May 2011
1 post
April 2011
4 posts
The scene in the van
3:57am. We’re on the road, on I-5 south and California bound. 6 hours ago, we went to a bar in Portland to say our final farewell to our friends who were playing music there. By 30 past midnight we were in our beds. Well, Katie was on her couch, and I and William built our own surprisingly comfy beds out of 10 church chairs each. I unsuccessfully tried to sleep for half an hour. I completed...
portlandia
where young people go to retire!
if you met us in vancouver, YOU ARE AWESOME. we had such a crazy time in vancouver, between exploring the coolest forests ever, to Daisy getting towed, to incredibly generous people at screenings.
now we are in portland and there are lots of rain puddles and crazy people. we had a screening last night at grace chapel which broke all of our tour records thus...
March 2011
7 posts
i am a manta ray, seattle
excited for the pacific northwest kids and inhabitants and grizzly bears. they gonna do work. rescue refugees. savin lives and takin names.
this week was an explosion. such an unexplainable time. so many people, screenings, sleep deprived days, delirium, emotions, koreans, cookies, tetherball, conversations, cannibalistic chickens, and crazy events. now it is time for some sleep for the weekend...
THIS IS SO WEIRD. IT IS RAINING IN SEATTLE
deserts. girl scout cookies. March
tour is flying by at lightning speed. we have gone to 17 different venues and showed Hiding over 25 times. we have been blessed to have large audiences at almost every screening. people are starting chapters left and right! it honestly blows my mind. especially to see everyday high school kids toss a $10 into the rescue bucket. last friday we did the tshirt challenge at a high school called John F...
February 2011
2 posts
#1 sandy eggo
hola chiquitos! its kT on the track typing on behalf and bewhole of the west nomad team. san diego. i had no idea it looked like the land before time here. bright greens rolling hills with archaic rock formations all over the place. not to mention the ocean in our back yard. we stayed with Sarah Palmer and her roomies in a beach house the first 2 nights of tour. and had 6 showings of...
January 2011
1 post
December 2010
1 post
The End and Beginning of Something Beautiful.
The End of…
Living in a van
Driving long hours with little to no sleep
Smelling Bad
Caffeine addictions (hopefully)
Talking in front of 100’s regardless of how tired you are
Losing all of your personal belongings
Being so close to 2 other people always you can sense when they aren’t there
Books on tape
Endless traffic that makes us late to screenings
Fast Food
The...
the homestretch
I woke up this morning to a brilliant blue sky and wisps of white clouds. I woke up burrowed in the glorious satisfaction of knowing there was absolutely no rush to get up and I could roost in my cozy nest of borrowed blankets. I woke up feeling at home.
And then I was bowled over by transience. I was blindsided by the melancholy of being aware of an inevitable, approaching end of a chapter....
November 2010
3 posts
How to Save a Life (or six)
As of Sunday, November 28th 2010 at 11:59pm, the West Nomads have raised enough funds to rescue six North Korean refugees out of Hiding in China!
We are humbled by everyone who made the sacrifice to donate whatever they could in order to save the lives of these refugees. Everything from the pennies to the dollar bills to the large checks has allowed for this to happen.
For this, we, the West...
Fill us up, send us out.
We began this beautiful journey 3 months ago, and what a joy it has been. It’s funny to be looking at it, and seeing that a huge portion of our time has gone by. It is like a book, you know the conclusion is coming by the page count, whether or not we want it to end, the end will surely find us. We have been going for what seems like such a long time, and at the same moment only a fraction...
October 2010
10 posts
5 States, 1 Province, 1 Refugee Saved
Well, Utah was a fun & interesting place. We spent the greater part of our day off in Temple Square with Alex (one of many super awesome people we have met)… and learned about all sorts of interesting things! We saw a giant 15-foot statue of Jesus in space, toured the LDS Conference Center (that holds 21,000 people!), and saw a miniature model of the Temple. When we first came into...
Success is failure turned inside out
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns, As every one of us sometimes learns, And many a failure turns about, When...
Not all who wander are lost
“I think searching is a beautiful thing. There is this thought that goes, If you search and search and stop searching, then ultimately you’ll find what you need. But I think maybe if you don’t search you wouldn’t have the experience of searching and then won’t find it at all. You have to search first, if you know what I mean. It’s the experience of living.”
Marion Cotillard...
Think Different...
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things....
LiNK's Travelers Guide to the West...
Two weeks in and we just keep being blown away. At first we thought the amount of amazing people we were meeting was a fluke and that it would soon die down. However, we still have yet to be disappointed. The response has been huge, and we can’t thank everyone who has been apart of our tour already enough, and we can’t say how excited we are to meet everyone else along the way.
Quite...
1 tag
Kids these days
Sept. 29, 7:00 am.
Disheveled and disoriented by the drive through the night, we arrive in Arizona. We are exhausted but satisfied knowing that we are on the road. It was amazing to start the tour with San Diego, but the comfort was uncomfortable. Let me explain.
Day 1 of tour, the 4 teams dispersed from Torrance, CA to their respective corners of the U.S.: Northeast, Southeast, Heartland,...
Our shared humanity
“You know, you can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror. But the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you.”
Chris Abani (TED 2008)
Circumstance
Photo credit: Joy Wong http://www.flickr.com/joybagoy/
“If we were born into privilege that we did nothing to deserve (i.e. security, health, financial stability) and others were born into circumstances that they didn’t deserve (i.e. disease, war, abuse), then isn’t it our social responsibility to give back to the world what we’ve been so blessed to be given? And in doing...
September 2010
4 posts
See ya in November, San Diego
Dear San Diego,
Goodbye. We will miss your beaches and proximity to Mexico.
I’m afraid you’ve spoiled us however. I expected this 10 week journey to be wrought with sleepless nights, fast food, and a lack of shower facilities. Yet you threw the likes of Lauren, Miguel, and Sarah onto our path.
Lauren and her posse of philanthropists were our 1st hosts. They were like that 1st...
San Diego!
I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t go to school here (kidding). It’s so nice! Everything is right next to the ocean… no complaints here
On Thursday, we launched tour from the Korean Friendship Bell after saying goodbye to some great friends who we have lived, worked, and trained with over the past 3 1/2 weeks.
We stayed with some of Sean’s friends from...
Excitement.
Hello lovely West Coasters,
We are excited to come and get to know you, so while we are waiting we decided to give you a little introduction to who we are.
Jane Lee
There are a lot of things to say about Jane. I am going to start with the most obvious. She is from Canada! So she is excited about showing us around town when we are in Vancouver. We are searching for an American Husband for...
"Hiding" Fall Tour
Hello everyone!
It is currently booking time at the office, and we are filling up our calender so we can travel around and show the new documentary “Hiding” You can watch the trailer for it HERE
If you are interested in booking a screening and being one of the first to see the new documentary, then call or message us we will help you set something up!
310.212.7190 just ask for...
August 2010
2 posts
breeze.
We are on our last week of summer tour. It feels like just yesterday when we would go early into the office to start making our daily cold calls… But here we are almost nearing the end of this beautiful trip…meeting beautiful people seeing glorious mountains and the depths of the seas…while telling the stories of the people who cannot dare to dream of such travels and...
"We Prevail or we Die. Here's to the life."
How much of our experience would we waste if we didn’t take the stories of the people who have altered our world views and used them to grow?
In a cafe in San Francisco, on the corner of a forgotten street, a man told us his story. JR, a cheeky 60 year old owner of Frankies Bohemian Cafe talked about “the hot days” living in Bora Bora instructing tennis and windsurfing at Club...
July 2010
3 posts
snapshots & highlights
of our journey thus far…bruh (terminology “bruh” to be explained in a future post)
Salvation Mountain Bruh!
Us & Leonard in front of his creation! it was quite a stunning sight. Looked like candyland to me!
Scene of the accident through the side mirror. Truck flipped and rolled over the median missing us by maybe 5ft. We were very lucky.
Part of Lindsay’s lunch....
Hello, it's so nice to meet you.
Hannah is tan and fierce. She is no stranger to adventure. She spent her past semester in Jordan riding camels, canoeing in the Nile and snorkeling in the Red Sea. She was born in Seoul, South Korea and at the age of 8 moved to New York. She left her empire state of mind behind for North Carolina to study International Studies at UNC Chapel Hill. There she attended a LiNK screening and decided...
April 2010
3 posts
UTAH-ITEs
I think it should be Utahonians… Any way, we are excited to meet you.
Today we pulled into beautiful Utah. Spent the night at a wal-mart in Boise, then made the rest of our drive. This was what we saw…
(Sorry, I got some of the van in the picture… I never claimed to be a photographer.)
We have a busy next few days, but we are very excited to share “Inside North...
Good Coffee with a Good Cause. →
If you’re anything like me you need at least 2 cups of coffee before you even think about starting your day… LiNK is thrilled to be partnering up with Full Circle Exchange this year and want you to know about a easy way and opportunity to not only get amazing coffee but bring out NK Refugees from hiding!
Here is how it works: You buy a bag of coffee and 30% of the money goes to...
Hello Again,
Dear West Coasters,
Sorry it has been so long since we have posted. This is our second attempt on this blog, I wrote the whole thing and then closed it… ( Fail) Life on the road can be pretty hectic, so we want to take now to update you on our lives and tell you how everything is going! Betsy ( our van) has been having some mood swings. We want to share some pictures with you of her at her...
February 2010
1 post
Blog City,
Hello West Coast,
This is the new West nomad team, we are currently in Tucson, AZ getting ready for a screening at the University of Arizona.
However we wanted you guys to know a little about us.
EXHIBIT A:
Austin
Austin is the LiNK shoe throwing Champion, this picture shows him action.
Seriously though, Austin is from Chicago and is very good with Ratio’s. He loves to drive...
January 2010
2 posts
Check This Out!!! →
We are Booking for the Spring!!!
Hey all, we are back in the office and booking furiously. I want to say a quick thank you to everyone who attended our screenings and offered your support this past year, we really do appreciate it. This movement wouldn’t be growing without you.
With that said, there is still a lot of work to be done, a lot of ears that have yet to hear about North Korea, and a lot of refugees still in...
November 2009
2 posts
Baby Jeannie: Born in America, Hope for North...
Jeannie* breathed and moved like she was God’s most delicate creature. We all hunched over the bed, whispering about her eyelids and holding our breath each time they opened. Jeannie was two weeks old. As the child of two North Korean refugees, she’s one of the first few North Korean babies to be born in America. Unlike her parents, freedom of speech, religion and movement were all granted to...
October 2009
6 posts
