If you get home after 7 on Tues, I’d be happy to come get ya and take you out for a much needed drink; lemme know.

BIG hugs and a sigh of relief,
Christy

Thats a cool abriviation wish my name could do that. Anyway, Hope your doing okay from the attack. I wanted to ask you about something. You said in this entry, “if not always, things just do not go as planed in Chad.” I’m just wondering what that means. Have you been to Chad more than once? If so what other things have gone wrong on your journey to stop genocide? Well thats all I have to ask you now. Hope you arive home safely in Portland.

Best of Luck,

Student from Ackerman

When you’ve written of your feelings over the past days, its kept bringing back to a moment I had in 2007 and then - when you wrote “I’m not sure what way the flow is going, but I’m going with it. I’ll be doing some paddling to give myself some direction” I knew exactlt what I wanted to write.

And then I remembered something VERY special. I still had a copy of a long, beautiful and soul-written poem by the heavenly Miss Evonne Heyning ……. here’s a litttle part of it.

So - from me and Evonne (and I’m hoping she’ll just smile because I didn’t ask her if this was OK first!!!) and in solidarity with all people displaced by violence and inhumanity,

Hugs and love and airplane food,

G. xxxx

Excerpt from “Amoration Poem”

by Jennifer Evonne Heyning - April 2007 (o-net)
(in honour of those who have the courage to follow their hearts)

The dark alluring night of the soul
Leads to the joyful radiance of the sun
Finding the source of light inside
The depths of our tender hearts
Where peace takes root to be nourished
Water, warmth and absorbing amo
Permeative pigments of complex patterns
Impressions from existence in space and time
Marks of experience, not worn as armor
But as painted points of passion exclaimed
Our spirit shall be consumed
Without losing ourselves to ashes
Becoming that which cannot be destroyed
There is only one flame and one fire
With countless reasons to burn brightly
Touch this moment with every fiber
Feel the textured matrix weaving
Interconnected wholes in each thread
Soft and rugged, warm and porous
Breathing with the air between us

Lisa
San Antonio

Conociendo sus corazones humanitarios se lo dificil de dejar ala gran familia alla en Chad, no es para consolarlos pero hay mucho que podemos hacer desde aca tambien. Ustedes tienen que volver a cargar baterias…yo se que decir Adios no es facil.
No se hasta donde quedamos con nuestros email KTJ y yo, pero dile que si!!! claro que vamos a pasar tiempo juntas bueno tu tambien Gabe y ella tiene que animarse y ver que mas hacer por ahora desde aca, yo se que van hacer mucho y con mas empuje… los dos juntos + el equipo que tienen aca son DINAMITA PURA :)
Los quiero
Zahara

My name is Nate from Chad who currently lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My older brother Reuben works for ExxonMobile in Chad and is currently in Kousseri, Cameroon helping to evacuate remaining employees from the temporary office there as well as locate friends and other family members. He was in Nigeria when the violence errupted and rushed back to the border.

I speak with Reuben multiple times a day and my wife Sarah and I are keeping our US based family and friends updated through our blog http://www.piecesofglass.blogspot.com/.
We used a few of your videos from the Hotel to spread the news to our friends.

Feel free to follow our news as I follow yours. Also if you need to make any contacts on the ground in Chad please feel free to contact me at nathanael.ndjerareou@gmail.com and I will relay it to my brother.

Take care and hope to hear from you soon Enchala

Nate

~Bryant

Ali