Another new year approaches and I lean into it, gently, with gratitude. There is no other way for me.
Here are the things I am most grateful for as I reflect on the past year and imagine the new one.
Family! Here I am with just some of my fabulous cousins at a family reunion.Ideas in action! Rebecca Adams de Garate (El Nomad) delivering a re-entry exercise using our team’s Beyond Abroad re-entry tool!
People who live their values. This is our speaker, Fatima Ashraf, sharing her wisdom that is well rooted in her faith.Mentees and mentors. Carrie represents the bees on this team (once a bee, always a bee Carrie!) and Ellen represents people who have (and continue) to teach me!The Melibees! Here is Lisa, our lead bee, but I adore all our bees – past, present and future! (In case this wasn’t clear enough from the previous image!)
Friends, old and new. (This is Simon from England. We met in 1986 and reconnected via skype in 2013!)The ability to express myself.Need I say more?No gratitude list would ever be complete without Dr. Maya Angelou!People who fight for what they believe in – Jesse Jackson and Franklin McCain at the Int’l Civil Rights Museum. They are heroes!Bees! The world needs them!Our new website!And my fabulous husband (and his team and the Melibees) who helped make the website happen! And of course I’m thankful for him every day for countless reasons.Great books!Laughter and children! This is my husband Tony cracking up with Kesha, the daughter of Rebecca and Arturo from El Nomad (in Cuenca, Ecuador)!
There are million more things I could list, including nature, great food, peacekeepers, those who work on holidays to help others, volunteers, teachers, love … so very much to be grateful for.
I’ll simply say that I hope the new year brings you a smile as wide as Kesha’s in the photo above.
