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Zusatztext “Captivatingly honest… Her story lights the path for a generation of disillusioned Christians sifting through tough questions about selfless love and unbounded faith in a world of heightened individualism.” Informationen zum Autor Jena Lee Nardella; Foreword by Donald Miller Klappentext Jena Nardella, cofounder of Blood:Water and one of Christianity Today ’s 33 Under 33, shares a “captivatingly honest” ( Publishers Weekly ) account of how her passion for saving the world grew into a humbler, long-term calling of loving the world in all its brokenness in this beautifully written memoir.Ten years ago, Jena Lee Nardella was a fresh-out-of-college, twenty-something with the lofty goal of truly changing the world. Armed with a diploma, a thousand dollars, and a dream to build one thousand wells in Africa, she joined forces with Grammy Award–winning band Jars of Clay to found Blood:Water and begin her mission. Jena’s dream for her nonprofit turned that initial $1 into $20, and then $100, and today into more than $25 million. Working throughout eleven countries in Africa, Blood:Water has provided healthcare for over 62,000 people in HIV-affected areas and has partnered with communities to provide clean water for more than one million people in Africa. But along the way she faced many harsh realities that have tested her faith, encountered corruption and brokenness that nearly destroyed everything she’d fought for, and learned that wishful thinking will not get you very far. Jena discovered true change comes only when you stop trying to save the world and allow yourself to love it, even when it breaks your heart. With a fresh, intelligent, and winsome voice, Jena Lee Nardella weaves an evocative, personal narrative filled with honest and hard-won lessons that demonstrate the amazing things that can happen when you fight for your dreams.One Thousand Wells 1 Union Square My parents had experienced a thing or two in the world by the time I arrived. That might explain why security—and fear—were such a part of my early childhood. My father was the first American-born member of his Chinese immigrant family. Even though he lost his mother at age five, endured beatings from bullies in San Francisco’s Panhandle, and weathered the abuse of a stepmother who refused to feed him, Dad made something of himself as a prosecutor who put bad guys in jail. My mother survived martini-mixing socialite parents from the Midwest and became a psychiatric nurse with compassion deeper than the bottomless drinks of her father. Mom and Dad fell in love on a blind date one San Francisco Christmas Eve and married soon after. They lost their first daughter to a congenital heart defect when she was eleven months old. As their next child, I was fiercely protected—my parents set out to ensure that I would know little want, fear, or loss. When my brother arrived nearly three years later, their circle of protection enclosed him as well. We grew up with alarm systems in our home, emergency whistles on our backpacks, and lunch pails filled with food too healthy to be traded in the cafeteria. On the first day of kindergarten, my dad drove behind the school bus to make sure the driver made good use of turn signals. If my parents had occasion to fly, they took separate airplanes so that, should one plane go down, they would not orphan us as their parents metaphorically had. Restaurants were complicated for us. If the nonsmoking section smelled at all like the smoking section, we walked away. If the nonsmoking section passed the first test, Dad still wanted to sit facing the door. We had an earthquake plan, a fire plan, and a Y2K plan. “Be prepared” was our motto. And so I went to day care with a Cabbage Patch Kid in one hand and Caution in th...
