Changes
“It’s never too late or too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
-Eric Roth
Life has brought me some altering choices in the last few months and it has put me into a position to reevaluate: who I am, what I want for this chapter in my life, and how I best go about walking out that path. I love the quote above because it shows me the courage and honesty it takes to constantly question and reflect on our own lives to see if we are “living a life we are proud of” or in other words, seeking the best version of ourselves. I have recently decided that my path with the Franciscan Mission Service is one that I am grateful for, but ultimately, not the path that is right for me. My time in mission training, language school, and serving in Cochabamba, Bolivia for the last 9-10 months, has been an experience unlike any other I have had in my life. I am incredibly grateful to all the people who have had a positive impact on my life during this time and have encouraged me to grow as a person and in my spiritual journey. I have been pushed in so many areas of my life to step out of my comfort zone or the comfortable box or house that I have lived in (figuratively and literally). My time in the homeless shelter in Washington, D.C., as well as the many different experiences in Bolivia, has allowed me to do this and has given me a little glimpse into a drastically different reality.
My current path has brought me unexpectedly back to the U.S. working with my brother to start to build a basketball program at NorthPointe Christian High School. It was an unexpected opening at just the right time. I am now coaching the JV basketball team at NorthPointe as well as helping Jared out with the varsity team. It has been great to be able to spend quality time with family and to get to work laying foundation to be successful on the court as well as in life. It has been an amazing process of faith in following my convictions and watching to see how doors have been opened for me. I have had this coaching position open, a new spanish emersion program at NorthPointe elementary where I will be helping, and also a non-profit christian organization called Unir, which means to unite, approach me about starting up the first ever basketball school in the community where I was living in Bolivia, Valle Hermoso. Over the last couple months, I have not written a blog and much of it was due to all of the uncertainty or changes that were taking place in my life. Many details had to be worked out for this new basketball school as well as all the other details of moving my life back to the states. I am extremely excited about where these opportunities are taking me and it has brought me full circle back to my two biggest passions in life; the journey and mystery towards God and the great sport of basketball. I will be able to incorporate these two passions as the focus is to use basketball to develop positive relationships with young kids to positively affect their lives as individuals and to implement that change into their communities. I could go on talking about this basketball school for a while but for brevity sake I’ll stop. If you have any more questions about it feel free to ask...I’d love to share more.
I continue to be amazed at how, as I have different opportunities to step out of my comfort zone and security, and to take a leap of faith to follow the call I feel in my heart, I am blown away with what opens before me. I couldn’t have imagined this opportunity, nor would I have been ready for it a short year ago. (lets hope I’m ready for it now:) I am a firm believer that the words of Joseph Campbell are true, “If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” This surely has been the case for me here in Bolivia and other experiences in my life as well.
I am now working with both the basketball teams as well as the spanish emersion classes before heading back to Bolivia after the basketball season at the end of February. I am excited about this time to work with young people, and to help encourage them with their growth as basketball players, as well as in life. I look forward to continuing my blog and sharing with you what it is that touches me in my life experiences. I wish blessings on all and will leave you with this quote by Johannes Gaertner, “To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.
