The Overview

Here is an overview of what exactly I am up to!

My name is Melanie Orr and I am 21 years old from Comox BC, Vancouver Island. I am fundraising to go to Southern Uganda with Africa Community Technical Service (ACTS)(www.acts.ca). I leave in 38 days. ACTS is a small grass roots NGO, with main focuses such as bringing clean water to rural communities, HIV awareness and fuel efficient stoves. I am volunteering as a communications officer, and will documenting all the project areas through photography, video and writing. I am also initiating an HIV/AIDS memory book project where I will be working with adults and children who have AIDS and want to put together a book or box of photos, memories, stories and wisdom to pass on to living family members to aid in the grieving process. I will also be doing family background histories for future sponsorship. This is a completely volunteer positions, thus I have to raise all my own money to go. So, I purchased 3,000 blue bands that say "LOVE IN ACTION" and I have been selling them for $5 every chance I have to raise awareness and funds. I was featured in The Comox Valley Record a few weeks ago and will try and post that aswell so you can see it. I am having a Garage Sale at my house this weekend for my next "big" fundraiser and need lots of donations and prayers if your into that. Please let me know.

Talk to you soon!
Melanie

The songs of my heart...

Here are some links to the most moving music i have ever heard.

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/aveba/aveba1.mp3

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/aveba/aveba2.mp3

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/aveba/aveba3.mp3

Broken Hearted

You can never fully prepare. Prepare for war, prepare for love, prepare for work. I can't do it. But i know i will be ready. There is a God, and he has place a dream in my heart, he set light on a path, he has taken me by the hand and it guiding me step by step. "Immeasurable more," he says, looking at me with eyes that are deeper than anyting i could ever know, "More than you could think or immagine. My hearts beat quickens at just the thought of my God. My father. Someone who is in such deep love with his people that when he had a son. A son of his own. The only one. He sacrificed him for us. For you, and for me. He placed a flame in my heart, and spark in my step. That there is something bigger than i see to live for. There is something beyond the confines of my mind, beyond my world, beyond what i perseve to be reality. I was created for a purpose. YOU were created for a purpose. And to live in that purpose is the most fullfilling thing you will find on this earth. I need to love my brothers and sisters. I was made to look into the eyes of my fellow human beings and say "I love you. You are important. You are special. You have a life that was intended for you that is better than what you see. There is more than your circumstances." Sometimes i feel, "Who am i to say something like that who has seen their own family brutalized before there eyes. Seen there own fingers cut off. There siblings beat to death."
Who am i to not say something. Who am i to sit in my comfortable. northamerican luxury life, where i dont even know the true meaning of struggle and suffering and death, and think "Oh, its so terrible those things that happen in other parts of the world, so horrible." This enlivens me to no end. We are so priveledged, so blessed, and so spoiled. We are responsible for the people in Africa. We are responsible for the Natives in Northern Canada. I am resposible for my neighbor across the lawn. I am respponsible for my neigbors across the seas. Love knows no borders and Jesus did not tell us to only love our brothers in our house or on our street. We are to love them all. All of them. Every homeless person you pass on the street. Every coworker you ignore. Everyone you meet. Every human on this earth.
Some one is not doing there job.
I am not doing my job.
You are not doing your job.
If we were doing what we were called to do. Wow.
Please, look around. Look into the eyes of the next person you see. And look deep, look right into their hearts. You know what you'll probably see? A broken, rejected, hurt, wounded, sad, and unloved person.
Let go of what you see. Let go of what you know. There is more. There is hope and there is healing. There is love and there are answers.
There is a God over everything who see you. Who see every individual on this earth. And he longs for them to know him. To know trust, and grace, and wholeness.
That is the real plan.
That is the truth.

Here we go a bloggin'

OK, i am done with computers for the night. I finally got this thing running so YAY. I will update tommorow when i am not fet up with computers crashing in the middle of posting, and i don't have to get up at 5 for early morning prayer.

Thank you and good night!