The Something Blue Well (Our Long-Overdue Wedding Update)

Hello friends,

All your lovely faces in 2015! 😍

If you remember, in 2015 so many of you made a stunning celebration possible for us. You came to witness, applaud, and encourage the beginning of our marriage, inaugurating it with your presence and a gift so humbling it continues to move us to tears. And now, we have exciting news!

First, can you please forgive us for all the waiting? We are so sorry it's taken quite some time. Thank you for holding on. Thank you for asking and wondering. We promise, this will be good.

Second, do you know the gravity of what you became part of that October day? We hope we can help you understand. We hope we can help it crash over you as it continues to do for us, and as it should for years to come; generosity is not meant to touch us only once.

As we planned for our ‘unique’ wedding, we wondered - sometimes (...ok, maybe a lot of times) freaking out over - whether family and friends would dare to embrace such an unconventional idea: the beginning of a marriage marked by the funding of a clean water well. You blew us away. We gave and hoped you might be moved to give a little, too, or if not to just show up and know you were part of it all. But you GAVE! Did you know that you gave so far over and above - before and beyond the wedding date - that we had to raise the goal itself?! Your generosity brought the total donated to $19,244. The total number was never the point, but this swept us away in an overflow of tears and joy which carried us through our honeymoon and far beyond. God was faithful to give us a dream and to carry it out, using all of you. To this day we are still moved to tears, and why shouldn’t we be?! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

And so we planned for a well, and the excess helped to repair an entire drilling rig in a moment of unexpected need for this organization we love, Let Them LOL. So your generosity now touches so many more wells than one. But, onto the the feature: the Something Blue Well.

Kiddos using their new Something Blue well! (Also spotted: Star Wars shirt - yea!)

This well we once imagined as a “what if” now exists, because of you, because God is in the business of crazy dreams... and its story is beautiful. Not only does it serve a small community called Mosongo in the village of Njala along a dusty road I (Katie) have ridden many times before (so unknowingly - but God knew) as I waved and smiled at little ones and their mommas, but it primarily functions as the source for an entire elementary school. You can click here to see it on LTLOL’s map of drilled (and future) wells! (Fun fact: We have engraved the name Njala onto the inside of our wedding rings as a constant close reminder of all God can do through the love of our family!)

This particular school has known the longing for clean water in a painful way, for it experienced the unique hurt of broken promises before LTLOL arrived. We found they had a sort of “well” but it was left in such disrepair there is no way it was preventing illness any better than the dirty mud pits we see other villages forced to drink from, due its unfinished state (see images below).

This is the previous, unfinished "well". You can see the pump was never attached and it was improperly completed so bacteria, algae, and decay have taken over, thus this well never provided clean water.

Peering down into the gaping hole left in the top of the previous well

This school in Njala/Mosongo had been promised a well, but those who began construction never finished the job, not only compromising the health of these people but also leaving a gaping, dangerous hole uncovered in a place where small children wander and play. We are grateful for opportunities to step into these situations and set a new standard where communities have been taught to disbelieve hope exists as promises are broken for the most basic needs, like clean water. This is exactly the kind of thing we believe God was waiting to bring through you - our wedding guests, family, and friends - all along: restoration, hope, new beginnings, and new life. How can we explain our gratitude for this gift that will outlive us? We can only say thank you. Thank you!

The brand new Something Blue Well, just "capped," before the pump was attached an concrete poured.
See the school in the background?!

Clean water!!!

Hope!

Peter and I will head to Sierra Leone at the end of September with Let Them LOL (Peter’s first trip!) and we are hopeful for all that is sure to unfold there. Peter will have an opportunity to do some astronomy outreach with the high schoolers and teachers at our LOL school Hope Rising Academy, I will be photographing and taking on some work-related tasks (I was hired part-time by Let Them LOL last August as graphic designer and storyteller!). Plus, we will of course get a chance to see the Something Blue well and document it for all of you! We are excited to be able to bring back some visuals and first-hand reflections of this experience as another way we can hopefully express how grateful we are and what an impact you have made in this community. We will also get to see the opening of LOL’s new Mother/Children’s Clinic and Leadership Cafe. We know this trip will be full, we can’t wait to share about it all here. Check back soon and/or follow Let Them LOL on social media to keep up to date!

We can’t stop saying it - we are so grateful for each of you; we carry you with us as we need our incredible family to help sustain a firm foundation for a deeply rooted marriage. When we return in October we are excited to announce that we’ll be extending our family through the adventure of foster care as God continues to lead us into new things! We’ve been preparing our hearts for this for years, and working through the process since April.

If you have questions, please reach out and let us know! We’d love to hear from you. Let us say it one last time: we love and appreciate you, each of you. Thank you for being part of this story. 

Lastly, here is a photo album from the wedding (you can still view it if you're not on facebook, don't worry), shot by the incredible and talented Laura Wielo: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10155792575091115.1073741828.765361114&type=1&l=7019e5fb81

We hope this post can be an encouragement for you to return to on the difficult days. Hope grows, sometimes in the unlikely and unconventional, sometimes in the hidden things, but always among people who simply choose to put love of other above love of self. This is our favorite story to tell and it is because of you that we have so much hope to keep believing it on the hard days. It is the story of the lowly King we serve. May we tell it with every day of our lives, in all the smallest ways, until it is overflowing.

(Ok, one more time...) Thank you. Truly.

With so much love,
Katie & Peter <3

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. Revelation 22:17

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Jim Elliot 

(a more recent picture of us ...because Mom told me to add this, haha - We love you!!!)

Where I Am

If you were wondering, this is where I am:

I have to be honest, over the past few days of returning back to the US, I have felt an increasing emptiness. It's a scary feeling to leave behind a place you adore and have thrown your whole heart into, but despite all I am missing, I do not return empty-handed.

I am back. With deep crimson dust on my suitcase, shadows of long hot days on my clothes, and a cluster of delicate dirty fingerprints staining my notebook and my heart, I am back. With songs in my head, laughter echoing through my soul, and selfless friendships warming my hands, I am back. With (awkwardly, and no doubt poorly-spoken) foreign words waiting on my tongue, music dancing on my mind, and boundless love spilling over, I am back. I am back with the beauty of Sierra Leone in my heartbeat, and the weight of a million precious faces - a million stories woven into me, welling up and deserving to be told.

And although I feel I have left a whole family across the ocean, though my soul still searches for mountains of trees, dusty roads, and eager eyes, though my ears strain to hear foreign but familiar greetings, rolling giggles, and deep belly-laughs, although my arms ache for just one more squeeze, one more tiny hand finding mine, one more gentle head resting on my heart, one more chance to pour abundant Love deep into so many just longing to get caught up in it, though I am weak with the anguish of goodbyes, the stain of tears, and the fear of time stealing from vibrant memories... I am back. But this is just the beginning.

Last night, I came back to my house that feels suddenly too gigantic, too quiet, and too empty of my favorite people. This morning, I woke instantly with tearful memories of a people and way of life I have barely begun to understand and yet feel so blissful whole within. Today, it is easy to start to think there is a deep empty well within my heart, but even now I am learning it's not true. I'm actually overflowing.

I am filled up with and clinging to the most beautiful thing that soothes the longing between two homes: I am clinging to hope. I have been drowning in it over the past 10 days from the excess overflow of the people who welcomed us freely, and it is sweet and refreshing like clean water straight from the pump. 

I am filled up with my Abba, with the whisper that He sees me - He knows me - and where I am is safe and secure and worth it, every moment He is with me. He is better company to the sweet hearts and hopes and dreams of those I miss than any ordinary 25yr old girl could desire to be. It will always be true and though it feels helpless, I am filled up with gratefulness. With each thread of my soul I am so thankful, for those here who have been my constant support, and for the exceedingly beautiful plans of my Savior for each of those I miss deeply and so many others I do not know. 

I am filled up with love for all the places and people my heart can call "home"; the new ones who have crept in and swept me up so unassumingly this past week as well as the ones who have shaped me to get here, who have been my shoulder to lean on, my encouragement, and my solid foundation for so long before this week.

I am back, and under all this overflow is exactly where I find myself: right here in the middle of it all. Feeling far away but far from alone, far from the end of the story, a little bit closer to finding my purpose, and so overwhelmingly thankful for a chance to love and receive love from such incredible people. As hope rises, the ocean that seems at first to divide us takes new form as a living water that connect us. With hope, the landscapes of Buffalo and SaLone are being changed, and in both places grace can be the air with which our lungs are filled. There is much we can do, here in this place where we are so often spoiled with options and opportunity but so poor in self-sacrificing, boundless love. I am back and it is just beginning. We have much to learn, much to give, much room to grow. Let's start today, amidst the overflow: live fully, love greatly, give completely.

Defend the weak and the fatherless: uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the need; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. - Psalm 82:3-4