abundant joy

Christian Ray Flores here,

Greetings from Africa. A land of magical animals, tragic history, epic sunsets and the perfect place to reset our palette.

We came to Mozambique with a few friends to support a project we started a few years ago. The Ascend Academy is a place where a kids come after school as a second home. They spend time with mentors to learn about values that will get them out of poverty, they also learn english and computer literacy.

After just 3 days, I find myself feeling the layers of western complexity peeling off and abundant joy streaming into the liberated space.

I show friends around the places where I roamed free as a child. We feast on the freshest seafood, walk around an old Portuguese fort with cannons pointing at the Maputo bay they used to guard, and I ring the bell of a beautiful train station built by Gustav Eiffel himself.

The joy does not diminish the sense of the poverty still plaguing a beautiful country, and the echoes of the civil war that claimed a million lives. It comes from the greeting “bom dia” with a special gentleness Mozambicans have, and the realization that abundant joy does not need to rely on circumstances to align to be a life-giving fountain.

It’s liberating and humbling. I’ll leave you with proof. This is a wedding. Not the party after it, this is just the pre-party at a park before the wedding. Enjoy, and may you experience what we all felt when we were welcomed into the circle, no questions asked.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Watch this.