"Fear knocked on the door and faith answered.  No one was there." 

- English Proverb

With less than a month left in ZA, facing my fears is something I've really been working at.  It's easy to coast through this life, to avoid stepping out of our comfort zone.  We fear the unknown and the possibility we'll fail.   And so we settle for less than our full potential, and we justify it with a million excuses.   But what we don't realize is that fear of failure IS failure - the fear that nags at you can trip you up and prevent you from taking action, everytime.  

Have faith.  This isn't necessarily about faith in a higher power (although that's important too).  It's more about having faith in yourself.  Faith in knowing that even if you go for it and it doesn't work out the way you planned, at least you're taking action.  It's about doing the right thing - doing awesome things that you'll feel awesome about, instead of settling for a mediocre existence because it's what you know.  

I had major fears about coming to South Africa - it seems all you hear about this place is the bad stuff: rampant racism & xenophobia, staggeringly high crime, poverty and AIDS statistics.  Leaving my cushy life in NYC to come here and bunk on the floor with a bunch of strangers for no pay seemed...well, scary.  But even though this experience has not been what I expected (and  sometimes it's been downright uncomfortable) it's been incredible nonetheless, and it's opened doors and removed barriers for me in ways I couldn't have predicted.  There are many fears I'm still struggling with here, and I'm definitely not always successful.  But the more fears you face, the more faith you have, and that's a lovely little cycle to get caught up in.

The father of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, said "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.  The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."  Sound advice from a man who has spent his entire life, including nearly three decades in prison, facing his fears.  He couldn't have done it without faith - in himself, his people, and their cause.  His faith freed a country. 

What could yours do?