Living Sent, Ethiopia: We're Back!

 We've been back on American soil for 24+ hours, but my head is still in Ethiopia time and I'm half-asleep right now. It was a 'welcome home', but also in a way, it's just a 'welcome back'. They say home is where the heart is, and my heart is just as much over there as it is here. I know that I'll be back in Awassa, in the Meserete Kristos Church, among those precious Compassion children. It may not be next year, but I'll be back. Those children captured my heart, and I'm hoping writing it all out will help me process this past week. I'm going to try to post once a day this week for each journal entry I wrote. So, here goes the first {short} one!

Living Sent: Ethiopia

 Oh my. It. is. here. In just a few hours I'll be on a plane heading to a country that already has my heart. And though I really should be sleeping, I'm writing. 'Cause that's how it always works... I'm going to try to blog as much as I can throughout the week, but whatever internet connection we might have will be very spotty to say the least, so I may just have to post them all when we get back. But I figured I might as well start now, because my heart is so full I don't think that I'm going to sleep much at all tonight. And hey, it's 9:00am in Ethiopia right now, so I'll be up this time tomorrow anyways. Haha.

I want to live my life sent out for Him, in my community and across the world. Ethiopia is just a step in the journey on which God has me. I want to demonstrate compassion to the people of Ethiopia, to break with, to walk with them. I pray I continue to chase His heart for the world as I follow Him to a beautiful country with precious people whom I am so ready to see face-to-face. I'm humbled and thankful to be His hands and feet, showing His love to a thousand generations.

A Promise Being Fulfilled from a Dream Unveiled

 Several posts have been started in the past few weeks that I have yet to finish. I'll get to them, I promise. But for now the blog break ends to share with you...

 Nine days. We're into the single-digit territory now. We're heading full-force into a time that is full of packing and planning and praying and shopping, a time of impatience and of trust, and of praying some more. Nine mere days until we are headed to a country that already has my heart.

 The past couple weeks especially have been a time of reflection and of hope for the future. There have been moments of fear, when the enormity of everything I cannot control overwhelms me. But Christ always, always steps in and replaces the fear with more of Him. I look back and see how perfectly He has orchestrated everything to bring me right exactly where I need to be.

 Back in December, I was absolutely positive God's plan included a week-long June mission trip to Costa Rica, a trip that would have me gone the same week my dad would be leading a trip to the opposite side of the earth- Ethiopia.

 But sometimes God's plan is quite different from our own.