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"I am standing in the African village, the hot sun beating down on my shoulders, a group of village children surround me and chant my name, laughing and bidding for a turn to hold my hand.\n\n\r\n\r\n That\u2019s what I imagined working for a nonprofit in Africa would look like. Two years into founding and running a nonprofit dedicated to helping women in Uganda, I\u2019ve realized that\u2019s a far cry from reality. Sure, those moments come now and then, but the true reality? Me at home in Colorado with my husband and two kids, sitting on the living room floor watching Disney\u2019s Earth and packaging necklaces into cardboard boxes. \n \nThe reality isn\u2019t bad\u2014it\u2019s just not as \u201Csexy\u201D as I thought it would be. We live in an age when humanitarianism, philanthropy and international awareness have moved from completely off the radar to right in the spotlight. It\u2019s great, and I would be the first one to thank God for it.\n \nBut it also seems like this attention has created an illusion\u2014a romanticized picture of what it looks like to work in social justice. The Internet has made so much possible, but sometimes at a loss. Combine good graphics, pictures and a stellar website, and before you know it, something run by three full-time employees looks a lot less human.\n \nSure, at first there was an excitement in appearing bigger than reality, but recently we\u2019ve felt convicted that maybe we\u2019re enabling people to find satisfaction and fulfillment in a fantasy rather than reality.\n \nThe truth? Light Gives Heat (LGH) was birthed simply out of a response of love when two mid-20-year-olds and their 2-year-old son moved to Uganda to complete the adoption of their 8-month-old daughter. It was sort of an act-first-and-figure-out-the-details-later response. We knew we didn\u2019t want to live life with regrets or should-haves, so we simply acted. Dave quit his job, we rented out our home, took the insurance off our cars and boarded a plane with nine pieces of luggage and a double stroller.\n \nWe got to Africa and it was \u2026 life. No cool music in the background, no slow-motion shots of beautiful \u201CAfrican villages\u201D and no one telling us what we were doing was even good or right. Burning trash and body odor filled our nostrils. Things weren\u2019t safe and predictable. Our Western ideals of time management and productivity weren\u2019t valued. And, honestly, most of our first interactions with Ugandans were pretty, well, normal.\n \nWithin a month of our arrival, we were meeting weekly with a group of 60 Acholi women\u2014most of whom had been widowed and forced off their land\u2014and offering them a consistent income through the purchase of necklaces made from recycled paper. The Suubi (hope) project was born.\n \nFast-forward two years: We currently offer roughly 100 women a consistent weekly income, as well as literacy and English classes, and a handful of other consistent incomes through a tailoring project, Epoh. For our staff and volunteers, most days in Uganda are filled with long walks, long conversations and dirty feet. Most days for our small staff in the States are filled with long periods of staring at a computer, balancing QuickBooks, filing paperwork, packaging necklaces and shipping product. \n \nAs we\u2019ve grown, we\u2019ve gotten more attention\u2014a good thing in many ways, but something that\u2019s also led to more \u201Ceyes\u201Don us. More people questioning motives and offering ideas that look good on paper but are often unrealistic within the culture and context of a third-world country. In fact, we\u2019ve realized the traditional operating expectations for nonprofits actually set us up for failure rather than excellence.\n \nThen there\u2019s the personal aspect: Running an organization with your spouse is beautiful but messy. We both work full-time for LGH, but we\u2019re also parents and we split our work time between the office and home, so one of us is always home with the kids. Though we work together, we never actually work together!\n \nI\u2019d be lying if I didn\u2019t say there are days we feel like waving the white flag. Days when it feels like we\u2019re holding the pieces and asking, Is this working? Days when the burden is too heavy, the work/home lines too blurry, the demands too high and the lifestyle unmanageable. Most days don\u2019t feel like what working in Africa was \u201Csupposed to be.\u201D\n \nWe\u2019re flawed people trying to be real as we learn how to love and explore what it looks like to be connected to our brothers and sisters around the globe. LGH is working not because of connections in Hollywood, big breaks or a huge staff, but because lots of people have found it worthy of their time, finances and lives. Behind the website and branding, there are countless hours of tedious work, phone calls, emailing, brainstorming and lots of prayer. \n \nAlthough no one ever said giving our lives to something big would be easy, fun or \u201Csexy,\u201D a lot of us have a fantasy that something glamorous happens when we do. It doesn\u2019t\u2014at least not in the way we thought it would. The truth looks more like life than a dramatic adventure film. \n \nBeauty, hope and joy are found in the pursuit of living outwardly\u2014sometimes it just takes patience to see the beauty, find the hope and experience the joy in the everyday.\n \nMorgan Hansow is the co-founder of Light Gives Heat, a nonprofit working with Ugandan women to create and sell necklaces from recycled paper.\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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