Big News and I Need Your Help!

I usually don't tell this news this early, but I do need all your help. I usually do wait a couple of weeks. Get everything settled, get a plan together, get the final word, and let myself revel in the news before I share it with everyone else. But like I said, I need your help. I will first start back a little ways and delay the news for a little bit...I know you are all hating this right now. ;)

About July or August, I started asking God when I would be going back to Ethiopia. I started really feeling a stirring in my heart that I would be going back sooner than I thought. (I made reference to this in an earlier blog post.) He told me June July of 2011. I filled in that gap with an or and decided it was June or July of 2011. So I just held onto that and kept on going. I knew the gaps would be filled in eventually.

As most, if not all, of you know I was in a car accident a year ago. I've had my many ups and downs this past year dealing with insurance and doctor issues. Not to mention disability issues. I have not had any income since September because of many issues with disability. I have appealed this and am still waiting. They have since received all the paperwork they have requested and are in process of reviewing my appeal. I should hear something by Christmas Eve. Having the appeal go in my favor would be an amazing Christmas present.

On my last two trips to Ethiopia, I have always applied (if you have never gone on a missions trip, applying to go on one will sound weird to you) and paid the deposit right away out of pocket. I have then fund raised the rest of the money. This is typical protocol for mission trips--you fund raise! (Unless you are blessed enough to pay for it completely out of pocket. Which is wonderful!)


I have felt more lately (the past 2 months or so) that God had been leading me towards going back to Ethiopia with the organization I went with in July 2008 on my first trip. This organization is Mocha Club. They are an amazing organization! If you don't know about them please educate yourself. They do amazing work not only in Ethiopia, but throughout Africa. They have done mission trips to Ethiopia every year since 2008 and I knew the dates for summer 2011 would be coming out any day now. I was anxiously awaiting the email. And that email came yesterday!

More on that in a minute. I know, I know. You just want me to get to the point! :) I got the first of 2 surgeries I needed because of the car accident a little more than a month ago. It has been a pretty rough recovery and I had some unforeseeable complications. The doctors have had their concerns and they didn't want me (and still don't want me) to leave the house. The past few days have been good. I'm feeling a lot better than I was even 3 days ago. I'm still not 100%, but I'm getting there. I see my 2 surgeons on the 28th and am hoping to get the all clear to leave the house. I will then get my 2nd surgery as soon as my surgeons say it's ok. It will sometime in February. Then it is just a 3 month recovery after that which will bring me to May.

I know I've stalled long enough so I guess I will just get to it. Remember when I said before God said I would be going back June July 2011. Then I filled in an or for it to be June or July 2011. Yeah. Don't fill in gaps that don't need to be filled in. He meant exactly what He said. June July 2011. I filled out my application yesterday to go back to Ethiopia with Mocha Club for June 21-July 17, 2011. I filled out my application online and like I said I would have paid for my deposit out of pocket right away. They actually wanted me to pay my deposit right away. This time around I have to fund rise every penny of my trip. So I have to start fund raising ASAP to get my deposit in. The total cost of this trip is $3, 750. The deposit that I have to get paid right away is $400.

All donations must be made through Mocha Club. Mocha Club is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization so ALL donations are tax deductible. You can donate online at www.mochaclub.org/africa-trips then click on the icon to "Make a Donation" on the One Month trip to Ethiopia (bottom of page). Then fill out the page will the necessary information. Make sure you put my name in  "Trip Member's Name". Make sure you spell my name right so it counts towards me.

You can also send in check made payable to Mocha Club. Send the check to: 963 Missons Attn: Mocha Club 12160 N. Abrams Rd. Suite 320 Dallas, TX 75243 Please include a note with your check with my name and One Month Ethiopia Trip on it.

As much as I need my trip fully funded, I need prayer most of all. I need prayer that physically I will feel strong enough to get to Ethiopia. God has already told me I will be fully recovered and feeling great before I get there. I need prayer to be fully funded and that my deposit can get paid. And most importantly pray for those in Ethiopia. My heart is in that country. February will mark 2 years since I have last been there and I miss being there so much. Ethiopia is a beautiful country full of beautiful people.

If you feel led to give, thank you very much. I appreciate it more than you know. I am completely humbled that God has chosen me to go back to Ethiopia again. And I am completely humbled that you would pray and/or give that I can go back to Ethiopia.

Enter to Win Some Handmade Ugandan Necklaces

Please take a few minutes and head on over to my friend Christie's blog Compass In My Heart to enter for a chance to win a handmade Ugandan necklace. Christie is about to leave to go back to Uganda to do the Lord's work and before she leaves she is giving away 3 beautiful necklaces. She please take a few minutes to check it out and enter for your chance to win. And while you are there read up on her blog posts to find out what she is all about and what she will be doing while she is in Uganda. And also while you are there consider sponsoring a child or two.

Thanks! :)

The Plans Are Tweaking

I love when God gives you a plan, but then He tweaks it along the way. The end result will resemble the first word He gave you, but it is better than you ever thought at the beginning. I will still be moving to Nashville, but it seems for something I didn't know He was leading me towards a few months ago. I found a graduate program at a university in Nashville that seems to be what He is sending me down there for. More info on that at a later time.

It also seems the June 30th date will be pushed back a bit as He is leading me towards going back to Ethiopia again. This I have felt for a while. This February will be 2 years since I left Ethiopia and I have been wondering and praying about when I will be going back. I have felt this almost nudge that it would be sooner than I had thought. He told me a while ago that once I am healthy (I have to get 2 surgeries) things will start happening quickly for me. I didn't realize how quickly. I know He wants to send me back to Ethiopia this summer! How awesome is that?! I don't know the exact dates I will be going back, but probably sometime in either June or July.

I am so excited for what He has in store for me. I have had a lot of people tell me over the years (since my first trip to Ethiopia) that what I am doing is wonderful and I am doing great things for these people. Honestly, it's not me. It's God. There is nothing in our human nature to want to do anything like this. It is God's spirit in us that make us want to do things like this. It would be so easy for me to sit and watch all these things happen and not do anything. It is only because of Him I do this. It is my obedience to Him that I do any of this.

I love the people of Ethiopia and I cannot wait to see their beautiful faces again. I cannot wait to just sit with the kids and just be with them and love on them. I cannot wait to be in the most beautiful country on the planet (I may be a bit biased, but hey aren't we all? lol). I cannot wait to be in the place I feel most myself in the world. I cannot wait to be in the place I feel most at home.

And these plans are continually being tweaked. I cannot wait to see what they will fully turn out to be. I just want to continue to be obedient to Him and be a part of everything He has planned for me. During this time of my surgeries and recovery, He is preparing me for what He has planned next for me. I know I will be hitting the ground running once this (the surgeries, recovery time) is all over. I know that may sound strange to some people or even look weird to some people that I will be doing one thing and then going down to Nashville for graduate school. But He has been preparing me for this all along. It is just on a whim I am deciding to do all of this. He has been preparing me, He is the one making the plans He is the once I am being obedient to. This has nothing to do with me. It's all about Him. I don't care if people think it's strange, or weird, or what they think. All that matters is I am being obedient to Him.

Things Are Changing

Things have changed lately. I was supposed to start grad school tomorrow. I was going to start a masters program to earn a Masters of Social Work with a concentration International Community Development. It goes so well with the continuing work I want to do in Ethiopia. Well, I was in a car accident on December 8, 2009 and I need to get major back surgery that I am still waiting for. Being on disability for almost 9 months has hit me very hard financially. I did not receive disability for 2 month and had to use my savings and borrow money to try and get through. That savings was to pay for grad school. With that money gone and things being super tight already, I just could not afford to go to school right now. I wouldn't be able to pay tuition let alone books. So I did a very hard thing and I completely withdrew from school. With that I lost my $350 deposit. I do not know when or if I will go back to grad school. At this point it's just on hold.

With finally handing this area over to God and not trying to do it my way, He has put something awesome on my heart. I had planned all along that I would go to grad school, graduate with my MSW in May of 2012 and then move to Nashville in June of 2012. I have felt for over a year now that God wants me to move to Nashville. I'm not sure why yet, but I will go where ever He wants me to go. Well, did you get the part where I said "I had planned". It was my plan to do things this way. With withdrawing from grad school and totally submitting the situation to God and turning it all over to Him, He is revealing more of His plan for me. I already know that He wants me to do work in Ethiopia and help the people over there, but that is just a small piece of it. And I know that if I am obedient to Him very much more will happen in my life and He will take me where He wants me to go.

John 14:23 says, Jesus replied, "If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him." If we obey His teaching, They will come and make Their home with us. His teaching, I believe, is anything He is showing or revealing to us because we are learning something every time He does that. If we obey everything He shows us or reals to us, He will make his home with us. The Contemporary English Version says it exactly how I'm getting at saying it "and We will come to them and live in them". If we obey the Lord, He will live in us. The living God will dwell in us!! (When we ask God to be our Savior the Holy Spirit comes into us. I'm fully aware of that, but my point here is that it will be much more than just that.) And that is how we are supposed to live. We are to obey Him and have Him dwell in us. In order to fully obey Him we HAVE to make Him Lord of our lives. We have to give Him control over everything! When we took Jesus as our Savior, we GAVE our life to Him. It is NO LONGER our life, but it is HIS LIFE. He is to make all the decisions and lead us to where He wants us to be.

This past weekend, God taught this to me. Through many different ways. He wants me to give Him full control over my life. I have struggled in this for a while. There have been things I still want to decide for myself and have control over. We CANNOT live like this. It just won't work. Jesus is LORD and we need to live like that is true. We can't say one thing and then do another. It's all or nothing. This relationship is all or nothing. You have to make the decision that EVERYTHING is now the Lord's and He is in control of it all.

So remember how I said it was MY plan to finish grad school and then move to Nashville in 2012. Well now that I have fully give it over to the Lord, He is revealing His plan for me. And remember we have to OBEY if we want Him to live in us. The Lord wants me to move to Nashville next year! I am handing the reins over to Him and OBEYING! When my lease is up at the end of June 2011, I will not be renewing and I will be packing up and moving to Nashville. I don't know what is going to happen when I get there, but I am OBEYING! This is His life and He wants me to be there so I am going.

He has also settled some nerves and has let me know that my surgery and everything will be taken care of before that and I will be healthy. This is big! I have never fully handed everything over to Him and obeyed. I am eagerly looking forward to moving and seeing what the Lord has planned for me. I of course will update this all along the way.

My January Trip To Ethiopia

I know I have been absolutely horrible at keep up with this thing. I think it is time to get back into the swing of things. I could sit here and rewrite every journal entry I made from my trip to Ethiopia in January, but I will spare you all. I think my second trip to Ethiopia can be summed up like this: I have a more clearer vision of what God wants me to do now. I know now God has called me to program development in Ethiopia. He wants me to create programs to serve the needs of Ethiopians. Projrams that will help them help themselves. Programs that will give them a leg up out of poverty so they can support themselves and their families. Programs that will destroy poverty and help people live lives that are financially sercure. Living lives where they don't need to worry about where their next meal is coming from because they make enough money that they can buy food to feed their family. I am so excited to see where God takes me on this journey.

I am not going to sit here for one minute and proclaim that I know exactly how to go about this and that I know what I am doing because I don't. I will be the first person to admit that. I know nothing about program development and building nonprofits. I just know nothing about that at all. What I do know is if God wants me to do it He will help me do it. He doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called! I just feel so blessed that He has picked me to do this work in Ethiopia. He picked me! Even if this is just a small portion of the work that needs to be done, it is still an important part. I am completely and utterly humbled that God would entrust me to such a feat. I have no choice but to fully rely on Him to help me accomplish what He has called me to do. And what else would I do besides that?? Even if there was another choice...this is the only thing I would do.

I would love for you to be a part of this journey with me. God is doing some pretty amazing things in my life right now and for that I am truly blessed. I could not imagine my life without my Savior...and I don't want to. He is amazing and wonderful and has done so much for me. I love Him!

I will post some pictures later from my trip in January. While I was there, I also had the opportunity to visit with my sponsored child, Abreham. This was a wonderful experience. Even though he was very shy, I really loved spending time with him. Now all I have to do is learn Amharic better so I will be able to talk to him next time I go visit him.

Pics from July 2008

Here is a video I made a few months ago from my pictures from my trip in July. I thought I would post this before I start posting about my most recent trip. Not all the pictures I took, some were taken by my fellow team mates on Team Ethiopiawesome.

Enjoy! :)

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I'm back on track!

Well, just about. Now that I have finally finished posting about my last trip to Ethiopia, I can finally post about the trip I just returned from. Once I do that I will be all cought up on this whole blog thing. Sorry it has taken me so long to get this far. Life was crazy the last 6 months since I got back from the last trip and then getting ready for this trip. It was hard to find to to get up to date. I'm sure I have all of your forgiveness on that. :)

I am hoping to get caught up fully in the next few days and begin posting regularly on what God is showing me and about my calling to Ethiopia. I hope you all stick around...I know it will be quite an adventure! :)