unusual normality

Joyful children in Malawi.

Over on Instagram, for the last few days I've been sharing some of my favourite photographs that I've taken on trips overseas to developing countries, in support of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development:  17 goals that world leaders have committed to achieve by 2030, which include ending extreme poverty, fighting inequality and injustice around the world, fixing climate change, making the world safer for all people, and so on.  As a result, you can probably guess that I've been reliving some pretty incredible memories as I go through my archives to determine what images I share in support of these goals.

In a complete coincidence, on Saturday I was driving around town with Marcus listening to NPR, and this amazing story by New York Times bestselling author Ishmael Beah came on, describing what it was like to immigrate to New York City from his native Sierra Leone as a teenager and a former child soldier.  He tells this story with such humour and kindness and empathy that you immediately feel connected to him.  For my part, while I was certainly never a child soldier, I completely related to what it's like to be an immigrant to the United States as a child, and his story brought back many memories of my own.

This is normally the sort of thing that I would save to share in one of my This Was A Good Week posts, but the story was so powerful for me, I decided it deserved its own post.  So when you have 20 minutes or so, grab a cup of coffee or a mug of tea, and click here to listen.  I promise you his story will make your day better.

Have a great week, friends.