Karen Walrond - The Lightmakers Manifesto : How to Work for Change without Losing Your Joy

Praise for The Lightmakers Manifesto

We yearn for more joy in our lives. We feel called to change the world. But we struggle because joy and activism feel so separate and, sometimes, even mutually exclusive. Karen Walrond offers us a completely different pathan integrated and intentional approach to life that ignites and fuels both our joy and our ability to make change. I cant stop thinking about joy-fueled activism and Karens ability to shine her light so we can find our own.

Bren Brown, PhD, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Dare to Lead

The Lightmakers Manifesto is essential reading for all those determined to change the world without sacrificing their humanity and joy. Karen Walronds writing shimmers with wisdom, truth, and light.

Glennon Doyle, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Untamed

Tired. Stressed. Overwhelmed. These are the words that often accompany the change-makers and justice-seekers in the world. But in The Lightmakers Manifesto, Walrond graciously invites us to connect our work to a deeply abiding joy.

Austin Channing Brown, author of New York Times bestseller Im Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

Karen Walronds wondrous book The Lightmakers Manifesto is an inspired guide for those who want to learn to prioritize joy. Walrond shares personal stories, profiles of lightmakers, and specific activities to help you move toward joy. We all need a copy of this book.

Shauna M. Ahern, author of Enough: Notes From a Woman Who Has Finally Found It and James Beard Awardwinning cookbooks, and founder of Finding Your Joy

More intimate than one-size-fits-all self-help and more expansive than a memoir, this is a practical and inspirational guide to help each of us discover how we can create more light: light by which to navigate a nervous world, illuminate next steps, and heal the world in tiny and global, personal and sweeping ways. The Lightmakers Manifesto is precisely the book so many of us have been waiting for.

Cathleen Falsani, journalist and author of The God Factor and Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace

At Amy Poehlers Smart Girls, we have a simple motto: Change the world by being yourself. However, because trying to change the world, even in a small way, is tough work, and being yourself isnt always easy, we often feel disappointed and joyless. We dont experience the great joy in just being alive, or remember that joy comes in the midst of disappointment, not instead of it. Karen Walrond has grasped this deep truth, and she invites us to see what we have so often been missing. The Lightmakers Manifesto offers all of us a way to look at a broken world, and at our incomplete selves, with a fresh and vital perspective.

Meredith Walker, producer and cofounder of Amy Poehlers Smart Girls

Karen Walrond shares life lessons that will compel you to go back and pick up the parts of you that were sacrificed in order to serve. This book reminds you that youre not alone in your experiences and youre going to be okay.

Romal Tune, author of Love Is an Inside Job: Getting Vulnerable with God

Karen Walrond

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

THE LIGHTMAKERS MANIFESTO

How to Work for Change without Losing Your Joy

Copyright 2021 Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Cover design: Gearbox Studio

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-6994-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-6995-9

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

For Alexis

We knew, without a doubt, that lighting a fire was the most important thing to do. We needed to bring the group together and provide a sense of home in the appalling circumstances in which we found ourselves. But how?

Daniel Hume, Fire Making: The Forgotten Art of Conjuring Flame with Spark, Tinder, and Skill

One of the greatest things you have in life is that no one has the authority to tell you what you want to be. Youre the one wholl decide what you want to be.

Jaime Escalante

We arrived in Nairobi late in the evening and made a beeline for our hotel to get some rest. I was exhausted and disheveled: Im no stranger to international flights, but a continuous twenty-four-hour stretch of travel is no joke. Still, I knew this trip would be worth it.

I was visiting Kenya with a group of journalists and bloggers at the invitation of the ONE Campaign. Founded by Bono, the front man of the internationally renowned rock band U2, ONE is a nonpartisan advocacy organization dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. The purpose of our trip was to share firsthand accounts of what we witnessed, in the hopes that with our stories of the progress being made in Kenya, we would inspire the readers of our words (and in my case, the viewers of my photographs) to join in the fight against poverty. As you might imagine, I was thrilled to be on this expedition: while I had visited Africa before, this was my first trip to this region, fulfilling a lifelong dream of finally seeing the bustling city of Nairobi with my own eyes.

That dream would have to wait for a few days. At dawn the next morning, our jetlagged group made its way back to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to take an early domestic flight to Kisumu, Kenyas third largest city, on the shores of Lake Victoria. Although I didnt know it at the time, Kisumu, and its surrounding Nyanza province, was ground zero when it comes to infectious diseases: HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria, among others, were common in the region, and the highest prevalence of those diseases in Kenya was in this area. Nyanza province also happens to be one of the poorest places in the country.

Our mission was to witness the work that the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), the scientific research arm of Kenyas Ministry of Health, was doing in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Our flight landed and we boarded a bus for the quick drive to the site, where we split up into groups of two to shadow HIV home healthcare workers. These dedicated folks were KEMRIs representatives who traveled throughout the countryside, testing families for HIV and counseling them on how to reduce the spread of the disease. Because many of the families in the region live in relatively remote rural areas, it was difficult (not to mention discouraging) for them to travel the long distances on foot to get to the clinics to determine their status. So instead, KEMRI and the CDC came to them.