World Water Day 2017: WasteWater

Today is World Water Day, a day focused on bringing attention and awareness to the global water crisis. Despite the many advances in technology, a rapidly expanding global economy, and various social justice initiatives in just the last decade alone, there are still 1.8 billion of the world's population who use a source of drinking water contaminated with waste, putting men, women, and countless children at risk of contracting deadly diseases like cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and even polio.

Since 1993 World Water Day (formally World Day of Water) has chosen a theme centered around this crisis to help educate the global community on how we might together work to end the injustice of unclean water which is a key contributor to extreme poverty. This year's theme is WasteWater, a growing and systemic issue which is threatening the environment and putting future generations at even great risk than they currently already are at. Wastewater comes largely from our homes, the cities we live in, and from both industry and agricultural development which then flows back into the natural world without being cleaned, treated, or reused first.

According to the UN Water council, by reducing the amount of our wastewater, and then also reusing it in our homes, gardens, city green spaces, and so on we as a planet can create even more sustainable water habits and bring this crisis one step closer to being a begone era.

In response to the crisis of unsafe drinking water there are many organizations and non profits who are working diligently and tirelessly to bring access to this safe water to everyone around globe by 2030. Just a few of these organizations include:

• Unicef
• CharityWater
• UN-Water
• WaterAid
• Water

With our support, from people like you and me, we can make that goal a reality and not just a benchmark. Together through partners such as these we can bring an end to the water crisis in our life time and provide safe and clean drinking water for billions of children the world over.

Bye Felicia... I mean, 2016

2016 has in the most literal sense been one heck of a year. Both with high points and moments of moruning and sorrow. For our team we celebrated 5 years of storytelling and had the opportunity to help tell so many stories of some wonderful and amazing people around our world. While some days were more difficult than others (as that's just life some times) we each enjoyed the many lessons we learned along the way these past twelve months. But if we are being honest, nothing can quite sum up how excited we are for all the promise and hope held within 2017! Here are just a few of the things that our team is looking forward to this coming year...

In 2017, I am looking forward to new creative endeavors... to growth, discovery, and wonder. I look forward to connecting with old friends and making new ones. To learning more about myself and the world around me. And not least of all, trying new local pizzas!

-Alan

The fresh start of a new year is what I am most excited for in 2017. Most people fear the unknown, but I am excited for the opportunity that it brings. The opportunity for growth and change. We can't go backwards, but here's to going forward and all the stories that lie before us!

-Kristin

While I'm without a doubt looking forward to the bigger things 2017 has lined up, like traveling to new places, finishing up projects that I'm eager to show to the world, and creating new ones that are just ideas as of right now. I find myself almost being more excited for the quiet moments- walks through the forest, movie nights, grabbing a cup of coffee, and doing so with the people that have grown very near and dear to my heart.

-Andrea

The things I'm looking forward to the most in 2017 are watching films I've never seen, hearing songs I've never heard, reading books I've never read, and creating more stories about love and hope, all with friends or in solitude. Newness, that's what I'm looking forward to the most. Oh, and the new Chik-fil-A locations within short driving distance.

-Adam

This past year has been quite the adventure, both in good ways and not so amazing ways also. But through it all I am thankful for the blessings that I was able to receive and the lessons that I learned. More than anything I  am looking forward to the many ways that my passions, my art, and my faith will be stretched in 2017. Growth isn't always easy, but it is necessary. While I am uncertain all of what this year will bring with it, I pray that 2017 would continue to teach me ever more what it is to care for my neighbor both here and abroad.

-Matthew

In 2017, I’m most looking forward to exploring new places, meeting new people, learning about other’s passions, deepening the relationships I’ve already been so blessed with, and taking time to ponder more. I’m also equally excited and terrified to be graduating and figuring out how to be a real person too I suppose. Onward and upward!

-Noah

2017 is going to be great, because my eyes will see new places, my heart will bond with new people, my ears will hear new music, my hands will experience new art and new stories and new connections, as well as hold my very first college degree, which means that I will be in the beginning of a new stage of my life. 2017 is going to be great, because it's a fresh opportunity for all things new!

-Chloe

Silver and (Squad) Goals: A ShadowShine Christmas Story

Christmas is such a fun and joyous time of year. From the bright colorful decorations and displays, to the nostalgic feelings of child like wonder that the season stirs within each of us - this is honestly one of the most wonderful times of the year. And while presents and gifts and material things tend to be on our minds for the holidays, the truth is that it isn't what you get that makes the day so festive and bright, it's who you have by your side.

As we begin to look toward the end of this year and think back on all the journeys, adventures, and stories we've been able to share in telling - just this year alone - we are incredibly thankful for this team. These wonderful people and artists that make up our family. The real present is being able to call them friends. 

From our squad to yours this Christmas season, Merry Christmas and may you all have a very blessed holiday season and New Year!

Five Years of Storytelling

Five years of storytelling is a truly special moment. From the adventures that have led us across the country, and across the world, to the stories that made us laugh, and those that brought tears to our eyes; storytelling for us is about bringing people to people. To realize, to take a moment and fully recognize, that this has been the journey we have been on for the last five years is unbelievably humbling. To be a part of a much larger story that encompasses our entire world, and to be able to share the stories of those we meet along the way on our own journey - it's indescribable.

For five years we have grown together, we have overcome challenges together, and have continued to learn what it is to be storytellers who love unconditionally, together. From humble beginnings in a college dorm room, to now traveling the world to help share the stories of those in need - and also those working to create a world of peace, a world we all want. It's hard to believe where we are now and who we have become as a team, and more so as individuals. 

This year we are celebrating an ongoing journey of storytelling, a continuing adventure; looking back and reflecting, but also eagerly looking ahead to the future. Dreaming of where these next five years will take us, and all the new adventures we'll be going on. And while no one knows what tomorrow may bring with it, we are excited nonetheless, because we are a family of storytellers who tell stories that bring people, to people.

To Tell the Story

If you know us, ever had the chance to connect with us, or have followed us for more than a day chances are you've heard us talk about the work of telling stories. It's core to who we are, and it's what makes us excited to get out of bed every morning. It directs and inspires us and it's what we firmly believe in.

Storytelling is an old art, but it's something that is so intrinsically a part of who we all are that it will never cease to stop bringing us together. From every corner of the world stories have, and always will, bring people of different walks and understandings together. The ability to help play a role in such a moving force makes us ecstatic.

The chance to help share somebody's journey in a way that countless hundreds can connect and relate to them; the ability to help create a place and moment when we engage with something else other than just a pixelated screen; the privilege to help tell and be a part of a much larger story that is at work in our world - storytelling is an unbelievable tool that in many ways marks who we are as a society, community, and world.

From a small business owner here in West Michigan, to a community working to end the threat of Malaria and extreme poverty half a world away; from a couple exchanging their vows on their wedding day, to a dreamer who has a vision of changing the world for the better - everyone's story is collection of characters and adventures that is telling a much larger story - and it's that story that we continue to chase after and tell day after day. 

That's what we believe in, and that's why we do what we do; to tell the story of who we ALL are, and where we're daring to go next!

Hope in the form of a Bed Net

This past summer I traveled to Zambia, Africa to continue documenting the relief work being done in this predominantly rural farming country against such rampant killers as malaria. Malaria is a disease of the blood that is caused by a parasite, which is transmitted from person to person by mosquito. In Sub-Saharan Africa almost everyone you meet and speak with has personally had, or knows someone who has had malaria in their lifetime. If treated immediately the disease is manageable, but the difference between those who can defend against malaria and those who suffer at it's hands comes down to one simple thing: status.

While poverty in a country such as Zambia is widespread, few realize just how prevalent the class system still is to their culture. While the threshold of wealth may be lower, there is still a definite separation of those who are considered the wealthy, upper class, and those living in poverty and - most often - extreme poverty.

One early morning on our way to Kitwe, Zambia we stopped at a village located several kilometers away to observe and document the preventative effects that bed nets can have on a community - a story I have been following and continuing to document over the last two years. In this village we were brought to the home of one family in particular where we met Jacob, a sweet, beautiful child who had just turned 8-years-old.

His brothers and sisters played around in the open dirt patch just to the side of their home, staying cool in the shade as best they could. And there in the midst of their games, lay their brother, Jacob. Upon first glance Jacob appeared to be just like the rest of the children, resting and staying cool from the hot arid fall sun. But Jacob was not like the other children who surrounded him. 

Since birth Jacob has dealt with occasional cases of epileptic seizures that his family had been able to keep managed. While any seizure can be extremely dangerous, and potentially fatal, Jacob's condition was being well looked after. He began to grow and become strong like all the other children, but due to his family's extreme poverty Jacob's mother was not able to provide a bed net for her family, nor medication (a daily and far more expensive option) to keep her children safe.

About a year ago Jacob was bitten by a mosquito, most likely while he was sleeping, and due to the intense fever brought on by the malaria parasite, his epileptic episodes intensified within a matter of hours. His mother was able to take him the the hospital and get the proper medication to save her son, but alas, it was too late. One of the seizures Jacob suffered damaged his brain so badly that he was left unable to talk, stand up, eat normally, the list goes on. Jacob's once bright and exciting future was taken from him.

This is how Jacob spends his days now, sitting on a mat on the ground floor, outside with his siblings as they run back and forth. This little boy, with all the potential and promise in the world now waits in the dirt, broken and beaten by a disease which is so easily preventable. He is left waiting for nothing short of a miracle.

I'm not sure I've ever experienced as hard a moment in my life as that morning; walking up and hearing this family's story, seeing this little child robbed of his life, seeing the hurt and pain he must be going through, and especially that of his family. And then, to walk away, unsure if I will ever see Jacob again, unsure if somehow that miracle will, in fact, play out, not sure if this story will ever have a happily ever after. But what I do know is this; before leaving our time with his family, we were able to give Jacob's family hope. Hope in the form of a bed net. A bed net that this family now can protect themselves with. A first line in defense against a disease that can be so easily done away with in, and with the help of, first-world nations.

Tonight at 7pm, Night of Nets, a locally grown campaign to help raise money to provide this EXACT same hope, is putting on an event to help bring this preventative solution to thousands more families across parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. Tonight you can be a part of helping children living in extreme poverty avoid becoming similar stories such as Jacob's. Tonight you can be a part of helping end Malaria and it's crippling hold on thousands of innocent adults and children living with the threat of this deadly disease.

Come out to Cornerstone University's Men's Soccer game at 7pm tonight to learn more about this cause, this disease, and how you can be an active member in helping bring this preventative solutions to countless more Jacobs.

I can't quite say what Jacob was thinking that morning, or if he could make sense of who we were, this group of very obvious American travelers that visited his home. I can't know for certain if he understood what was happening, or if he was relieved. I cannot know for sure, but the faint smile that lit up his face when he saw us makes me believe that just maybe, somehow beyond my own understanding of rationality and sense, that Jacob knew in that moment that he was safe from the thing that almost took his life. But clearly not his spirit. 

-Matthew

Night of Nets: CU Basketball vs. Aquinas

If you follow us, have talked with us, or know us at all, you know how close Night of Nets is to our hearts. NoN is a community coming and working together to be change agents for other communities around the world in the prevention of Malaria. Each NoN event has a monumental influence and outcome on the lives of countless families and children around the world, something which our team has witnessed first hand. The relief, joy, and love you can see on a sister's face as she receives a bed net, knowing that her siblings whom she cares for can sleep safely at night is a sight that you can never forget. 

If we could, we would take each of you and allow you to witness the impact that one bed net can have. It truly is the easiest, most sustainable answer to the Malaria crisis in areas like Sub-Saharan Africa. A bed net honestly changes lives and the entire future for Africa. It keeps children healthy enough to attend school, it helps keep parents and caretakers working to support their families and the economy of their community, and it protects everyone from a sickness that can kill them.

We are proud and excited to stand behind CU's Men and Women's basketball teams as they continue to help raise awareness and support in helping end this completely preventable, but life threatening disease. Join us on February 18th at 7:00pm @ Cornerstone University as we work together to end the threat of Malaria and bring security to families and children around the world, one bed net at a time.