What's the chance of this?

I'm so excited at the moment, I can barely get the words on the computer!  Something so amazing is unfolding, that I want to share it.

On Monday, I leave for a one week trip to Nicaragua.  I'm delighted to be able to do it.  It has been a long time since I've been on a trip like this, and I know how incredibly life-changing these kinds of trips  can be.  I'm ready to meet new people and I want to show folks living a completely different life that friends in another part of the world care very much about them and I want my children to remember seeing their Mama taking trips like this.

I guess my trip is called a mission, though I'm sometimes funny about that word.  I don't ever want to be part of a group that visits people in their homeland and plays the part of the 'Smart American that knows how it should be done.'  I don't like that idea.  I am more comfortable with the idea of my meeting new friends where they are, getting to know them and letting them get to know me.  I like the idea of spreading love by feeding or laughing or dancing or learning or telling stories.  I love that idea.  (We'll be working along with TOGETHER WORKS NICARAGUA.  Check them or find them on facebook.)

So, I have excitedly anticipated this trip.  I look forward to showing the love of God by meeting new people to love and laugh with; and, of course, I look forward to taking photos of the beautiful souls I'll meet.  All of that, coupled with my self-imposed challenge to leave my big camera at home and shoot only with my iphone, has been enough.

But . . . in the last few days, an amazing turn of events has occurred.  I love it!

A couple of months ago, I ran across something on the internet about an organization to empower women and children in struggling areas to tap into their creativity, gain self confidence and help their villages by learning photography.  I was immediately intrigued, but lost the webpage as I went off to tackle one of those minor emergencies that comes up from time to time in a real life - a child in need or a telephone call or some such thing.  The story stuck in my mind, though.

After I realized that I would be joining my friend on this trip to Nicaragua, I thought back and wondered about trying to find the group I had read about.  I kept it on my 'list' but continued to let other things slip in front of my investigation.  Oddly enough, my fascination with Instagram (my username is deanamg if you are fascinated, too) brought the whole thing back to me!  I happened to run across two words that struck me - picture change - and I KNEW that was the name of the organization I had read about earlier.  I was delighted.  I quickly began to investigate to find out more, and I hope you will, too!  Find it here - PICTURE CHANGE and also on facebook.  I have a feeling you'll be as swept up in the stories as I was.  Check out the blog - amazing things are happening for people in far corners of the world.  Check out the cool shop (http://picture-change.org/store/) and see the cool stuff available that is changing people's lives.  I dare you to read the stories on the blog, and not be moved by what Kate, Picture Change's founder, is up to.  Wow.

Now I'll speed up the story a bit. . .

• I find out the area where we'll be visiting.
• My friend who has been before tells me that the young woman who translates was given a computer recently.
• I find Picture Change again, and begin to read about a woman named Rosa who was a Picture Change student and is making strides in her life in Padre Ramos, Nicaragua.  
• I hear my friend call the name Rosa, and I find it a neat consequence.
• I decide to send a message over facebook to Picture Change and let them know how swept away I am with what they are doing and to let them know I'd love to do anything I could while I'm in Nicaragua.  
• Last night, I receive a message back - a wonderful, newsy note from Picture Change, explaining that Rosa where I'm going is the SAME Rosa that is a Picture Change student!  
• I get news on the supplies that Rosa needs for the computer and printer (given to her by Picture Change) and today I purchased them to take with me on the trip!
• Kate discussed ways that I could help Rosa and others while I'm there with photography lessons and how to further the cause.  

This whole thing has amazed me!  I thank God for this chance and for the ways that these things came together.  I didn't sleep much last night - I spent a lot of time imagining how exciting it is to have the chance to share something I love this much with new friends in another place in the world.  I'm thrilled, to say the least.  

So many of you have sent prayers and financial help to assist in this trip, and I thank you.  I'll appreciate good thoughts and prayers as we are gone, and I cannot wait to take you with me on this amazing trip.  

My Mom, Post 3 . . . with love and squalor

These photos were taken on a student trip to the British Isles in the late eighties.

Mom was always teaching.  Always.  If she is to be known as a storyteller, she must also be remembered for being a teacher - the two were interchangeable with her.  She was a master teacher and a consummate  storyteller and she moved seamlessly between the two consistently through her life.  If she had been robbed of her ability to weave stories, she could not have taught; and I suspect that if she had been unable to teach, she would not have told stories.  

Mary George Dean Murphy did not 'take on' the role of teacher;  she was 'in part' at all times.  She was never not teaching; it's what she did.  We joked with her about it all of the time.  My sister and I would pretend to be mad, and exclaim again and again, "we are not your students - this is not school!"  At the time, we didn't know how wrong we were . . . we were her students and we were in school.   We had her lessons, free for the taking, whenever we wanted them.  I guess everyone everywhere is guilty at one time or another of missing out on something that is there for the taking; and at this point in my life, I would give anything to be 'back at school.'

Early in my life, we lived in Milledgeville, Georgia where my Dad was doing an internship at the state hospital.  I was born there; and though I once thought that was somewhat embarrassing (because of the oft-told jokes about the mental hospital) I have grown to appreciate it.  I have come to appreciate that I was born in the hospital where Flannery O'Connor had died just days before.  Mom had appreciated the writer's residence there, too, and she did her first graduate thesis about O'Connor.  In preparing these posts, I found an old letter, revealing something I had never known - Mom was actually the first ever student to be admitted into the graduate studies program at Georgia College.  

After you've read Mom's story below you'll realize why I'm sharing her relationship with Milledgeville - it's crazy how  parts of one's life can all come together in startling ways. 

Today I share with you another gift from Mom.  This is a piece that she wrote years ago mid-way through her teaching career.  It illustrates how very much she cared about her students and how she touched them in ways that stayed with them forever.  It grew to mean so much to my mother and she gave it to her graduating seniors each spring.  

I was at the football game that my Mom refers to in this story.  I knew nothing of the pain of the boy in the story.  To me, he was a hilarious 'streaker' at the time that 'streaking' was sweeping the nation and making us all laugh.  I had no idea what my mother knew.  I had no idea the work she was doing with one hurting life.  When she shared the story with us years later, I was not at all surprised at her dedication, but I've spent a lot of time making sense of how hard it must have been to be present as a mother at the same time that she was being present with a suffering student.  That was a struggle Mom knew a lot about.  

I trust that you'll enjoy another story written by my mother and that it will give you a deeper sense of her dedication.