Take Flight Campaign

A common thread in not only my world travels, but also in my life has been music. Whether it be playing bass at RCF in Reno, singing songs to children in Ugandan schools, playing concerts in Cambodia and Vietnam or leading worship as an intern at  Imago Dei community in Portland, there seems to be a trend. With a heart of compassion, a relational disposition, a passion for music and a desire for all people to be whole all my journeys seem to be in sync as I am exploring a life of responding to the works of Christ in me and proclaiming it to the world. I would like to invite you all on that journey with me as I embark on a new adventure of recording music. I have a $6,500 goal to meet and I can’t make it alone. Check out my kickstarter to see how you can help!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bananaflavor/take-flight-campaign-hannah-glavor-ep-project 

 

 

 

 

 

Cambodia and Vietnam… the recap

So there was this one time that I went to Cambodia and Vietnam… and then never followed up on the ordeal. It was literally one of the best trips I have ever been on, in ways that were entirely unexpected. So this is me beginning to FINALLY tell all my wonderful supporters about this trip. I even have all the follow-up letters in envelopes ready to go, they’ve just got to be sent. In the meantime, please enjoy this 6.5 minute slideshow I made in HD for your viewing pleasure… I spent far too much time timing the transitions of the photos and not nearly enough in sending out my letters in a timely manner… just watch the slide show and it’ll make everything better.

Bodia teaser

professional photographers + Cambodia mission trip music fest = epic Christmas photos

 

More to come. All is well. 2/3 “concerts” accomplished with an extra impromptu concert in a restaurant last night. Ankor Wat in the morning and then we fly to Vietnam at night. A more detailed post will follow, I promise.

6 days!

After a severe case of the Mondays, turns out I have alot to do and a very short amount of time to do it in. Please pray that I finish the semester (aka the next four days) well. I have an incredible amount of things on my plate and I feel very overwhelmed. This week is full of finals and papers and memorizing and saying goodbye for not only the semester, but for my undergrad experience. I don’t have time to even think about Cambodia let alone prep for it this week. Thank you for all your support! I am closer to my financial goal, but still a few hundred away. Keep me in your prayers and keep checking back for updates.

Almost there!

Its almost Thanksgiving, its almost December, I’m almost graduated and I’m almost in Cambodia!

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support thus far in the journey!

NOW ITS CRUNCH TIME!

I need to get the rest of my assignments done for the semester and take all my finals, job hunt like crazy for the remaining week and a half so that I can potentially start working when I get back, and raise the rest of my support!

Currently I’ve raised nearly half of the support I need and only have a week and a half left to fill that void. I know that God will get me there if he wants me there, but its coming fast. If you have not yet financially supported this trip and would like to, please do so by donating online at:

https://imagodei.webconnex.com/cambodia

Checks that are sent via snail mail may or may not get to me in time. I am so excited to be going and am so blessed to have the support of friends and family. When I get back, I’m jumping right back into ministry as I’m going to be interning at Imago Dei under the music pastor. I am so very excited about that. 1. Please come to Portland to visit 2. please visit me at church, I will be there every sunday forever 3. I am a great tour guide 4. come to Portland

Also, lets reminisce for a moment what last year’s Thanksgiving looked like:

Ah, Ugandafest 2009. I was significantly tanner then, eh? We literally met the turkey that we ate that morning. He put up a good fight. Ugandan thanksgiving probably included thanksgiving goat. We definately ate grasshoppers before the meal… on purpose… and enjoyed them. This is a picture with so many stories. Mer and Catherine were my staple Muzungus. Then there was the newly acquainted Morris family. Finally, Felix, literally the African incarnation of Christ.

On that note, if you love coffee and love to support missions, consider purchasing sojo coffee this year.

http://www.sojocoffee.com/

The Morrises started their own coffee company! Its great!

‘Nam and ‘Bodia camera update

As I previously stated in the last post, one of my Cambodia team members is hoping to do a photography project with the youth in the slums where we’ll be located. Here is a link to her blog that has the camera specifications if you care to take a gander as well as a more in depth look into her heart behind the project:

http://www.jkphotodesign.com/Cambodia/cameras.html

Also, the pastor we will be partnering with in Cambodia (Pastor Abraham), was recently interviewed by PRISM magazine. The article shares a more in depth background to the community we will be involved with as well as glimpse into the heart of Pastor Abraham himself. I’ll paste a link so you guys can access the story :

http://www.photosensibility.com/portfolio/mango-rain/

Thanks for your prayers and support! Still a long way to go in a short amount of time! I know that God will get me there.

Important Nam and Bodia update!

So… turns out I sent out a bad online donation address that may or may not work depending on your browser. Here is a more accurate address if you care to use it:
https://imagodei.webconnex.com/cambodia

 

Its fun just to go to because there’s a cool tree picture…  also its fun to fill in all the blanks with your credit card information and clicking proceed to confirmation… super fun!

 
On Monday I got my first checks in! It made this trip more real! Later that night I practiced songs with my team. It’s really happening!

 

ALSO, if you have a fully functional digital camera that you are no longer using, one of my team members is collecting them to use for a camera class for young adults and teens in Cambodia. I’ll see if I can get a more in depth excerpt of her heart behind it and camera specifics. But generally, her inspiration came from the movie “Born into Brothels” where a photographer teaches the youth in a low class brothel community how to compose photos. Its through these pictures that these once silent children were able to express themselves artistically, passionately and uniquely. Here’s a trailer, but I recommend the entire film:

 

 
We hope that through their photographs, they can tell a story that we can bring back here. We hope to host a gallery, take pictures of their work and send it back to them. They will ultimately keep the cameras and be able to have an ongoing story with us back in the states. It sounds awesome.

 
Thanks for all those supporting thus far financially and for all y’alls prayin for the trip.

 
Pray for my studies. I want to be done and play music and prep for Cambodia rather than write papers. Pray for my finances, times are tough and the clock is ticking, way faster than I expected it to.

Until next time,  here’s a picture of a Cambodian guy that looks like Ray Charles:

‘Nam and the ‘Bodia

The Cambodia/Vietnam trip is a GO!

After much thought, counsel and prayer, I am excited to announce that I am to go to Cambodia with Imago Dei this December.  (Dec. 4-17)

Support letters are out and prepping is underway! Keep checking back for updates and more info on the trip. If you’d like to hear more about the trip, have questions,  have advice or if you have not yet recieved a support letter and would like to, please let me know via email: bananaflavor@gmail.com and I would be oh so happy to send you one. If you’d like to contribute to the trip financially, tax deductible donations can be made at the following site: www.imagodeicommunity/cambodia

Cambodia and the ‘Nam?

At the beginning of the summer I got a call from my missions pastor at Imago Dei Community. Knowing my heart for the marginalized and my love and gifting in music, I was invited to come on a missional partnership trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in December. Here is an excerpt of an email that briefly explains the ministry they are doing in this trip:

“We have a long-term ministry partnership with a Cambodian church in a slum community on the outskirts of Pnom Penh that is involved in holistic ministry to their community (church, school, clean water, sanitation, roofing, etc). They have requested a Worship team to come and partner with their Cambodian musicians in putting together a Christmas festival for the slum community where they live and minister. The goal is to share the Christmas story of Jesus with the community in the context of the church’s long-term ministry presence there. Following this, we will go to northern Cambodia and do something similar with a church planter we are partnered with planting with a similar holistic model in an un-churched area. Finally, we will go to northern Vietnam to meet and pray with our partners there.”

Not only does the trip sound awesome, but I am one of two people specifically requested to come on the trip. The church is even covering a portion of the cost of the trip for me so that I can go. It sounds like an amazing opportunity!

PLEASE join me in prayer as I approach the potentiality of this trip with open hands. I have no idea if it will work out, but it sounds kind of perfect for me. Here is a quick rundown of specifics to ponder and pray for:

-It takes place Dec. 4-17, which are the last two weeks of school (including finals)… and my last two weeks of college ever seeing as I’m GRADUATING!

-I tend to want to do everything and then realize after I have everything on my plate that I’ve committed to too many things.

-Its in ASIA!!!!! and its working alongside people I’m directly in relationship with because of my church

-Its involving playing music, songwriting and leadership… all of which I’m all about

-a HUGE portion of the cost is being covered by the church because they want me to come

Also, a quick update of my life as of late. This summer, if you haven’t heard, has been a crazy busy one. I just finished up a summer’s worth of leading urban missions teams from all over the US. I have been volunteering weekly with an organization called Bridgetown Ministries for over two years and in January, they offered me the opportunity to be an intern this summer. I worked myself hard as I and a dream team of interns led transformation teams and encouraged relevant means of loving people in radical, relational and relevant ways; whether they be on the streets, in low income communities or your cashier at the grocery store.

Its been an adventure and a blessing. I’ve learned alot from this time and am excited to see how God applies all that I’ve gleaned from this summer into future experiences.

There and back again….

I have made it safely home… well… sort of home. Home is a relative statement in my case. I’m currently residing in Mexico, its Thanksgiving and I’m with my family. So I guess I am home. 

My last week of Uganda was a trip and a half. I started it off right with a grand Safari in the northern part of Uganda. It was entirely relaxing and extremely fun. The food was amazing, I must say. Since it’s tourist central in Safari-type places, people tend to be extremely picky about their food… because they apparently have the right… when in fact, all they have is the money and a perceived right to complain if life isn’t perfect… in a third world country. All these rich people worked something out though and managed to get amazing food. I didn’t complain. Around the camp, we would just sit back, listen to the birds and avoid being skewered by rogue warthogs.

 

The safari itself was great. I believe that I had the best seat in the house (apart from it being entirely unsafe and completely uncomfortable) perched on the top of the safari van. Think a combination of the cover of the “Into the Wild” movie cover, Titanic and the Lion King all at once.

  ++

Speaking of, I saw pretty much the entirety of the animals in the first five minutes of the Lion King. The second portion of the safari included a Jungle Cruise, just like at Disneyland! We got to shoot at hippos, watch explorers get chased up poles by rhinos and and got sprayed by friendly passing elephants… not really. But we did get to see even more animals including HUGE Nile crocodiles, a bull elephant and Murchison falls where Ernest Hemmingway’s plane went down, causing life impairing injuries which led to his suicide… didn’t know THAT did you?

 

(crocodile in the background)

The last week of ministry was spent saying many goodbyes. I realized just how many good friends I had made in such a short amount of time. My last three days were a blast. Friday (my last day of ministry) I spent the evening with my good friends at Garden city where we enjoyed a round of legit milkshakes (mind you, in Uganda, a milkshake entails crushed ice in a cup of flavored milk), food that was amazing and a movie about the apocalypse… good ‘ol 2012. The good news is that the government is creating secret arks in the remote mountains of China to house all of the elitists in society who can afford being saved from the earth’s unstable core.

Saturday was also a good day where we spent the evening enjoying a Ugandan style, American thanksgiving. Again, the food was a tremendous highlight.

Sunday was amazing. I start the morning off right by going to a village church called Kyampici (chom-pee-sea). The service was nice, the congregation was lovely and after the service, I enjoyed some banana pancakes and went mango picking with the kids. I spent the afternoon with my closest friends, eating my last of Ugandan chips with TopUp (Africa’s weak attempt at ketchup… not to say that its not good, I secretly smuggled a bottle home that had been gifted to me). The evening was filled with a concert of a dear friend, where I was a special guest artist. It was a blessing to be a part of as well as ironic that my trip was bookended by concerts.

 

Monday. D-day. The end is here. Said my final goodbyes and was off to the airport. Made a stop at Lake Victoria with my friends before I flew off for a few hours. Wonderful and relaxing. Ate some freshly picked mangoes as we gazed out at the lake. I had the strangest sensation sitting on the plane waiting to take off. It was as if I was in a sort of limbo of parallel universes. In an instant, it was over. I was soaring over the lake which only two hours before, I had been eating mangoes. There was a time, I never thought this trip would end. I went to Uganda with no intention of staying, no permanency. Because of this, the trip seemed endless. I left being fully immersed to the extent that I was unable to conceptualize life outside of Uganda.

With a kiss and a wave, I bid Uganda farewell… for now.