Tomorrow, FIGHT's first mission team is flying into Santiago. We have been preparing for months and it is finally here. It is a little shocking to me that the time has come. In preparation yesterday, I opened my journal from 2010 to find my first mission trip's date. We have been discussing orientation points and I wanted to see what my emotions were like that week to remind myself what it felt like. I actually started it off with this...
5PM August 1st 2010
If you are reading this, then I know our trip ended in a way we hoped it wouldn't. As I write this, I am so excited to go. No fear at all!! <3 There are several reasons I wanted to write this. 1st be JEALOUS! I am in Heaven with Jesus!! (It is okay to smile and laugh at that) I know where I am going when I die~ I'm not afraid~
Then the entry just ended. So, I thought the plane might go down or I would die, but it didn't seem to phase me, so I wrote a blog entry to whomever found my journal first. I don't know why, but I am a little shocked I didn't write much else!
The next day I wrote about getting up at Luke's at 330AM to be at the church by 415AM, then spending time in Miami to write in my journal and ended it with, "WHY DO MEN HOG THE ARM RESTS!" I mean, really? Why do they always take the arm rest like I don't want any of it?? But, really, I was in good spirits about it all.
The next blog entry got very crazy about things I saw in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. "I actually hate it here. Not like I am dying to go home, but I do not want to see this anymore. This place is dismal." I remember writing that with the heaviest of hearts. I remember that day so clearly. I wrote my BFF through Facebook and telling her not to worry, but to please let me be honest with my emotions and tell her that I want to go home. Now. My heart was breaking. God was breaking me down.
I had been out of the country before to Europe, Greece, and Spain. It was beautiful and fun! I had no idea that things like this existed in the world. Poverty I just couldn't understand. Corrupt police, men with guns, men with dirty stares, a dead body not covered with a sheet, a women being battered by her husband in broad daylight and no one interfered...WHERE am I?? On this bus ride home, I cried, I wrote. "Later, as we drove to dinner, I thought about how blessed I am~ I cried almost the whole way there...talking to God alone in my seat. This is not what He intended for His children :( "
I was exposed to something I had no idea about. A way of life that I could never really grasp when I heard about it, and went on about my daily life.
Not being able to drink the water drove me insane. Not having reliable water at the hotel. Being so sweaty from working so hard all day to come back to the hotel and the shower would drip. I thought thank goodness this ends in 7 days!
The end of that entry says, "I could never live there."
I thought yesterday, oh my. It's hilarious that I live in a Third World country now. People tell me all the time when I visit the USA, "See, you can do that. You can live there, but I could never live there." Yup, I said the same.
There is way more to the journal I hope I share the rest of this week, but I wanted to end with this:
All of FIGHT Ministries' Founders were on that mission trip in 2010 to Honduras. We are all living in the Dominican Republic now. Each of us could say that that first mission trip forever changed us. It was the catalyst for what God was getting ready to do in our lives.
I AM SO EXCITED for what this week could mean to our team coming tomorrow. Be in prayer.
5PM August 1st 2010
If you are reading this, then I know our trip ended in a way we hoped it wouldn't. As I write this, I am so excited to go. No fear at all!! <3 There are several reasons I wanted to write this. 1st be JEALOUS! I am in Heaven with Jesus!! (It is okay to smile and laugh at that) I know where I am going when I die~ I'm not afraid~
Then the entry just ended. So, I thought the plane might go down or I would die, but it didn't seem to phase me, so I wrote a blog entry to whomever found my journal first. I don't know why, but I am a little shocked I didn't write much else!
The next day I wrote about getting up at Luke's at 330AM to be at the church by 415AM, then spending time in Miami to write in my journal and ended it with, "WHY DO MEN HOG THE ARM RESTS!" I mean, really? Why do they always take the arm rest like I don't want any of it?? But, really, I was in good spirits about it all.
The next blog entry got very crazy about things I saw in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. "I actually hate it here. Not like I am dying to go home, but I do not want to see this anymore. This place is dismal." I remember writing that with the heaviest of hearts. I remember that day so clearly. I wrote my BFF through Facebook and telling her not to worry, but to please let me be honest with my emotions and tell her that I want to go home. Now. My heart was breaking. God was breaking me down.
I had been out of the country before to Europe, Greece, and Spain. It was beautiful and fun! I had no idea that things like this existed in the world. Poverty I just couldn't understand. Corrupt police, men with guns, men with dirty stares, a dead body not covered with a sheet, a women being battered by her husband in broad daylight and no one interfered...WHERE am I?? On this bus ride home, I cried, I wrote. "Later, as we drove to dinner, I thought about how blessed I am~ I cried almost the whole way there...talking to God alone in my seat. This is not what He intended for His children :( "
I was exposed to something I had no idea about. A way of life that I could never really grasp when I heard about it, and went on about my daily life.
Not being able to drink the water drove me insane. Not having reliable water at the hotel. Being so sweaty from working so hard all day to come back to the hotel and the shower would drip. I thought thank goodness this ends in 7 days!
The end of that entry says, "I could never live there."
I thought yesterday, oh my. It's hilarious that I live in a Third World country now. People tell me all the time when I visit the USA, "See, you can do that. You can live there, but I could never live there." Yup, I said the same.
There is way more to the journal I hope I share the rest of this week, but I wanted to end with this:
All of FIGHT Ministries' Founders were on that mission trip in 2010 to Honduras. We are all living in the Dominican Republic now. Each of us could say that that first mission trip forever changed us. It was the catalyst for what God was getting ready to do in our lives.
I AM SO EXCITED for what this week could mean to our team coming tomorrow. Be in prayer.
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