For I am yours and you are mine

I am leaving for my first mission trip in a few hours.  I still can not believe that this opportunity came how and when it did.

YEARS ago, when I realized short-term mission existed and that people like me went, I remember saying OUT LOUD that I didn't think I could know that kind of poverty and keep on going...that I would be "too affected."    Y'all.  Those were my words.  I guess I thought my heart couldn't take it.

God, of course, had different plans and started to change my heart in a big way.  I began to feel a prompting to go, to serve, but the timing was always wrong...we had the boys, we didn't have the money, we built a house, we had another baby.  Limitations mounting, I wasn't sure how this was ever going to happen until "later."

A popular worship song became a part of my prayer for God to send me somewhere...to reveal to me how I was suppose to go with no more barriers, without being a burden on my family.  I was praying with eyes wide open for my chance to trust and go.

Enter my sweet friend Alexa.  On a whim, she called me last spring and asked if I would be interesting in chaperoning our youth trip to the Dominican Republic.  We would go the first week of August {Summer for my boys} and the cost would be minimal.  I could not believe it.  I hung up with her, called Lee.  Without a pause, he immediately said GO, that we would figure out the money and the boys would be on summer break.  The timing was perfect.  

And just like that I am leaving on a plane in a few hours for my very first mission trip.  16 youth and 5 adults.  Please pray for us.  Pray for traveling mercies.  Pray for us to be affected.