MOST PEOPLE HATE THEIR JOBS!!!!!

One thing I have noticed is that people who work tend to hate their jobs at some point in time. People go to school to study how to work a job for the rest of their life until retirement only to be turned off to their job after only a few years. I hear this and it makes me sad but also so grateful. I LOVE MY JOB!!! I have met some of the most amazing people I probably would never have met if it were not for Invisible Children. I have seen some of the most beautiful places in the country that are comparable to much of the beauty of my home state of Michigan. Slept on the floors, couches, beds, futons, and chairs of people I will know long after this tour ends. For this I am eternally grateful. For this I dedicate my life to Invisible Children.
I can't wait to get home on DECEMBER 22, 2008 and see all of your beautiful faces again. When that day comes my hear will be filled with joy.

Until then.....

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE......AND THEN SOME?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Here's the deal...

Invisible Children has been a godsend for me! They got me off of my lazy behind and got ruined my life in the best way possible. All of my previous plans of a high paying job and such have flown out the window. IC has opened my eyes to the possibilities out there and also given me an avenue to address those possibilities. So for now....here is the "GAME PLAN."

Second semester I will be going back to school at Central Michigan University and completing half of my sophomore year.
This summer, with a ton of help and support from my parents and family, I will be bicycling across the US from Troy, MI to San Diego, CA to raise money. I am torn at this point between donating the money raised to Invisible Children or using it to fund my trip back to Africa, but I'll figure that out in due time.
After that, in the fall. I will be applying as a returnee to roadie-ship for the Fall 2009 S4S World Tour.
After that I suppose it's wherever the wind takes me. I have been privileged with so many opportunities because of Invisible Children that the job of serving people and changing my world is the only job that resonates with me at all.
KEEP IN MIND AS OF RIGHT NOW, THIS IS A TENTATIVE SCHEDULE. I DO PLAN TO TRY TO STICK TO IT THOUGH.

Brrrrr....it's cold in here.-> An Ode to My Warm-Blooded Team Mates

WISCONSIN!MINNESOTA!

I feel like I'm home again. The leaves have changed color and are in the process of falling. This however is a very unique and unknown phenomena to people such as two of my team mates Rebecca and Lauren. Rebecca is from Orange County, California and Lauren is from Austin, Texas. With both hometowns being such different climates than my own, it is an interesting experience seeing their reactions to the trees and snow.

As I, and many of you know, when we see these brilliantly colored landscapes we take it for granted. We see them in passing and just say "Oh, thats cool!" It wasn't until leaves started falling while we were on the road that Becca, who had never really seen "fall" having lived in California her entire life, saw her first multicolored tree. We honestly stopped the van and allowed Becca to get a picture.

What made her experience even more awesome was the sight of her first snowfall. Growing up in California, she had seen snow at snowboarding/ski hills but never seen it fall. Upon our approach of Minnesota, we encountered our first snowfall of the year. It gave me an entirely new appreciation to the wonder and beauty of nature, especially in these wonderous states I am experiencing for the first time.

I SAID OVEREASY!!!!!!

Tragedy struck today....Big G (our van) was victim of a brutal act of vandalism involving a carton of eggs, a get away driver, and a car full of j*ck*ss*s....

We are staying with one of our contacts, Celeste. Her parents got back from the store and informed us that our beloved vehicle had been EGGED!!! WHO COULD HAVE DONE THIS? WE ARE TRYING TO END A WAR! HOW COULD SOMEONE HAVE THE NERVE TO DO THAT TO US?? So many questions were running through my head. I was sad. I was distraught. I was at a loss of words. I immediately took action, and Lauren and I headed to a local car wash to clean our precious off. Oh what an adventure this journey has become!!!

Gone, going, gone, everything is gone!

It's gone! I made the decision to cut my beard then shave it completely. Here are the pics.

A Great Severance of HAIR!!!

BEHOLD!!! I have FINALLY beaten my older brother in the everlasting competition for the presence of facial hair (and devilishly good looks). To celebrate this happy and joyous occasion I will be severing all of those hairs in an orderly fashion. I have included pictures of its current state.



Pictures of the aftermath are coming soon. (DON'T GO ANYWHERE).

A Brief Note of Rwanda's Genocide

We (Middle America Roadies) attended a screening at Webster University. While we were there, I (Pat), started talking with a Rwandan student named Olive and she told me her story. Later on, at the overnight in the quad, I saw her again and asked her if she'd like to write down what she told me. And THIS is what she wrote:

Hi Patrick,

It is really hard to start the story because one really never gets a phrase or a sentence to start it, but in short i tell you this:

I was a happy child before the Rwandan Genocide which left me a double orphan and hopeless. My whole family was killed in the genocide. I mean my grandparents, my parents, aunts and uncles, and of course my sweet brother, surely the list can be endless.

My birthday is July 3 and I was born in 1988. So the genocide happened while I was 5 years and only two months before my sixth birthday.

Based on history, hatred was created between the tutsi and hutus during the colonial period. As years went on, Rwanda's people who had earlier lived happily ended up divided: oppression, discrimination and other evil things you can imagine became the order of the day.

It was April 6th when darkness and evil powers filled people that the genocide started. However, genocide acts had started in 1990's and 1994 action was taken. Hutus turned against their Tutsi neighbors and killed them by burning, slaughtering them like animals, part by part, throwing them in pit latrines, burying them alive and many other evil acts.

After the president's plane had been shot down, massacres begun. On that day, I woke up and found my parents in a sad mood that I had never seen them in before. A few hours, killing started and we fled our home, and went to hid in the bush. Friends turned against us and could not hide us. Instead they called on, the militia to kill us. It was my first time to see my mom cry, after her friend offered to hide us but later chased us out of the house on seeing the killers. It was horrible.

My father died about four weeks after the genocide had started. My mother almost survived the slaughtering but she was killed later in the camp. In fact, I was close to her when she died. I thanks God I was able to make it up to now. I never understand how mom would die and leave me. I guess people (the killers) didn't see me. Oh it was God's love, so that I could maybe tell my story.

At a certain point my sister and i met a militia who almost shot us but he didn't not have bullets as he tried to shoot. Some of the young people like me or other survivors of the genocide found their refuge in the dead bodies. They covered themselves up and pretended to be dead.

At one point, I gave up hiding when i was left alone. I became hopeless when i saw many of my family members dead, and then friend were now enemies, and they became inhuman. During the genocide, animals were better than the killers. However not all Hutus were killers. Some Hutus were good and hid Tutsis but this was a huge risk because some Hutus were also killed as they tried to hide Tutsis.

A great number of Tutsis who hide in churches were also killed there and some religious leaders also participated in the killing.

I was so fortunate that my uncle whose ordination was on the day when his entire family was killed in church, found me. My uncle was in Uganda at the time but travelled to Rwanda yet the genocide was still going on to celebrate mass in his childhood church were his family had been killed.

He found my sister and my cousin brother alive and we made it to Uganda. He left us with his friends and he continued to be a missionary in Equador and Peru. Later he made friends who are helping my cousin brother and I in our education.

Back home in Rwanda, I have two sisters alive. We are really happy children, because we believe we have a nice future.

From this experience, I want you guys (whoever reads this) to know:
>Hope
>Love
>Forgiveness

If Rwandans really loved one another, we would not have had genocide.

Forgiveness is the way to build a new generation and a way to a happy life. We are trying to reconcile so that we can live together again like we used to before evil was "planted" in peoples minds.

We should have hope for the future. I am a blessed person, I have a family now (a mom and dad) who really love me like their other children. I'm so loved and hope for the future. I can now stand and strongly say, "NEVER AGAIN," any where in the world.

Forgiveness is the hardest thing to do, but in order to live peacefully and promote the never again theme, I am willing to forgive whoever asks forgiveness from me.

Every year in April, we have a memorial period for our beloved ones.

MAY GOD BLESS YOU!

MISSOURI.....the show me state!

OK, so the title of this post has nothing to do with the actual post except that it tells you where I am. I actually have no idea what is meant by the "show me" state. But whatever.

I am officially done with my sub-region of the tour. I was in charge of booking Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Springfield Missouri. Now that we are in St. Louis, MO I am all done. I have met some of the most amazing people along the way. The Mayhue family had us to their house for two nights. They were the poster family for the big hearted families of middle america.

So quick break down of the states...

Oklahoma (oak-lah-home-mah)
Visited Oklahoma City, Edmond, Tulsa, Norman, and Ada. I have really high hopes for almost every school we visited here. Ada high school may be small but they have an amazing yearn to win this. And University of Oklahoma, who I competed against when Athens won, has already set up a huge benefit concert that bands like The Rocket Summer are playing at with all proceeds going to benefit Inivisible Children.

Arkansas (ar-can-saw)
Visited Fayetteville, Gravette, Gentry, Hot Springs, Little Rock, Conway, and Fort Smith. Once again, the people may not have had the money to help out but they definitely have the heart. I am excited to see what the schools I visited have to offer. We visited Hot Springs National Park and saw the geothermal springs in the park. It was absolutely amazing. I was blown away.

Springfield, Missouri (spring-feel-d mizz-ury)
The one thing I can say about Springfield is Missouri State University. Our extremely loyal contact Megan Gettemier is a freshmen there. She organized a campus wide screening at the student union and then gave up her entire dorm room to me and my team for the night to sleep. (NOTE: This was the third time in 4 weeks that I have had the oppurtunity to sleep in a bed!!!)
She has some amazing ideas and creative ways to go about following through with them. MSU will definately be in contention for the trip.

Introducing Middle America

Hey all, I thought this might interest you. This is a small video production I worked on during our 3 day trek to Oklahoma. It is nothing special but it is basically an introduction to my road-mates. Hope you enjoy!!!

Lately....I am good!!!!

Hey so once again I want to apologize for not keeping the blog up to date. We have been completely swamped with work. So as you can see below, me and many of the other roadies have begun a tradition of watching the sunset from our balcony at the villa every night after work. It makes everything else kind of melt away which makes things kind of euphoric (apart from the fact I'm living in San Diego with 55 other people working for an amazing organization).





Anyfart, I figure now is as good a chance as any to take a feeble attempt at trying to sum up some events of late...

Tour launched on Thursday and it was quite a sad time for all. Tears were shed, hugs were hugged. Most of all, friendships were solidified. I have met some amazing people through this experience and I would not trade it for the world. <--- That is Lisa Dougan. She is my Tour Manager (RM) and is probably the coolest person ever. She has been so supportive ever since the first moment I spoke with her. I will miss her dearly as she is like my mom whilest I am out here on the road. :(




This picture --------> can pretty much sum up the experience that is driving through Arizona. It was pretty much all desert. On a lighter note, according to the border patrol, IC is in the business of drug trafficking. Just kidding. But for real, we were deffered to the search and seizure area of a border patrol checkpoint along I-8 on our way to Phoenix. We were asked to get out of the car, then were frisked thuroughly, and then asked if we would allow them to search our van. It was quite an experience seeing as we are a non profit organization trying to end a war, not smuggle people into the United States. I thought that was funny. On the note about Phoenix, we stayed with such an amazing kid. His name is Nicklas Handel and he was a Schools for Schools trip winner on this past round of S4S. He is a senior at Desert Mountain High School and is tearing up the fundraising trail. His family is absolutely amazing and he has such an amazing house. I was blown away.

Apart from that, I had the chance to visit the beach again before I departed my beautiful new home. I am pictured <--- here with my great Canadian friend Victoria. She will be touring Canada with Matt Wood and Kevin Barnes this tour and i am pumped for that.

As for now, I am safe in Oklahoma now. We have our first screening Monday September 8th at 8pm on the University of Oklahoma campus. It should be a good turn out especially with all the guerilla tactics going into it.

Next post hopefully won't be too far off. I love and miss you all.

Wednesday August 20, 2008

It has been far too long of a time for not posting. I feel absolutely horrible and apologize for not keeping this up to date. With the amount of things we are doing, it is hard to find time to keep this updated. So I will sum up the first two weeks in one paragraph and then touch upon a few of the key and exciting things that have occurred along the way. SO here goes nothing.....

I have one word to describe the past two weeks. CHAOS. It has been such a roller coaster the past few weeks. We had training daily for the first week and a half. This meant that everyday we went into the office at 9 am, then having training sessions related to anything from email etiquette to the breakdown of Schools for Schools. and this went on until roughly 6 or 7 everyday with random sporadic 10-15 minute breaks here and there. The first day on the job, IC upheld their expectations by bringing in Jolly Grace Okot to give us the history of the war lesson with Jason and Laren. John Chu, the director of Step Up 2: The Streets also came in for an inspirational talk which ended in a dance off between him, jason, and his friend versus Eugene and Timmy. Many other past roadies have stipped by periodically to see how things have changed, as well as drop on on the new meat.

This past weekend we went to the San Bernadino Mountains to the Thousand Pines Christian Camp and Conference Center for the annual Roadie retreat. It basically went down without a hitch. The Movement Staff came with us which was pretty cool. The icebreakers were pretty fun games of running charades, who knows their RM's the best and which RM's know their roadies the best. It was a pretty interesting time and a great way to get to know the staff a little better. The downside occurred Monday afternoon when we were playing basketball. I landed on Trigg's foot after dunking and sprained my ankle. Margie and Chris ended up taking me to the hospital later on that night to get X-Rays and such. I am in quite a bit of pain because of it and will be in an air cast for 2 weeks with a can to help me get around.

Sooo. I guess you can say we have been busy. On top of all of this training and such, We have been dealing with contacts and booking screenings in our designated regions. I find it quite interesting to be dealing with students who are in the same postion i was in just a year ago or less.