Our member, Lela Barker of Bella Luccè and Lucky Break Consulting in Columbia, South Carolina, recently returned from a weeks-long trip to Uganda. She took her 15-year old daughter, Chloe, along for the ride. The purpose of the trip was to personally deliver financial aid, reading books and encouragement to children in an orphanage in Uganda. Here is one of my favorite pictures from her journey.
What I love how this picture shows Lela's playful side. She is down in it, in the dirt with a mischiveous smile, embracing a little boy who is all about that plate of food. I”m quite sure that, after his belly was full, Lela dragged him off to some grand adventure he didn't even know existed in his own back yard. Here's what Lela told me about her trip and why she made it.
Paying it forward lightens the heart and rallies the spirit and I need that sort of jolt from time to time. Over the past seven years, I’ve been lucky enough to travel to more than thirty countries through my businesses. If those travels have taught me anything, it’s that we are astonishingly fortunate to be born in America. I can conceive a business this morning, have it licensed by lunch and a have basic website live by dinner. That’s certainly not to say that success comes easy, but women in developing nations don’t enjoy that same rich access to opportunity.
How very, very blessed we are to enjoy equal rights in this country, to have access to quality education, enough nourishment to fuel our bodies and minds and the gift of hope to build any life we can envision. Those are powerful tools that I’ve come to truly appreciate and my wish is that women everywhere can enjoy them in their lifetime. We have quite a way to go…”
Yes, indeed. What a way to make a dent in the universe!
Visit Lela's websites at Bella Luccè (get the Manuka Honey Drizzle) and Lucky Break Consulting.
QUESTION: Have you ever been on a pay-it-forward adventure to a foreign country? What's your definition of paying it forward? What country, or area of the United States, would you most like to go to, to give back?
