I wake up and think It's less than three weeks.
To finish my classwork and to pack and to say goodbyes and to meet my team in LAX. And that doesn't feel long at all.
Some random thoughts:
This Thursday makes the fourth Thursday I've been in a different state. I'm back in Pennsylvania now; last week I was in Oklahoma, the week before I was in Texas, and the week before that I was in Indiana. I've had a lot of great adventures this summer.
While I haven't really done much yet in the way of planning/packing, I know a few things that are going... my family gave me an ipod touch for graduation. It runs a $5 app called qingwen, which is pretty much one of the most useful things in the world when in China (or Hong Kong, for that matter). You draw a character on the screen (it can be pretty sloppy, always an advantage if you are just driving past it on the bus) and it translates the character. How cool is that? Also, a friend of my mom's sent me a ton of postcards from all over the US. Talking about different places in the states just got a lot more fun. :)
I was really encouraged the other day when Adam, who goes to my church and whose family I'm currently horse-sitting for, said to me, "When we went on our missions trip, we each picked someone to pray for that week... and I picked you." It's amazing to me that people pray for me whether or not I know that they are doing it, that my friends are interceding with the Creator of the universe on my behalf. Stephen Altrogge just posted about how we can come before God with confidence over here, on the Blazing Center, and it blows my mind to know that I can come confidently to God with everything... that other people can do the same... and that Christ also stands before God, pleading my case.
This coming year is full of crazy adventures, I am certain. So please keep praying for God to be guiding all of it, and to be preparing me, my team, and our students. It means way more than you can know.
