The Big Day

Final NYC visit!

Enjoying crepes with Daniel

Slumber Party w/ the Gals!

Dream Phone: who has the crush?!

       I'm stir crazy as I sit to write my final blog post from the States.  Tomorrow morning I will be heading to my new home in Mundri Town, South Sudan!  The past year has truly been one of eager anticipation and buildup to this moment-- almost like that of a bride preparing for her wedding day-- a lifetime of expectations and patiently watching on the sidelines as other's get to experience it.  As a kid, I was never one who fantasized about what her wedding dress would look like or where she would say her vows.  My daydreaming consisted more of me flipping through the pages of National Geographic magazines, imagining what my life would be like if I lived in the Amazon or in Machu Picchu or in a village at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  I would stare at the pictures of the people's simple houses, their colorful meals, their foreign but lovely faces, and would pray to God that He would send me to these places that felt more like home than the suburbs of Richmond.  I was always afraid that I would miss God's call-- that it was through some secret sonar waves that only the super-pious had the ability to detect.  If I wasn't doing exactly what I needed to do at exactly the right moment, the chance to go would pass right by and I would be stuck in my neighborhood forever.

GMB Akash

Steve McCurry

Cedric Gerbehaye

Albert Moldvay

Steve McCurry

    The Lord has been patient to teach me of His mighty hand and has been gracious to bring me to a place that I'm so passionate about; however, if I don't continually submit to the Lord's will, I will become disillusioned that my fantasy of missions is not the reality.  A woman in missionary training told us the advice she gave her daughter before her wedding.  She said,  "You are the same person walking down the aisle as you are walking back up with your husband.  Nothing magical changes when you say those vows.  The same sinful tendencies you have in the morning are the same ones you'll have that evening.  The same sinful nature that your husband has before the ceremony is the same one he'll have after."  The same idea applies to those going out into the mission field.  I will not be magically changed into some brave, strong, selfless martyr when I land on African soil.  I bring with me the same sinful nature that all of my teammates in Mundri already have.  I will be impatient, egocentric, self-righteous, and faithless.  My teammates will struggle with the same things.  The best we can do is turn to Jesus to direct our hearts and direct our hands.  It will not be how I dreamed it would be when I was seven years old, memorizing Spanish words from my little dictionary and thinking of how I'd say them to my new friends in Mexico as we hiked with our goats along the trails, eating tacos and wearing bright panchos.   But it will be how God has planned it to be, and He is good.

Paula Bronstein

Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this city, spend a year there, 

carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen

tomorrow.  What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then

vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this

or that.' As it is, you boast and brag.  All such boasting is evil.  Anyone then, who 

knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

-James 4:13-17