The joy of acceptance

I am going to Africa in May, and my heart is in a thousand different places right now.

It's a lot more frightening than I would like to think it is. I have to leave school a day or two before seniors even get out, meaning I will not be there for the exit party, or the Senior Breakfast, or graduation. I won't be at the Senior honoring at church. Come to think of it, I won't be here for the majority of the things I've looked forward to since I got into high school. My friends are going to come home from college and I am going to miss it. There will be no beach days or game nights with the DP crew. No opportunities to show up unannounced in Jeremy's office and sit on the couch while he works. I feel like I'm giving up the world.

And yet isn't that, in those words, exactly what God calls us to do each and every single day?

There's a pain in my heart to think of all the experiences I will miss out on with no opportunity to regain, but my heart shatters for the people in Kibera who will never have those opportunities in the first place. I want them to understand the love of a stranger, and I pray to God every day that this experience will be about what I can give to them and not what they can give to me.

I fear for the day I have to leave. I pray that God grants me peace and a desire to return home so I can share with the people here in Orlando.

But most of all, I thank God that this opportunity has presented itself exactly as His timing would have it. The sacrifices will make it sweeter, I am positive.

I ask that you pray for me; for wisdom and peace and a submissive servant's heart. This is the chance I've been seeking for 2 years, and I want to know how to embrace it with my full and complete being. But I can't do that without prayer. And I hope you will continue to pray for me throughout this process in the next 8 months, whether or not you keep up with what I have to say on here. It would mean more than the world to me. God bless