Africa is real

Everybody has been asking me 'how do you feel?'...well yesterday it finally started to feel like Africa is finally here, I am finally going on this trip! As I wrote to my co-workers words of thanks and gratitude for their support and sort of said good-bye, with tears in my eyes I could acknowledge that what I have been built for, serving the underserved, was going to come to fruition in a huge, life-transforming way! Tonight I'll say good-bye to some of my closest college friends, and again it will hit me...this is happening for real. I'll only be gone for a few months, I can't even imagine what a whole year would feel like, what a whole lifetime would feel like.
If you know me at all you know I am not timid, far from it; I'm a bulldozer, not in the sense that I'll run you over, but I will get at the base of the problem and get to work. My previous prayer requests have been for spiritual preparedness, and they have been answered in astounding ways, I need continued prayers for patience, gentleness, self-control and not letting myself get so wrapped up in the problems and how to fix it, but in embracing the Ugandan way of life and hoping that I can find some peace and acceptance in my own bullldozer world.
I've got one week of realizing it is real before I step on the flight...I am going to Africa.

countdown is on

The countdown is officially on, I am leaving the land of affluence for a land of poverty in ONE MONTH! This evening I assessed my list of things to do before I'm gone and its looking like that list is dwindling. I helped a friend of mine last week pack her belongings up as she headed into the mission field for two years in China, talk about faith!! No, really talking about faith, my devotional a few days ago read like this: Think much of my servants of old. How Abraham believed the promise that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. How Moses led the children of Israel through the desert, sure that, at last, they would gain the Promised Land. Down through the ages there have always been those who obeyed, not seeing but believing, and their faith was rewarded. So shall it be even with you. -God Calling. My faithfulness in accepting this mission, has surely left me feeling rewarded, I can't imagine what its going to feel like as I walk amidst the land of poverty, amongst people that still know that they are blessed amidst the disease and poor conditions.
I received a newsletter from Rafiki Africa Ministries last night, and with tears in my eyes (I know, ms. non-crier is crying again) I read about Cocus, a 6 year old at the orphanage who  had been abandoned because his father died of AIDS and his mom said she didn't love him anymore because of his disease and how it was crippling him. Its one of twelve stories I'll hear more about as I learn about the orphans and their circumstances. Please pray for Cocus, that he knows that Jesus loves him despite the absess in his back, and that I love him, without even having met him.