As I celebrated the New Year on the way to Myanmar the Lord told me that this year would be a year to remember. Here’s a list of all the crazy things that have happened in 2016 and the crazy things the Lord is leading me to do in 2017…

16 things that happened in 2016

  1. I lived in the Dominican Republic for my entire last semester of college
  2. I graduated PBAU with a degree in Education
  3. I was a substitute teacher
  4. I lived with a family that I had not previously known.
  5. God provided everything last minute and changed my plans every step of the way
  6. I worked as the Children’s Summer Program Director at Common Grounds Church
  7. I left on this crazy thing called the World Race
  8. I spent most of this year outside of the United States of America because that’s just the kind of person God made me to be.
  9. I preached a sermon at a village church in India
  10. I met a spoken word artist in Ghana
  11. I got to minister to a Tibetan refugee family with my team in Nepal
  12. I doubted I could be a teacher
  13. I decided that God made me to be a teacher after all
  14. I celebrated Christmas with a French-Canadian missionary in Cambodia
  15. The coldest temperature I experienced was 50 degrees.
  16. I spent the last day of this year driving through Thailand.

17 things I hope to happen to in 2017

  1. I will bring God’s dignity to people in Myanmar, Thailand, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize.
  2. I will see my parents and elephants in Thailand
  3. I will continue to live my life more open to God’s plan than my own plan.
  4. I will apply for a California teaching license
  5. I will return to Chicago and see my whole family after a year and a half of being away
  6. I will miraculously move to Southern California and be a teacher
  7. I will finally have my own classroom
  8. I will teach love before I teach anything academic
  9. I will keep in contact with and visit my new friends from K-squad.
  10. I will start praying and talking to people about how to create a board of directors
  11. I will find someone to help me write the by-laws for Dignity Schools
  12. I will begin the process of making Dignity Schools an accredited NGO 501c3
  13. I will build community with the people around me
  14. I will keep in contact with and/or visit old friends
  15. I will radically trust the people that the Lord puts in my life
  16. I will freely share my story with others
  17. I will celebrate Christmas with my family

My first moment of 2017 was looking out the window of a hostel in Mae Sot watching fireworks. I turned to see a few surprised looking Koreans wished me a Happy New Year. I laughed and wished them one right back. I can’t imagine a better place to start 2017 than Asia, the place where I found so many of the missing pieces of my heart.

What do you hope will happen this year?