So it's 2007

Well it's a new year, I figured it might be time to get a different place to blog. I have been using another site for years and growing increasing dissatisfied with it.
So, since what has been consuming my life has been getting into college, and since this is my first post on here, I would share with you my college essay, I'm rather proud of it.

“Jeffrey Martin: Instant Expert”
By Jeffrey Martin

I feel I should explain that term “Instant Expert,” since what it could mean is different from how I mean it. My mentor is a youth minister, but he also speaks around the country at youth events. When he goes and speaks he always shares the “Dixon Kinser: Instant Expert” power point presentation, which includes pictures of his wife and kids, pictures of his faith community, a picture of where he was born and a clever quip about how his home town is the home of Krispy Kreme and a large tobacco company, “so they are doing their part to better the health of the world” he always says. I want to capture that same vibe here. I want to share with you some of the things that make me who I am. So with that sharing of self in mind I am going to talk about three experiences that have shaped me into who I am: a lifetime spent in motion, the day my sister died, and a day spent in the downtown library. I will start with some information about where I am right now.

Hello, my name is Jeffrey Martin; I am a Christian, and am currently practicing my faith at Saint Bartholomew’s Church here in Nashville and doing an internship under Dixon Kinser, an Episcopal youth minister. In my teenage years I started playing music – guitar, piano, and singing – and fell in love with it, I have always had adeptness with technology and an affinity for movies.

From as early as I can remember my family was on the move. I was born in a suburb outside of Los Angeles, California to a large family of five kids – which grew to eight by the time my youngest sister was born. A little after I was born my parents felt that God was calling them to mission work in Africa. So, they left California – with all us kids in tow – in search of funding and training. I was about three by the time we left for Africa. Once there we found ourselves moving between two different locations: Nairobi, Kenya and Khartoum, Sudan. My parents’ main job – although sometimes it seemed more like a quest – was to translate the Bible into Dinka (or Jeing). We had people coming over on a regular basis to translation. This same pattern continued until I was about nine, when we came back to the U.S. for furlough. Upon our arrival we found that the situation with the church that was supporting us had become very unhealthy and we had to leave that relationship and that church. After a while of just trying to make it my parents’ started looking for another church that might be willing to support them in their call to the Dinka people. We found a church that was interested and have been here ever since. For an explorative person like myself, spending all that time moving around seemed only natural. It was really good for me to see the world at a young age. It showed me that this one city, or country, that I live in is not the entirety of the world; there’s plenty more to see out there.

When I was five-years-old – this was during my time in Kenya – one of my two younger sisters got sick with Malaria. This particular variety of Malaria acts like a severe flu. After a week or two of her just laying in bed it all seemed to turn around: she got up, got out of bed and lived that day like nothing had been wrong with her – just her happy, all smiles, self. That day she did what she loved most: spending time with her family, playing with her Barbie’s and watching movies. We all thought it was going to be okay. The next day we all got up still happy because the day before had been so good, only to find that she seemed sicker than before. As the day turned to night her breathing became heavy so my parents took her to a local hospital. The rest of us waited. By the time my parents came back the tension in the room was unbearable. I will never forget the moment my parents opened the door to the apartment we were living in; it was like everyone in the room, stopped breathing. Someone finally broke the silence in the room and asked the question we were all thinking: “Where’s Stephanie?” my parents, with a glazed look, said, “Stephanie is dead.” It felt like the world stopped at that moment.
For months after that there was no sanity, no time, nothing seemed as important as that night – and it seemed nothing ever would. But, eventually the pain and numbness subside and you begin to be able to enjoy the world around you again. It is a loss of innocence, however, to lose someone so close to you as a sister at such a young age. The world cannot be viewed the same way ever again. You live your life, but you cannot go back to the way that you lived before.

Just this past year, I was involved in a confirmation class. It was a ten-month process, which was to conclude with our Bishop confirming us. Near the end of it, a week or so before we were to be confirmed, the man leading the class had scheduled a “silent retreat” – which, to over simplify, is a time to give yourself space, to interact with God. We were supposed to go to a local park here in Nashville, but it was raining, so we decided that instead of wondering through the rain we would go to the downtown library. Once we got there, the leader explained that we were supposed to go into the library and spend the next three hours or so reading, praying, walking, and interacting with God. Being the explorative type I decided to start by wondering around and just looking. After a while I started to get intrigued by some of the book titles – particularly this one book about art through the ages. As I was reading through the book and looking at the beautiful pieces of art that were shown there I was suddenly struck with the sheer magnitude of the three hundred thousand square foot library that I was sitting in and how much knowledge was contained within it’s fifty seven thousand titles. The more I sat there the more excited I got about being able to open up any one of those books – like you would a window – and look into the life of another human being. I believe we cannot truly know ourselves until we see into someone else’s world.

These stories that I have shared with you; they mean a great deal to me; they are part of the very core of my being. If I had never experienced them, who knows who I would be, but I know that because of them I am who I am right now. By sharing our joys, our sorrows, and our past we allow people to see us, we allow people to know us, and we invite them to share as we have shared, and by doing so, we have changed the world. For I believe that when we embrace someone’s humanity and be present to them even when they are sad or angry, joyous or annoying, loving or hating that we become freed from prejudice.
You know me now; you know my story; you know my life. You have seen a picture of my family, you know where I was born, and you know where I have been. You know what I love, and who I miss. This is Me. Welcome to my story.
peace.