THANK YOU!!!
It’s been a bit crazy, so I decided to take a few days to just breathe a little but here I am! If you have not been following my Facebook page, I reached a total of $6474 by my first deadline on the 26th (that includes the checks I received and am mailing in); I was striving to get $3500. I am currently at $6555 and that doesn’t even count the people who decided to give directly to me or in another way.
Speaking of another way, I have started a REI wish list and other random things, such as this backpack raincover, that I plan on getting. I am slowly adding to and chucking away at this list and may wait until Black Friday to get many of the bigger things (and continue to research other options if you have advice!) so do let me know if want to help out in this way. Or let me borrow a sleeping bag for training camp!
I need $7500 by December 15 in order to leave–that’s less than $1000! 😮 :0 😀 I’ve been flabbergasted by God’s greatness and goodness in this entire process. His ability to continue to change me so much before I have even left the country is quite spectacular. It was not an easy decision to do this but I felt God pointing to it from many directions that I couldn’t just let it go. I remember eventually thinking,
Okay, God, you can have it your way. And you know what? With the help I had to pay college loans, I feel guilt and I feel selfishness beyond what I am comfortable with…BUT…if I have to, I will use up every penny I have saved to go.
It’s one thing to say something but entirely different to experience and live it out. It makes me wonder how much I actually trusted God before this. I said He’s good but I now KNOW He’s good. And He WILL provide in so many ways when I choose to listen and obey Him. And I am quickly running out of words to express how thankful I am for all of it.
So what’s next?
I will continue to reach out to those I haven’t contacted yet (many are those closer to Kalamazoo) and brainstorm some fundraisers. I would like to get some t-shirt ideas designed before I leave for training camp.
What’s training camp?
It’ll be the time for me to meet the AIM staff and all of the wonderful people I will be living and traveling with the next year. They say not to have any expectations, so I’m going to leave you all hanging right now. I’ll be in the woods in Georgia for a week–might come back with a beard, might not. Might kill and skin animals with my bare hands. Might not. Might have to poop in the wilderness. Might not. You get the picture. Here’s one solid piece of information–TRAINING CAMP IS IN 10 DAYS!!! I’m feeling a bit $!@*&^%!$(&#&%Q–in other words, all over the place (no, that wasn’t an unusually long swear word).
Post is getting dangerously long so ending it here. Thanks for reading! Remember to make a conscious choice to act and speak love on others <3
