Amanda Christmann Larson

I was really fortunate this month to meet 22 wonderful teachers and students from the International School of Paris. They came to Ghana to help us build a computer learning center for kids in a rural village, braving rain, insects and more white rice than they have probably ever eaten in their lives to make a difference for strangers.   On the first day I arrived, they had been already hard at work for several days, working along side many of the village men who joined in to help out with the project. On the day I arrived, a group of boys and girls were at the construction site forming a chain to lift concrete bricks and heavy headpans of mortar. They were sweaty and tired, but they were working without complaint. Another group was hauling water for laundry and showers in buckets from the village bore hole. They carried the buckets a good city block to their housing. A third group was out  in the forest, picking up trash and putting waste cans along paths through the monkey... More

I have a confession: I live a double life. OK. If I'm really honest with myself, it's more of a triple or quadruple life. There are so many things I'm passionate about, and I have a really difficult time not doing any of them. I love writing, I love school, I love family life, and I love my life in Africa. I am still waiting for that Star Trek "beam me up" technology to come along so that I can pop here and there and be several places at once, but in the meantime, I live a life juggling plates, so to speak.   One of the things I'm most passionate about is creating awareness about child trafficking and making a difference in the lives of children who are living as slaves. There are an estimated 27 million women and children living in our world as slaves today - many of whom are American cities and towns. They are invisible. They have no voice. My friends and I are trying to give them a voice, and also maake a very real difference for a group of slave children in Ghana, West Africa.... More

I remember, when I was a girl of about 15, sitting on a limestone outcrop on a hillside near my grandparents' Missouri home. It was springtime, and the dull brown grasses were just beginning to emerge from their winter sleep. The sunshine was warm, but gusts of chilly wind put goosebumps on my arms. The white stone was cold beneath my jeans, and the smell of wet earth and cedars filled the air.   There was nothing earthshattering happening ... no big "aha" moments or huge revelations. But what was happening were the quiet whisperings of my own soul stirring inside. For the first time, I felt the enveloping embrace of Purpose. I felt a buzzing inside of Connectedness, of being a part of something so much bigger than time and the body I inhabit.   "Remember this," I heard my Self say. "Hold this moment."   I had no idea at the time the significance of that instant. In fact, I doubted myself, thinking the whole experience may have been a little foolish. I did remember, though, and over... More

Let's face it. Larry Fitzgerald is pretty awesome, and even a little bit on the hot side, if I'm perfectly honest. Now that I'm a middle-aged, happily married mom, I can get by with saying things like that, in the same way your grandpa can get by with saying waitresses are cute. Sad, but true. Not sure when that happened to me.   But Larry is a different kind of fantastic. Not only is he an incredible football player (arguably the best wide receiver of all time), he's a real class act. He's focused, he has integrity and, after a loss, he takes responsibility, moves on, wakes up to a whole new day and plays another game with his whole heart and soul. And, there's the part where he's paying for me to go back to school.   Just before I left for Ghana in November, I saw a posting on Larry's Facebook page (I can call him by his first name, can't I? I mean, we are one step closer to the part where he knows I exist ....) that mentioned his University of Phoenix Finish Strong Scholarship. I... More

I just returned from a quick two-week trip to Ghana. My main goal was to register with the government and meet with the regional Social Welfare director to get everyone on board for development and implementation of a really wonderful program, including a boarding home and community development center, our Compassionate Journeys volunteers are building to rescue child slaves and provide resources to train them up as leaders. My thinking is that it will be these children, not people like me who come to visit, who have the power to create lasting change on the issue of child trafficking, so we need to give them all of the resources and love we can to let them make a difference.   But, I digress. Stepping off my soapbox now.   Before this last trip, I put out a few Facebook messages asking for school supplies to take along. The response from people really touched my heart. Kyle Davidson, sixth grader from the East Valley got permission to speak to his class about the project. He alone... More

Something must be in the air. I don't know if it's the solar flares or some other universal tug, or maybe it's just because all of my friends are starting to get to that age where we've earned the right to sit down, relax with a skinny vanilla latte and reflect on our lives so far, but I've heard so much talk about "what could have been" lately that I just need to add my two cents.   "Who could I be now if I could erase mistakes and forget the pain of the past?" wrote one of my Facebook friends today.    Really? Why on earth would you want to do that?!   I have wandered through iife without fear, for the most part, sometimes foregoing what my mom would call "common sense" to follow my heart. I've made decisions by listening to my heart and experienced tremendous joy and fulfillment. I've climbed higher mountains, broken out of the box, and lived out a whole lot of other greeting card clichés because I haven't been afraid to say, "Why not?"   But, I admit it. I have made more... More

I have been so incredibly humbled by so many things these last couple of months. Ever since the fateful day when two other volunteers and I sat in a small hut in Ghana and made a pact to build a home for rescued child slaves, the number of things that have fallen into place has been staggering.    I can't count the times when we've had a need and someone has stepped into our lives the very next day, or shortly after, with exactly what we asked for. It's as if, once we stepped into the line we're supposed to be in, the rest of the universe all clicked into place.    Three months ago, we sat in plastic chairs near a dirty shore line of Ghana's Lake Volta as dozens of children stood huddled in groups waiting to speak to us. Each one had a slip of paper in their hands with two names scrawled on it. The first name was their own; the second was the name of the person who owned them.    These kids were all child slaves. They'd been sold by parents, mostly single mothers, and were... More

Many years ago, I was a young, single mom struggling to raise a baby on my own. Times were really tough, and by "really," I mean the kind of tough that turns a trip to Wal-Mart into a special holiday and makes adding hamburger to Hamburger Helper a reason to break out the good china, if I'd have owned it.   I lived in a small Iowa town in an 800-square-foot house with a single wall heater stuck in the plaster between the kitchen and the living room, and a single bedroom where my son's crib covered nearly the whole floor. I worked at a veterinary clinic because I liked animals, but it was the people who made the biggest impact on me.   One morning, somewhere in between paychecks, I found myself pouring the last of our milk into my son's bottle. He was less than a year old, and a very, very picky eater, so one of his staples was toddler baby formula in milk. I watered down gallons of whole milk to save money: one gallon of milk became two, but we still went through it quickly because... More

Kids and traffic: Two things that, together, make a mom's heart skip a beat.   No matter how many times we tell our kids to be careful, there's always that youthful element of "It won't happen to me." Children just don't get it ... but then again, why should they? They don't have the life experience to understand that bad things can and do happen, and that things can go wrong in the blink of an eye.   That's what happened to my friend's son yesterday.   In case you didn't happen to be home during the daytime, the Anthem Skate Park was completely packed. School was out for a teacher work day, and word got out like lightening through the elementary school grapevine that non-motorized scooters are allowed at the skate park for a one-year trial period. Every kid who's gotten a scooter under the tree or for his birthday over the last five years was out there giving it a whirl.   Confidence can be pretty high when you're 11 and losing a tooth is the most traumatic thing that's happened... More

I've been back in my own world for almost a week now, and I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy every second of washing machine-dishwasher-hot shower-soft bed-smiling loved ones bliss. Even so, I still have dreams that I'm back in Ghana, and I still wake up a little confused about where I am on some mornings. Throughout the day, my thoughts still wander back to people and places that seem so distant from here, and secretly, my fear is not that they'll keep coming, it's that they'll go away. I don't want to forget. I can't forget. I have friends who are passionate about all kinds of things. I have watched the uncomfortable looks on others' faces when these friends start discussing their passions with an unwitting or unwilling audience. No one wants to hear about animal rights when they're buying steaks, and no one wants to hear about the environment when they're washing their SUV. Likewise, no one wants to hear about child slaves in Africa while they're busy living their... More

The best part about coming home from a long trip is ... everything. Getting off the plane at Sky Harbor after the last two or so months in Ghana, I couldn't help but think of the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy stepped out of the black and white into the Technicolor world of Oz. Everything is so intense in the wake of my travels; my love and affection for my husband, love for my kids, appreciation of food, good roads and a soft bed. It's all so vivid and extraordinary. Even after a couple of days, I am still at a loss when people ask how my trip went. A mishmash of emotions gets stuck in my throat and I don't know where to start. I don't know yet what to feel. I wake up early in the morning, well before the sun, thinking about children left behind and challenges ahead. Throughout the day, I remember funny moments with volunteers. I try to share the stories, but somehow always seem to end with, "I guess you had to be there." It is very difficult, I'm finding, to have... More

Yesterday was an incredible day. It started out with a glass of wine and a shot of gin before 7am, which is something I don't recall doing even during those early college years. The whole thing is a bit surreal, but I am so excited, humbled and just plain giddy about the future that I can hardly put it all into words, even though, yes, the gin has worn off.   We traveled to Tafi Atome again on Sunday and spent Monday enjoying the area. We visited people in small roadside stores, met new friends from Germany and Holland and even played a little frisbee in the cool afternoon breeze. In the evening, we enjoyed a great meal of rice and bean stew prepared by the Queen Mother.   Tafi Atome is a scenic little village located in the jungle-covered mountains about 20 kilometers south of Hohoe, a city situated just on the other side of a mountaintop that divides Ghana from it's French-speaking neighbor, Togo. Tafi Atome is best known for its monkey sanctuary, which was... More

A year and a half ago, I crossed the placid waters of Lake Volta in eastern Ghana, West Africa to see child slavery up close and personal for the first time. My friend Tony took me to a tiny fishing village to discuss the problem, as well as the poverty and lack of education and opportunity that continue to fuel the flames of child trafficking.   On our hour-long journey across the lake in a rickety fishing boat, complete with a hacked-off jug to scoop water as the leaky floor filled up, I saw several young boys working on fishing boats. These boys have been sold by their parents (mostly single mothers who cannot support them). Many mothers are promised the children will attend school and be well cared-for. This is not the case. They are beaten. They go hungry for days at a time. They sleep outside in the mud. They don't go to school. They fear for their lives.   On that first journey. I snapped a photo of two little boys in a boat that haunts me to this day. They were so small, and... More

Thanksgiving in Rural Ghana, Africa (continued)   The next day, Wednesday, was no less emotional. We traveled with the chief to visit a village where several slave masters want to release their child slaves. Currently, there is nowhere for them to release the children to. Their parents (mostly single mothers) do not want the children back because they can't afford to feed them.The next day, Wednesday, was no less emotional. We traveled with the chief to visit a village where several slave masters want to release their child slaves. Currently, there is nowhere for them to release the children to. Their parents (mostly single mothers) do not want the children back because they can't afford to feed them. The chiefs of both villages have enlisted our help in building an orphanage for many of these kids, and they wanted to show us just what we're getting into.   We left our village by canoe early in the morning. Evans, our friend in the village who owns an outboard... More

This week, many of my thoughts have been with my friends and family who have, no doubt, been enjoying a short work week and a bountiful amount of food and football. Each of us has been so blessed to have so much love, opportunity and comfort in our lives. I have never been one for guilt or gloom, so I have never been the kind of person to try to make others feel badly for what they have because others do without. Sometimes, though, a reminder of just how much we Americans have to be appreciative of is a helpful thing. We just finished Week 4 in Ghana. I'm half a week from being halfway home, but I have been humbly grateful for every day I've had here, and the opportunity the three of us (Jake from Chicago, Deb from Alabama and myself) have had to make an impact on lives here, including our own. Our week started off with a tough morning. Tuesday, Godson, a boy who is about 19 years old (the same age as my oldest son) was rushed to the clinic. He was convulsing and rigid when... More