Tuesday, January 10, 2006

African scrapbook



One of the coolest things that happened this Christmas break-in and out of all the normal holiday fun and chaos-I got to help my brother-in-law "scrapbook"! He is a college Jr. and was home on Christmas break. He had the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Zambia in Africa this summer and had some amazing photos and stories from his trip that he wanted to "do something with". He found an old book and I gathered some supplies for him. I gave him some pens, some natural colored papers, ink, adhesive, a few alphabet stickers with a few "5 second" instructions and sent him to work. I was totally blown away and inspired by what he created. After working a few days, he sent me an email saying "To be honest, I never thought scrapbooking would be this much fun". I must admit I laughed outloud.

In the beginning, we talked about how to organize the book and I recommended he think about an appropriate framework or chapters for the book, instead of just thinking chronologically. He decided to organize the book in the framework of "Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation". Can you tell he is a theology major!?! The Creation section shows photos of Victoria Falls and the safari photos. The Fall section outlines the overwhelming AIDS epidemic and its effect on the orphans. He spent his time in Zambia working and teaching amongst the orphans and the Redemption section focuses on the work that is being done to help to help them get an education and nourishment. The whole book is about taking a risk and following where the path is unknown.

Isn't that the story of all our lives... following, but not really knowing what the outcome might be. I may have started this project with the thought of inspiring him to make a cool scrapbook, but he ended up inspiring me. "Teach, so that you can learn".

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