Surrender.

SURRENDER. This has been a word that has appeared several times this year. 2012 has been a whirl-wind of an adventure from spending the summer in Uganda listening to former child soldiers dreams, designing and being a part of the incredible Global Citizen Festival in New York City for a month that raised 1.3 Billion dollars for the worlds poor, and now a new adventure -- Haiti. I get to do what I love and in the mean time, have to learn to surrender myself for the causes I believe in. Surrender and deny myself realizing it's not about me at all. My designs are not mine alone, my stories are a part of a bigger picture, my life is built to serve God and his people and to do that I have to constantly surrender. Surrender my plans, surrender my stories, surrender my love for this.

It's a hard balance, being a storyteller and wanting to share stories in this day and age when we vie for attention and desperately want to get noticed for the photos and statuses we post, I know that I can get easily get lost in what really matters. This is why I love traveling and finding myself when I'm surrounded by nothing that's familiar. I have been so surprised by how much bright clarity comes when you are focused on serving, loving and pouring into broken people. You realize how broken you are for thinking you can actually complain about your life. We are blessed. We are loved. We have a home and a roof above our heads. We don't have to worry about contracting diseases every time we drink water, we don't have to fear the storms of starvation and famine. And yet, even amidst all of the pain that comes from poverty, there is a rich inheritance of JOY that I haven't found anywhere else. There are children that run to you with this palpable joy and faith in their hopeful eyes that leave me in tears every time. These are the stories I want to share and I want to tell. Not about me, but THEIR STORIES. What is this joy and how do I find it? How can I surrender my life, my plans and live like these children do?

This is my mission and my heart to know how to surrender each day to God's will and his love. To trust him in the details and the larger story that he is weaving together. My plans fail, my words fail, but God's love never fails. He leads me beside still waters and restores my soul. (psalm 23) He also leads me to adventures and places I would never have planned. And as of this week he has lead me to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

I am steadying my head and my heart to do God's will and love his beautiful broken people in Haiti. Ready to find and learn more of my own brokenness and how can I be the hands and feet of selflessness to the meek that inherit the earth.

I will be sharing many stories of hope, redemption and strength in the coming weeks. I just fill with excitement knowing there are people just aching and waiting to share their stories with us, and that I get to be a part of that.

For the next month I will be focused on raising awareness for maternal health in Haiti. The country has the highest maternal mortality rate, 1 in every 90 women. To me, this doesn't have to be the story. We have medicine, knowledge and tools to help improve women's lives. With a team of people, we are going to really focus and get creative to raise over 800,000 for a new maternity center. I will tell more about our creative plans in the coming days, but for now I will leave you with a number. 315 Miles - the length of Haiti.

315 miles and generous people stand in the gateway of improving maternal health worldwide forever.
Now this is a story I can't wait to be a part of. It is my hope and prayer that my will is surrendered towards this cause and towards loving these women who have been hurting for so long and that I can be a light amidst the places of darkness in Port-au-Prince.

"I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light" — John Keith Falconer