THE ELEVENTH HOUR

So here I am in the eleventh hour of the last day here in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.

I don't know what to feel.

I am so excited to see my friends, my family, and my loved ones (you know who you are). But I am already sad that I must say goodbye to my PLC family, my new friends, and the greatest place I have ever been.

Don't get me wrong, Iraq isn't easy on the eyes. Its dusty, dirty, grimy, brown, beige, tan, and dusty. What makes it great is the people. I am going to miss the genuine, kind hearted nature of the Kurdish people. As great as America is, we are pretty bad at being hospitable, kind, or generous, in comparison to Kurdistan.

I make more friends on a daily basis (accidentally) just by randomly talking to strangers in tea shops and stores than I ever would in America (even if I was actually trying.

This has been the most enlightening 10 weeks of my life. UGH... I am so exhausted I do not even know what to say. Time to sleep. See you American's soon!

ONE WEEK LEFT?

Oh my goodness, I have only one week left. I can absolutely not believe that this internship is almost over. This has been the most incredible 10 weeks of my life. I have learned a great deal about myself and my future through this journey, and I have learned even more about a culture and a people that is truly incredible. Its been a while since I wrote so I am going to briefly mention a couple of really awesome things

Last monday the whole PLC team went on an exciting picnic to Amhed Awa, a waterfall that runs through the mountains of Kurdistan. We drove around an hour and a half outside of Sulyamaniyah to the river where we enjoyed a delicious lunch. After eating myself and 6 of our group hired a driver to drive us a couple of miles up the river. By up the river I really mean around extremely windy roads on the edge of precipices for 30 minutes. We careened around corners and between parked bulldozers and into what we joked was probably Pakistan. The dangerous ride was well worth it. We hiked up a trail adjacent to the rushing river littered with tiny shops selling touristy trinkets and ridiculous looking hats. It was absolutely beautiful, green trees, clear water, and cool air (finally). We spent about a 20 minutes walking up to the base of the falls and another 40 talking with arab tourists and scrambling up slimy wet rocks to try and feel the spray of the waterfall. This may just be the visual highlight of the trip! We hiked back to the picnic site instead of taking the high and dangerous road. This was a hot and long trek but worthwhile and beautiful as I got to see  simple stone homes built into the side of the hills and cliffs. Overall, it was an extraordinary day.

I have been learning Kurdish for the past month from my friend and pizza shop owner Meran. He is generous with his time and has been giving me lessons most nights of the week. I know the alphabet and can sound out words on signs and elsewhere around town. It is such a beautiful and exciting language. The completely different alphabet has its challenges but is incredible and interesting. Reading from right to left is becoming more habitual and I have even read signs on buildings in kurdish before I even see the english name. I am currently working on a logo for the klash maker that Preemptive Love Coalition has been partnering with, Kaka Aram. He is a master at making the traditional shoes, which take upwards of 40 hours per pair, by hand. I have already purchased a couple of pairs to support his business and bring some Kurdish culture back with me to America. You can order them through PLC's sub company www.buyshoessavelives.com

Kaka Aram's new logo. The kurdish reads the same as the english, Awesar (his hometown).

I am finding myself ready to come home and finish school, but I am excited to possibly return next year and I am eager to continue my work with PLC upon my return to the states!

I really suck at this whole updating thing

Hey everyone.

For the record, I am still alive, and while it seems that I have dropped off the face of the earth, I am in fact sitting in an internet capable hotel lobby in the eastern hemisphere of this planet.

A couple weeks ago my mother left me a worried message explaining that there was a bombing in Iraq and that she was concerned I had not called her since it had happened. She was right to worry... not because I was in any danger, but because I indeed am her son and she my mother, and thus it is her right. But just in case you were worried about me too, let me explain to you how in danger I was. I did not even hear about the bombing until my mom's message, and I have yet to hear about it since. This either means that Yellow Journalism is still alive and well in America and blew (no pun intended) the news out of proportion, or that Iraqi news doesn't travel all that well. I have a feeling that it is a combination of both.

I am so sorry for not updating you, my friends and supporters in quite a while! Truth be told, I hate writing about myself, and this trip isn't exciting enough for me to feel like writing daily posts. Now don't get me wrong, I love being here, and my experience has been incredible thus far, but I am not off exploring the hidden caves in the border mountains or running around town searching for hole-in-the-wall shops and trinkets. This is not a vacation. It is a 10 week intensive job, and it comes with a lot of responsibility. Aside from daily chores ranging from cooking for 10 people to cleaning the living room, the interns are working 9 to 5 5 days a week. For me this usually turns into 6 days a week as I am constantly designing for PLC.

At this point I have more than settled into the routine and it feels like I am an not just an intern but a part of the PLC family. With only 3 weeks left, I am already realizing how much I am going to miss being here!

P.S. My camera is broken, but I am going to try and get some photos up soon!

IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE WE LAST TALKED

So. My bad for falling off the proverbial wagon. It has been ten days since I updated you on the ridiculousness that is Iraq. Short Post.

Things I may have neglected to mention:

1.The house flooded and ruined a bunch of the interns stuff... and now the carpets smell bad.

2. sickness and the slumps.

3. I'm gonna be a cross cultural designer!


So yeah, the house flooded. Here in Iraq water comes from the govt at certain times on certain days, and if you don't turn on your pump then the tanks on your roof don't get filled, and you can potentially run out. Yeah, well, we didn't have that problem. We got water, and it was pumping up on the roof until it overflowed. This in and of itself usually isnt an issue because there is a drain on the ground floor where the overflow is diverted. But the neighbor, who claimed that the smell of the open drain was too much to bear, climbed into the back porch and closed off the drain. Thus, when the tank overflowed, it overflowed into the house, the guys room and the rest of the first floor.

Damage:
Ryan's laptop, camera, cell phone and Ipod destroyed.

Adam's laptop

My cameras. both my old point and shoot from high school and my
brand-new-not-but-a-month-old Nikon DSLR. bummer

And those dang carpets....


Then I got sick last week.. Just some minor stomach stuff, but it put me out of work for a couple days. This is also when the slumps kicked in and I got burned out... Bleh. Luckily Im back in the groove and ready to kick butt!

So, the interns favorite pizza place, Pizza Pezan is owned by our english speaking friend Miran. He and I were chatting the other day about him opening a second location. I mentioned that he should get a logo made to help with recognition.
Anyways... He wants me to design it for him! So that along with my own personal logo and website are my pet projects for the coming weeks!

And since writing this (an hour ago) I met with Miran, and it is ON. also, I will apparently be meeting his rich friends who need logos too (tomorrow). WOO!

So the reason for no pictures is that I havent had a camera, but I will try to get some photos up in the next couple days :) In the mean time here are some potential new logos for me! Im sure Eric will have opinions... and maybe devin too, if he even reads this blog.

MY BIZARRE LIFE: PART DUEX

When I said "PART TWO: IRAQ tomorrow!" I clearly forgot an extra tomorrow, because it is now 2 days later. Oops. Crazy crazy things have happened since then, but I will make that stuff a separate post as I want to complete My Bizarre Life. The content between the ****'s is the end of the last post, but will help with context and continuity.

IRAQ

****

Now why the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks am I here in Iraq. This one is a lot shorter ( I hope), but also pretty ridiculous. It all started back in High School.

My first service trip was to Costa Rica, the summer of my sophomore year of HS. I went to work at La Montaña Christian Camps ( think Hume Lake or Forest Home in CR) as a helper/counselor/whatever. It was incredible, enlightening, and gave me a passion for serving God that could only be slaked by another trip.

The following summer I traveled to the Dominican Republic with my youth group to help build a schoolhouse for Haitian refugees seeking asylum. This was my first service trip where hands on building was the main form of ministry and love spreading, and it was a very different experience. It was eye-opening towards the pain of those in need and those who are broken by poverty. 

The summer after senior year I traveled to Turkey to work with a church in Antalya. 

I fell in love... with the country, and the food, and the culture (not a woman). I spent my time building relationships with the locals. This was a very different type of service trip, and while it seemed more like a vacation, the fruits of relational labors grew much more on this trip than they had on the previous two. I came back to America, and was itching to leave, itching to get back to Turkey or at least that part of the world.

Fast forward 2 years. I am home from college for winter break, and like 2 days before I leave for school I decide to join my friend Lauren (it might actually be your fault that I am here in Iraq) in this thing called Mandate (feeding the homeless of Santa Barbara), put on by Valley Christian Fellowship. Its being led by this guy Cody Fisher, who I had met randomly a few years before a bible study right before he left for Iraq. So I vaguely remember that he went somewhere kinda crazy and we start talking. We end up talking the whole night about GD and this organization he co-founded called Preemptive Love Coalition that provides life saving heart surgeries for kids in Iraq. He tells me about their summer internship program, 10 weeks in Iraq. My heart nearly skipped a beat. 

****

The middle east? No way. So cool. So I keep asking questions and I find out that the internship is open to anyone who is passionate and has something to offer. Meaning that I could do design for them if that is what I felt I had to offer. I knew almost immediately that I was going to go. 

Now just to give you a little reference. I am the kind of person that can commit to something like this right off the bat. Once I am in something I am in something for the long haul. At the same time, my being committed doesn't mean that it necessarily works out for me right away. I told my mom about the whole Iraq thing, and said something like "Hey, this sounds neat, maybe this a possibility for me for summer." But really what I was feeling in my heart was "Heck-freaking-yes. I am going to go to Iraq, I am going to serve God, and I am going to do what God has given me, design." My mom reluctantly said, "Ok, maybe?" But really what she was saying (conjecture) is, "Heck-freaking-no. You are not going to Iraq. You are a sophomore in college. And you are going to die."

I heeded this not, and began pursuing the internship until I totally missed the deadline to apply. Typical. Remember when I said being committed doesn't always work out right away? Yeah... that happened. This was the ultimate blessing in disguise. It was God saying to me, "Wait...calm yourself. If you want to be invested in this organization, then you are going to be invested. But you are going to be prepared and empowered in Me. Your desire will be granted, but it is going to take some work."

And work I did. Over the course of the next year, I continued my design education, honing my skills while working multiple design jobs and holding design positions in my fraternity and other groups on campus. I often tried things I wasn't even sure I was capable of in order to better learn about myself. All of this work was great preparation for Iraq, but was only covering the earthly side of my life.

December of last year I read through "Mere Christianity" and it revolutionized my mind. It altered my perceptions of faith, and rocked me to the core of my relationship with Jesus. I was convicted and challenged and returned for Interterm desiring to get on track with God, making him "numero uno" instead of "numero who knows". He heard my desire and got me plugged into an awesome men's group called Revive ( I love you guys so much), which has strengthened my faith and relationship 10-fold. 

I made some critical changes to my life, and soon after found my self showered with ridiculous blessings. One of which was my acceptance to the PLC internship in Iraq. Another other is a combination of monetary and prayer support as I fundraised for the trip and tried to complete my Junior Show. Thanks to the people like you, I am living the dream that I had over a year ago!

So.... here I am, in Iraq, because I serendipitously met Cody a few years back. Here I am, a graphic designer, because I thought Christian t-shirts were the coolest thing since whatever was cooler than sliced bread. If either one of these things were not true about me. I would not be here, I would not be at Chapman. I wouldn't have met some of my best friends for life, I wouldn't be the Son of God that I am. All of this is just crazy to me. I am reminded more everyday about why I am here, why I am me. I am who I am, and I am doing what I am doing because the great I AM (God) has known every silly passion and thought I have ever had, and has worked them for my good.

Gosh I hope this post makes sense. 

MY BIZARRE LIFE

Hey all! So this post has less to do with what I have done the past few days (work, eat, sleep, work, eat, proctor english exams, sleep, work, eat, blogging now, soon sleep), and more to do with the ridiculous realizations about where I am in life and how I got here. Be forewarned, there is absolutely no guarantee that any of this will interest you, as I am writing this to help myself process as well.

WHERE I AM

I am currently in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq working for the Preemptive Love Coalition as a graphic design intern. I am working on branding, layout, web, advertisement, posters, shirt designs and more. More importantly, I am serving God and the people of Iraq in the process. These are my two passions in life.



HOW DID I GET HERE:

PART ONE: DESIGN

Oh goodness. Its hard to say what in my life specifically contributed to the decisions I have made and the directions that I have gone in other than God ( and my mom knowing what was what and raising me right). I first got interested in design at this music festival called Spirit West Coast. Its a giant Christian band fest that I went to summer of my junior year in HS I believe. Other than music it feature huge quantities of vendors (selling band merchandise) and Christian clothing companies. That to me was the coolest thing ever. I feel like I must have been living under a rock at the time, I cannot believe that was the first time I had seen a Christian clothing company. So that set the cogs turning, and by the time I had gotten to senior I was deciding between pursuing architecture, or graphic design.

I chose design.

Backing up a bit. I had not taken a single art class in high school, and while I loved to draw and had my mother's innate artistic ability, I had no formal training. Furthermore I had never even touched Photoshop, or Illustrator, let alone InDesign.

Anyways, I decided, based off of the fact that I liked t-shirts, that I would pursue an education so that I could fulfill my (very) new life goal to have my own Christian clothing company. Was I insane? Maybe...probably...most definitely...looking back, this seems like the worst idea ever. They say you don't develop the capacity to understand long term consequences until age 18 or 19. Pretty sure they were right.

This poor decision could only be topped off by my desire to go to a small liberal arts private school in Orange County. One that would cost about $200,000 for my degree. Chapman University. I am just making bad choices like nobody's business.

Lucky for me God had orchestrated it all. I went to visit Chapman, and met the head of the Art Department, Eric Chimenti, who happened to also be a graphic design professor and a Christian (Mom was stoked). I was pretty much certain this was where I was supposed to go by this point... and it was.

Flash forward 3 years. Professor Chimenti is a huge part of my life. He is my teacher, my academic advisor, my mentor and bible study leader, he is family. I can never thank him or God enough for whatever grace he had accepting me into the program. I have been so blessed through the silly, uneducated choices I made. Maybe, they weren't silly. Maybe it was a revelation or something...it is so far back I can't even remember. What I do know is that the catalyst of a few Christian clothing companies has brought me to a place in my life that I cannot even imagine. I am attending one of the best schools for design in the nation and I am excelling in design, thanks to the tutelage of the great faculty. I have met some of my best friends in the world (Devin James Valdivia, Megan, Cameron, Jake and so many more), I have an incredible Christian support system, and an amazing fraternal brotherhood ( Hoorah, Phi Tau). I honestly cannot fathom what has come out of that crazy decision. I have been blessed, undeservingly no doubt.


I know you are all already tired of reading this post in my obnoxious voice, so I will break this post into two. ( This is more of a selfish decision than anything else, I am exhausted).
Anywho... Stay tuned. I will post

PART TWO: IRAQ tomorrow!

A DAY IN PRISON

The last couple of days have been pretty great!

On Thursday after work, the interns Cody and Michelle and I went to see X-Men: First Class

I have got to say, it was quite enjoyable, and is ranked at best superhero movie since Dark Knight (though it still doesn't hold a candle to it). Friday was a day to ourselves. I spent the morning reading and studying Hebrews, and the afternoon at Matt Willingham's discussing the resurrection and watching Arrested Development.

Today, Saturday, all of us interns went to the Amna Suraka, which is translated to Red Security. It is the prison where Saddam Hussein held and killed thousands of Kurds. It was overtaken by Kurds in 1991 and remains in the same condition as it was when it was captured with tanks left broken and buildings riddled with bullet holes and destruction

shattered mirror memorial

 The first room we walk into is this 80 ft long hallway decorated with shards of mirror set into mortar. It was beautiful. The ceiling was covered in strands of tiny little lights that reflected infinitely in the mirrors. Aesthetically it was incredible, symbolically it was powerful. Each of the 182,000 shards of mirror represented a kurd killed, and each of the 5000 lights represent a village destroyed in that last campaign against Kurds.

We then jumped around on derelict tanks and artillery. It is a lot of fun, climbing up on a tank and sitting atop the barrel of an iron monster. They are gigantic, and hot. I burned my hands a couple of times on the metal just sitting there baking in the sun. But later tonight it hit me like a superheated shell. I was sitting on an iron monster. A piece of machinery used to kill countless people. Used to spread terror and pain. And the only joy that comes is knowing that it can never be used for that again. Knowing that it is broken, and that is won't ever be fixed.

me in a tank....

Next we walked down into the basement of one of the cell blocks. It was once a room where men were tortured and women were raped. It had been filled with red lights and photographic prints of the atrocities committed by Hussein. Very similar to the concentration camps, there were piles of bodies horribly disfigured and abused. Children dead. It was sobering, and haunting. In the next building we saw the remnants of what once were prison cells. Now all that remains are bullet holes, fire damage and prisoners' carvings on the walls. War is glorified and desensitized by film and video games greatly. This was a great opportunity to see this. People argue that it doesn't. But it definitely does. It took me 5 hours from leaving the Amna Suraka to realize that. The entire time I was there I was enamoured with bullet holes and the aesthetic nature of the buildings after everything that had happened there.

A photo of bodies being dumped on the road, featured in the basement of Amna Suraka

Prisoners cell in Red Security Prison

Afterwards we left Amna Suraka we walked a few blocks to a grocery store/restuarant/coffee shop where we had lunch. Cody and Ryan and I discussed possible large scale awareness projects (one of my goals for this trip). We keep coming back to something that shows that Kurd, Arab, rich or Poor, are the same, and suffering in the same way.

We then took a walk into Parki Azadi which means Freedom Park. It was originally the grounds where Saddam would hold public executions, but after the Kurds took over, they built a park celebrating life and freedom over it! Such a testament to the progress that can be made! The park was beautiful and very expansive. It featured a monument listing the names of the individuals executed there, a large pond and tons and tons of grass and trees. The interns sat and hung out in the shade (greatly welcomed in the heat), and we all agreed that it didn't even feel like we were in Iraq. I guess the creators of the Parki Azadi achieved their goal.

The memorial to executed kurds in Parki Azadi

Today was overwhelming. When I left the prison, at first I saw no hope, only death and pain. But now looking at where we are years after Saddam's fall and almost 5 years after the inception of PLC, I see so much hope, so much love. The vision of PLC is to wage peace and mend communities at odds. This can happen, and is already beginning to happen. There is a future for this nation. There is a future for this planet. It begins rooted in Love, and grows into Peace. I am so blessed and excited to be a part of this movement of restoration.