IT'S OFFICIAL! IT'S OFFICIAL! IT'S OFFICIAL!

Well it's official! 

As of yesterday(2.28.12), I am leaving on May 15 from LAX at 9:45 in the morning and flying 15 hours and 55 minutes to Dubai than having a 2 hour and 25 minute layover and than flying to Nairobi! I can't wait to step off that plane at Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta Int'l Airport at 7:05pm. It has become all too real since purchasing my ticket. I am beyond blessed to have this amazing opportunity. I am excited to go and be a servant no matter the need. I cannot wait meet the kids that I will teach in my class! I cannot wait to see Faith! I cannot wait to smell the unique yet familiar smell of Masii. It's funny how God reminds us of who He has called us to be in the small stuff in our lives. This morning I was brushing my teeth and completely taking for granted that I could (and automatically did) use the water straight from the sink, and suddenly realized that in about 77 days I won't be able to do that (well not that I CAN'T but I definitely shouldn't). This week has been different than other weeks since beginning my journey to my adventure, this week it has really hit me that I am going alone, I am stepping on that plane alone and stepping off in another country just as alone as I was when I got on, that makes me feel just a little nervous. I have known many people to go and do this short of thing by themselves but for me, this will be very new and a little scary. Living in the calling that God has for my life even though I am a little scared is better than living outside of the calling and not having the ability (because of stubbornness) to cry out to God. And the best part of this entire trip, is that I AM NOT GOING ALONE, I am going with God and He is taking me to exactly to where I need to go precisely when I need to be there! I know that in these next 76 days there will be days that I feel completely stoked and some days where fear may take over, in the end I know that God is there. He is there because He is the one sending me! It's funny how when we live in the will of God, He places everything perfectly, when we listen to His call in our lives, life doesn't seem to be so messed up. I know that there will be hard stuff, but the hard stuff doesn't seem so hard when I know I can rest in the fact that GOD IS 100% IN CONTROL EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, there is nothing He cannot do and I know that everything is going to work out. This whole idea may seem crazy but it's true! He has already paved a way for me! I cannot wait for these next 76 days to drag on as I prepare to have my world turned upside down for the good of the Kingdom! 

GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME

AND 

ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD 

(Whether or not He is giving you what you want or sending you somewhere to do His will, HE IS STILL GOOD!)


"After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves." John 10:1-3 


-E

Kisses from Katie

(Amazima Ministries is not the organization I will be going to Africa with but her book has helped me transition into a state of loving the longing I have for Kenya rather than resenting it)

It's amazing to see God work through other people in their love for something. I recently read a book called Kisses From Katie it is by Katie Davis. She is a 23 year old from Brentwood, Tennessee . She went to Uganda when she was 18 and immediately fell in love. Katie started Amazima Ministries " God laid it on Katie's heart to start a child sponsorship program, matching orphaned and vulnerable children who are unable to afford schooling with sponsors anywhere in the world. Sponsors pay $300 per year to send one child to school, providing school supplies, 3 hot meals each day, spiritual discipleship, and medical care. Originally planning to have 40 children in the program, Katie had signed up 150 by January 2008. Today the program sponsors over 400 children." (taken from http://www.amazima.org/katiesstory.html) Through her book Katie talks about her life in Uganda and how she slowly begins to adopt some girls, and soon legally becomes a mother to 14 little girls. This is INSANE! There is a video where she talks about people's response to her life and how some people talk about how wonderful her life is because she has found what God wants her to do, her response is that "well I didn't find it, it was in the bible and so as someone who calls them self a Christian its very apparent that you are to love the Lord your  God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, and myself doesn't want to be starving and so I don't want other people in the world to be starving." Katie has learned to live in the presence of the Lord no matter where He sends her.

Falling in love with a country seems like a weird concept for most but for people who have the calling for it, it is truly magical. I think for me my biggest fear of going and doing what God has called me to do is, the feeling of coming back, the feeling of leaving home, leaving the place where I know that Jesus is calling me to is not the place that I spend the other 9 months of 2012. This summer I will spend 3 months about 9,542 miles apart from the people who love me the most, from the place where I can get in a car and do whatever I want, from the place where I can take a shower whenever I want and however long I want. Yet the other 9 months I will spend away the place where I call home, the place that I belong.

Thank you Jesus for love. Thank you Jesus for grace. Thank you for the passion for your children you have given me. Thank you for loving me and giving me all I have. Thank you for giving me the most amazing opportunity to minister to your people in Kenya.

"I have learned that I will not change the world. Jesus will do that. I can, however, change the world for one person. So I keep stopping and loving one person at a time. Because this is my call as a Christian." Katie Davis

-E

God is good all the time and all the time God is good!

 Well the time has come! My dad and I (mostly my very talented and creative dad) finished my brochures! I received them last Thursday (2-16-2012), my mom and Joanne Clifford brought them down to San Diego for me and we had lunch and spent some time together! It was a great time! This past Sunday, I stuffed and addressed 50 (out of 500) and prayer over them, then on Monday (2-20-12) I sent them out! I know that these letters do not go out void but that God has placed each one in the hands of the person of the person who receives it! 

So many things in my life have been a roller coaster of a journey but every single one brought me closer to the Lord, every single one brought me to a place of recognizing Christ's never ending grace in my life. There have been times where it was easy to trust that the Lord was in control, and in other times, it wasn't so easy.  I have known since I went to Africa in 2009, that THIS was what God wanted for my life, I knew that if this is what He wanted me to do it would 100% happen. Then came this past time I went in 2011, for me, it was completely different than the last time I went. I still stepped of the plane and expected to radically change the entire country of Africa in my 3 short weeks there and yet stepped off the plane in LA a few weeks later completely and utterly changed once again by this country taken over by poverty yet always oozing inexplicable joy.I know that living in Africa, teaching school, loving on children, and a passion for people to know Jesus are things that God has placed in my life so that I may live them out in HIS glory. I don't think that God would put passions in us, just to tease us with them. OUR GOD IS GOOD AND OUR GOD IS BIG! He can do anything. He has already provided so much, even presenting this amazing opportunity to spend 15 weeks doing the things I love most! I know that everything needed for this adventure will work out perfectly for His glory and I am blessed to be a tool used in the hand of the mighty craftsman, our Heavenly Father!

"HERE I AM LORD, SEND ME!"


-E