss your cook­ing so much, Mom. We’ve […]

The tran­si­tion back home hasn’t been easy. It’s been hard to get used to the hustle-and-bustle of life here after com­ing back from such a piv­otal life expe­ri­ence.
I don’t want to for­get Africa. I can’t. I need to remem­ber, I need to remem­ber the sim­plic­ity of liv­ing. The end­less skies. Friends to chill with when […]

We made it safely back in one piece! Thanks for your con­tin­ual prayer and sup­port, we couldn’t have expe­ri­enced all this with­out you. 
One morn­ing, I woke to a rev­e­la­tion that I fear a life wasted.
I real­ized that one of my biggest fears was that if I were to totally sur­ren­der my life to fol­low Jesus […]

Mmm, Rusk…

Orig­i­nally uploaded by andrewhao

Allow me to intro­duce you to the rusk. Think of a bis­cotti, but chunkier. Per­fect in cof­fee or tea for break­fast, lunch, din­ner, or mid­night snack. Awesome.

Sure, Jack Bauer sniffs out ter­ror­ist sleeper cells to save the world in 24 hours, but did you know…
Zhie heads a wom­ens’ empow­er­ment project in Maun.
Zhie har­vests maize and peanuts and guavas in her back­yard.
Zhie has pro­vided fos­ter care for a local child.
Zhie sin­gle­hand­edly raises at least three kids at home, at least one of […]

Nel­isha is Sarah’s friend from 2006. We bumped into her at church the first week we came in, and we were invited to din­ner a week later! Here, as we are wait­ing for the food to come out, Nel­isha is try­ing to teach Sarah Shona, with lim­ited success.

Check out more of our Botswana videos!

So life here has been a whirl­wind of activ­ity:
Mercy Min­istries
 

Last Thurs­day, I shad­owed Zhie, a social worker and com­mu­nity orga­nizer, as we drove on dirt roads from bor­ough to bor­ough and deliv­ered food. It gave me a great per­spec­tive on life out­side the mis­sion. Zhie really inspires me as some­body who pours her heart out […]

This is the house I’m stay­ing in. Pretty cool huh?
 

Lis­ten to the cacoph­ony of ani­mals I wake up to: