Striving for More Personality Profile

I met with Lori, a Strategist who is working with the firm that is creating our new website. She asked me a series of questions about Striving for More and then gave me some homework. My assignments including coming up with a personality profile for Striving for More. I am supposed to pretend that Striving for More is a person and decide what it would drive, wear, like to eat, like to listen to, etc. I thought I would share my conclusions.

When I stop and think about the personality of Striving for More (if it were a person), I immediately wanted to give it Colleen’s personality. Initially, I had reluctance to do this so I posted the challenge in Facebook. I was surprised to see that this was the initial reaction of anyone who knew Colleen and the origin of Striving for More. I knew at that point, that my initial gut instincts were correct. So I decided start out that way and see where it went.

To ease this description, I am going to call Striving for More, S4M from this point forward. I actually think it has a personality that would like a catchy nickname and being that she has a personality that has fully embarrassed the cyber language of texting, S4M would work perfectly.

Age/Attitude
S4M is a young lady.

She is a free spirit but a person of high ethical values. She is always honest, and authentic. What you see is what you get. People want to be her friend. She is likeable. She has a contagious laugh and she lights up a room with her smile. She would never intentionally hurt anyone and it saddens her deeply to know that someone is hurting either physically or emotionally as she is highly empathetic.

Automobile
She drives a pink or lime green Volkswagen convertible bug. She would have a vanity plate that would say STRIVING. There is definitely a bright flower in the vase on the dashboard and there are several different types of “Cure Childhood Cancer” magnets and a COEXIST magnet to represent that she respects people of all faiths.

Clothing
She wears comfortable clothing like jeans or cargo shorts and t-shirts. Nothing too revealing and always showing self respect. No disrespectful words on t-shirts. No silly words on her butt. She wears either rainbow flip flops or crocs on her feet during the summer and during the winter if it isn’t warm enough to continue wearing flip flops or crocs (which there are rare times when it isn’t warm enough), she will wear sneakers or stylish boots. She likes to be in fashion. She plays close attention to what the “in” people are wearing and tries to mimic that without spending too much money. She has a keen eye for style and what looks good. She enjoys fashion. She likes to paint her nails and paint the nails of her friends. She enjoys jewelry and has a lot of it to match different outfits.

Food
S4M likes to eat easy, fun food that is targeted for kids and young adults. Things like Macaroni and Cheese, Hot Dogs, Pizza, PB&J, Grapes, Bagels, Bananas, etc. And although, in general, she doesn’t like chocolate, her favorite candy is Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.

Music
She can most often be found listening to music on her ipod which is filled with top 40 and upbeat praise songs that she can sing along to. She loves watching American Idol, So You think You Can Dance and any and all of the other talent based reality shows. One of her favorite songs is “I Fly” by Hayden Panettiere

Read
S4M does not get into reading that much because she is very much a people person and reading is a bit too solitary of an activity for her. When she does read, it is typically for short bursts and it is a magazine article here and there. She enjoys reading People, Entertainment Weekly, Seventeen, American Girl, Cosmo Girl, etc.

Hobbies
S4M enjoys lots of hobbies. She loves to swim. She also enjoys going to the beach with her friends or family and collecting shells and making sand castles. She enjoys lots and lots of different crafts. She is very artistic. If she has nothing else to do with her hands, you can always find a pen and paper in her hand and she will be doodling.

She spends endless periods of time on her cellphone texting her extended family and large network of friends. She also will spend time playing video games on her ipod or her cell phone. She also enjoys watching things on the screen. It doesn’t matter what. She enjoys getting lost in the drama of the television. She does not enjoy cartoons as much as live action television shows and movies. Some favorite movies include Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure. Television shows are anything that are dramatic. Reality shows are definitely a favorite.

She loves animals. Small dogs and cats are a favorite. Anything that will cuddle in bed with her.

She loves to shop!

Relationships
S4M has many relationships in her life. She is close to her parents and her sister. She also is close to many cousins and friends. She makes everyone that she encounters feel as though they have made a new friend. However, she really only has one or two close, intimate relationships with friends. To those sacred few she is loyal to the end. She can also easily get her feelings hurt if she feels as though she is being neglected by those closest to her. However, if she is hurt, she rarely openly shares those feelings. Rather, she keeps them inside.

Summary
In summary S4M is full of vitality and energy. However, she is also full of compassion and love. She has a warm smile that can communicate “I know how you feel” with humility. She has a strong desire to help people so they don’t have to experience what Colleen experienced.

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My Spiritual Pilgrimage to Guatemala

My initial plan was to travel to Guatemala for a Spiritual Pilgrimage with the goals of connecting with God, learning from others and hopefully being transformed with humility by the experience. Upon hearing about the work of Lemonade International, I was moved to take a more active role and turn my spiritual pilgrimage into a mini mission trip to help the Lemonade International team with the important work that they do in the La Lemonada ghetto. Although I may not have had the solitude or study that a traditional pilgrimage usually entails, I feel my goals were achieved.

The entire trip was unforgettable. However, these are the moments that stood out for me.

• I spoke to many families and came to the realization that most of them had lost at least one child. Although my life of a lost child does not parallel that of most of my peers here, it did parallel most of the women I met in Guatemala. There was an odd sense of comfort in that discovery.

• Watching children walk down to the ravine to dump their trash and other children rummage through the trash in the river after the rain. You see, garbage men do not even go into the ghetto. Therefore, the people of La Lemonada dump their trash into the ravine. Initially this seems awful but then you realize that they don’t have any other choice.

• Accompanying Tita and her team of International workers into the ghetto each morning was in itself an emotional experience. I almost felt like I was part of a scene in a dramatic movie. Children with gobs of enthusiasm advanced on us squealing “Mana Tita, Mana Tita” (short for Hermana Tita or Sister Tita). Hugs, kisses and “Buenos Diaz” were doled out to everyone in the crowd. A screen writer could not write a scene this heartwarming.

• One of my goals for this trip was to find a child to sponsor. We had decided that we would like to sponsor a young girl in Colleen’s honor. It was important to me that I felt moved by the child I met. On the last day of our trip, we went to the playground to play with the kids from the Limon school during their “field day”. Shortly after arriving, I spotted a little girl that caught my eye and she approached me and hugged me. I asked her name and she said “Helen”. I quickly found out that she was 8 and that her favorite thing in the world was Hannah Montana. She had a light in her eye that reminded me of Colleen. After I communicated my desire to sponsor her to our hosts, I was told that before my arrival, Helen had told one of the teachers that she really wanted a “Madrina” (Godmother or Sponsor) and asked how she could get one. The teacher told her that all she could do was pray to God. Twenty minutes later, I showed up on the field and spotted her knowing that she was the girl that I had to sponsor. I look forward to the day when I can visit Helen again after she has been told that I am her Madrina.
  

What a wonderful feeling to be able to help a child.

See all of my pictures from the trip at my Picasa site.

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Helping Other Families in Guatemala

I came to La Lemonada to see firsthand what it is like in one of the largest slums in Central America. I have been following Lemonade International and Tita’s work through their blogs and I felt that God wanted me to come here.

My first day was an emotional one. After parking the car, we walked on foot, approaching the ghetto. Although I had seen it in pictures, it was hard to not be struck by the horror of the poverty. I have to admit, I was curious to see how people live in these seemingly uninhabitable shacks of sheet metal built on the side of a ravine. Afraid to look too close but curious at the same time. Sort of the way you feel when driving past a terrible car crash.

As the day unraveled, we had several close encounters that stirred my emotions. God had a purpose for me here. God needed me to see that other people lose children every day. A mother and father lost a son yesterday in a violent stabbing. I went with Tita to the wake and was able to share my story of how their pain will ease. Another family lost a son today (he hanged himself). Tomorrow we will find them. I hope I will be able to comfort them.

The sights and smells of the poverty here are disturbing but God is helping me see past that. There is more for me to see, more for me to feel, more for me to do. Today I feel blessed that I am fortunate to have enough money to travel here to do this work. Many people in the world are trapped, trapped in their sheet metal homes in the side of ravines.

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Going to Guatemala

I am very sorry that it has been so long since I posted on my blog. I am going to try to get better about that.

1) I am leaving on Sunday to spend a week in Guatemala for what was initially planned to be a spiritual pilgrimage but is turning into a mission trip. My friend Karen Brown and I will be spending the week with people from Lemonade International in La Lemonade which is the ghetto of Guatemala City. We will be primarily working with children. I have never done anything like this. I am looking forward to moving out of my comfort zone, doing something different and releasing my mind of all things cancer related for the week. Shifting my focus to the severely impoverished will be good perspective for me to gain.
2) Striving for More had their June Board Meeting and we added a new board member. We were all feeling a gap without a member that had experience with fund raising so that was a focus of my prayers for most of May. Deborah Harrell Meehan was voted onto the board and was quickly assigned as the chair of the fundraising committee. Deborah is the leader of the Wild Wacky Wonderful Women of the World and served as the President of the Wake Women's Center for the last 5 years. Her background, experience, contacts and wealth of knowledge make her a wonderful addition to our team. I am really excited that she has joined us.

3) FWV Distilled has agreed to take on Striving for More as a pro bono client to design and develop a new website for us. This is very exciting because they will be doing some market research work to determine the best approach for designing the new site. This has been the missing piece since I don't have a creative bone in my body.

Please pray for Karen and I as we travel to Guatemala. Also, please pray for Vince and Mackenna as they will be alone this week. Since most of you know how spoiled I am, I have no doubt that Vince is perfectly capable of handling things on his own. However, I will not have a cell phone and will not be touching base at home and we have never had time apart where we have not at least spoken to each other. This will be different for us.

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