I've got the desire..

.. for adventure.

maybe it's the new year and all the resolutions and forecasting we do.. , or maybe it's the extra cash flowing as a result of Christmas generosity... but I am YEARNING (dramatic? yes) to do something adventurous. Let me clarify, by adventurous I do not mean:

1) mountain biking 

2) bungee jumping

3) sky diving

4) going to a Monster Truck Show

5) ice picking 

My version of adventurous includes, but is not limited to:

1) moving to new york city 

2) quitting school (remember when we talked about this over Mellow Mushroom 2 years ago, rebekah?)

3) getting another tattoo

4) exploring Europe for 5-6 months

5) all of the above

It's funny.. because... i'm actually quite serious.

Do you ever sit back and wonder if you are doing what you were made for? I've been doing that for over a year (Danielle, you can pull up your facebook messages for a year+ as evidence of this, huh? and Holli? the porch talks?)...  A WHOLE YEAR. There are so many reasons.. but the main reason for this confusion is that I have an unreasonable and unhealthy need to live my life the way that the world thinks I should (or the way I think the world thinks I should live). I'm not placing blame.. I'm just honestly afraid of messing up. 

The new year is sure to bring about more honest and transparent blogs.. and maybe you'll be able to see why I question the current state of my life. But I really feel the need to stretch my legs and walk boldly into something totally uncomfortable. To do something completely irrational, unreasonable, and seemingly ridiculous.. yet totally necessary and liberating.

Lord, you have complete authority on every move I make. I'm begging- give me vision.. BE my vision.

Priorities, Priorities..

I saw this on a blog today and just wanted to share.

"It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street, and the entire G8 Summit can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases."

- Bono

(Source: The American Prospect blog)


I don't know who is to blame for the shift in priorities, and I'm sure there is more to the issue than I realize, but a switch needs to occur. NOW. We need to get this right. We have to get this one right.

Lord, help us.

Let it Pour

disclaimer: this is the most scattered blog ever. I'm not sure it has any real fluidity so if you're a reader who likes a post that flows, you may just want to catch my next post.. my bad.

i've started, stopped, and restarted this post for almost a week now. i've probably lost all 3 of you daily readers for lack of a post.. my apologies.

Actually, I take back that apology.. I've been trying this whole "living intentionally" thing lately, and its kept me from coming here to write random (sometimes meaningless) crap for people to read. In these past few months I've come to realize how often I speak just to speak. I'll admit, I'm totally that person... I LOVE to hear myself talk. I know, how prideful and embarassing. It's true, however.. and I'm not going to pretend. I started to see how much I came to value my OWN opinion and to believe that I have a right to express my thoughts at every opportunity. I guess I do have that right, but my points aren't always necessary and im not always right (there are too many "rights" in this sentence.. bare with me, its been a few blog-less weeks for me.. I gotta get back in the groove). What I mean is that while I CAN speak, it doesn't mean i SHOULD speak.
If you're like me, you have that person in your life that is usually quiet, who you always want to speak up. I used to think people like that were ridiculous.. I used to think they were rude because they never really said anything.. but then I started to pick up on the fact that when they said something, they meant it, it made sense, and it was worth something. I want to be a person is slow to speak and quick to listen. I take for granted just listening. Who cares what I think anyways? I want to live with intention... I want to speak when it matters, because the truth is, that is when my voice means something.

I'm doing a one-year study of the Bible with my friends Amber and Michelle, and while reading I just realize how much stuff I really DON'T know (but of course, I act as if I do).
It's honestly kind of embarassing to think of how many times I spouted off false information just to sound cool.

So, that's why I haven't been blogging.
Well, that and the fact that I just don't know what to say.

I don't really feel like myself.

It's been a WEIRD two weeks. Circumstances have changed (I left Auburn, moved home, started AUM), but actually, the WEIRDness of it has had to do with processing. In my last post, I mentioned I was "prepared for a seamless transition back to life here". In most areas, you could say that this statement is accurate. While I don't love AUM, it hasn't been difficult for me to be there. The hard part is that my mind is everywhere but on this planet. I feel like a looney toon, with my thoughts scattered near and far. I've been having out of the ordinary experiences, and life just seems like its moving in a new direction.

Ok, actually, I don't feel like myself at all.

Maybe if I give you a "for instance.." you'll get a more clear illustration of what I'm trying to explain..

For instance..
* I was in the car with my friend Mary on Saturday. We were driving home from a bridesmaid fitting for our best friend, Amy... What should have been a joy-filled, exciting day.. was one of the most gloomy ones I've had in a while. I cried the whole way home in the car. No real reason for the tears, they just kept coming. (I'm sure you can imagine Mary as she gave me the "what the heck is going on with this girl" look as she calmly loved me through it.) I couldn't get it together.

*I watched the Olympics (with all you other obsessed freaks) the night that Shawn Johnson competed in her last competition of the games. She ended up winning gold, and while she stood smiling on that podium with the national anthem blaring, I bawled like a baby. As in, I was weeping.

*When Hilary Cilinton gave her speech at the DNC last night, I cried again. My lips were quivering. I don't even like that lady.

*I haven't been excited about Auburn Football ONCE. I grew up going to games, most of my family went there, and I always get excited to be in Jordan-Hare. I'm not a freak about it, but I surely haven't had the slightest bit of excited readiness for it this time.

*I listen to John Mayer and he makes me want to worship the Lord. "In Your Atmosphere" comes on my ipod and I get chills and I feel the Holy Spirit moving me and teaching me. I'm telling you, things are weird.

*I don't call people back and I'm not real big on returning texts. (My mom is reading this and laughing out loud.. I was the child who ran up a 500$ phone bill on more than 3 occasions). But seriously, I LOVE talking to people, and lots of my close friends live no where close to me.. but in the last few weeks, we've had lots of trouble communicating... well.. because I simply refuse to pick up the dag-blasted phone.

*I went to Auburn for a night last week, and as soon as I got off the exit, I wanted to turn around and come right back home. I do not fit there anymore. I passed the turn to my old house and felt really lost as I kept driving. I hid while I was there, dodging phone calls to hang out. These friends there mean the world to me, but I was avoiding quality time. WHY?



Let me finish this all by saying:
a) I dont really cry. I used to A LOT. a lot, a lot. But since my parents divorce and other big changes, I'm not big on tears. I ask for them a lot, and in Africa I begged for it so that I could express my frustration and compassion. They didn't come. Now, they are coming like rain from Hurricane Fay.
b) I'm not a freak.. I promise.



I don't know what's going on.. there are so many more examples, but since my mind is everywhere but Planet Earth, I can't think of them.

I just feel a heavy weight lately. I feel lots of pain for people around me. I'm hurting for the poor. I'm broken for the mom of 2 of my preschoolers who just found out her 2nd husband is dying of cancer (the first one died of cancer too). I'm torn up when I think about a friend of our family who is trying desperately to heal from his father's mistake.

These are all valid 'hurts'.. but I'm trying to pair them up with all the good I see.My mind is clouded with the hard things, and I'm desperately searching for clear vision to see the good.

It's not as if I feel the Lord is distant or that I'm distant.. or whatever. Maybe there is just distance from me and the world. Maybe thats a good thing? Maybe thats a GREAT thing.
I just don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going and maybe this is all of what He's trying to show me. I need patience to wait out this season as the Lord both breaks me down and builds me up. I just need energy and wisdom for the journey. And of course I need friends and community too, so I promise I'm going to answer my phone soon.

Please Lord, come and make this scattered brain a resting place for peace. Make my mind a sanctuary for you. Use this brokenness for restoration. Take the hard things and allow them to stir up a passion for change. Let the good things encourage me to keep going. May I be COMPLETE in your joy. Give me the strength to answer the phone, even when I don't want to hear anything about my friends drama. Give other people the strength to deal with my crap, too. You are good. You are good. Your love endures FOREVER. I choose you over emotion. I choose you in the sunshine and in the rainiest of days (which by the way reminds me.. thanks for the rain). Help me through this WEIRD, sometimes rainy life. It's good to feel less like myself if it means I'm becoming more like you.

Lord, let me dance in this rainy season. Let me see that you will fulfill your promise of a returning sun. To see a rainbow, I have to sit through the downpour. Let me remember you are constant in both the blue skies, and the grey.
And Father, if the rain is the very thing you are using to bring that 'clear vision' I keep asking for, then LET IT POUR.

I hope you will still read my blog after this nonsense. I'm feeling emo today.. I'm assuming its just the weather (even though my brother swears im "emo-tastic" and have been since 5th grade, when I started listening to slow music and writing poems about running away).

By the way, I realize this post is about as cliche and 1990's Christian worship song-ish as you can get.. but oh well. Whatever it takes to cleanse and refine, I'm in.

Thanks for walking with me in this weird season. Those of you that I have spent time with (i.e: the ones I haven't avoided or acted like a brat to), your encouragement and life has given me strength. Those of you who tell me how much you've loved and learned from this blog, I'm really thankful. You don't even know.

Hope you still like me.
Lee

Releasing Expectations..

I have to admit.. figuring out what to say on this blog has not been easy today. I have a lot of things on my mind.. and none of them go together at all. Maybe I should make this a bullet point blog, to make it easier for you readers (are you even out there?... I think it’s just my mom..) Maybe I’ll just ramble.. See, I can’t even decide HOW to write this blog. Blogging shouldn’t be so difficult.

To start, I’m unfortunately back from Swaziland. Truth is, it was WAY too short. What a week it was.. this time last week I was laying under the Swaziland sun with snotty-nosed kids using me as a jungle gym. How incredible.


However, For those of you that I’ve talked to via phone or email know that I’ve had a really hard time with laying down my expectations for this trip. If you don’t correspond with me regularly you probably couldn’t tell.. I’m known for shutting down and putting the wall up, not letting people see what I really feel. I have enjoyed my stay in South Africa and its been just as special as you’ve read .. but its been coupled with a lot of doubting and confusion.



My plan for this trip back to Africa was: 3 weeks in Swazi, 2 weeks at an orphanage in Jo’Burg and 1 or 2 weeks here in Pretoria (Alabanza) for rest and hospital ministry. Well, it has looked more like: 5 1/2 weeks at Alabanza, 5 days in Swazi, and no orphanage.

THAT CHANGE OF PLANS HAS BEEN REALLY HARD FOR ME.

I feel like I’m pretty go-with-the-flow but man.. 5 days in SWAZI? Really? UGH!!!

Not feeling like I’m doing what I think I’m here for is no fun. I want so badly to be with the people that I fell in love with last summer. I want to go and buy a car and drive to the hospital to sit with my friend Treasure whose daughter is dying of something easily curable like Pneumonia. I want drive to Maria Kloppers orphanage and run into the green house and grab David and Sandile who gave me a penny as a goodbye present last year.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.


But, look back at that last paragraph. I WANT.. I WANT.. I WANT. That was MY PLAN… (didn’t I blog about this the day before I left to come here.. hmm..)

Is that what You wanted, Lord? Didn’t you have me here for those people??.. I certainly thought so. Didn’t you want me to sit with GoGo and shuck corn from her field? Didn’t you want me to teach Sunday School to the kids at our carepoint? Didn’t you want me to go and cook for Auntie Esther so that she could have a break from her 12 children?
Again, I was certain of it.

You know, I think the real problem is not the wanting. It’s ok to want those things. After all, I’m supposed to desire and seek after heavenly things, right?! Sunday School Lesson #1. I wanted good things. Sitting with GoGo is not bad.. its good.. (real good..like out of this world good.. you have to get a GoGo before you die!)

I think the real problem is the “I” in all of those sentences. I want. I need. MY PLAN.

I HAVE GOT TO TRUST THAT THE LORD HAS ME HERE (WHEREVER “HERE” IS) FOR HIS PURPOSE AND FOR HIS GLORY. Not my own.


(OUCH to the ego. It is always uncomfortable to learn that truth… it really never gets easier does it?)

He wants me at Alabanza for a purpose. I wasn’t supposed to sit with GoGo for 6 weeks ( \that is still really hard to admit). I get so wrapped up in me and in my plans and my desires that I often miss the voice of the Father. He prepares ministry everywhere. EVERYWHERE. To take it even deeper, this is a truth that Lee Grayson Lowry HAS TO HEAR. Doing it my way, I am likely to jump into something head first into something appealing without thinking that it is not God’s best. I am the worst for getting into something that looks great, but isn’t the GREATEST.

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails -Proverbs 19:21

Oh my.

I’m a lost cause without Him.

Ahh.. its refreshing to be honest.

I am ok though (mom, don’t panic!)... This has been such a growing experience for me. I am not depressed or sitting in a room all alone. I just haven’t been that open to what the Spirit wanted to do in and through me.. here’s to a better effort, though!

Though short, I had an incredible 5 days in Swaziland. Outside of the short time frame, it was nearly perfect. There were only about 2 or 3 people that I didn’t get to see. I spent most of my afternoons with GoGo and we sang the one Swati song I know over and over.. and over again. How fabulous. We spent the mornings at a squatter camp where we had previously taught school and done some evangelism. Last year at this squatter camp we were faced with major heartbreak. Some of you have heard me talk about the treeline, but if not this the story.. There was a huge dump across the street and surrounding it was a line of trees. Parents sent children there to search for old food so that they could have meals for the day. Well, men would go first to search for food, and when they found something of worth, they would hide it with them under the line of trees. In order for the children to get their family’s meal for the day, the men would require them to perform sexual acts with them. Then, they would give them food and send them back to us across the street. It was horrifying. It was as if Satan was staring us straight in the face. The little kids that we would hold and snuggle with in the morning, would be the ones happily crossing the street for food. It was truly one of the hardest things I have ever had to watch, and its been something I couldn’t talk about for a while. Well, this year, we found a large concrete wall around the dump and most of the trees cut down. This doesn’t mean that the prostitution is over or that these nasty acts can’t still be performed.. but we prayed that God would protect these children and remove the treeline. We came back to see the huge wall and very little trees. I CAN PROMISE YOU THAT THIS WASN’T A DECISION BY THE SWAZILAND GOVERNMENT..THAT IS AN ANSWER TO PRAYER, my friends. That is the God we serve. He is protecting His children and we saw none of the prostitution with our own eyes this year. PRAISE HIM.


It was a special 5 days and I’m thankful that He even called me back at all.

Here are some pictures.. I hope you enjoy!

( I'm still working on how to explain it and how to adequately blog about how it felt to be back.. It was surreal. I figured until I could come up with a fluid set of words, I would throw up pictures from our journey. If you've kept up since last year, You'll recognize a lot of these faces. )



This is my GoGo. Even if you're new here, you probably have an idea of how much I love this lady. She made the biggest impact on my life last summer, and not a day goes by that I don't think about her. This is the moment I saw her.. tears came from everywhere!

These ladies are the 2 women who run the school in the squatter camp (a squatter camp is a place where people literally come and just throw things together to make a 'house' because they have no land elsewhere.. much crime exists here). Gugu, the lady on the right is one of my favorite people on earth, as she has dedicated her life to educating the children in this camp.













This little guy is Sachile, the boy who was our 13th team member last summer. He spent almost every day with us and made a special bond with many of my teammates. Its obvious he is a growing boy.. he doesn't have many teeth yet! What cutie!

This is Ncobile, and there are no words to describe her. You could start with beautiful, but that wouldn't be enough. Seriously.. she could model.. call an agency! She'll be in my wedding, so you'll meet her in America one day!











This is BUGGY!!!!!!!!!!! can you believe it? she's huge!! She grew so much (and lost so much hair) that I almost didn't recognize her. She is so much more fun now!









This was probably the biggest shock for me! This is my friend Meesha. I discipled her while in Swaziland last summer.. when she was PREGNANT! I was there for the birth of this little munchkin.. and I came back just 1 week after her 1st birthday! Baby Nosepo is BEAUTIFUL!

More pictures soon..
Thanks for walking this with me and letting me be honest. you guys are incredible! I love you!!
Lee

Finding home here

Hello Friends!

I hope you guys had a great holiday weekend surrounded by your friends and family!
4th of July is one of my favorites.. which is why this weekend was a bit more difficult than usual.
Being in Africa is unreal, and I can't tell you how blessed I feel to be here. I also can't tell you how clearly I heard the call to come back to Africa.. BUT.. If I told you that answering and resting in that call was EASY, I'd be lying. This weekend was HARD.

I miss my family and friends so much. It was hard to be away this weekend because I could all but smell the fun everyone was having. I wanted American barbeque, fireworks, and to hear the laughter of my sweet little cousins.

However, on my African 4th of July, serious homesickness began to creep in. I was craving a night out with my friends, a laugh with my mom, or even just a hug from my mom. None of which was tangible. I was having a ROUGH time to say the least.
In these homesick moments, I have had to lean hard into the Lord, knowing that He is the very essence of "family" to me. He is my Father, my provider, my sustainer, and my comfort and rest.

As I mentioned in my previous email, there are 2 Zimbabwean Refugees staying with us. Over the past couple of days, I 've learned more of their story. They are a brother and sister pair who were found in the marketplace and were chased out of their country because they were siding with the Opposition Political Party. They left behind a mother, and 7 other siblings under the age of 20. They faced a brutal execution, but got out just in time. They came by bus to Johannesburg and spent 2 weeks in the bus station. Almost a year ago, our friend Whopi (who also currently lives with us and who we do our hospital visits with) was preaching in Zimbabwe and left the congregation her phone number (which she always does after speaking). Well, Eti (the girl refugee) was in that congregation (a coincidence, NO WAY!) and took down the number and kept it safe. After being in the bus station for 2 weeks here in Joburg, she remembered she had the number Whopi gave out a year ago. She used her last Rand and called Whopi, who just happened to be an hour away. Whopi went and got them, and they are now staying with us.. it has been SUCH a blessing. Last night, I was eating with Eti and her brother, and she told me how she missed home and her family, and how she doesn't even know if they are safe (they also followed the opposition party). SHe told me that she worries because her father died 2 years ago and her ill mother has to care for all the remaining children. My stomach dropped. I felt like the biggest jerk ever. THis girl knows more pain due to distance than I have ever felt, and God-willing, more than I will EVER feel. SHE IS HOMESICK. She doesn't even know where her family is, and told me she will probably never know. She has no phone, no internet to stay connected...Yet, everyday, she makes me coffee before I wake, and she smiles when they ask her to clean the barn. She is, to me, the very defintion of STRENGTH and poise.

Like I said, this experience has me face-to-face with HUMILITY.

Lord, thank you for opening my eyes to something other than myself. Father, You are my Home and may I always be comfortable with just you. Bless Eti' and my family, may they know you as their peace and safety until we see them again.


Thank you all for your prayers, I FEEL THEM.
Keep it up, and let me know how I can do the same for you.

Also, if you haven't heard of the opportunity to give, check out the post below titled "It's Lee Again..".. it is at the very bottom. WE NEED YOUR HELP! Email or leave comments here if you are interested!


LOVE YOU GUYS!
LEE

PS: this sounds lousy coming after the subject of this post.. but.. I DO have a phone here in South Africa and I would love to hear from you! I receive FREE incoming calls. The time diff. is 8 hours..as in...when it's 8:00 am in the States, it is 3:00pm here. Skype is really cheap (23 cents a minute and you pay up front, no charges on your phone bill.. go to skype.com for more info) and unless I'm in the midst of ministry, I'll answer :) MY number (with Country code) is 27-078-325-6335.