A Life-Centered Project

Ghanaian Long-Lost Brother

Throughout the past two months, I have dramatically shifted my view of Enliven Mama Africa and its role in my life. When I first returned to the USA, and especially when I started at Colorado State University, I looked at every opportunity as a way to enrich this project. Now, things have changed.

Best Friend and Colorado Mountains

Now, I look at this project as an opportunity to enrich my life. When I returned to the USA, I didn't have any commitments in my life except the ones I made to Maxwell (EMA's Managing Director) and the young women in Besease. Now, I have a school, a living community, a church, a best friend, YES Alumni companions, and a ministry still in its infant stages. Funny how that can happen in a year. My life would be overflowing even without Enliven Mama Africa.

New Experiences

I find the relationship between my other activities and Enliven Mama Africa to be positive. If I am happy, the project thrives. If I am struggling, so does the project's vision. I guess a big part of me thought that Enliven Mama Africa could take care of me, that it would make reentry easier. It would keep me tied to Ghana and keep me busy during the famous streak of boredom. I did spend a lot of the "bored" phase of reentry working on the website, but I finished it in a few weeks. If anything, EMA made reentry harder. My fellow exchanges students had a clean break, while I was still calling people in Ghana weekly.

CSU Global Village

I think its normal for American who've lived abroad, especially in Africa, to become cynical about daily life in the USA. I willed myself not to be that person, but my will is rarely stronger than my nature. During the first eight months, cynicism was a real presence in my thoughts. Daily. Living with people like me at CSU's Global Village helped. I don't know what I would have done without that.

Service Benefits the Servers

 My cynicism peaked just before a life-altering trip to Washington DC with YES Alumni. Seeing other young people who were passionate about change in the world inspired me. But more than being inspired, something within me changed. I talked to other Americans limping from reentry, and to students from Kenya, Malaysia, Turkey, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Saudi-Arabia, Mozambique, India, Egypt, and...Ghana. I wasn't "the girl who lived in Africa and for some reason wants to start a project" in that workshop. I was one of many like that, and I saw that Enliven Mama Africa is tiny compared to the entirety of all service work done because of the YES Program.

Changemakers, Washington DC

The workshop made most participants feel more empowered about their projects, but it gave me a chance to step back. I become less focused on the minutiae of Enliven, and more on its beauty, on what it gives me. Service benefits the server far more than the one served. I am finding that as a Bible study leader, as a leadership student, and as a friend.

For a while, Enliven Mama Africa was the center of my life. I had a "project-centered life." Now, as my life fills with more surprises and love everyday, I see that Enliven Mama Africa is a "life-centered project." The more full my life is, the more enthusiasm I can inject into Mam'Africa.