Here We Go

It’s almost 9 am our plane leaves this afternoon at 5.  The bags are 95% packed and I’m making zucchini muffins before it gets too hot.  The house is quiet giving me time to reflect.  I am going through the motions, but it hasn’t clicked yet that we are leaving for Africa.  Why?  Maybe because this isn’t my trip.  This is God’s trip.  I haven’t done all the planning deciding when I wanted to go or where I wanted to go.  I guess God has the itinerary and I am only along for the ride.  As the temperature soars I think of sitting by the lake, a nice breeze and a book.  Don’t get me wrong I am very grateful to be going on this trip with Amber, it amazes me.  It will be something that will be with us forever.  It will be our “tween” time.  There will be new friends to meet, new things to see and do.  Our lives will be forever changed.  It will be a journey of faith.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart; 

   don't try to figure out everything 

on your own.

Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; 

   he's the one who will keep you on track.

Proverbs 3:5

Reflections Before the Trip

Isaiah 6:8. (NIV)

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? ”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Sunday afternoon sitting in the hammock by the lake reflecting on my upcoming trip to Kenya with Amber.  It seems so crazy but the tickets are bought and we leave Thursday.  This morning Wayne and I sat in the sun by the shore and attended worship via my iPhone with the church in Norfolk VA, we will be traveling with.  Amber attended from home in MA.  The sermon spoke to my heart because he was saying we don't have to have all the answers when we are called.  I have felt called to go on this trip but I have no answers to the question why.  The uncertainty leaves me both excited and anxious.  Some days I'm not sure I even believe there is a God yet I believe God is calling me to go back to Kenya.  My dream had been to stay home this year spending sunny days lakeside.  I don't understand how I can question the existence of God yet travel half way around the world because I believe I'm called.  It's just crazy that's all.

I'm sitting in the same hammock where I wrote what I was going to say at my friend Karen's funeral several years ago.  Can I really feel her in the breeze?  It's like she is close.  She had a deep faith. Maybe she is trying to tell me to trust, to believe, that it is true.

I know in my life I have done things before that seemed crazy - taking a graduate class at Lesley University on a whim that led to my career as an Assistive technology specialist - resigning as chairperson of the deacons, which led me to Anajali ministries and Kenya - transferring after my freshman year of college from a school I loved to the University of New Hampshire, where I met the man of my dreams.

Life's crazy turns have been good to me.  Here we come Kenya.