Hello Friends!
In four days I'm going to be on my way to South Africa again. Wowy. I can't wait, but this is the nerve wracking part. I'm ready to be on that plane!! My hope is that I'll be able to update this every week or so while I'm at God's Golden Acre-- share what is happening with our team (Sidenote: What an AMAZING team we have-- Diana, Donna, Andrew, Katie, Taylor, Katy, and Melissa! I can't wait to get to know them MUCH better....more on each to come), prayer requests, how the Lord is moving in and through GGA, and of course...our ADVENTURES!
I was thinking about our trip this morning and realized that I have all these hopes for the team and the people we will be in relationship with this next month, but I haven't really been intentional about praying about what God wants for me this month. I really want to be completely open to what ever we experience and I want to really experience it. This trip is already pretty interesting for me...knowing somewhat of what to expect is great (!), but also more difficult. I know how hard it will be to leave the kids, come back to the states and deal with reverse culture shock, and the emotional ups and downs we will face. It could be really easy for me to close myself off some from those things in order to protect my heart, but I really don't want that to happen. I feel like at some point over the last few years there are parts of me that I have closed off some in the name of heart protections. I hate that. Maybe that is 'growing up'...but i think it stinks, and it isn't who I am. Please pray that life will be restored to those places, and that I will Trust the Lord enough to fully experience all the good and all the really hard that we will encounter.
So that's it for now I think...
J
