If anything, my trip to Ethiopia and the extensive reflecting I did afterwards were a reality check. For the first real time, I became aware of my own fallibility. The truth that, no matter how passionate I feel about something, I do not know it all.

Remarkable experiences are not found in met expectations. Rather, they are revealed when our perspectives are challenged as we learn that the truth is much more dynamic than our singular view. One must be actively present and receptive to embracing alternative world-views.

This painting was the reference for the print on the back of the Souvenir Tee. My parents named me after Jonah. He is the Biblical character most famous for running away from where God told him to go. Knowing the significance and intention that a name carries, I struggled to appreciate my own. Who wanted to be named after the guy in the Bible who’s famous for fleeing.

I definitely didn’t. But even though he tried to flea from his purpose, my parents would always remind me: “he came back though.” It might have taken him getting caught out at sea in a storm, being thrown overboard a ship, then swallowed up by a whale, but.... he came back.

And in many ways, that had become my story too. I went to Ethiopia asking myself: who are you? And as I experienced the evolving answer to that question, I discovered a responsibility. Those 7 months I spent reflecting as I wrote 13 DAYS were my time in the whale’s belly. I learned that there’s a history to why I am a Diaspora and not living in Ethiopia. An all-expense paid privilege I get to enjoy because it was afforded by the sacrifices of my family & others back home. I left with the sense that I owed something, gratitude and service at the least.

Diaspora or not, we should all seek to answer that question: who am I? Start by contextualizing your life: how did your family position themselves to give you the life you have and what events through history made it that way. You may discover a responsibility or purpose somewhere as you further connect back. And you’ll either run away from it like Jonah or pay it forward like Jonah. I pray you make the right choice.