Project LIGHT has launched!!!!!

Driving up the red dirt roads of the Rwandan countryside you feel as though you have entered Jurassic Park, only with mud homes and the most beautiful smiles of children chasing your car yelling muzungu, muzungu (white person). Being back on the bumpy roads of Africa is heaven for me. Women walk up the streets carrying 50 pounds of forest on their heads as men fly down the hillside on their 1940's bikes. Each and every person you pass waves at you with pure love in your eyes, and every couple minutes or so a child will pop out from the woods as though it is Christmas morning to wave to the muzungus. Project LIGHT has begun and is beyond amazing, starting on Monday we can began the program working with 12 young adults ages 20-25, all of whom have survived the genocide, many of whom have lost their entire families and witnessed the murders of the people they loved most, now left to live life alone. When I really stop to think of this, I think to myself what would I do if this happened to me and my family, I do not think I could go on, even the thought of it is debilitating, but what Africa continues to teach me is that anything is possible. As we enter the first day we are greeted by these young people with the most amazing song and dance, and have spent the last three days listening to their dreams, goals and what they are grateful for. Today the group made a list of things they were grateful for and they could not stop writing, these were some of the things they wrote. 1. I am grateful for being able to help others. 2. I am grateful for my relationship with God 3. I am grateful for the opportunity for me to work on unity and reconciliation 4. I am grateful for having goals. Amazing!!! Take the average American and they would probably write I am grateful for my 5 cars, I am grateful for my vacation home, I am grateful for my NFL team, after taking about 20 minutes to even understand what having true gratitude means. I know at times I am a part of that as well, but this exercise really impacted me, showing that the energy of gratitude brings you into a place of possibility, and that if these young people can be grateful for so many things after what they have experienced surely we can begin to write our lists. The level of eagerness and passion exuding from this group is palpable and I feel so blessed to be a part of witnessing their transformation. This project is being done through Create Global Healing www.createglobalhealing.org, I wish my words could fully explain the depth of work that this organization is doing; meeting people where they are at and giving them the tools to truly heal so that they can begin to see the possibilities in their life. One girl in the group I will leave her name out was 9 years old when the genocide occurred, she was thrown on top a pile of bodies after her head was cut by a machete and then witnessed the murder of her whole family, somehow she managed to escape and lived alone in the woods for three months holding the wound on her head so that she would not die, before me she stands her little body singing and dancing with joy, yes there are moments when I look at her and I know she is having a very difficult time, but just that she choose to be a part of this program and is able to make a list of things she is grateful for and sing with such joy is proof of how amazing the human potential is. Thank you Rwanda.