Going to Africa - A Doorway

As I have experienced Africa, I have been changed...continue to change.  Richard Rohr provides a helpful image when he defines critical incidents in an individual's life as liminal space.  He says, "liminal space induces a type of inner crisis to help us make a needed transition.  In brief it should wake us up a bit.  That's what is meant by a liminal experience....A visit to another culture can jar us awake, if it is truly a visit to another culture....We have to see that others don't see things the way we do.  We need to have our fundamental assumptions questioned.  Maybe our questions aren't the only ones and maybe [the West] is not the center of the world....Liminal space is always an experience of displacement in the hope of a new point of view."  

If you are still interested in considering our Africa trip this summer, please get your applications in!

For the sake of the children,

Karine

P.S.  The boy pictured is standing next to his mother in a hut in a village in Western Uganda on the border of the Congo.  She laid on a mat grieving and bleeding heavily from a late term miscarriage due to a malarial fever and lack of treatment.

Media coverage

We've sent some information about Glenmore Elementary's fund-raising extravaganza to the local media -- hopefully you'll see it in the paper soon. Please keep talking it up with everyone! The more seats we fill, the better it will be the students in Uganda.

Niteo Benefit Concert Tuesday April 14th!

We're really excited about this!

The great staff and students at Glenmore Elementary School here in Kelowna have decided to help us raise more funds for our Niteo Kids initiative.

They're holding two benefit concerts on April 14th at 6 and 7:30 p.m. at the Kelowna Community Theatre. Their goal is to raise $20 in donations for each seat -- for each show! -- and then put the proceeds towards the purchase of a mobile resource centre for the students around Kampala.

The show will be directed by Rhonda Draper, the amazingly talented music teacher who directed "A Charlie Brown Christmas" in 2008 and raised over $2000 for Niteo Kids. She's a great teacher who was honoured with the Governor General's Excellence in Teaching award last year -- that's a national award! -- and her productions are always full of joy and life.

The kids have prepared a variety of songs for our entertainment and they have fantastic costumes and props arranged, too. It should be a wonderful night, and it's certainly for a great cause.

Tickets are going to be available at a variety of locations in Kelowna, but the easiest way to get them is to contact the school directly at (250)762-3209.

Niteo on your desktop!

I recently designed a funky-looking Niteo-themed desktop. If you happened to go to the information session at the Kelowna Public Library on January 18th, you might have noticed it on the big ole' screen.

Anyway, it's a great desktop and I have a very high-res version of it. I'd like to offer it as a download in return for a donation to Niteo. You choose the donation -- time, wisdom, goods, services, involvement, or money -- and I'll send you the file. If you're interested, leave me a comment.