FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

these are photos taken by my friend katharina. i have a camera, donated by the lovely dennis and karla worley, that i am getting soon. but these are some others, and i just knew you'd want to see them. it makes me so happy to put photos on here again!!!

andrew, keaton and kadoya lounging around.


andrew(poem).


poem and keaton, melissa and i at the park the other day.


me and kadoya.


sleeping late.


aren't they beautiful?

if you think too much, will your brain explode?

i wish i was a compartmentalizer. one of those people who can think clearly and put things in tidy little stacks and then put them in the proper drawer.

but i'm an out loud kind of person. i don't know how to think to myself.

my poor roommate is getting the brunt of it, but the cool thing is she's starting to adopt my method--just vomiting your thoughts up in no cohesive order.

i feel like my brain is going to explode. please pray for

lincoln hall who didn't die on mount everest after all
earthquake victims in (yet again) indonesia
melissa who just left burma after 3 years
emma in nepal
who cannot stop crying
valerie my dying friend
noluvo my other dying friend
avril my supervisor
fergie the pedophile
street kids of cape town who are doing lots of drugs and being sexually abused
ricky whose court case got dropped and who moved back onto the streeets last week
poem whose been back at home since two weeks ago friday
russie who got arrested for stealing a bike and is hiding out in capricorn
mingo and keaton who call me at all hours of the day, whose mom is really angry with them

blaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

"I'm relying on you, Gen. Than Shwe, to do the right thing,"

this is general than shwe.

According to world news, today is the day that Aung San Suu Kyi is supposed to be released from her 17+ years of house arrest after dropping by yangon to visit her sick mother, only to find she'd stay a few decades longer.
My friend Andy Ross sent me this link
. This woman is beautiful. It makes me want to move to Burma and wear lotus blossoms in my hair. Andy thinks this is the reason I'm dreaming about Burma. Robin says it's because Burma is such a part of me. Either way, this article only annoys me.
Bottom line: this woman will not be released. This article is filled with political jargon and nonsense that only leads the outside world to hopeless tolerance of injustice and oppression. I'm sick of it here, i'm sick of it there. Curse words come to mind. I'm just being honest.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar doesn't think the military junta should fear Suu Kyi's release, saying "The government is very strong and very stable," he told reporters. "They are able to maintain security. Why should they be worried? I don't think Aung San Suu Kyi should be a cause for worry to them."
Of course they are "strong and stable" (burmese define those words differently than webster's). They are violently corrupt and immoral. They rule with an iron fist, behind a "Made in Facist Burma" curtain separating them from the outside world.
Go here
for more info on the secret country and it's secret secrets.

this is aung san suu kyi. isn't she beautiful? damien rice & bono write songs about her. you need to remember this face.

AL.

life is really weird these days. i mean, REALLY weird.
i go through these seasons of having really intense dreams. i'll not remember my dreams for months on end, then suddenly find myself dreaming so vividly and realistically that i start confusing dreams with reality.
example:
over the course of the last 3 weeks, i've probably dreamed about burma 15 times. sometimes my world here mixes with my world there, so that i see russie and bala on the streets of yangon, or the monks are hiking table mountain. sometimes i see myself driving to capricorn but end up at kaba aye paya sitting on the floor before a big golden buddha, eating bananas.
most recently i was pseudoremembering my little street boys on bo aung kyaw street, the ones who called me ice cream. i was reliving that late night riding home in the taxi where i saw one begging on the side of traders hotel, and i freaked out and jumped out of am moving vehicle and sprinted back to the corner, embraced the kid, and walked back to my house with him. remember him--i thought the army had taken him after that night he threw stones at the blind man with the weight machine in front of the hindu temple? wow...that was a loaded sentence.

anyways, i've been heartbroken over burma as of late. most of you know, i would be there if not for an unforeseen series of events that i still cannot explain or doubt. god simply rerouted me and i'm in africa, completely at peace, completely feeling led to stay a long time, completely unsure what that means for all my dreams of burmese monks and orphans and street kids. south africa is in a much more accessible place when it comes to fighting injustice and poverty. burma's not ready for people like me. we'd end up killed or excommunicated from the country.

so, today i was checking my email and suddenly a little window popped up, some unnamed person wanting to chat with me. i'd seen this before and ignored it because i didn't know who it was, but this time there was a message that said "i knew an ashley in burma once. but she bugged out and moved to africa."

20 minutes later, i've spilled the contents of my burmabreaking heart to this "stranger", asking "who are you" but getting no direct answer. finally i asked "what country do you live in?" and they said "if you could live in any asian country in the world, which one would it be?"
I immediately responded.
He immediately said he lived there, in burma.

and then he said something that freaked me out, something so true to the personality and attitude and communication style of an old friend in burma who was hurt by "my" decision not to come back to asia.

i started crying uncontrollably. i couldn't even see the computer screen.

god has a beautiful way of bringing truth and love back to the surface in his time. thank you god for this. thank you SC for your understanding and your friendship. thank you for healing such a huge chunk of my heart today.

i wonder if i'll be dreaming about burma tonight? something tells me the wrestling in my heart has been eased today.


this marks the 4th pending conversation that has finally surfaced in my life in the past 3 days. god has a way of bringing truth out in his time. thanks to you people who have talked with me about important matters, for your words surely eased a part of the aching in my heart.

"i will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety." (ps. 4.8)

zim.

"In time I was tested and [when] the result was out, I just laughed - I'm HIV positive, then what can I do?"

i keep falling in love with this man.

"trust in the lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
delight yourself in the lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
commit your way to the lord; trust in him and he will do this:
he will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, and the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
be still before the lord and wait patiently for him..." -psalm 37:3-7a

yesterday god and i had breakfast, which turned into lunch. i sat on the wooden floor of my empty living room, blanket underneath me and coffee beside me. i read through some journal entries of the past 8 months. i saw such strong themes developing in my life. i saw hundreds of little prayers god has answered. i was reminded of his faithfulness. i experienced the freedom found in communion with jesus.

i keep falling in love with this man.

it's the only love i know that doesn't present reasons to fear. last night i learned that when you are afraid to say "no" to someone, you are not free to love them. the cool thing with jesus is that i don't feel led to say no to him if i'm communing with him, because he starts making my desires and dreams parallel to his own. so i'm not being asked to do something i'm tempted to say "no" to.

this man, jesus, is so captivating. i remember when i bought a laminated drawing of jesus on the street in burma. i'm pretty sure no one knew who it was supposed to be a drawing of, because burma and jesus aren't on good terms most days. but i bought it because my spirit was so dry and when i saw this man's face on the dirty burmese street, i had to have more of it. i hung it up so that when i lay in my bed, i would be staring at him on the opposite wall.

i'm not kidding--i would audibly talk to jesus for hours. he just sat there, looking at me with this half-smile. sometimes, i'd be weeping on my bed, crying out to him for the monks or the city or my own sinful state.
patty griffin says, in her song "making pies", jesus stares at me in my chair with his big blue eyes and his honey brown hair and he's looking at me from way up there on the wall." that's exactly what it was like.
maybe i just did too many drugs in college, but i'm pretty sure jesus started talking back at some point. because i started hearing him say things, and i'd write them down. pages and pages of jesus words.

so yesterday, at my breakfast with jesus, i was reading these words and just standing, or sitting rather, in awe of this man. this man who keeps his promises. this man who loves me so unconditionally. this man who pursued me and wooed me and who doesn't let my heart wander too far off without coming to fetch it again. it's like that hymn "come thou fount of every blessing" that says prone to wander, lord i feel it. prone to leave the god i love. here's my heart, lord, take and seal it. seal it for thy courts above.

all i'm trying to say in this most random of blogs is that jesus is so worth your time and your heart and your devotion and your sacrifice and your TRUST (a big one for me) and all the other things you don't want to give him. he's so true to his word. he's so in charge, and his ways are so much better than yours or mine. but it's that choice we have to make to relax in his arms, trusting he's going to do what's best, not only for us, but ultimately for his kingdom. that heavenly perspective we loose hold of all the time.

a few days ago, poom and i were in the park playing soccer. we had just had a screaming match with one another over something random. yes, i had a screaming match with a 12 year old street boy. that's beside the point.
the point IS that we were standing there, and it was the perfect moment to play that TRUST game you always had to do at girl scout camp. the one where you fall back into the persons arms and not freak out, flailing your arms about, turning your head to see if the person was still going to catch you.

and i explained the rules to poom. and the kid did it without hesitating. without looking back. without bending his knees and ensuring he'd catch himself if i failed to. he just threw himself backwards without question. i told him i'd catch him and he took me at my word. he didn't think about how bad it would hurt if he hit the ground. he didn't consider the possibility that i'd back out on my promise.

that's what i'm trying to say. god will catch us. why do we spend so much time doubting that?

there's great freedom in loving jesus. i like that we call it "falling in love" because, like the trust game, we let go of our practical, reasonable, plans of action and blah blah blah. we just fall.

South Africa has the world's highest rate of rape. Full stop.

if there's one thing africa develops in me on a daily basis, it's a violent reaction to sexual predators. maybe because i'm meeting more and more young boys who have or currently are being preyed upon by nasty old perverted men.

this morning i joined the first african protest i've had the chance to be involved in. this past week a 62 year old british anglican priest was arrested for "raping" (more on that word later) 2 brothers from zimbabwe, street children who recently moved to cape town because their parents died in a bus accident. the oldest boy is 16 and his brother is 10. both boys have been treated nicely by this priest for a while now, and only recently has it come out that this man is raping these boys. it became public knowledge when the man, this past tuesday, was arrested after the 16 year old went to the police. he had found footage of this man raping his little brother.

today we drove into town and joined the street people, transvestites, gangsters, lawyers, ngo managers, and any other random person who felt connected to this situation. we held signs saying "cut it off" and "street children are not souveniers". me, melissa, ryan and worm got front row views of this man as he wore a towel over his head into the courtroom. we were blocked off by the glass doors that a police officer had shoved a bench in front of so we couldn't get through.

as the man's case was heard, i sat on the stoop of a complex outside while my friends and fellow protestors waited at the back door for the man to be escorted out. i thought about the following:

1--south african legistlation does not include a law against male-on-male rape. rape, according to south african law, is a male raping female. there is no law against oral sex or sodomy, which means that these pedohiles cannot be charged for raping young boys in south africa--because there is no LAW against it, or even saying that it exists as a possibility. so, regardless of our protests, this man will get off.

2--street children are especially susceptible to sexual abuse and exploitation because they are enslaved to drug addiction or to anyone who will give them money. they are dependent on society's handouts, even when attaining those handouts means doing things that might be wrong.

3--the majority of africans are not white. and the majority of africans live in one room shacks where, from birth, they are witnessing the sexual activity of their parents. it's a common occurence, and so this fuzzies up the line when it comes time for that child to be sexually involved. sex is normal, even sex with many different people, and so how does an already vulnerable and abandoned child suddenly know that he doesn't have to consent to sex with a man, an authority figure, or anyone else for that matter.

4--england has sex tourism laws, south africa does not. this means that this man can be charged in england for the sexual crimes he committed in cape town. this is a good thing, because........

at about 2 pm this afternoon, anthony hogg, the anglican priest i saw today was handed his passport by a south african judge and told he's free to go home. just like that.

this should come as no shock, since 4 days ago, jacob zuma was found not guilty of raping an HIV positive woman half his age.

but the reporters said it well, and i quote:
"If anything good has come from this sordid and sorry saga it is that it has sensitised the government and the public to the urgent need for reform of the law and legal process relating to rape cases."
if legistlative reform moves at the same pace as anything else in africa, then the words of such reporters reflect the ideal, not the reality.

"Your dad is AMAZING Ashley lovell, don’t forget that."

jennifer said this about my dad in an email to me today. how appropriate it is to read such words on his 58th birthday. so appropriate that i thought i'd let you all know how great he is as well.

many years ago, my dad scribbled out a list of his top 10 favorite things about me, and taped it to the mirror of the bathroom one morning. i'd like to use this blog as my mirror to my father, so that we can all read the list i'm taping up for him today.

1-completely in love with God's word, so much so that he forsakes sleep, waking up and setting out to be with God for the first 90 minutes of everyday. he's literally done this as long as i can remember.
2-forgiveness. he practices it. he taught me the importance of it, of dealing with the emotions you feel but forgiving the person whose behavior inflicted them upon you.
3-health. he's a healthy man, almost disgustingly so. he's athletic and fit and motivated to stay that way.
4-the infamous disease. he talks to EVERYONE. it was so annoying as a kid, but apparently it's hereditary. he loves connecting with people.
5-boldness. he says exactly what he thinks, and it's always biblically based, due to #1. he's not afraid of people rejecting him for his words of truth.
6-humor. oh my gosh. i laugh more with this man than any other person i know. he's like a kid sometimes.
7-new-found sense of adventure. after his escapades in northeast burma, peeing in jungles (he's never admit to that), riding in rickety ski boats through asian rivers, and playing baseball with buddhist monks, he's seen that there's alot more to life than numbers and desk jobs.
8-goals. he sets them and taught me to do the same. he showed me that goals create a sense of acheivement, which fosters a healthy self-image.
9-prayerfulness. this man prays for you if you even slightly suggest needing it. even if you have a certain look on your face, he'll approach you at church, at the Y, outside in a heavy rain. prayer is more important than anything else to him.
10-he's one of my best friends. because of all these other things. and because he's just starting life, really.

happy birthday dad. i love you and miss you and will see you soon.

life before africa looked like this.

getting up at 5:12 a.m. unconsciously operating a motor vehicle in the dark. somehow ending up at work grinding coffee. waiting for mr. williamson county rec center man to order his coffee, and mr. i-sit-in-the-corner-chair to say awkward things that we didn't ever know how to respond to. waiting for josh to show up. throwing things at chris. watching the sun rise out the drive through window.
at about 7:59, creative genuis started flowing. below is an recent example.

i have the funniest friends on the planet. special acknowledgement of seth, the killtron creator
or robin, killtron herself
. is killtron a girl? not sure.

i miss you guys. thanks for making me laugh. always.

apartheid hangover--may 3, 2006.

that's what i like to call the following observation from my 3rd apartment hunt since moving to Africa. that's right, i'm moving AGAIN. here is your first installment of apartheid hangover:

There are 4 real estate offices in Muizenberg that I know of. 3 on Main Road, 1 in the circle by the beach.
OFFICE #1: bleach-blonde, cracked out, 70 year old retired surfer dude--
"are those boys with you?" he points at nieltjie standing in the doorway, and russie chasing a flock of seagulls in the parking lot.

OFFICE #2: sterile office, elderly woman with drawn-on face, young man with fresh cup of coffee & too many faulty stereotypes--
"your friends CANNOT come in. watch out for them. they are dangerous."

OFFICE #3: lady who won't even open the barred door.
Dirty scowl, as Russie uses my arms and torse as a human jungle gym. "no, we have nothing available."

OFFICE #4: elderly couple.
"are you walking with these boys?" nieltjie whispers, "ashley stay outside with us." old lady grabs my wrist and pulls forcefully, thinking the dirty black kid is going for my neck. russie screams "go in. it's fine."
"ma'am. i'm just goint to sit outisde with my friends while oyu talk to her (melissa)." i try to walk away.
"no, you will come in." yanks my arm again. "these boys are naughty. you don't know how they are. they will steal everything from you."
i look down at russie holding melissa's purse, and nieltjie holding my cell phone. "I think we'll be fine", i say with a forced smile.

I sit on the curb. russie grabs a brick and teases the lady through the window. ricky and nieltjie sit down next to me, russie climbs on my back like a monkey.
"they are just like all the other white people who hate us", ricky says.

the 3 kids look in my eyes, and i look back. we all remember the obvious.