19 You and Me
November 19, 1999 that’s my birthday. The day my parents welcomed me into this world. I’m a Florida girl, born in Panama City, Florida. I was the first baby girl ( sorry Isabella I beat you to that one) Oh and Manning, I’m not sorry I wrecked your only child moment. We both know you wouldn’t have been able to handle the only child life.
Anyways coming into the World Race I wasn’t looking forward to being away from home for my birthday. I wasn’t going to get to eat whatever I wanted. I wasn’t going to be baking my own birthday cake, with lots of help from Isabella. I wouldn’t be celebrating on Thanksgiving
at Nana’s, like I always do. Nana and Ma weren’t coming over for my birthday dinner. All in all I wasn’t going to do what I wanted to do, what I was comfortable with and used to doing. Those are all selfish reasons and God knew long before I was born that
I would be spending today, my 19th birthday, in the bush of Africa. I legit mean the BUSH of Africa. I mean growing up I would’ve NEVER thought I’d be in Africa… ever. I was scared of flying for the longest time and I was definitely not going to live
with a bunch of people I had just met. But here I am, turning 19 in Africa.
This year my birthday kind of crept up on me a little. It didn’t feel like November and I wasn’t at home doing my annual birthday routine. Instead this year I was with 50 people I met not even 6 months ago. Also there were 3 birthdays
in a row before we got to mine, I was scared people were going to forget or they’ed be all partied out. Oh also 2 teams were going to be leaving for the week going to the farm and weren’t going to be here. But then I realized I was letting fear creep in.
I had to nip that in the bud. (side note : go pray about it is probably my new favorite thing to tell myself)… So I started praying about it and gave that fear to God. The relief I felt was the same as when I stopped looking for a mission trip and God brought me to The World Race.
My life is in Gods hands, He created me and I am going to live for Him. Even if that means spending my 19th Birthday in the bush of Africa.
It all started @10 o’clock on the 18th.
I have a group of friends out side of my team and we hang out and have really good intentional conversations … love them.
They stayed up till midnight to celebrate with me, because one of them was leaving for the farm and wouldn’t be here. We ate cake super late and were all delirious so lots of laughs happened.
I opened all of my birthday letters from home as soon as I woke up (may have cried a little but they were good tears). Several people on the squad also wrote me letters and those were super sweet!
Everyone sang happy birthday and I got to go through the breakfast line first, which is a big deal when living with 50 people. ! I spent sometime on my own watching a movie. After dinner my team brought out a cake (with candles) and then we watched Elf, because movies are limited
and I love Elf.
All in all it was a great birthday. I felt so loved!
I am so thankful for all of my friends and family who made this birthday great even tho I am thousands of miles away.
Until next time.
CG
