this love will open our world.

so this is kind of expanding on the last blog. i may or may not like what i wrote here better. i hope it truly expresses what i am feeling and surrounded by.

-- and it just hit me that i am leaving these beautiful people for three whole months. [ouch.] --

community.
(sorry this is long.)

i have often praised and dwelled on the beauty of the community here at invisible children. and i have often said that it is something like i have never experienced before. and i really believe that there is truth in those statements.

but never before have i experienced a community that has shown so much dedication, loyalty, and steadfast love than i have in the past two weeks.

i came back to invisible children, entering this community for a third time. each time it has changed, evolved, and been shaped by the beauty of the hearts of those involved. and it is an incredible thing to witness. and i have seen the outfringes of this community while interacting with previous roadies and interns, and it has always been something i have missed and anxiously anticipated coming back to.

community is something i never have really been good at, or really been that involved in. it involves being vulnerable, which i am not good at or necessarily comfortable with. it involves forgetting yourself, which i am not that good at. it involves being challenged, which although i do welcome, the comfortable is so much more appealing sometimes.

but anyways. these past two weeks, our community - no, our family - was challenged to rally around and support two loved ones that are making their way to north korea. they are going to bring light to a place that has perhaps not seen light in many years. they are going to break through the monotony of fear and captivity. they are revolutionaries.

so we rallied. we fought to bring in money. and lots of it. we got up early. we gave of ourselves. we washed cars. we shed the comfortable and became vulnerable in front of others, begging for support.

honestlly, this has been one of the most powerful, if not the absolute most powerful, witness of the beauty and unity of a community that i have ever seen. i do not say this to glorify ourselves or the people here, but simply to say that this is one of the times that community has worked together like a community should. it is what we are made for. what a community is designed for. constructed around.

love. dedication. inspiration.
firey love.

i don't even know how to express this. here we are, a small group of people gathered to try to change the world. we are setting out on tour in a mere four days, not just to spread the word of the situation in uganda, but to empower this generation to forget themselves. to leave the comfortable and to begin changing their world. but we found each other as a community, as a family, supporting our friends that are leaving the comfortable and they are going to change the world. they are living out the message that we are hoping to get across to this generation. and it's amazing. it's part of this growing feeling of revolution that we are all starting to recognize ...

so here's to community. here's to this community. here's to the evolution of what community means. of how community is lived out. of how life is lived out.

here's to the challenge of living life. of realizing that life is too short to be this comfortable.

here's to you two. here's to my family at invisible children.
love.
k.

'the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.'
galatians 5:6

just love will open our eyes.
just love will put the hope back in our minds
much more than we could ever know.
oh, so don't burn the day away.
don't burn the day away.

come sister, my brother,
shake up your bones, shake up your feet.
i'm saying open upand let the rain come pouring in.
wash out this tired notionthat the best is yet to come.
but while you're dancing on the ground,
don't think of when you're gone.
'pig'.
dave matthews band and dave matthews