More Pictures

I was finally able to take some pictures outside. We had been working so hard that it had been days since I had left the house.

This is a picture of Christie and I in the tipi the GID folks set up.
This pictures was taken right outside my room actually, and it is Christie, Rashad and myself.
This picture was taken yesterday when we went down to Vevey and took the boat back to Montreaux. The guys with me in the picture from left to right are Ian, Muaz and Rashad.

I am meeting people from all over the world. Even in our team of coordinators we have people from 12 different countries. I will post more information on that later...

Thunder Storm

Last night we had a thunder storm of epic proportions. Apparently most times there is a thunder storm lightning hits the building. If you notice a rather large house at the top of that second mountain, that is where I am staying. I took this picture from lake Geneva yesterday and it was a bit overcast. Also we were miles and miles away, so the building looks rather small, but you can clearly see how high we are.

I hope that at some point this week I will be able to go all the way to the top of the mountain you see in the very back of the picture. That should be a fantastic view.

My long lost sister?

I met Clementine Lue Clark last year at a conference in Dayton. She is very involved in the work that I do and so we see each other periodically at diverse activities put on by my organization.

Back in Dayton people kept on asking me if we were sisters. Now that we are both at this conference in Switzerland we are getting the same reaction from people. Today, Clementine made a presentation on identity, and I had people coming up to me thanking me for my inspiring words.

What do you think? Are we that similar?She is a Jamaican with a Chinese father and a black mother. I guess it is the multi-culturalness...

The House

The house in which I am staying is called Mountain House and it is a mansion that operated as a hotel for the rich and famous prior to WWII. I believe the building has been around since 1902. Some of the furniture and rooms have a definite antique feeling to them.

Opening Ceremony

Yesterday we kicked-off our conference with an indigenous celebration. A rather large group of indigenous people that are a part of the Global Indigenous Dialogue (GID) have joined us for this conference, and their experiences are quite unique and bring so much to the table.

Here are a couple pictures of the opening ceremony where they offered up an offering of burnt tobacco to invite the ancestors to be a part of our gathering

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Hello Europa!

Hello Friends,

I am in Switzerland for two weeks with my job. Initiatives of Change owns this fantastic palace from which they run a series of conferences every summer. I am here to help out with the coordination on one of those conferences.

It was an adventure just getting here. The building is half-way up a mountain. The view is fantastic. Check out my view at lunch time today.
That's Lake Geneva in the distance. My lunch was also quite great!

I will keep you posted on the stuff I do while here.

Bucket List

Last night Trevan and I watched the Bucket List.

The theme of this movie has been used over and over again. Someone finds out they are going to die, and all of a sudden their priorities change. They decide to live the life they always dreamed of, but seemed too risky or irresponsible.

These types of movies are suppose to send awakening jolts to our inert systems to get us out of our ruts and into living the lives we were meant to live. Throw caution to the wind and climb mount Everest, visit Egypt, skydive, carpe diem!

However, the majority of us just make excuses for the pathetic lives we live. "Things will be different once I get married, once we have kids, once I get my PhD, once we retire"...the list goes on.

I have been fighting the urge to just survive for quite some time now. I wake up with no purpose and no direction. Some days I just feel like crying, it all seems to hopeless.

Every time I give in to dispair I am reminded of a sermon Trevan preached. The title was "But God", taken from the picture Paul paints in Ephesians about the death and dispair that we were in, But God has set us free.

I have found in these words the will to not just survive, but to let my hair down and go for the life I was meant to live. I am starting my own Bucket List, and I hope to stick to it not just for my sake, but for the sake of the God who has given so much to set me free.

I will keep you posted!

Venus and Serena

I really appreciate these two women, and what they are doing with their lives.

They are classy when on the court, courteous with the media, and seem to keep it real. While some have accused them of not giving enough credit to their competition, they are quite secure in who they are. They believe, along with many others, that if they play their best, no one can beat them. I would argue that even if they are not playing their best they can still beat the majority of people out there.

It was a pleasure to watch Venus defend hers and Serena's work ethic when someone questioned the authenticity of their matches against each other. It was a tasteful answer to a nasty question.

Another thing I appreciate about them is that, unlike a lot of top players these days, Venus and Serena do not look up to their box after every point to get moral support, or to get advice on whether to challenge a call. They just play their game, stay focused, and deal with the consequences of their decisions.

The Wimbledon final on Saturday was really great to watch, even if Serena did a mini-baby-sister-pout after she lost (It is totally fare to hate on siblings that beat you, it's in the Bible I believe). Venus said that she took her job as a big sister very seriously, therefore she did not rub her win in Serena's face. That's really nice of her, I am pretty sure my brother would have made fun of me on the spot. Sibling rivalry is stronger in some families more than in others. I hope the sisters continue playing for many more years.

And for those of you that think they spend too much time away from the tennis courts...Don't hate on a sister's entrepreneurial skills!