A couple weeks ago a friend emailed me about a photo contest through Watoto and British Airways. When I read the prize, my heart skipped a beat. I had to enter!

What was the prize you ask?

A trip to Uganda, Africa to photograph Watoto’s projects… and to be mentored by three top photo journalists.

Seriously.

This to me is my dream trip of a lifetime. I don’t dream of all inclusive resorts… I dream of Africa. Of meeting people and hearing their stories, seeing how they live and sharing these moments with my camera. I dream of bringing awareness to issues and people – bring a voice to the voiceless – through my camera.

Tonight my dream came true.

One month from today, I leave for Africa. I still can hardly believe this. I was sure it was a typ-o in the email sender line or that they had misdialed my number (awkward!). But they have assured me that it’s for real. Myself, and two extremely talented other Canadian photographers were chosen to travel with three of Canada’s top photo journalists to Uganda. While there we will be visiting Watoto’s projects… child sponsorship villages, homes for women with HIV, meeting former child soldiers, homes for babies… and more. We will be documenting these projects and sharing with you. What an absolute honour.

I read some statistics tonight on Watoto’s website I have to share…

I believe in dreams coming true – but I also believe in answered prayers. I prayed and believed and hoped… and am so excited! It is so amazing the timing also and how it is all coming together. And right after I got the confirmation on my cell, I walked into the store and the song that was playing was “Wavin’ flag”. The song that was written for Haiti, that I used on my slideshows for my Haiti images… and a song I associate with the hope of a generation being rebuilt and renewed. Much like is needed in Uganda. To me it was a sign and I got a bit choked up.

I will be leaving one month from today… and gone June 16-28. I can not wait to share with you all!! Keep your eyes here for more about this dream trip! Also, if you know me, you know I hate flying – but love traveling. Would appreciate your prayers as it’s a long flight!

Celebrating life and love,

Krista

We are home from a great week away in Florida visiting family! Such a great time… here’s a little video to share our adventures! This trip I left my “real” camera and just relaxed…. and now I feel rejuvenated and ready to go!

Celebrating life and love,

Krista

Tonight I was mulling over the last few months in my family’s lives. Around Christmas time my brother had a viral infection that attacked the lining of all his organs. He spent Christmas day and the days around it in and out of the hospital and on bed rest. Then a couple weeks ago as you may have read HERE we were shocked to discover my dad had a brain tumor and the whirlwind week that followed with his surgery and ongoing recovery. This Sunday, my niece Hannah and her other set of grandparents were in a serious car accident – they were all okay but no one ever wants to hear the words “you’re lucky to be alive.”

And that’s what I was mulling over tonight.

I hope that I don’t need another illness or accident to make me realize, I am in fact lucky to be alive. We all are. Each day is a gift. I think of my kids opening gifts when they were a couple years younger. You knew immediately what they thought of the gift. There were the gifts they opened, mumbled a “thanks” for and threw over their shoulder without a second glance. (Thankfully, as they grow older they learn tact!) And there are the gifts that when opened, their whole faces light up to, they jump up and clutch the present and squeal in delight! They spin around and offer the giver a huge hug and thank them repeatedly. The joy of the gift is so evident in their response.

And I think back to myself. I too am given the gift of life. Do I mumble a thanks – or do I live out my thanks?

As I was mulling this over tonight, the lyrics to a Tim McGraw song kept going through my head. In the song a man who is dying, is asked what he did when he heard the news… I love this portion of the response:

“I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying.”
And he said: “Some day, I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dying.”

And then just before I posted this, I saw a tweet from one of my favourite authors, Donald Miller.

“Right before you die, you’ll realize this whole life was about loving people. And you watched too much television.” @donaldmiller

Tonight, I choose to live like I was dying… because I am truly lucky to be alive.

Celebrating LIFE and love,

Krista

This week I witnessed something absolutely beautiful.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll have seen it’s been an unbelievable 5 days. The short story is my dad was perfectly healthy last week. Was at my daughter’s volleyball tournament all day Friday. That night he started having unbelievably bad headaches. Saturday he went to the ER, had a CT scan and they discovered a brain tumor. He was not doing well at all and started to lose vision in one eye so they sent him to Toronto (no beds in Hamilton). He had an emergency MRI Monday which showed that inside his tumor it was hemorrhaging, making it swell and pushing on his optic nerves. He needed surgery to remove it ASAP. The next morning they were able to remove the entire tumor (through his nose!) and found no signs of cancer! We are still praying his left eye’s vision will be restored.

You’re probably wondering what’s so beautiful about that. Sounds awful.

The beauty I saw was this…

-my mom and dad’s love for each other – there is something so beautiful about a love that’s stood the test of time. The good and the bad. True love isn’t flowers and chocolates… it’s wiping up vomit, staying up all night, advocating for health care, comforting and just being present.

-support – this was huge. Every step of the way we have been floored by people’s support. Family and friends worldwide offering to do anything we may need, praying for dad, sending encouraging notes, and just amazing us with their care. People offering to jump on a plane to come down and be with us. People taking care of my kids so I could be there while Mark was working. Dropping off food. And on and on. And it wasn’t just the people we would expect – but people we hardly knew as well were extending their support. I would tell dad how many people had responded on Facebook (I was posting updates on there as much of our family and friends live far away) – and he would just grin ear to ear. Actually – mom said she caught him tonight whipping back the curtain tonight to tell his roommate about all the people on Facebook supporting him.

-perspective – it would be easy for mom and dad to be bitter. If they had gotten a bed right away – perhaps his eye could have been saved. But, instead I find it so beautiful how they chose to look at it the other way. They travel a lot and often to more remote places. What if they had been in Indonesia or Africa when this had happened? They choose to rejoice he was home. In a corner of the world that has world class surgeons in several cities within a short drive (Hamilton, London, Toronto…). They rejoice that we live in Canada and they do not have to worry about how they are paying for this surgery. We can simply do whatever needs done medically without the stress of finance. The brain tumor could have done a lot more damage or been cancerous and been a much worse scenario. Dad may lose sight in one eye – but he’s still able to see with the other one. He’s healthy otherwise. He’s here. So instead of choosing to be bitter, we choose to be thankful and rejoice in how well it went.

So, I left the hospital tonight with a full heart. Again, I can not thank each of you enough for your thoughtfulness and support. I have not had a chance to respond to people – but I have read every message and you have each contributed to the beauty I saw this week.

My motto for edison is “Celebrating life and love”. This week I was reminded of the importance of just that. Life can change in a blink of an eye.

Celebrating life and love!

Krista

And because every post needs a photo…

I was chatting with a bride this week who had just received her wedding album from me. She said, “I can imagine sharing it with our grandkids someday.”

I loved that. I think sometimes we think of the photos as for right now – the images we can upload to Facebook tonight, share with our friends tomorrow…. but the images we create today build a story about us that will be passed on to generations. What will that story say? What do we want that story to say might be a better question.

At the end of our chat, the bride said “I want our love to be our legacy.”

What an honour it is to document and create heirlooms to pass on for generations.

This video has been passed around online for years – but I love it and wanted to share it here again.

Celebrating life and love,

Krista

This weekend we watched the movie “Courageous” and in it there is a line that stuck with me. The wife says to her husband…. “There are days I’m glad I married you. And then… there are days I’m really, really, really glad I married you. Today is one of those days.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself! I am so thankful for Mark in my life. He has been my sanity, encouragement, fellow dreamer, companion and the man I adore for more than half my life now.

Today, is a special day in Mark’s life. It’s a significant birthday… I probably shouldn’t say what age but I will leave it at this… he’s no longer in his 30′s!

I could go on and on about how great he is… but why don’t I just show you?

Mark is the kind of guy that is hard to upset – even when I “accidentally” bring home a baby goat that I fell in love with.

Mark goes along with my crazy ideas… when I say “Let’s drive from BC to Cape Breton” – his response is “Okay, when?”

I love to plan parties – but Mark gets the honour of doing the games and everything at the parties. And he does so with such enthusiasm! Even when Eden invited more kids than we knew were coming and suddenly we had 25 instead of the 14 we planned for at her Halloween in July birthday party. Mark keeps his cool and goes with it.

Mark is a kid at heart – even when we’re kid-less like on this trip to FAO Swartz in NYC without the kids!

Or getting a broken koosh ball stuck on his head

Mark makes time for his girls. When we lived in Hamilton, and he worked in Guelph, we would often meet halfway for picnics after work.

Mark is a nurse, and is so caring with his girls.

One of my first memories of Mark is his laugh – always ready to burst out!

As I looked back over photos of Mark there were so many of him just walking and talking with the girls wherever we are. Love that.

At home….

And even in Iceland…

And Mark has taught the girls so much! He’s taught them….

-you jump on the beds whenever you get to a hotel

-whip cream tastes better from the can

-how to rap

-proper attire for a date (and how to dance)

-while in Cape Breton Mark spent a lot of time trying to teach the girls how to do cartwheels

-how to make goofy faces (even while at a fancy dinner on a cruise)

-a love of reading and learning

-to stop and enjoy God’s beauty

-that if you give it, be prepared to get it.

-the value of a best friend

-how to be a scarecrow

-that a dad is someone to look up to and admire.

Happy birthday, Marky Mark!

Love your adoring wife. xoxoxo

At 4:53pm, it will have been two years since the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti – sending a deadly wake up call to the world that we have a neighbour in need. The poorest country in the western hemisphere practically a hop, skip and a jump away.

May we not forget.

You can read about my trip to Haiti last April HERE, HERE and HERE.

And here is a video I did to share at church… .

I encourage you to visit HERE today at 4:53pm to read the first hand experiences of people directly involved with that horrific day.

Celebrating LIFE and LOVE and praying for the people of Haiti…

Krista

I am going to have to break my visit to EL Slavador into a few posts – the engagement session, a family session, the wedding, the Children’s Home I visited… but first let me introduce you to the country.

I am embarrassed to say that I knew next to nothing about El Salvador before I visited there. I even had to pull out the globe to figure out exactly where it is (it’s beside Guatemala in Central America if you’re wondering). I adore latin america culture so I was excited to go! I was asked to go just a week before Christmas (and about 3 weeks before I left) so I didn’t have much time to do research on the country ahead of time.

El Salvador is a gorgeous country. Flowers everywhere, volcanos and mountains, gorgeous black sand beaches, and warm, friendly people. I love to visit places that are not a major tourist stop and to see how people really live. I especially love it when – as on this visit – I have people with me who know the culture and language!

El Salvador has also been named the most dangerous country in the world (more on that in this article). Their gangs are a serious problem – and how they extort innocent people. I never felt in danger though – perhaps because every single place you go it is gated and there is an armed guard (or guards) with very visible guns. Never seen so many guns in my life! A bit disconcerting chatting with a guard carrying a big gun with ammunition strapped to his vest. But at the same time comforting. Walking down the street between the guard stations at the Children’s Home and their school – a distance of a couple hundred meters at most – I was told that they don’t usually let “gringos” (white people) walk there as the gangs had tried in the past to extort the home and their kids. The kids now have to take a new more guarded route.

And then on the flip side, El Salvador has some of the best surfing in the world and in October 2011 they hosted the World Masters Surfing Championship (found out after the Australian team stayed in the villa we stayed at! Kind of cool).

It is a country of contradictions – some of the friendliest people on earth contradicted with the stories of gang violence. Beautiful flowers and trees contradicted by the signs of poverty all around. People who work from morning to night contradicted by the laid-back, surf culture. And so on….

I loved my time there and would absolutely recommend El Salvador to visit – I would just suggest you be smart when you travel, and if at all possible have someone with you who knows the country and it’s language!

Here’s a glimpse into the country…

Watch for more posts from this great country soon!

Celebrating life and love,

Krista