Closing Thoughts

Here it is. Here’s my final word from this epic journey. My concluding summary. My last piece of wisdom. Luckily, I was able to take this experience in small doses. Three months doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye, or at least doesn’t feel like it until it’s over. I had a fairly normal schedule. Rain or shine, I woke up every day and walked to the train station. I would listen to my iPod and over the weeks, those songs became my anthems. I got bored at work. I can’t say I was always busy. I can’t make myself look better than I really was. Some days, I came to work hoping to get a lot done, and instead I browsed the internet, or played with my blog, or read the latest news, or who knows what else. I couldn’t access Facebook or Myspace and I’m so thankful for that. I can only imagine how much less would have been accomplished. Occasionally, I went to kids club. I would come home and eat dinner and watch the popular soap opera, 7 de Laan (in Afrikaans with English subtitles) at 6:30 along with the rest of the entire country. I was greeted by the cutest Yorkshire terrier ever. He would jump up and down until I sat with him and rubbed his belly. He also became a father while I was here. I would drink roiboos tea and instant coffee because everyone has it no matter where you go. I would try to warm up with a plug-in heater. I lost a lot of things. I lost my hat and my phone and a memory card for my camera. I almost lost everything on my computer. Each night I would retire into my little room to read, write, play this disgustingly addicting computer game, and recharge my battery.

But when I look back on this in a year or two or five or twenty, I won’t remember those details. I might, but probably not. The little details fade. It’s crazy how we forget the things that happened to us just days earlier. That’s why I’ve become a journal addict. I like to keep track of those things, even if they are never read again, there’s something about writing things down that helps me remember. The big things will never leave me though. I never would have imagined that I would help set up a refugee camp and then have CNN International calling me to broadcast the story worldwide. I climbed a couple of mountains. I surfed in the Indian Ocean a few times. I had photographs published in multiple newspapers. I was interviewed by a couple of them and by the radio station numerous times. I played soccer with kids half my age who were better than I am. I drove through a few of the poorest communities in the entire world with some of the highest crime rates in the entire world. In one of them, a young child flashed a knife at me. I arrived a day or two before the worst violence in at least 20 years broke out killing over 60. I cycled a few miles to view the only natural penguin habitat on the continent. I picked up common phrases and subtleties and surely sound different than I did when I arrived. I was even baptized for the second time. Above all of that though, the one thing that still astonishes me, that still amazes me, that still requires a pinch or two to check if I’m actually alive, is this whole music thing. As a 21-year-old, I came to Africa for my second time to launch a Music Academy for disadvantaged children. I can’t believe I’m even here doing it. I can’t believe it actually worked. I had help. There was always this divine cloud hovering over it as if I knew that even if I slacked off for a couple days, it wouldn’t matter because this was just meant to be, and when the pieces of the puzzle lined up, there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I had no real expectations. I did want to have something running before I left, but when I got here and spent the first month just trying to adjust, I didn’t know if those expectations were realistic. Then I said, okay enough of this planning. I can plan for years. I can conduct surveys and interviews and collect information for years, but why don’t we just do it? Why don’t we just go for it and see what happens? Then the fun stuff began. The second month was pure excitement, even with my 12+ hour work-days. Instrument drives and auditions and community buzz. The first five. The perfect combination of talent, leadership, and just overall adorable faces. The first lessons. The family gathering. The radio interview. The recording. The guitar workshop. It was as if all this thing needed was someone to plug it in to the right socket. Someone just needed to jumpstart it, to put in the hours and then the mushroom cloud would erupt. The butterfly effect would begin. The snowball would start rolling. And it did. And it was humbling to watch. My role began to diminish. I didn’t have to go out and find anyone because they began contacting me. Listeners from all over the city called wanting to audition their kids. Multiple organizations and churches called looking for instruments. Famous local artists began taking this under their wing. Amy just happened to wander onto the scene. The radio station agreed to give their earnings from one day of their Share-A-Thon to the project (approximately $30,000).

The final two weeks involved handing over of my baby to the ones who will continue its exciting future while I return to the states. The creature has been born and has even figured out how to crawl, but it has to be nurtured to the walking stage and then to maturity. The last thing I want to do is leave it behind. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved a group of kids so dearly. I’m the furthest thing from a father, but for about a month, I had the chance to be a father-figure to those five. I think only one of them actually knows his father. And towards the end of my journey, when we really connected, they opened themselves up to me in a way no one else did this year or last. I think they understood, in some small way, that although they lived an underprivileged life, this academy was a real privilege. A real chance. A real opportunity. I saw true joy on their faces when I showed them affection. I just wanted to hold them all day long. I want to smuggle them back home with me. They were the reason why I came. And they’re the reason why I’ll find a way to come back. Somehow. Someday. They’re also the reason why I’ll continue to be a major part of this. I will create lesson plans and a website and business plans and anything else. I hate leaving, but I also realize that this could be the greatest thing for the academy. I can take it back to of all places, Music City, USA. Of all the universities I could attend, it just happens to be one of the top 5 music business schools in the country. Of all the churches I could go to in Nashville, I just happen to attend Brentwood Baptist who has already given nearly $2,000,000 to Living Hope here in Cape Town and provides a majority of the missionaries that come this way, not to mention they have major artists in their congregation.

I’ve never had my heart pulled in so many directions and torn into so many pieces and then rebuilt as strongly and as purely as I have in my time spent on this journey. I was thrown into a fire and stripped bare of my insecurities over and over again. In this past year, I’ve experienced every type of emotion and situation I could have ever dreamed of and it all culminated in these 3 months. Last year I came to Africa as a boy and this year I left Africa as a man. My boyhood is gone. The year-long process has officially ended and my world is anew. I cannot credit this to mere experience overseas alone, but to a myriad of different events occurring over the course of these 15 months including classes that have opened my eyes to a spiritual depth I never knew possible, relationships and friendships failing and forming, living alone far away from campus and life as I knew it, favorite sports teams winning championships, a newfound love for books and intellectual thinking, admitting the need for and the continual use of a therapist, keeping the television off, the death of family members, and of course the global experiences and nearly 50,000 miles traveled on approximately 20 planes.

I’m just a regular guy. We’re all just regular people living our regular lives in the midst of, what feels like, mass chaos. I came here wondering if one person truly could change the world. I’ve heard it over and over and wanted to believe it. I always felt there was something in store for me that was bigger than just a “regular guy” kind of life, and maybe this was it. At 21-years old. Maybe this was my life’s sole mission. Maybe there’s more. Maybe this is just the beginning. Who knows? As Parker Palmer wrote in his book, Let Your Life Speak:

Every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need. My life is not only about my strengths and virtues; it is about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow. An inevitable though often ignored dimension of the quest for “wholeness” is that we must embrace what we dislike or find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confident and proud of. That insight is hidden in the word vocation itself, which is rooted in the Latin word for “voice.” Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live—but the standards by which I cannot help if I am living my own life.

I’ve learned that those righteous sayings we heard as children are incredibly true. Patience really is a virtue. In Africa, you learn that the hard way. Trains don’t wait and taxis don’t leave until all 15 seats are full; sorry if you’re the first to arrive. Silence really is golden. Turn off the TV. Take a hike or a bike ride. Listen to your thoughts even if you don’t like what you hear because it will help you find yourself. And none of this is limited to the younger generation. I am less wise, less resourceful, less experienced than those who are twice my age. Just think of what one could do with a savings account and ample life experience. If you have ties that are holding you back, break them. Quite the simple answer, but quite the obvious one. I’m just deeply honored to have had the opportunity, in my short pathetic life, to truly make a difference. I want to encourage anyone who reads this to do the same. Just go for it. Fill your backpack with faith and courage and just begin. Who knows what kind of miraculous stuff will happen along the way? I’ve realized there is an awesome plan waiting for all of us, no matter your age or sex or race or anything. But you must be willing to let go and trust in God. He will take care of the rest even if, like me, you don’t deserve it.

Thank you for coming alongside this adventure.

Adios. Peace. Take care. Cheers. Sincerely. Love. God bless.

-Chris Dorsey