It’s hard to believe this whole mission began with a song. I don’t know even where to begin to tell this story. I guess the best place to start is now. All the memories on the road, the thousands of people I have met and learned from have become such amazing pieces of the mosaic that has become this mission. Today, I’m in Chimoio, Mozambique with TIOS Orphan Safety School where I am with Mariah Klingsmith, ASDs new Program Manager for Africa. We are here teaching all the students and staff Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Education (WASH) and introducing water technologies that will be an added service that TIOS can offer to their communities who are still recovering from the 30 year civil war that devastated the country.

The picture above feels like a perfect story to start the epic saga. This young girl was at the orphan center waiting for her caretaker who was late to come pick her up. She was sitting near the kitchen with some banana bread eating and crying. It reminded of the most beautiful scene from “Spirited Away” the animated feature about a little girl who was trying to find her family in a very bizarre dream. After quite some time being away from her family, escaping hungry ghosts and other scary things, she sits alone with a siopao bun and eats and cries. Eating and crying. Eating and crying.

That image strikes me as such a place of desperation, trying to find some comfort that will allow us to release all the pent up fears and emotions we can’t reveal when we are running away because all of our energy must focused on searching. When I first picked up this little girl, she was stiff as board. She covered her face to hide her tears while her chest and stomach heaved from gasping for the air that might stop these emotions from pouring out. I found myself just singing “You Are My Sunshine” softly into her ear over and over and over, and she began to melt in my arms. Her tiny dirty hands opened and the banana bread fell to the ground and her head fell heavy with sleep on my shoulders.

This little girl epitomizes how I felt when my journey started. After 9/11 I left my life in NYC, gave away nearly everything, abandoned all that I knew and started my epic journey on the road. I teetered between fear and faith every other moment of the day. I wrote WE RISE to comfort myself, a song I have been singing over and over and over all around the world. With each note I sang, I fell deeper and deeper into the fear and comfort of not knowing what the universe was going to throw at me next. Which brings me to this place. Seven and half years later..... in a state of surrender. Fearless and faithless. Fearful and faithful..... and still searching.