Not much to do in Spartanburg, SC except hang out with these fake kids. We were so glad that Chelsea’s friend from Charlotte, NC was able to meet up with us. Maybe it was the cabin fever, but we had a surprisingly fun time. We also got to witness someone change their toddlers diaper on the table next to us in Dairy Queen, mid-blizzard. But moving on…
We’re in Atlanta, GA at the moment, and have really been enjoying our time on the road. We had an amazing 4th of July in Washington, DC and just finished up touring the Carolinas. Georgia has been great so far, last night we did a screening at Korean Community Presbyterian Church and had an awesome response. Also, it seems like every couple that goes to the church has the cutest kids on the planet.
We’ve definitely been experiencing some southern hospitality, but southern quirkiness hasn’t hid from us either. It makes for a ton of good stories though, right? We hope so.
Our next stop is Florida, and we’re really excited to hang out with both Elyssa and Chelsea’s families. Bridget and Rene are going to experience Cuban food for the first time, and we’re ready to get some sun at the beach.
All the way from Memphis, Tennessee we have Rene Jomatheu. He’s a senior studying Psychology at the University of Memphis. Known for his catchy lingo, he is commonly heard saying, “What’s crackenin?” and, “Wazoo wazoo.” His passions include basketball and singing in the shower. Having grown up in a Korean household, Rene’s favorite food is kimchi bokumbop. But all of that changed when his team recently opened his eyes to the world of Greek cuisine. After learning of the crisis, he knew he had to take time off school to spread awareness about the issue. He hopes that one day all North Koreans will have freedom.
Recently smitten by California, Elyssa Griffin may never want to leave Torrance once the Summer Tour ends. Hailing from Countdown County, she’s grown up alongside NASA and Mickey Mouse. Elyssa is, “Queen of the Pun.” She can often be found lunging around parking lots and wondering about the well being of field cows. Elyssa hopes to one day pursue a career in nursing and travel the world, specifically visit Ireland. Never one to skip out on a chance at fun or a visit to 3355, Elyssa knows the value of a good cup of coffee. Though joining LiNK was a last minute decision, Elyssa has quickly been captivated by the crisis and convicted to make a change.
Easily spotted by her edgy hair and rockin’ wardrobe, Bridget Doerr adds flair to the Southeast Team. Passionate about the next generation, Bridget mentors students from her church and volunteers at an orphanage in Africa. She loves to drive and is often found behind the wheel, belting out show tunes. But don’t ask her to play games, because Bridget does not like to have fun. After having followed the Heartland Nomads during the Spring Tour, she knew had to be involved in putting an end to this crisis. She wont be heading home to St. Louis, Missouri anytime soon because right after tour ends she’ll be headed back to Africa!
Full of joy and optimism, Chelsea Quinn is a ray of sunshine stolen directly from South Florida! A psychology student at USF, she can often be found reciting newly-learned Korean phrases and singing songs in a “tiny voice”. Her damaged sense of smell works to her advantage when encountering roadkill and skunks on the road…The other teammates aren’t so lucky. Around the LiNK office she is known for her killer abbreviations such as “show-show” for shower and “bev-bev” for anything drinkable. Her creativity and enthusiasm make her a wondrous asset to the Southeast team. After attending three LiNK screenings at her college campus, Chelsea decided it was time to stop standing on the sidelines, and become actively involved in ending the North Korean human rights crisis.
This entire tour we have been working long and hard to raise awareness about the North Korean Crisis along with raising support and funds for LiNK’s programs that assist refugees. But in addition to accomplishing these goals we have been promoting a new campaign called The Hundred. This is our current project and also a part of LiNK’s 2009 Holiday Campaign.
Our short term goal for this year is to raise $50,000 dollars by the end of the year to help rescue refugees from our shelters. However, our long term goal is to raise $250,000 to rescue One Hundred refugees.
The greatest thing about these campaigns is that it’s completely possible! However, none of these goals will be reached unless we contribute our part and spread the news so that others would join us in these campaigns. I am so excited to see the progress of the 2009 Holiday Campaign and I can’t wait to celebrate the moment we reach our goal of $50,000!
Please check out the LiNK website for The Hundred!
This website features a short video that hopefully inspires you into seeing the impact and success that a collective group of individuals can make upon those who need to be rescued. In addition to this the website provides plenty of information about the campaign at large along with ideas of how to help raise the funds to meet our goal of $50,000.
After watching the video I was greatly impacted and quickly wanted to donate. Since my birthday is coming up soon, I have decided that I am going to make it into a fund raising birthday by asking each of my friends to give money to The Hundred instead of to me. I figured that I would probably spend money on things that simply do not matter in comparison to helping rescue a refugee who’s life is in great danger. I truly hope my friends and I can make a good contribution to the Hundred.
I truly hope that you would consider finding creative and innovative means of raising the funds to make the 2009 LiNK Holiday Campaign a success! LiNK believes deep in their heart that ordinary people can help make an extraordinary goal come to fruition, and hopefully The Hundred is just the beginning of hundreds more!
The other day I was trying to remember what happened last weekend. I wanted to reflect and examine what I learned in the past few days but I just couldn’t seem to recall anything that happened.
I blame part of it on what I call “tour amnesia”. When you’re on tour it’s very difficult to remember all the things that happen each day for one reason or another. Which is why it’s important to keep a journal, a helpful tip I learned from a fellow nomad. Also on tour each days feels like a month, so I wasn’t surprised that I already forgot about the events that transpired. So I decided to ask my teammate Justin about what happened.
I was so surprised to hear about all the things that happened. I couldn’t help but laugh because our weekend was so ridiculous and I was even more shocked at how I could forget them already. I’m either very forgetful or it just takes a whole lot to impress me.
After I was done laughing I started to look into my weekend. As I replayed each event in my mind I couldn’t get over the emotions and thoughts that filled my head as I experienced each moment. One thing that I remembered clearly was the tension that I felt in my heart throughout the weekend because what happened last weekend was very unusual.
Throughout my weekend I met people who were very different than me. In fact they were all very different from each other. After a screening on Friday night, as Justin and I were packing up our van, a man named James Warren Wood approached us asking to score some free t-shirts. When I finished telling him that we needed those shirts to help North Korean refugees he decided to take some time to educate Justin and me about life. His advice was, “don’t mess up your life”, Justin and I assured him that we didn’t plan on doing so. James Warren Wood is definitely a character I won’t forget. I respect him even though there was much that I couldn’t understand from his talk simply because we come from such different places.
Later that weekend we decided to visit Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia. Piedmont Park is one of the most beautiful parks that I ever visited. I strongly recommend any traveler or tourist to go here to get some rest and relaxation. However, at Piedmont Park on Sunday afternoons there is a corner where a community congregates to exhibit their various talents and hobbies. These talents include practicing their bullwhip skills, hula hoop skills, poi skills, yoga, and building human towers. It’s fun to watch.
What I learned this weekend is that I have a difficult time accepting and appreciating people who are “too different” from me. As I watched a group of five practice snapping a bullwhip that Sunday afternoon I felt myself getting filled with contempt toward them simply because they were doing something different that I thought was “uncool”. I found that there are some different people who I think are “cool” and “awesome”, but others who I think are “uncool” and “weird”. Who am I to evaluate and rank them on such an arbitrary scale? Who am I to decide their worth and value based on appearances?
I want to learn how to appropriately love, accept, and respect people regardless of whether or not my culture or I deem them “lovely” or “unlovely”. Maybe then I would be willing to extend friendship and compassion to them and from there I’ll be able to love them in fuller way. As I look back on my weekend now, I regret not taking the opportunity to try to get to know the people who I thought were so “weird” and “awkward”.
So perhaps next time at Piedmont Park, instead of thinking something rude about the bullwhippers, I should introduce myself and ask if I could give the bullwhip a shot, or rather a snap.
When you are on tour you explore a part of life that is unusual and unnatural. It’s almost like taking part in a social experiment for a brief moment in time. I’m certainly not bashing tour or saying that life on the road is some cruel thing to endure. I am merely pointing out the fact that life as a nomad is not “normal” or “typical”.
Whenever I live at home in southern California, I usually don’t live in different people’s houses every other night, nor do I regularly order a rice burrito from Chipotle. My regular life doesn’t consist of two people named Marcella and Justin attached at my hip 24/7, nor do I get stuck wearing the same t-shirt at least three times a week. Tour is unique.
But one of my favorite aspects about such an unusual routine is that I find myself learning things that I most likely would not learn without going on tour. Here is something I learned recently.
I learned that I find great safety and security in rituals. I sure many of us do but we just don’t know it. The only way to see these “invisible rituals” is to have something disrupt your life in a gentle or violent way. For example, I discovered that I have a detailed bathroom ritual whenever I get ready in the morning. There is a certain place that I like my toiletries to be. There is even a schedule for the toiletries I use.
First I wash my hands with anti-bacterial soap, then rinse my hands with cold water. After doing so I carefully inspect my contacts of any contaminants before placing them into my eyes. After this I shave if necessary (depending on if I want the scruffy look) then use deodorant (under my right arm first then my left), do my hair, than put on this face lotion that I have and then spend the next half hour checking my hair in the mirror to decide whether or not I even like how it is settling. Do you get the picture? This is a ritual that I hate because its tedious but love because it somehow makes me feel in control and secure. And if any of these things out of place or order I feel at risk of having a bad day.
However, tour is an unforgiving force. It doesn’t care about your rituals. Sometimes I only have time to wake up and put on the clothes that I will need to wear that day. And guess what, my day still manages to be good and fun even though I didn’t put on my lucky deodorant that day.
This little lesson is something I learned very recently, but it definitely got me thinking. I examined the silly little routines and rituals that I exercise around the people I love. After some thinking I found that there were actions I needed to do, phrases I needed to hear, and events I needed to experience in order for me to feel that the relationship and love I share with my friends were secure. And by being away from my friends for a long time I haven’t been able to do those actions, hear those phrases, or experience those events.
Fortunately I was able to receive a phone call from my friend Jenna, who I haven’t talked to in weeks. We small-talked and caught up on all the crazy things going on in our lives and then I turned the conversation to a more serious subject. I explained to her all the things I was feeling and all the tension I felt accumulating in my heart. She assured me that what I was going through was legitimate and real. I was so relieved because that was all I really need to hear. I knew she didn’t think I was crazy, and more importantly I knew that she still loved me.
I started to see that instead of feeling secure in the actual love that my friend extended out toward me, I started to feel security in the actions, phrases, and experiences of my friendship with Jenna. It’s a silly tragedy, but it was real for me. Instead of loving the person, I started to love the things in my friendship with her that I felt responsible for. That’s scary for me to hear, because essentially I started to love Jenna less and less while I started to love myself more and more. Just because the rhythm and pace of my friendship with people at home has been disrupted for a short while, doesn’t mean that the love that we give each other has deadened. If anything it is placed under a trial where it is forced to change, grow, and endure ultimately leading to a stronger love and friendship in the end. And this is something that I’m excited to see happen.
Thank you for being such a wonderful start to our time in Florida. Everyone from the Paul Mitchell school, La Salle High, and Michael M. Krop High more than made up for the stifling humidity and the constant longing for a shower. The passion for helping others never ceases to amaze me as we meet so many people on our travels, and there was definitely no shortage of compassion or urgency to be found here. I’m so excited to see our new friends join us in the fight for justice in North Korea. Thank you again!
So, in losing a great teammate, we gained another great teammate. Thanks to Chris’ love for North Korea and his willingness to pick up where he was in California and transfer himself on yet another journey with LiNK as a Nomad. We were able to continue on our journey in the Southeast as a full team of passionate people bound to see Liberty. Here we are at our first stop after picking Chris up from the airport in Memphis, TN. Of all the places, our beloved Target!
A week and a half ago I received a phone call from someone at the office telling me that they needed someone to immediately get on the road in the southeast since a nomad was unable to continue on this tour. They offered me the position and told me to keep an eye out for anyone who would be willing to quickly put their life on hold for about eight weeks.
It didn’t take long for me to want to go back out on the road again. Even though I had just gotten back from the LiNK gala in New York days before, and days before that the summer tour and a music festival, I was ready to get back on the road. It’s not everyday that you get a chance to drop everything in your life to travel for eight weeks, but I guess for me it is. However I must mention that I think the reason why it was such a joy for me to say yes is because of what Nomadship offers.
Nomadship is the chance to embark on a road trip that isn’t just for fun nor is it something random, rather it’s intentional and loaded with purpose. I would not be exploring the road for my own sake, I would be joining a movement far greater than myself. I was offered a chance to temporarily give everything up so that I might contribute toward bringing liberty to North Koreans. And not only would I be striving toward restoring the lives of those who are victims of injustice in North Korea, but I would be speaking in front of high school kids and college students hopefully inspiring and empowering them to join LiNK or some other cause. To me, that is a rewarding experience that few things in life can compete with.
A few days ago my team and I were able to visit a high school called the University School of Nashville. The day before our presentation we visited the campus and gave a short announcement in hopes of sparking some excitement about the upcoming screening. After our announcement it seemed that students and teachers were both pumped about the screening, however we had no idea of how big the turnout would be.
The next day we went back to the school to give the big presentation. As we were walking down the halls kids were hollering at us from down the halls telling us that they were going to come out to hear about the injustices occurring in North Korea. I had a good feeling that we were going to be pleasantly surprised.
Out of about 400 students, 75 high school kids showed up. Nobody expected such a huge turnout and the empty room that we were in all of a sudden became jam packed with students. Kids were sitting all over the floor, some trying to fit two to a chair so they could get a good look at the media we were going to present. This was a very exciting moment for us on tour. The kids who came to the screening were eager to learn about the human right abuses in North Korea and the questions they had after our presentation were thoughtful and intelligent. They wanted to know what they could do to help. This was such an encouraging moment for my team and me. We all hope that the passion that they felt to bring hope to North Korea continues to develop into action.
Recently smitten by California, Elyssa Griffin may never want to leave Torrance once the Summer Tour ends. Hailing from Countdown County, she’s grown up alongside NASA and Mickey Mouse. Elyssa is, “Queen of the Pun.” She can often be found lunging around parking lots and wondering about the well being of field cows. Elyssa hopes to one day pursue a career in nursing and travel the world, specifically visit Ireland. Never one to skip out on a chance at fun or a visit to 3355, Elyssa knows the value of a good cup of coffee. Though joining LiNK was a last minute decision, Elyssa has quickly been captivated by the crisis and convicted to make a change.
Easily spotted by her edgy hair and rockin’ wardrobe, Bridget Doerr adds flair to the Southeast Team. Passionate about the next generation, Bridget mentors students from her church and volunteers at an orphanage in Africa. She loves to drive and is often found behind the wheel, belting out show tunes. But don’t ask her to play games, because Bridget does not like to have fun. After having followed the Heartland Nomads during the Spring Tour, she knew had to be involved in putting an end to this crisis. She wont be heading home to St. Louis, Missouri anytime soon because right after tour ends she’ll be headed back to Africa! 
Full of joy and optimism, Chelsea Quinn is a ray of sunshine stolen directly from South Florida! A psychology student at USF, she can often be found reciting newly-learned Korean phrases and singing songs in a “tiny voice”. Her damaged sense of smell works to her advantage when encountering roadkill and skunks on the road…The other teammates aren’t so lucky. Around the LiNK office she is known for her killer abbreviations such as “show-show” for shower and “bev-bev” for anything drinkable. Her creativity and enthusiasm make her a wondrous asset to the Southeast team. After attending three LiNK screenings at her college campus, Chelsea decided it was time to stop standing on the sidelines, and become actively involved in ending the North Korean human rights crisis.
