In 2009 when I started it, things were a lot different in our lives!!! It's been used to keep my far away family updated on the fun details of our growing lives...been used to document all the plants that I have grown and probably killed by now...used for short stints of bible study sessions...used to show some of our best memories ever...used to allow me to exercise the story telling aspect of the personality God gave me. I have many fond memories here...
BUT...as the kids grew long and tall, the minutes grew shorter and shorter...and things pressed in on our time. The blog was the first to go. Since my last post in 2017, we have graduated our last son...we have our little sweet girl left at home. We have two daughters-in-love and 3 precious grand babies with one more on the way!!
I lived my life to be a wife and mom. It's what I dreamed of as a little girl. I had my house decorated from the JC Penney catalog (the one that my short grandma stacked 2 high on her car seat so she could see out the window)..I had their names picked out and my life planned!! SO, as the kids grew and left, grew and left, grew and left...I began that inner tension that many moms feel.....God, WHAT am I gonna do when these blessings you entrusted to me leave. And every once in a while, He would show me a glimpse.
The first glimpse I had was when our babies were quite small...I knew that I wanted to take some of my medical skills, and go on a mission trip to love others in a different way than they were used to. Some day. Some day. As I grew in maturity, and in faith...I worried that SOME DAY, would never get here. And in the meantime, I was blessed to take our local youth group kids on some week long mission trips to inner city streets and Indian reservations...I loved those moments. I loved how God spoke to each of them..and to me. I loved seeing how He works things together, and uses the smallest details to do it. I loved talking and touching and hugging and loving the forgotten (even when they were forgotten as consequences of their actions.) I've always had a tender spot for the underdog. And for those whom God made in HIS own image---just like me--who are victims of circumstances beyond their control.
About 6 months ago, the Lord brought my dream of a medical mission trip back to my heart...whispering, "Soon!" We had just moved Devin to college...Cami is going to be in high school next year. Maybe, I thought. Maybe I could start looking at mission opportunities. Things would come through my mail box...I held on to a Samaritan's purse letter for months..vowing that I would check into that opportunity to work with them. I scoped the internet for an hour once last fall, just to see what else is out there. It was overwhelming. There was a lot. I wasn't ready. Not enough time. Not enough courage. I dropped it and put that desire back into its little box in my heart. Not now....
This past fall, I found myself really wishy-washy about taking our high school youth group on a spring break mission trip. Those trips have resulted in some really amazing Kingdom work over the years, but it is also a big investment of time, energy, and money. The day after Christmas, there was a tragic car accident that claimed the life of young woman who encountered God in a really amazing way on one of those trips to inner city Dallas, Texas. I felt the Lord nudging me to move forward with one.
The kids were excited! And honestly, so was I! We had a very short turn around time to get the arrangements made and the money sent. I sent the deposit in, but the week that the final payment was made, a series of events occurred that led to a necessitated cancellation of the trip. I was devastated.
Fast forward through mid January into late February, February 23 to be exact, I slumped into the couch that Wednesday night after youth group to rest and read the mail. There was a letter from the organization that we use for our Urban Plunge mission trips. It was a receipt for our mission trip down payment. The trip that had already been cancelled! But before I figured that out, the top of the letter was talking about what their organization had been doing in early 2022. There were 2 sentences about a medical mission trip in March. I realized at this point, that the receipt had been lost in the mail for nearly 4 weeks.
Now, I had never pursued getting a passport, because it just wasn't a realistic thing to do. Jeremy encouraged me to at least call about the possibility of still being able to go with this team, provided I could get a passport. But because of COVID, it looked like passports were out 7-11 weeks, or 3-5 if you paid to expediate it. I had 3 1/2 weeks.
After a phone call with CFCI to let me know that I could definitely go with the team, and a phone call with the doctor who leads the team who assured me that I would be an asset to them, he and I began looking at third party companies that could attain a passport in time for me to go.
I called a few places on Monday--which was February 28. The prices that they wanted to get a passport were more than I was willing to pay; which left the final option of buying airplane tickets in faith, and waiting until March 7 to call the center in Dallas (the nearest place to us-7 hours away) and pray for an appointment that had to fall within FIVE days of the trip. Even though I knew that this was becoming crazier by the second, I had an inner peace that God had allowed the misplaced letter so that He could show up and show off the way HIS timing works. After one more call to Dr Miller, he found out that because of COVID and the opening of travel, lots of people needed to get their passports updated for spring break travel. He offered one more place to call, and told me that he and his wife would pay the cost of the third party people to get my passport in 3-5 days.
It was the encouragement that I needed to act in faith. When I got home that night, I got on the computer. I ordered roundtrip tickets to El Salvador and went through the paper process for the Passport Agency. The next morning, I was able to go to our courthouse, and my friend took us through all the steps of getting the paperwork specially sealed so I could overnight it to Houston Texas. That was March 1. It was a huge act of faith on all of our parts!
On Tuesday March 8th when I got back from lunch, I had an email that reported that the passport had been issued....and that it was being shipped. March 9 that passport reached me and I knew that it was GAME ON!!
On Thursday, I ordered some things from Amazon after talking with Dr Miller about bringing some things as a love offering. My friend donated a huge suitcase to load up and leave in El Salvador. The Lord laid glasses on my heart, but I knew that I would need something really light to fill up the suitcase and still weigh less than 50 pounds. That night I put out an ISO on FB for eyeglasses and stuffed animals!
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