Nate for President

I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a 12-day trip to Khartoum, Sudan where I will be working with a private university. During my time there, I will be helping the leadership of the university develop and improve their marketing and media messaging, amongst other projects, tasks, and duties that are not yet known to me. It’s going to be really hot there, but probably not too dangerous. I get back on June 18th.

That’s the short of it. Below is the long of it (spoiler alert- partial Christianity!):

As a male, I have a natural sense for adventure. It’s what drives me. As a Christian, I have a natural sense to serve. It’s what fulfills me. As a young-professional, white male, living in Dallas, TX, working in the corporate world, I yearn for some worldly perspective.

Occasionally I find myself getting so tangled-up in the noise that I question my true purpose in life. These meaningless things like politics at work, friend gossip, benchmarking myself to other’s achievements (#humblebrag), or even the grind of going out to bars in order to say-ridiculous-things-to-girls-I-don’t-know sometimes just leaves me feeling drained.

As a Christian I know there’s more. There’s a lot more. But sometimes I need to be reminded of that perspective.

So no, I’m not going to Africa because I desire danger (I’d date a girl from Texas State if I wanted that, amiright? Amiright?) — And I’m not going on some altruistic pilgrimage that I’ll hold over your head in every convo we have from now on (that’s what my charity-benefit-birthday party was for). I’m going because it was an opportunity to use my education and work background (“I’m taking my talents to Khartoum.”) in a positive way that will help me gain perspective on life, religion, relationships, myself, Middle Eastern food, etc.

It’s my hope that breaking out of the country, placing myself in a completely new/different environment, and centering myself in serving others and The Lord, will allow me to find contentment in myself and contentment in whatever the future may hold- be it in Dallas, TX or wherever with whomever.

Sure, it’s not a vacation in the Destin, Florida sense of the word, but I’ll be honest- I’m very excited to be in a place where I can focus on one task at hand, and not be inundated with vibrating smartphones and back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings. I’m also going to be wearing a new fishing shirt each day. #totalsudanesefratmove

I will more than likely have access to WiFi, but I’m not sure how much I’ll update social networks, etc. Certainly not as much as I did in Germany. If It’s a cool picture/video I’ll probably post it to Facebook. If I decide to take up arms in any civil wars, I’ll probably tweet about. In the meantime, please keep me, the people I’ll be working with, and the city of Khartoum in your prayers.