I boarded the plane and was soon settled in a window seat near the front of the plane. As the rest of the passengers streamed down the aisle, lugging their carry-ons, I chatted with the man seated on the aisle.

We were engrossed in our conversation and almost didn’t notice that all the passengers were aboard until we heard the telltale clunk of the doors closing. Then I craned my neck in amazement and looked around. Every seat on the plane was full, except for one — the seat between me and my row-mate. We tucked our bags under the spare seat and luxuriated (OK, that’s an overstatement for coach class) in the additional space.

By then, I’d heard some of his story. Craig, the father of five, was the owner of a large construction business in the Seattle area. He was returning home from an errand of mercy, a cross-country trip to the North Carolina hospital where his brother had just had three emergency surgeries. “He’s going to be OK now,” he said, the relief showing on his face.

I listened in understanding to Craig’s story. I was traveling on a similar mission, flying to Seattle to be with my dear friend Jacqui during her intense cancer treatment. Back in North Carolina, I’d discussed the situation with Barry. I decided it was more important for me to be with Jacqui than to work on the boat. Fiberglass can wait.

Craig had decided that his brother was important, too — more important than his own day-to-day life. As we compared our situations, we joked about being rewarded for our good deeds with the most comfortable seats on the plane.

I don’t think I’ve ever had such an easy cross-country flight. We chatted a little, but mostly, I read and listened to music and napped and looked out the window. The time flew as I did.

When I arrived in Seattle, I contacted my ride, a volunteer from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance named Wendy. We’d never met, so I told her which door I’d be near. “I’ll be wearing bunny ears,” I said. I slipped them on when I got to the curb, my infamous fur-trimmed, sequined rabbit ears with flashing, blinking LED lights inside. To my surprise, none of the people standing near me even smiled. As a matter of fact, they sidled away and wouldn’t meet my eyes!

But my technique worked great for Wendy, who spotted the ears from a block away. She seemed less surprised by the bunny ears than by the fact that she had arrived at the airport, received my call, and driven right up to me without either of us waiting. She marveled that she’d picked up hundreds of people and never had this happen before. I just smiled and nodded. After my karmic experience on the plane, it was no surprise. Wendy was being rewarded for her kind deed, too.

Wendy’s volunteer work involves adopting families from out of town who come to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance for long-term treatment. She serves as their local guide, helping them find the bank, the post office, the grocery store. She’s a navigational beacon to them, physically and emotionally.

That’s how I see Jacqui, too. She’s an extremely bright light, a navigational beacon to me and to others. Even while she’s going through difficult and painful times and I’m serving her, as driver, medical advocate, and sherpa, she’s sharing her knowledge, insight, and deep wisdom. Meanwhile, we’re ensconced in a fantastic downtown Seattle suite with a view, enjoying wonderful books, movies, games, and food.

The key to Jacqui’s brightness is, as a Buddhist teacher said, “a predisposition toward favorable outcomes.” In simple words, a positive attitude.

We can all carry this attitude from moment to moment, and even if we drop it accidentally for a bit, we can pick it up again. When we lose something — our health, money, someone dear to us — it’s our predisposition toward favorable outcomes that gives us the momentum to go forward.

I’ll be here with Jacqui for another week, and then I’ll fly back to North Carolina, where Barry and Flutterby await. I don’t know exactly how Jacqui’s transplant protocol will go. I don’t know if I’ll have the best seat on the plane again. All I know is, if I carry bunny ears with me, each moment will be more joyful. And if I carry a predisposition toward favorable outcomes with me, each moment will be exactly what it’s supposed to be.

What happens if I stick my nose on the lens?

The morning after the kittens were almost born on Charlie’s head, Barry trotted over to Charlie’s trailer and asked to use the bandsaw. When he fired it up, Momma Kitty looked at him askance. Her eyes seemed to say, “What the heck do you think you’re doing? You’re hurting my kittens’ ears!” Never mind the fact that five hours after being born, the kittens’ ears were still stuck flat to their heads.

The next morning, I stopped to see Charlie and the kittens. “We have a kitten crisis,” he told me. “She took one of them away.” We looked at the cat and one remaining kitten sadly. RIP, I thought. Momma Kitty seemed more attached to Charlie and John and Barry and me than to her kitten. “Maybe if you sleep with her tonight, instead of on the boat, she won’t abandon the last one…” I suggested, hesitantly. I hated to ask that of Charlie, but he’s a hero. “I’ll do that,” he said, brightly.

The next morning, I stopped by, and it was deja vu all over again. “We have a kitten crisis,” he said. “She slept with me all night, but she took the other one away this morning. I tried to follow her, but she knew I was tailing her (har, har) and gave me the slip.”

I was a little more successful at tailing her, and I found where she’d stashed the kitten — under the back seat of John’s conversion van, which he’d left open to keep it cool and aired out.

This created a whole new set of problems. In order to buy groceries or do laundry, John needed to drive his van. But it was 100 degrees that day. If he carted the cats to Beaufort and locked his doors, he’d have two roasted cats under the rear seat. And if he did so without Momma Kitty on board, she’d be frantic while he was gone.

Then Barry went back to use the bandsaw. “What was that squeak?” he asked Charlie. I guess he thought one of Charlie’s power tools needed oiling.

Charlie couldn’t think of any power tools that made that sound. So they dug into a huge pile of toolboxes under a bunch of cabinets and found the source — the other kitten!

The family was reunited in John’s van, and then my slippery path to sainthood began. Nancy Bock and I looked all over the boatyard for a place to relocate the cats. But nothing seemed right. Finally, Barry and I decided to cat-nap the three of them and put them on our boat for the time being.

Since the kittens look exactly like Mom, we suspect it was a virgin birth

We walked over to John’s van with a large plastic tote, and Barry put on a fleece sweater in case Momma Kitty tried to scratch or bite. But she didn’t. He gently lifted her out, and she sat docilely in his arms as I put her two squeaky kittens in the tote. Then we walked across the boatyard, carried them up the ladder, and put the tote into a cozy, defensible spot in the quarterberth. Momma Kitty did a quick lap of the boat, proclaimed it acceptable, and climbed into the quarterberth to resume nursing.

It’s been a few days, and Momma Kitty now goes by the name, “Buttercup,” because of her sunflower-yellow eyes and her princess status. The two kittens haven’t been named; we call them the wiggle-worms. At one week old, their eyes are not yet open, although they do have ears now.

It’s a happy story, except for one thing — I have two weeks to find a place for them. My attempts to place the little group with a foster family, no-kill animal shelter, or permanent home have been unsuccessful. I have made numerous calls, posted ads, and sent emails. But if you are an animal, Carteret County is not the place for you! The Humane Shelter here is referred to as a “high-kill” facility.

The few volunteers in the area who work to save pets are desperately overloaded. I call their message phones, and most call back from restricted numbers. “We can’t help you,” they say. “We have too many cats already.” If I was the praying sort, I’d be praying for help about now.

When do I get tuna?

So we’ll keep looking, and in the meantime, we’ll enjoy this snuggly, docile kitty and her two wiggle-worms. If you don’t want a pet permanently, let me suggest that you foster a cat or dog, wherever you are! I can’t tell you how rewarding this is. When these kittens open their eyes — tomorrow or the next day, I hope — what will they see first? Momma? Me? Barry? Or the underside of the quarterberth? They’re sure to think that living on a boat is a natural thing, so we’d better get them settled in a house soon, or they’ll be ruined forever. Just like me.

In my mind, I smell the tropical vegetation and the sea air. I feel the hot sun pouring down on my bare shoulders. I hear the upbeat sound of Rouge coming, not from my stereo, but from a battered truck driving down the street with huge speakers mounted on the outside.

These are the easy memories, the physical ones.

If it had been a simple beach vacation, most of the memories would have been like these. But it was not, and so, four years later, I’m still processing the rest.

That trip was the first of what would become Bahia Street’s small group study tours. There were seven of us, plus our guides, Margaret (of Seattle) and Rita (of Salvador).

We flew into Salvador, a city in northeast Brazil, and immediately we were whisked away to Arembepe (Air-em-BEP-ee), a small seaside town about a half hour down the road from the airport. We spent the evening on a veranda on the beach, drinking powerful caipirinhas and eating exquisite food — fried fish, tomato salad, and potatoes, presented on a stunning platter, lined with deep green leaves and accompanied by piles of ruby-red grated beets and neon orange grated carrots. We were getting to know each other as traveling companions, and that night, we told stories and laughed until we cried.

That was the only part of my Brazil trip that could be called a “simple beach vacation.”

The next day, driving through the countryside and along the beach, I snapped hundreds of photos. I was captivated by barefoot children, thatched huts, and women carrying their laundry to the river for washing.

As we traveled, Margaret and Rita began to gently educate us about the implications of what we saw. It was picturesque, but it was poverty: The people I photographed all suffered from a lack of healthcare, education, and income.

On our third day, I came down with an eye infection, and we stopped at a medical clinic. Even that was an education. We walked into a low concrete building, to a room with benches around the walls. Women sat there with their sick children, waiting for hours to see the doctor. We stood around, waiting, too. There was a lull, a momentary quiet that was broken by the sound of a child coughing. “Let’s go outside, ” Rita said. On the other side of the door, she shook her head. “That one’s going to die,” she said.

Over the course of the week, we learned a great deal about Brazilian systems, political, cultural, and socio-economic. Looking at the big picture, I could see how this poverty affects us all. Even someone in far-off, wealthy Seattle who doesn’t speak Portuguese.

It wasn’t all work and no play. We swam in the ocean and hung out at beach bars, thatched roofs on poles with cold beer. We took a canoe ride and spent a glorious day in dune buggies at Mangue Seco, a remote place with giant sand dunes and the largest palm trees I’ve ever seen. We hiked to a waterfall in the mountains and ate new and wonderful things like cashew fruit.

But we also passed roadside encampments, groups of families living in shacks of black plastic sheeting and scrap wood. They were part of Brazil’s Sem Terra movement, some of the country’s 1.5 million dispossessed, landless people.

Seeing the desperation of the landless people helped prepare me for the shantytowns. Both groups seem like refugees in their own country, eking out a living as best they can.

After about a week traveling the countryside, we arrived back in Salvador. Our briefings on the road had prepared me for the danger, the crowds, the shantytowns. And when we finally visited the Bahia Street Center, it all came together, and I could see where I fit into the picture.

The quote from Margaret Mead was brought home to me that day: “Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

The last day of our tour was the Santa Barbara festival, an early December event celebrating the patron saint of firefighters. I was overwhelmed by the crowds, a human sea dressed in red, and the elaborate flower-covered palanquins bearing statues of Santa Barbara.

We followed the procession to the fire station, where the emcee and a bishop were perched in a cherry-picker above the crowd. The emcee kept shouting over the loudspeaker, “Viva Santa Barbara!” and everyone would respond with a loud cheer. Suddenly, Rita grabbed us and dragged us back against the wall. They turned on the sprinklers from the cherry picker, and the crowd was drenched with holy water. Rita’s quick action kept our cameras dry.

Standing against the wall, I watched a woman go into a religious trance, her arms upraised and her eyes closed. Her red dress clung to her body, and the crowd milled and spun around her, thrilled with the drenching.

Then the holy water shower ceased, and we headed out of the fire station. Although we had seen only blue skies and no rain since we arrived, it suddenly began to rain. “It always does that today,” said Rita.

In the African-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, Santa Barbara has a powerful equivalent, an Orixá, or goddess, called Iansã. I think she was responsible for the rain.

It was powerful experiences like these that I am still processing today.

I have not been back to Brazil yet. There are many other places in the world that I want to see first. But the lessons I learned in Brazil are lessons I take with me on all my travels, whether it’s a fishing village in Newfoundland or a native village in Alaska.

Things are not always as they seem. Look deeper. Listen. Get involved, stay a while, and gradually, things will reveal themselves.

A trip like this could change your life. It might lead you to improve the lives of others. And if you’re thoughtful and committed, it might change the world.

Margaret had never taken a salsa class, but she knew how to dance. She jumped right into the advanced class with confidence and aplomb.

At the time, she had just returned to the States from Brazil. My first impression was of a statuesque blonde with an intriguing accent. It wasn’t quite British, but she said “holiday” instead of “vacation.” Margaret was an anthropologist, originally from Oregon, who had lived all over the world, hence the accent I couldn’t place.

Our friendship formed around dancing, walks, and swims in chilly Lake Washington. With her Ph.D., several universities wanted her to teach anthropology, but she wanted to leave the academic world and do something else. I now know that what she was considering is called practical or applied anthropology.

At the time, I was a graphic designer at Arthur Andersen. Although I’d previously had my own editing and design business, at AA, I was a second-class citizen. The company valued employees who worked directly for clients and brought in revenue. My position was considered overhead and less valued. As a result, my self-esteem was low.

So I was surprised and honored when Margaret told me one day that she was starting a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and she asked me to be on the board of directors.

I had no idea what I was taking on. None of us did.

Margaret described to me the grueling poverty in the shantytowns of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. She had lived there for several years and had worked with a remarkable research assistant, a woman named Rita (pronounced HEE-ta) who had graduated from college in spite of her shantytown upbringing. She and Rita had decided to address the poverty by helping girls get an education.

In Seattle, there were four of us on the original board, one for each position. Margaret was president. Eduardo Mendonça, a Brazilian musician, was vice president. He was the one who came up with the name, Bahia Street. Pat Ingrassia brought years of social activism experience, but it was the first time he’d ever been a treasurer. Margaret had met him while riding the Metro bus he drove on Vashon Island.. I was secretary, responsible for taking notes at the meetings.

I vividly remember the meeting at the corner booth in the Jackrabbit restaurant, in downtown Seattle. The four of us put our hands together on the table and committed to one year of funding. We agreed to be responsible for the education of one girl, an orphan named Juliana who lived with her sister. Our bank account had about $45.

It was a overwhelming commitment. To pay for Juliana’s private school tuition alone, we needed several hundred dollars a month. We also needed to pay for her books, school uniforms, bus fare, and a small stipend to her sister.

I was so panicked at the thought, I never stopped to think about the level of commitment Rita was taking on.

At the time, I thought of her as another friend of Margaret’s, someone who’d been talked into this project by my earnest and persuasive friend. Nothing was further from the truth. In the beginning, Rita had been the persuasive one. She had talked Margaret into starting the project.

Thousands of miles from Brazil, I jumped into the challenges of starting a non-profit. I designed a Bahia Street logo and a fancy brochure and we had our first mailing party, using a mailing list loaned to us by Eduardo. We had house parties and dances and sold beer at Carnival. We put on a summer festival, São João, with a day and a half of activities. We even had a rummage sale at my house, although most of the volunteers would like to forget that one.

Meanwhile, Margaret was doing what she does best, connecting and inspiring people to get involved. She raised substantial sums from wealthy friends in England, wrote grants, and turned the supporting community into a real community. The money began to trickle in, not the big grants we expected, but many small monthly checks from individuals.

In Brazil, Rita found four additional girls to add to the program. They were bright, but the public schools had left them illiterate. One, Renata, was 7 years old and had never been to school. Rita hired a tutor to work with them, and our first student, Juliana, began attending the tutoring sessions as well.

Rita and Margaret were working full-time hours on the project, but neither of them was paid.

I put many hours in, too, designing flyers and brochures, editing letters and grant applications, organizing events. I wanted to craft an image for Bahia Street that looked professional without being slick. I cranked out amazing things on laser printers at work, since there was no budget for printing. Every penny we raised went to Brazil.

It was amazing how much Rita could do with so little. She expanded the tutoring program to the point where it was as good as any private school. Since the school day in Brazil is only four hours, the girls could then go to public school for a half day and then go to Bahia Street for a half day. Not only did this allow her to admit more students, it improved the public schools.

As the number of girls in the program grew, so too did the number of volunteers in Seattle. I jokingly call Barry “Volunteer Number One,” because he was there all along. Margaret was not technically savvy, so when Barry and Pat and I told her we needed a database, she just nodded and tried to look knowledgeable. The same happened when we launched our first website in 1998.

Margaret still chuckles about Barry and the database. He told her he was bored with computer games, and he thought developing a database would be “fun.” We have over a thousand people in our relational database now, with tens of thousands of records on donations and volunteer activities, and because of Barry, it never cost us anything.

After about five years, Margaret insisted that Barry and I go to Brazil on Bahia Street’s first study tour. It was in the Salvador airport, feeling grubby and exhausted after the long flights from the U.S., that I finally met Rita. I recognized her huge smile from dozens of photographs.

From the windows of our 12-passenger van, I saw the horrific shantytowns where our students live, some in houses made of cardboard and poly tarps. I saw the conditions that turn girls into prostitutes or domestic servants before they’re even teenagers.

At the Bahia Street Center, I saw the solution.

There were fifty girls there, vibrant, happy, excited, and loud. They gave off an aura of self-confidence and assurance. Their artwork and projects covered the walls. They danced and sang and played. The teachers, who all come from shantytowns or rural villages themselves, were proud of what they’d accomplished.

It was the last day of school for them, and the girls put on a program for us. Their excitement was not because school was ending for the year, but because there were visitantes — visitors. Some of the girls’ parents came, too. They seemed shy and overwhelmed.

To this day, I can close my eyes and hear the music and feel the exuberance.

I don’t have any children. I could never work every day with difficult kids in that environment. And despite all I know about Brazil, I’m not a “Brazilophile,” a non-Brazilian with an interest in Brazil. So why have I been passionate about this for so many years?

My goal is empowering women. My work with Bahia Street has done that.

Most of the girls in the program have single mothers. Some of their mothers look barely old enough to have children. In addition to almost no money, they have limited parenting skills. Through education, we keep their daughters from getting pregnant and help them develop self-esteem.

Regardless of whether they go to college or not — and three of the first students have gotten university scholarships — by the time our students reach high school, we’ve already done an enormous amount to break the cycle of poverty in each family.

The Gates Foundation is right across town from me. They’d like to break the cycle of poverty, too, with their billions of dollars. But we have something they don’t have.

Rita and Margaret.

How can the Gates Foundation staff understand the needs of impoverished people? As former bankers and politicians, they’ve never suffered hunger or struggled to stay alive.

Rita came from an impoverished background, and she took her chance for a better life and used it to improve her community. To change the world, we need more amazing, dedicated people like her.

But Margaret’s story is just as amazing. From the very beginning, I knew her as a strong, powerful woman. Yet over the years, she has deliberately given all the organization’s power to Rita and others in the shantytowns. To say she empowers them is reality, not just a buzzword.

All those powerful people at the Gates Foundation could learn a lot from Margaret.

A few weeks ago, I saw Rita again. She had come to the United States for the first time in her life, to celebrate Bahia Street’s tenth anniversary. Like the girls in the school, she is more confident. She is no longer Margaret’s friend in Brazil. She is the driving force behind Bahia Street.

Rita seems much taller now. I introduced her to my friend, Brett, as “a dignitary.” At several events, people gave her standing ovations.

Over Rita’s two-week visit, Margaret served as interpreter and introduced Rita, but her role was that of facilitator, not star. People who have just met Margaret have no idea how much she has done to inspire and mobilize thousands of people and raise tens of thousands of dollars.

Mentorship is one of the biggest parts of the Bahia Street curriculum. Every one of the girls we’ve had in the program has gained confidence and self-esteem. We’re especially proud of our first student, Juliana, currently attending the Federal University of Bahia.

But it’s a little known fact that even before we had even heard of Juliana, Margaret had already empowered two women and changed their lives: A one-in-a-million social activist named Rita. And myself.

For more information about Bahia Street, see the website at www.bahiastreet.org.

Most people who know me find this astonishing. Why would I want to be a nun?

The reason is role models. I have two aunts who are Sisters of Providence (in Indiana, not to be confused with the order in Seattle). When I was barely five years old, they were permitted to cast off their restrictive black habits. For most of my life, I’ve known them as empowered women, women who did meaningful work.

Initially, they were school teachers. That and nursing were the careers open to them. But over the years, the world and the church changed. They received advanced degrees. Sister Mary Pat became the liturgical director for a huge Catholic parish in Chicago. They marched in protests and conducted letter-writing campaigns to elected officials. They worked for peace and social justice.

In the 1970′s, they were allowed to travel on vacation, so they visited family members in places like New York, Florida, and Las Vegas. They had an audience with Pope John Paul in Rome and took a cruise to Alaska.

Sister Mary Pat and Sister Mary Julia are in their 80′s now, retired to the “motherhouse” at St. Mary of the Woods, Indiana. I’ve visited the campus many times, with its tree-lined avenues and 19th-century buildings. Located in the backwoods of Indiana, outside Terre Haute, it has a church that is as awe-inspiring as any big city cathedral.

The sisters there have a role model, too. In 1840, Mother Theodore Guerin was about my age. She left civilized France and traveled to the wilderness, which at that time was Indiana. With five companions, she started the Sisters of Providence and opened a school for girls in the woods.

The school became St. Mary of the Woods College, the first liberal arts college for women in the United States. The sisters also expanded their work, opening schools and orphanages across the U.S. and the world.

Mother Theodore was a strong, empowered woman, but she was also very religious. In the years since her death, many people, including my family, prayed to her for intercession. Some of those prayers were answered: On October 15th, she will be canonized as a saint, partly because of two miracles attributed to her.

But the real miracles are not curing cancer or blindness, they are the millions of students who have been educated through Sisters of Providence. They are the foster children who have had a home, and the elderly (including my own grandparents) who have been nursed by the sisters. The miracles are the disenfranchised who have been not only served, but recognized.

Mother Theodore’s mission has been flexible enough to change with the times. Today, the order has a host of forward-thinking projects, such as the White Violet Center for Eco-Justice, teaching about environmental issues and giving children the message that all creation is connected. In 1973, the college launched the Women’s External Degree program, one of the first distance-learning programs in the nation. It was intended to make a college degree possible for women with families. Today, it’s been renamed the Woods External Degree program, and it’s open to men as well. They’ve recently opened Providence Cristo Rey High School, a college-preparatory program that allows economically-disadvantaged students to earn their tuition while gaining job skills at local companies. And they run countless smaller projects, like food banks. adult education, day cares, medical clinics, and services to migrant families.

It’s unbelievable to see what a small group of people, such as Mother Theodore, soon to be “Saint Mother Theodore,” and her five companions, can begin. They had no idea how widely the ripples they created would spread love, justice, and mercy around the world.

I’ve seen it happen, firsthand.

Ten years ago, two women in Brazil, Rita Conceição and Margaret Willson, decided to start a project to break cycles of poverty in the shantytowns. I met Margaret shortly afterwards. Through luck or fate, I was destined to be one of those initial companions.

We started Bahia Street with one student and almost no money. Today, it is a thriving school program for 50 girls in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, giving them education and hope for their families. It links a worldwide community of hundreds.

We had no idea how widely our ripples would spread, either.

Of all the things I’ve done in life, I’m most proud of Bahia Street. And now I see the connection to my own roots. Through the Sisters of Providence, I have been inspired by strong women with a commitment to social justice. My mother, who considered joining the Sisters of Providence in the 1940′s, decided instead to raise a family and become an artist. She told me I could be anything I wanted, that my gender would not stand in the way.

Now it is my turn to inspire young women to make a difference in the world. All it takes is one small pebble, and the ripples can go on forever.