I was watching a documentary earlier, and I heard a quote from President Kennedy that of course I had heard before, but it struck me with a new meaning this time. He was speaking on the nation's quest to go to the moon.
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
I meant something so different to me this time, because I have a dream, that to many, seems as insurmountable as going to the moon did to some when President Kennedy spoke these words. Josh and I know that the Race is not going to be easy. We will be leaving our family (and our cats-trust me, this part is really hard for me) for a year. My niece or nephew will be born a couple of weeks before we leave, so I will essentially miss out on the first year of his or her life. We will many times not be sure what we are eating would be up to health code in the states, and many times probably not really want to know what exactly it is, as well as the digestive problems that go along with this diet. I will probably at least once, if not many times, share my bed with a cockroach, which my friends and family know is one of my biggest fears. We will be homesick, and want to give up, board a plane, and return to the life that is easy for us.
We aren't doing this because it is easy. It is so hard. But the fact that it requires us to stretch beyond our usual capacities, beyond what we thought possible, is what drives us on. God has given us the challenge to abandon our comfortable lives here to serve those that need a friend, a hug, a helping hand. We were given the challenge, and we have accepted it. My stomach gets butterflies when I read blogs, watch videos, and hear stories of those on the field that are living their destiny. We go with the understanding that we will not only be helping to change lives around the world, but ours will be changed as well. As mewithoutYou says in a few of their songs, "Why not be utterly changed by fire?"
