Ubuntu

May 22, 2019 — New York City

Sometimes you get to dedicate a few months to trying something new, really gaining more than you could have ever given. Insert my first encounter with Ubuntu Football in 2015... but actually take it back further than that. Sarah and Casey Prince, sharing their story with hundreds of high schoolers from a stage in Jekyll Island Georgia. I was a freshman in high school and I thought, “that would be so cool.” 

Then you graduate from college and think to yourself, when will I ever have a chance like this again? So you go back, for longer, because you have a support system that is out of this world and you can’t get Cape Town out of your head. 

“What are you doing after graduation?” 

“I’m moving to Cape Town, South Africa to work with a non-profit soccer academy.” 

The looks were as absurd as the sentence sounds. And then, you can’t really get a visa, but you make it work and fight to stay for as long as you can. Suddenly a huge part of your heart lives in a faraway place. It always will. And you know that. 

So it’s April now, and you’ve been home for some months and your partner in crime/ brother/ bestie calls and says, “you should come to this dinner, we’re doing a thing in new york city.” So you go. Because it’s what you do. And sitting in a room of people who are leaned in to hear how God is changing communities in and through the boys who are a part of Ubuntu, it was absolutely enough. It even fires you up all over again, that chance to hear the vision and the mission and the stories and the heart. 

This one is for you Ubuntu. You literally mean interconnectedness, or “I am because we are.” I am only what we can accomplish together. We are only our best when each individual is empowered. I am glad I know you.