Impressions on Purpose and Calling

Kampala – January 17, 2007

I enjoy traveling and was looking forward of leaving seven inches of ice and snow and enjoying some warm weather in Africa.  Up early, loading the car and off, only to realize five minutes down the road that my laptop bag was still my place.

Thank goodness that all other signs seemed to be on my side.  The Freeway was clear of snow and ice.  The sun was out in its entire splendor caressing the snow covered trees and causing the meadows glisten in the early morning sun. 

I reached airport in the shortest time even and was checked in for the long Journey from Seattle, Washington to Entebbe, Uganda via Amsterdam in the Netherlands. At the airport I met a former co-worker of mine from Africa who was also returning and it was a good time of exchanging what had happened in our lives.

On most long flights I do not sleep, but it usually becomes a time to read, to reflect and ponder what is ahead and where I have come from.  By the time the wheels of the KLM Jet touched down at Entebbe airport at 9 pm last evening, a lot had gone on within my head and heart especially as I reread James Hillman’s “The Soul ’s Code – In Search of Character and Calling.”

A most thought provoking book.  It took me back to my first trip to Africa, where I landed at 3am in the morning in Nairobi, Kenya. Life had worked out different than planned and something I had tucked into the deep recesses of my inner being came back to the surface.  Albert Schweitzer, the famed doctor from Lambarene Hospital had been one of my childhood heroes and I felt that someday I would be there in Africa as he had been.  During my formative years it became an “inner drang or sehnsucht” as we say in German.  An inner drive and longing, but things happened to disturb that inner vision and I did not follow up until I reached my forties.

That same evening of my first day in Africa I arrived six hours away in Kisumu on Lake Victoria.  On my first day  I had spent time in the largest slum in Africa, Kibera and had taken a six hour journey to Kisumu, where I spent the next few days with no electricity, water came from a cistern, food that was cooked over charcoal stoves and washed in a bucket.  Culture shock yes, but I felt at home.  That same feeling was there again as I drove the 30 some miles from the airport to the place I stayed at in Kampala.  The sights, sounds, scents assaulted my senses in a delightful way creating a sort of African Night symphony. At 3 am on the 17th I felt inspired by that music within to write my first update from Africa to you.

All of have a calling within, a calling to a purpose, a mission in life, a place, a place that in my case began with the reading about Albert Schweitzer in my youth, and every day I am here it feels like home and that inner purpose comes to the forefront and the reason I was created begins to make a whole lot of sense.  Besides things fall into place naturally without being forced.

There is one other thing I concluded during that trip, most of us are pushed to grow, to become someone we do not want to be and many of us just might have grown into someone that is not really us.  The prevailing word in 2007 is growth, what I have learned here in Africa is that one can not only grow up, but grow down and make sense of the things that are deep within us, to grow down puts us into touch with the real self and not only that but the real world around us and it expands our horizon and vision.

In 1997 I was sitting in my car waiting for the light to change in downtown Kampala, in front of me was a  red Mercedes convertible, a well dressed man sitting there, sunglasses on, to the side of him on the sidewalk was a severely crippled man who reached out his deformed hand which the well to do man totally ignored…Last night I realized that just maybe it was the rich man’s calling to grow down to that crippled man and to make a difference in his world and in the world of others…maybe…just maybe a trip to Uganda, Africa will cause to catch a fresh glimpse of who you are meant to be.  Most people work at jobs that they do not like, they become human doings instead of human being, fortunately some of us might wake up and catch a glimpse of what we could do and be. A volunteer work trip to Uganda, just might, be that time, I call them finding times, where you suddenly realize that there is more, there is a world out there that deeply appreciates you for who you really are, a human being who will allow the things that have been given to you to be passed on to others...jon 

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