The last days

Today I was supposed to be arriving in Maputo...safe and sound and getting all settled in. Instead I'm in my kitchen at my parents house in South Carolina. God had other plans and for which I am thankful. It did cost me a lot (of money) but I gained a week of downtime and extra moments with the fam. But, now I'm ready. My visa and passport will be arriving in the AM and my flight is scheduled to leave Atlanta on Saturday afternoon. By lunch on Monday I will be at Zimpeto eating rice. :) I can't wait! I will probably never know the reasons my plans were changed, but with all the prayers and encouragement I received this last week, the time flew by as I waited patiently to hear on the new plans. Now it's down to the final days and the final few things I have to do. Most importantly is a grocery list of items I need to take with me and the actual packing of my things into airline acceptable baggage. A challenge I'll accept.

Hopefully the next time I'll be blogging I'll be sitting in Maputo in my new home listening to all 350 kids playing outside my window. I've had lots of questions and conversations over the last month regarding how I decided I was going to do this whole thing, how I found Iris Ministries, why Mozambique and africa, ect. They are all really cool stories that I've shared with some of my closest friends that were walking with me during the times I was going through them. Others of you only know bits and pieces. I hope to share them here in the next few weeks as I am getting settled in. Tonight I'll respond to the most frequently made statement: "I can't believe you are doing this, just picking up and leaving everything here and moving to Africa for such a long time comittment. You must be so brave."

What precisely am I leaving behind? Ok, I know friends and families. And there are things I'm going to miss, moments, and days, and events, but besides that there's nothing really. I have a job that doesn't really have a ladder to climb...not that that kind of thing has ever meant anything to me. I just mean I'm a nurse. I love working in the hospital. I love what I do. I don't wanna go back to school. I don't want to be a manager. I'm not working towards anything but vacations and retirement. I don't have a house. I don't have a family. I don't even have a pet. It's just me and well....stuff. Stuff that now resides in a nice plush storage bin outside Nashville. It's not that long. It's just ONE year (maybe more) of my life. I'm not MISSING out on anything. This time next year I'll just be a year older...whether that be here or in Africa. Time works the same way. If anything, I'd be missing out by NOT going to Mozambique.

I don't feel brave. Not at all. But I'm not scared and I haven't been worried or freaked out during this whole process (ok, after my initial 6 month hissy fit and the occasional moments, days, or rare weeks). I've never been so sure of anything. It's nothing I had ever considered doing in life. It was not a goal or on the neat lifeplan I had mapped out. So when God revealed these plans they came as a little bit of a shock to me. But His plans were so clear and unmistakeable that they couldn't be denied. Ever since I said YES, there has been nothing but confirmation after confirmation and an amazing sense of peace. I have left everything completely in His hands throughout this entire 18 month process and He has delivered each time. I have been given this peace through Him and it is in that I rest. So if you felt so sure that this is what you were supposed to do, then you would have the same feeling. I know God will finish what He started in motion. And I'm not worrying about the details. I'm just on for the ride.

And now you are too...since you're reading this. Watch for more. Next post will probably after I arrive and then I hope to update you at least weekly. No promises though! Thanks again to all of you for everything. I could not do it without you. Know that you are truly apart of this all.

PRAYER REQUEST:

• Safe flight and travels
• quickly settling in to the changes of everything involved of moving to a new place much less one on another continent in a 3rd world country
• language acquisition and communication through charades in the meantime
• good community after I arrive with the other missionaries on base (especially a few close girls to walk with)
• adjustment to my new role/job as nurse in the babyhouse (i've been working with babies under 6 months for the last 5 years....the babyhouse is 40 birth to 5 year olds)

Just 2 weeks left

"Faith never knows where it is being led, But it knows and loves the One who is leading." -Oswald Chambers

Tomorrow is the 2 week marker for me leaving on this incredible journey I have spent 2 years planning. My emotions are all over the place and my brain even more scattered as I feel torn in many directions at the moment. Most will be excited to know that my laundry list of things to do has been significantly scaled back, but many things still remain. My driver's license was with me all the time (despite 4 people searching on more than 2 different occasions, my car being vacuumed and detailed more than once) and I found it on my long drive back to Nashville a little too late to be helpful (if you didn't know it was missing....well, it caused me a lot of problems and grief while I was trying to figure out how to send off my passport to obtain my mozambican visa while still maintaining a form of identification for my usage of debit cards which all say "SEE ID" on them. thanks to the vendors that actually pay attention to that signature spot on the back.)

Prayer Requests/Updates:

• Fundraising has been completed! I have officially met my upfront and monthly goals as of last week. and all without begging :) I have truly trusted Him in this matter and have been assured since the start that everything would work out in His timing. He has proved faithful yet again. Of course, any donations and support you still feel led to send my way is much appreciated and accepted as I always believe the Lord is providing even when I don't know my own needs!


• I am waiting on my Mozambican visa/passport to arrive safely in my mailbox BEFORE may 26th. It should be sometime next week. I am attempting to not be anxious about this matter.


• my car has still not sold. i have a backup plan...but being just that..it's not as good as the first one. or at least it appears that way at the moment.


• there's still that list of things to do before I leave and the time is dwindling...


• My health in these last 2 wks as I'm preparing to leave


• good times of fellowship with friends and family as I'm saying goodbyes and meeting with the people who have supported me through all of this!

I'm going to end with a few quotes from a book I just finished reading...The Shack by William P. Young (thanks for the reccomendation Sarah):

"Jeez, Mack, if you think God is going to be up there, why all the supplies?"

"Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image."

"Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly...and if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place."

"...to absolutely trust my life within him,...to believe in my love and my goodness without regard for appearance or consequence."

"You have to take the time to prepare the soil if you want it to embrace the seed...Just keep giving me the little bit you have, and together we'll watch it grow."

"Mack, if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again."

"In the same way let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." -Matthew 5:16