Do You Hear What I Hear?

I guess the more appropriate title would be "Did You Hear What I Heard?"

We survived the painting of the school and were now looking forward to Christmas day with the girls! It definitely was a Christmas to remember...I heard things that Christmas that changed me forever. Have you heard them too?

#1 I was in Africa literally in the middle of nowhere...sleeping on the top bunk in the "jail cell" (Pic to the right)...Under a mosquito net...In the crazy hot African summer weather...However, it was still Christmas. The previous few mornings at the girls home were pretty slow going. When the alarm clock went off we stayed in bed until the absolute last second then drug ourselves to breakfast. It wasn't that we didn't want to be there, we were simply exhausted. Chasing 28 girls around all day in the summer heat will wear you out! Since we had a long day of painting the day before I expected that morning to be the same, but it wasn't. It was Christmas morning! I woke up way before the alarm clock just like I did every other year at home simply excited because it was Christmas morning. I just laid in bed because I thought that Liv would sleep until the alarm went off. I laid there and reflected on Christmas' past and how different this one was. I reflected on getting up every Christmas morning to my brother telling me it was time to get up and open presents. I actually got a little emotional, I missed that moment. For the first time in 24 years I wasn't going to hear it. After a few moments of reflection I decided I was going to roll over and try to sleep a little more because I knew it was going to be a long day. As I rolled over I heard Liv move around too. I just figured I shook the not-so-stable bunk and stirred her a little. Ha! After a second or two I heard "Merry Christmas!" I replied back with the same. After another moment of silence I heard, "It's time to get up and open the stockings our moms put in our bags..." I heard it. 8,000 miles from home I heard it. I heard God telling me "Merry Christmas. You're exactly where you're supposed to be."

#2 After breakfast Liv and I took some of the little toys, cards, and fingernail polish that our mom's packed in our stocking to the girls dorm. Liv painted fingernail after fingernail as I played cards, yo-yo'd and jumped rope. We were simply enjoying time with the girls. Due to the language barrier there wasn't much talking going on. A few words exchanged between Liv and I every once in a while and likewise among the girls. We would play game after game of Uno. Yeah, playing Uno with people you can't communicate with is quite the entertainment! Especially when different groups of girls have different rules. Some how we managed to do it, but if it wasn't for head nods and hand gestures it would have been impossible! Anyway, we played and played and loved on the girls as much as we could even though the room was mostly silent. I decided I was going to show off my mad yo-yo skills to the girls. A group gathered around and watched as it went up and down and even as I "walked the dog" a little bit. I decided to get fancy and sling it in out in front of me to do another trick. I slung it alright. I slung it right off my finger, across the room and into the wall. I heard laughter. I kept hearing laughter. I'm pretty sure I heard a little snorting mixed in! I heard "Merry Christmas. Thank you for being here."

#3 An hour or so later while Liv was still painting fingernails I was taking pictures and showing them to some of the girls. In the midst of our still somewhat silent state we heard a bell ring. It was the bell that they rang to tell everyone to report to the dinning hall. All the girls got up and ran to the dinning hall. Liv and I sat trying to figure out what was going on. It wasn't quite lunch time yet, we hoped nothing was wrong. As we got up and walked towards the dinning hall we saw this:

It was time to clean the chickens for our Christmas dinner. The closest either one of us had ever been to doing something like this was Liv cleaning an already prepared chicken in culinary school. What in the world?!? Liv was taking pictures so I thought to myself "When in Africa, do as the African's do." I jumped in and did as best as I could. We heard a bell. We heard "Merry Christmas. To the Jews I became a Jew (to the African's I became an African)... I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in it's blessings."

#4 The afternoon went on and Liv and I actually had the opportunity to slaughter, pluck, a clean a chicken ourselves. (A later post will have to share that story!) Anyway, as the afternoon was drawing to an end Liv and I went back to the jail cell to clean up for the BIG Christmas dinner and celebration later that night. We headed to Chris' house to help with the final preparations and to begin to welcome the guests as they came in from the village. 75 people crowed in the living room to feast on our rather American Christmas dinner of FRESH roasted chicken :), mashed potatoes, dressing, homemade rolls, and kool-aid! It was awesome. We topped off dinner with some mango cobbler and it was time for presents!

We gathered around as the girls eagerly awaited getting their presents out from under the awesome mango branch Christmas tree we had decorated a few nights earlier.

Before we opened presents Chris spoke for a few minutes then there was a reading of the Christmas story from Luke 2. Now granted, it was in Swahili so I'm not sure what I really heard! However, I heard, "Merry Christmas. At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

#5 It was present time! The girls got a few presents from people including a new dress and a new pair of shoes that people from our church purchased with money they raised. The last thing they opened was their stocking that had been hanging on the windows.

A few days before Liv and I had the awesome privilege of stuffing their stockings.

We brought a whole trunk load of little things over for each girl to go along with some things that Chris had for them. We had everything from bouncy balls and yo-yo's to toy rings and necklaces to crayons and finger nail polish. It was awesome! After we handed out all of the stockings the girls dumped them out and started going through them. They put on their jewelry, tried out the markers, bounced the balls, smelled the lotions, and played with the little toys. They were in heaven. You would have thought they just recieved the greatest Christmas gift ever. Liv and I sat for the longest time just watching them go through all of their stuff and get a little more excited with every thing they saw.

In the midst of it all there was a lot of noise. However, I heard the sound of 28 little girls giggling with excitement over the gifts they had received. It was one of the greatest things I have ever heard. I heard "Merry Christmas. I came that you might have life. Abundant life. A life of Joy."

I walked away from this trip with many lessons learned, but I can honestly say that the lessons learned this day made the biggest impact on my life. I can sum up the five things that I heard that day with one word: Humble. Humbled because God chose me to be there that Christmas. Humbled because I was able to spend time with those girls, love on them and hopefully impact their lives. Humbled because He became exactly what I needed and had given me the opportunity to be His hands and feet so I could show His love through it. Humbled because He is such an awesome God and worthy to be spoken of and praised no matter what language it is. Humbled because those stockings were stuffed with what Liv and I called 'Chuck-E-Cheese" toys. Toys that kids "win" in America and have forgotten about them by the time they get home, yet they were the best things in the world to those 28 girls. Humbled.

God sent His only son to this dirty, rotten, sinful earth so that we might have life. Abundant life. A life of joy. The incredible thing about the whole story? He didn't send Him in the form of a powerful king or official like many expected. No. He sent Him in the form of a humble baby. Born in a humble stable. Laid in a humble manger. Worshiped by humble shepherds. Humble.

Last Christmas I heard humble. What did you hear?

A Christmas Eve to Remember...

December 22, 2009 Liv and I hopped in the back of a Land Rover and took a 45ish minute ride that took us to a place that forever changed our lives. JBFC. Now, technically, the place did not change our lives, but the people and experiences there that God used to teach us new things changed our lives. JBFC is a home for girls that was started by a guy my age from Oklahoma. You can check out what they are all about here. After getting ourselves settled in, spending some time getting to know the girls, and learning how things were done, we were ready to do something.

It was Christmas Eve... On Christmas Eve I typically sleep in, spend sometime with the family, maybe bake a few cookies, then attend the candlelight/communion service at church followed by a Christmas get together with some families from church. Ha...that's not the way Christmas Eve works in Africa!

We got up, grabbed some breakfast and got our assignment for the day. What was that you ask? Painting. Painting the walls of the school that would be opening in 2 days. Being involved in Children's ministry I am used to painting. I'm just saying that you don't go to a store and buy VBS backdrops! As Liv and I walked down to the school I thought to myself, "This is nothing...We can knock this out in no time flat!" I was sadly mistaken! Chris showed us the walls that needed to be painted. Three of the outside walls then 2-3 classrooms. Piece of cake...So I thought. Liv and I grabbed our rollers and dove right into the pale yellow paint. As we began to paint we noticed a few things. The first thing we noticed was how runny the paint was. Now, when I say runny, I mean runny. Like it was so thin that as we rolled it on we ourselves were covered in splatter. I could live with that...It was kind of fun. Then we noticed this distinct smell. After doing a little research we found that they put kerosene in their paint to make it go farther. So not only were we going to be splattered with paint, but we were also going to smell like kerosene too. I guess I could live with that. Finally we noticed our hands. After just a few minutes our hands began to ache. African paint rollers are well...horrible. Within minutes we both had huge blisters...I could live with that until they started to bleed and paint mixed with kerosene got into them. OUCH!

Although the conditions weren't great (Did I mention it was summer time in Africa and it was WAY HOT!) we both were having fun. As we painted we both reflected on past Christmas' and shared stories from when we were kids. We were sharing our favorite things about Christmas Eve and we both agreed how much we loved the Christmas Eve service at church. We both love the music at it. That led us into a conversation about Christmas songs and it was at that point that we both wished we had a radio that played Christmas music. Well I didn't have a radio, but I did have a Liv. I always tell her she is like a personal jukebox. I could think about a song and she could sing it. It's crazy, but it was useful! I'm pretty sure for the next two hours she sang every Christmas song ever written and it was awesome. The African men working on the other side of school kept looking through the windows at us and laughing! It was a little piece of home in Africa.

Well what started out as a couple of hours of worked turned into 5. By the time we finished the all the walls we were covered in paint and blisters. However, if you look at the picture bellow I would say we did a pretty good job!

The picture on the right is one of the photos we took once we were done. Notice all the paint on our face. I'm pretty sure this was taken after we had already washed our face once! It was a long, tiring, messy, and somewhat painful experience, but we made the most of it! As I laid on my bunk before dinner while Liv was showering I thought about how my family was just getting up and starting their Christmas Eve, while I missed them I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I also thought that my Christmas Eve could not get any better...Boy was I wrong!

We cleaned up, rested a little, and did some crafts with the girls before dinner. Typically we ate our meals in Chris' house and they were somewhat "American" meals. Chris had to go into town to pick up another guest from the airport so we were going to eat dinner with the girls and the matrons in their dinning hall. We walked into the dinning hall and were directed to go to the front and fix our plates. Our Christmas Eve dinner consisted of rice, beans, and fresh mango. Hands down the best Christmas Eve dinner ever.

We went and set at a table and our three little girls that followed us everywhere came and set with us. This is a picture of them. From left to right it's Salome, Abby, and Zia. LOVE these girls! Anyway, they joined us at our table, just the 5 of us. A far cry from me sitting in house of about 30 on Christmas Eve. It was getting dark outside and generator had not been plugged in yet so one of the older girls came and set a lantern in the middle of our table. It was Christmas Eve...in Africa...We were sitting at a table with three young girls who had been orphaned...eating rice, beans, and mango for dinner...It was a Christmas Eve I will never forget.

As I sat there soaking it all in, I had a moment. One of those moments where you feel a lump in your throat and then it takes over your whole body and you kind of think a tear might be coming. It was a moment worth remembering. It was a very humbling moment. Who was I that God called me halfway around the world to share His live at Christmas time. There definitely was a tear. To keep from sobbing like a baby I looked across the table at Liv to see if she could lighten the moment....It didn't help. The moment we made eye contact I knew she was having the same exact moment I was having. We both sat there for a few minutes soaking it all in...There definitely was more than one tear! It was incredible and life changing for both of us.

After we collected ourselves and finished dinner we wanted to spend a little more time with the girls. The girls LOVE to sing and so does Liv so she decided to teach them Silent Night in English. We sang together and it was awesome. One of the girls pulled out their Swahili hymnal and opened it up to Silent Night. They then taught it to us in Swahili. We spent the next hour or so singing hymns with them in Swahili. Well, Liv did most of the singing and I held the flashlight so we could see! Yeah, I do not sing any better in Swahili than I do in English! :)

It was an absolutely incredible evening. Usually at night I would take a shower and by the time I got back to the room Liv would be half asleep. Not that night. She was wide awake still humming Silent Night as she laid in her bunk. We ended up talking for awhile and swapping stories from the day of how God spoke to us. We both were changed. We both experienced a Christmas Eve that we would never forget.

From that moment on Christmas Eve would never be the same for me. It used to be about getting all the presents wrapped, cookies baked, and plans for Christmas day in order. This Christmas Eve all I can think about are the faces of the kids in Africa. This Christmas Eve I spent my time thinking of them, praying for them and thinking of things I can do to minster to them. Jesus came that Christmas Eve many years ago to give. He came to give us life. Abundant life. You and I have been abundantly blessed...How are you going to give?

Jealous...Really?!? Oh, I get it now.

As I write these blogs reflecting on our trip last Christmas I refer back to the blog Liv wrote while we were there, the emails and updates I sent home and the journal I kept while I was there. Yes, I still have all the emails I sent and all the emails that were sent to me. Yes, I completely understand that I am a nerd, but I also understand that those interactions between my family and friends were some of the sweetest moments of my life...

Anyway, as I look back at them and read over them I'm brought to tears. Tears of joy because of the things God did while we were there, but also the way He is still working in both of us because of that trip. I also have tears of "sadness." Well, not really sadness, but longing. My heart longs and wishes that I was doing the exactly the same things now that I was doing this time last year. I can honestly say that when I set foot in Africa I never imagined that my heart would be captured like it has been... Never would I have imagined that I would long to be on the "mission field."

Anyway...After some time in Kenya we boarded a small plane and ventured to Tanzania. I had been in Africa for 4 days, but I still didn't feel like I was really in Africa. I was excited to touchdown in Tanzania and see what it was all about. For months I heard Liv's family talk for hours upon hours about Mwanza, Tanzania, the people, and the things God was doing there. I was ready to experience it for myself.

Once we landed at the "airport" (and yes I use that term lightly!) we hopped into a cab and began our venture into town. As I was in the backseat squashed up against the door I stared out of the window and soaked it all in. I felt like I was finally in Africa. I enjoyed my time in Nairobi, but the whole time I was there I never felt "settled", if you will, but now I was. It was like all was well in the world and I was back in a familiar, comfortable place and I was at peace with the world. The funny thing was I had never been there before.

Over the next few days we met with some of the street boys and were able to share the Gospel with them, feed them, play with them, and love on them. It in itself was an awesome experience. We also were able to attend church with local brothers and sisters. Liv preached and I was able to do my first African kids church! We spent time with the Limbe family and I was able to get to know Samuel and his precious family. We also were able to go atop a mountainousness area called Mabatini. After we hiked the mountain, in a skirt I might add, we were able to spend sometime with about 50 kids. Most of the kids could not afford school so a local lady was teaching them to read and write. We were able to sing some songs, hand out candy, and share the Gospel. I was able to share a cool little object lesson with them on God's love and well...The object lesson bombed, but I think I got the point across! Anyway, Mabatini was one of my favorite things we did on this trip. I'm not sure why, but I absolutely loved it!

So what did I take away from my first few days in Mwanza? In order to convey that I need to back up and tell you a "story". As Liv and I were preparing to go on our trip we spent a lot of time together preparing and packing. I spent many nights at Liv's house planning and listening to story after story from her and her parents. I loved it! Every time we were working on or talking about the trip and her mom was around she would sit with us and tell stories and what not. No matter what we were talking about her mom would always end the discussion with "I'm jealous of you girls." If she said it once she said it 100 times. I clearly remember the discussion we had the night we packed our bags. We talked about packing plenty of toilet paper because you never know when you might need it or where you might be going to the bathroom in Africa. She shared a story of having to use the bathroom on the side of road one time while traveling...We laughed, she shook her head and said "I'm so jealous." I remember getting tickled because it just didn't make sense to me. Why in the world is she jealous of that? Why is she jealous of us getting eaten up by bugs, taking cold showers, and not having a bathroom to use? I couldn't understand it. I just chalked it up to the fact that she was crazy! ;)

I did not understand it then, but after my first few days in Mwanza I understood it completely. Our last night in Mwanza before we left for the girls home was a "stressful" night. We both were tired and we were trying to get everything packed and ready to leave the next morning. I'm a night person and the kind who likes to talk at night at "debrief" the day if you will. All Liv had on her mind was going to sleep and well, that's what she did. I laid in the bed thinking about my first week in Africa. As I laid there tears rolled down my face as I reflected on all I had seen and experienced. The poverty, the orphans and all the other things that were "wrong", but also the joy, the love, the smiles, and the hope these people have simply because of Christ. The people there are absolutely incredible. I now understood why Paula was so jealous. We were able to spend three weeks with some of the most incredible, passionate, loving, joyful, humble and giving people in the world. Everyone should be jealous.

Liv is leaving in just a few days to spend three weeks there. Now I'm the one saying "I'm jealous!" Jealous...Not bad jealous, but good jealous. (If there is such a thing!) As I think about all the incredible things she's going to get to do, the time she's going to get to spend with some awesome people, and the fact the that she gets to eat some of Pendo's cooking :) I think about how God is a jealous God. He is jealous for me...and you. A small part of me (A VERY small part) understands how He feels. Just as I long to be the one spending time in Africa, He longs to be the one spending time with me. So many times in life I give God my leftover time. Time here and there when I'm not busy with something else and there's nothing good on tv. He's not worthy of my extra time here and there, He's worthy of all my time...My whole life.

Wow...He is jealous for me?!? Hmmm...I get it. Do you?

He is jealous for me,

Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,

Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.

When all of a sudden,

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,

And I realize just how beautiful You are,

And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,

Oh how He loves us,

How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,

Whoa! how He loves us,

Whoa! how He loves us,

Whoa! how He loves...

A Captured Heart

Upon our arrival in Africa I did not feel like I was in Africa. We landed late in the evening so my first "look" at Africa was in the dark. As we were driving through Nairobi I stared out of the window of our van like a small child soaking up all of the sights. I was finally in Africa. The dream that started six months earlier had finally come true. Never in a million years did I think our dream would ever have come true. As I stared out of the window my mind was completely blown how God had worked in the lives of two girls and had them in Africa for Christmas. Little did I know how much He would continue to blow my mind.

After our day of rest I was ready to hit the ground running and do some ministry. We loaded in the van and headed towards Ruiru so we could go to the FOCUS Orphanage where Liv had been several times before. I was excited to see Africa and get my hands dirty doing His work. After a few orders of business we headed to the orphanage. I instantly fell in love when our van entered the gate. As we pulled in what felt like 1,000 small African children (Ok it was really like 50ish) running towards us screaming "Mzungu, Mzungu!" Which means "white person, white person!." They rushed our van and as we got out they all wanted to shake our hand and say "How are you? What is your name?" Over and over again. It was awesome. For the next few hours we played and we played hard. We played games, blew bubbles, took pictures, threw frisbees, introduced them to bouncy balls :), we did it all. I even played a game of soccer with some of the boys. And by "playing soccer" I mean that I tried to dodge a little boy so I wouldn't run over him and ended up hitting the ground...Hard. Like really hard...Like dust cloud hard. Imagine pigpen from Charlie Brown dust cloud! Anyway, after playing for a few hours we were able to share the Gospel and give each child a salvation bracelet. It was incredible.

As we were wrapping up our day the kids were playing this game and singing for Liv and I. I had Liv's camera out trying to get some good pictures, but this small child was standing on something getting all up in my way. Ahhh! It was probably a good thing he couldn't understand me. Just being honest. I was a little irritated to say the least. I was frustrated, then I looked down to see what he was standing on and saw this.

Instantly my heart was captured.

~~~TIMEOUT~~~

I need to call a timeout here and explain something. I have this "thing" if you will. This thing all started with this child on the left.

This is my small child. I love this kid and her brother more than any other kids in the world. I have seen her grow up since age 2 and one might say we just clicked. I give nicknames to everyone and the name she ended up with was small child. Even though she's not "small" anymore, she will forever be my small child. My American small child. In 2009 I ventured to Uruguay with her parents on a mission trip and was captured by this child on the right. After spending a few days with her and absolutely being captured by her Niki, my American small

child's mom, decided she was my Uruguayan small child. I'm ok with having more than one small child so I decided I'd have a small child to love on in every country I visit!

~~~TIME IN~~~

My heart was captured. I instantly fell in love with this child. My African small child. I decided to put the camera down, along with my frustrations, and simply love on and play with this child...So I did.

Not a day goes by that this small child is not on my mind. This weekend I have had the best time with my "original/american" small child. I've loved every minute of it. The laughs, the goofy faces, the corny jokes, the piggy back rides...Every moment. Still to this day she and her brother both capture my heart. As we laid curled up on the couch yesterday watching TV all I could think about was my African small child. It was a year ago yesterday that I met him. Six months ago I was able to see him again and he remembered me. As I thought about how these kids have captured my heart, I thought about other things that capture my heart. I thought about the things that capture the heart of God.

My prayer is that God captures my heart just as these kids do. I pray that I put more into mine and His relationship than I do with these kids. I pray that I long to spend time with Him as much as I long to spend time with my small children. I pray that I will go out of my way to do things for Him like I do for these kids. I pray that my heart would be captured for captures His heart. That it would also break for what breaks His.

What is it that captures your heart? Is He capturing your heart?

A Big Hurdle, But a Even Bigger God.

Wow...It's been a while. I would like to finish up my story about getting to Africa so I can tell you about Africa and what God did while we were there... So in a nut shell...

The dream was in our reach, but yet there was still a BIG hurdle... Our parents!
The night we dreamed up this crazy dream Liv sent an email to a man by the name of Chris Gates. Chris is the founder of JBFC which is a girls home outside of Mwanza, Tanzania. She emailed Chris and asked him about the possibility of us coming to spend Christmas there. The team Liv was just with in Africa had visited the girls home one afternoon, but Liv was unable to go because she was sick. So pretty basically we sent an email to a guy... that we didn't really know... half-way around the world... and asked if we could spend Christmas at his house! Wow... That sound's a whole lot more crazier now, then it did at that point in time! :)

Both Liv and I went to bed praying that night that God would move and open doors if it was His will for us to go to Africa. Our prayer was that Chris would respond positively to our inquiry if it was something we needed to pursue. In the mean time we were trying to find the best way to discuss this with our parents... The next morning Liv and I were both at the church doing... only God knows what! We were in her mom's office so she decided to test the waters and mention our thoughts. She was all about us going to Africa until she heard the word "Christmas." I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure her response was "absolutely not! Christmas is family time." We moved to the next office where my mom was. We gave our same little spill and just like Liv's mom, my mom was all about it until Christmas was mentioned. The excitement drained instantly from my body and I must be honest, I pretty much lost all hope. For the next 30 minutes or so Liv and I stared at each other trying to figure things out. Why did we feel so strong about this trip, but yet we felt like we hit a HUGE brick wall. I walked out of the office to do something and I came back to Liv reading an email on her phone with a big smile on her face. When she was done reading it she hopped up, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the next room. What in the world is going on?!? Little did I know that God was moving...

Once she collected herself she began to read me the email. As she read I went into a state of unbelief. I was shocked. I was so shocked that still to this day I really can't remember exactly what the email said, but I knew it was God's assurance that we were on the right track. The email was a reply to our inquisition to Chris about spending Christmas at the girls home. He pretty much told us we would be an answer to prayers if we would be there at Christmas. We were really excited, but we still weren't sure if this would help us any with our parents. We returned to the office and proceeded to read the email to both of our moms. Their attitudes went from absolutely not to maybe you girls are on to something.

Over the next few weeks our parents heard our desire to spend Christmas being the hands and feet of Christ and they realized that God was all over this. We began to make plans and dream about the thing we could do.

Needless to say the next few months were crazy. We realized that we each had to raise over $4,000...during the Christmas season...when the economy was at it's worst. All I have to say is that what looks impossible to man, is possible with God. God showed Himself over and over and over again.

I vividly remember knelling at the alter with Liv one Sunday morning because we absolutely had to buy our plane tickets within the next 24 hours and we didn't have the money. To my best knowledge neither one of us spoke a word to anyone about it, but God provided...That night we bought our plan tickets.
One week before we left I had to get my shots and buy my malaria prevention medicine. It ended up being twice as much money than we had budgeted and I didn't know how I was going to replace the extra money I had to use. The next day I was eating lunch at a restaurant and went to get my wallet out to pay and found a wad of cash in the bottom of my purse and still to this day I have no clue where it came from. Later that afternoon I received a Christmas card in the mail from an old friend in a different state and there was a check in there. I added the cash amount and the check amount together...It replaced the extra money I had to use on medicine to the penny. It seemed like everyday the devil would throw another expense at us, but everyday God threw back. Liv and I could tell story after story of how God not only provided, but how He gave us an abundance in which we could minister with. He indeed showed Himself as Jehovah Jireh.

A year ago today we touched down in Nairobi, Kenya for three weeks that changed us forever. Over the next three weeks I hope to reflect upon those memories and share how God is still using them to teach me even today.

Pressing On.

A Sharpie Marker, a Boring Meeting, a Passionate Friend, and a CRAZY Dream!

Sunday, June 7, 2009 forever changed my life thanks to these things... Crazy? Definitely!

The previous day, June 6, my best friend, Liv, returned from a 2 week mission trip to Africa with a group from church. I had driven home late Friday night to surprise her at the airport on Saturday. After her plane arrived I spent the next 24 hours listening to all her stories from the trip and pretty much hung on every word. I really wanted to be with them on the trip, but missing Bible School in a children's ministry world just doesn't fly! Anyway, needless to say I was amazed by all her stories of how God moved not only through, but also in her while they were ministering in Africa. She had a real passion for Africa and the people there and that passion spilled over onto me. I felt the urge to get on a plane that very minute and experience it for myself.

Sunday afternoon Liv and I were in a BYBC meeting with a small group of people so she was sharing with them what God had done in Africa. She mentioned how she could not wait to go back and how it would be great to spend Christmas there at a girls home in which they had visited. She wished she could do it this Christmas, but it was already June and it would be crazy to even think about... All I have to say is that crazy is the only way I think! The moment she mentioned it, I was all about it. In my world it would be an experience of a lifetime and this Christmas would be the perfect time because we had nothing pressing that would hold us back.

Well, I kept my thoughts to myself and we proceeded into another meeting that was...well...boring! I had to find something to keep me from going crazy, so I diverted my thoughts back to Christmas in Africa. I thought and thought about it and weighed all the options in my head. The only conclusion I could come up with was "Why not?!?" I had a sharpie marker in my hand doodling on a piece of paper. Liv's hand was laying next to the piece of paper, so I leaned over and wrote "DREAM" on her hand. I had decided in my brain that if she asked me why I did that I would pitch the idea of going, but if she didn't I wouldn't mention it. The meeting went on a little while longer, we went out to dinner with some friends, and then we were hanging out at her house and it never came up... I was a little on edge, but I was slowly letting my thoughts of Christmas in Africa go...

It was getting late and we both were getting tired, but we were still talking and catching up on each others life. As we were talking she again saw "DREAM" and proceeded to ask me why in the world I wrote it on her hand. SCORE!!! So I pitched my idea, and she had this look like was I was CRAZY. After a moment of silence, she asked me if I was serious, because she would be all about it!

A few emails were sent and plane tickets were looked at... Now all we had to do was convince our parents... to let us go... half-way around the world... for 3 weeks... by ourselves... at Christmas time!

To be continued...