T-minus 4 days!

Hi there! I've spent the week tying up lose ends for the trip and I think the ducks are all lined up nicely.

On Thursday, I realized how unprepared I am for this trip. Yes, I have the list of items I'm taking with me. Yes, I have my passport and necessary documentation. Yes, I have every material thing I need to go down there. I've already started packing! But I realized that I'm so unprepared emotionally. I've been so excited about actually going that I haven't stopped to wrap my head around the stories of these kids.

Don't get me wrong...I'm SO incredibly thankful to have all that's listed above. What a blessing!

I got an email from one of my missionary friends and she explained to us a delicate situation they have there. Imagine having to care for a TEN YEAR OLD GIRL who is pregnant and due in one short month? I don't know her story, and I'm honestly frightened to know it.

My dad always said that I'm too much of a softy for this stuff and that he's afraid of my heart being broken. I'm bracing myself because I think I'm well on my way.

While I was in college, I received an anonymous note with this scripture from Luke 12:48 on it: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more." I think about this note often and I this is one of the reasons why I want to go. I think that God's given me so MUCH and feel incredibly unworthy. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I read Richard Stearn's The Hole in Our Gospel and even more this week when I got the email from my friend in Guate. What will I do with this time? How will I make a difference? What will I do with what I learned in that time? How will I share it with others?

Please pray for Ashley S. and I while we're down there.