Soul Rebel 365

Summary: ‘Giving up everything we have and raising money to travel the world for 365 days to inspire and fully embrace our greater purpose.’

Welcome and thanks for checking out our site! My fiancee and I have both made a recent decision to get out of our comfort zone and essentially step out of the boat, to defy what is natural to us and push our limits to start walking on water.

About Us:

My name is Ahmadu Garba and I was born in Washington, DC. I grew up overseas and attended college at The George Washington University in DC. I built a career in Los Angeles where I produced and wrote for my company, Highway 1 Entertainment.

Everyone is feeling the effects of our failed economy to some degree.   My company lost two of its biggest investors to bankruptcy and we have had to make cuts and hard decisions.  I know close friends and family members who have lost their jobs and their houses and the things they thought brought them security.  It’s hard and we are all clinging to what we have left to preserve ourselves but at some point we will have to let go of that which we can’t control.

I recently had an epiphany about what God expects from us as individuals, what is expected of us as a community and what is expected of us as a global community. I think in our lives we are so concerned with our money and our material possessions that these things end up becoming little gods in our lives. Meanwhile there are people in the world that are genuinely suffering and we are doing nothing to help. I am very guilty of this and it has been bothering me.

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My name is Jordan Fuller. I grew up in Toronto, Ontario and later moved to Windsor, Ontario to attend university. For the past 5 years I have been teaching at a high school that services primarily under resourced students.

I am part of a generation that believes in the hope and promise of change. My generation, ironically dubbed Generation Me, is looking for a greater purpose, something beyond ourselves. There is something frightening about the redundancy of status-quo. After re-evaluating choices and priorities in every area of my life, I found myself left with one question: What am I doing to effect change in the world and lives of people around me? While laying in bed battling the swine flu, I was suddenly painfully aware of how self-serving I had become. Somehow I had slipped into the mode of complacency. I decided it was time to break free from the safety of conformity — and consequent mediocrity — to strive for something more.

Enter SoulRebel365. When I was presented with this project I immediately knew it was something I had to be a part of. Ahmadu’s vision and passion mirrored so much of what I had already been thinking and feeling. As an educator my goal as always been to embed in my students the values of social responsibility and global citizenship. Now I am being challenged to put my lesson plans to the test. This is real life.

The Decision:

We  have decided to give up everything that we own, selling all our material belongings and starting the “Soul Rebel Fund” to raise money from donations and other fund raising avenues for my yearlong journey. We want to challenge ourselves and challenge people that our life extends beyond our comfort and our material possessions.  Our journey  is in essence to train and repeatedly remind ourselves that on any given day one can walk away from objects, things, and “success” because ultimately life is not about material riches, tangible goods or our social status or reputation. These are not the things that should define us.

Secondly as we embark on this journey  we want to discover the goodness of people and discover ways that others are making a difference in the world, whether intentionally or not; whether through simple acts of kindness or through well-strategized initiatives; whether as part of established entities or structures (i.e. as part of charity) or what seems like pieced together random acts of mercy, consideration, or grace. We want to know what drives these people and want to condition ourselves to live a very simple life with no amenities and maybe even no bed in some cases. We want to take a piece of all those lessons and share them with others so that we can all stop, process, respond and hopefully be at least a little more deliberate with our actions to each other and to mankind; so that we might be reminded and learn of ways to show simple acts of love and to extend grace – the same grace God has given us.

The Impact:

While at this time it would be premature for us to predict the impact of this journey on our lives, we do know that we hope that we will be profoundly impacted in a way that we know how to love at the most basic level that speaks to genuine selflessness, that we will be able to overlook offenses and are  driven by grace and the potential of mankind when combined with divine inspiration. While on this journey we will also be writing a book about our experiences and upon our return we will finish writing the book which will be published. At the end of the day we want people to question the way they think, to take risks and to break open so they can live a life that is greater than them. During our journey we might meet sadness, tragedy and other hardships but we are hopeful that at some point along the way, hopefully most points along the way, we will see and experience God in a new dimension, one that requires that we take Him at His word as we have no other options, crutches or vices.

Your Part:

We want you to donate what you can to help us raise the money to embark on this journey. Our target amount is $45,640.  We also want you to have an open mind to be receptive to what we have to say or what we might discover while on this journey. We would also ask that you spread the word on what we are trying to accomplish, tell all your friends and family and whoever else will listen and point people to this page, whatever you can do to get the word out there.  We will maintain a blog right here on this website so please subscribe, bookmark it and visit very often and you can follow us on every step of this journey. We would also like for you to give us moral and spiritual support, to pray for safety, wisdom and the courage to challenge ourselves and challenge you.

Timeline:

Our target date to commence our journey is in June of 2011. We plan to spend 365 days overseas. We will visit Western Europe, Asia, West Africa, North Africa, Middle East, Australia and South America.

Please Donate * :

DONATE TO SOUL REBEL FUND

*please note that donations made to ‘Soul Rebel Fund’ do not qualify for tax exempt status because Soul Rebel Fund is not a tax exempt charitable organization yet.