5 Days and Counting – One Urgent Request!

5 days and counting!  I leave for Swaziland in 5 days.  I’m beyond excited to go back to where my passions came alive last year, but I’m not dealing well with the stress of getting everything ready to go.  So in my commitment to write more honest blogs here it goes…

I woke up this morning to the nightmares that have become a common occurrence.  In the dreams I always find a way to miss my flight.  This time I had a huge duffel bag that I left at the wrong airport.  My aunt drove me back to get the bag and by the time we got back to the right airport I was running through the concourse frantically trying to make the flight.  All I remember was feeling chaos all around me. 

I was thankful to leave the dream behind for reality.  It was the first morning in months I woke up before my alarm.  Since my stomach was already on edge, and the natural adrenaline made caffeine a non-necessity, I made a cup of tea instead of the usual coffee.

It was a good morning, sitting in my favorite chair, writing in my journal and taking the time to read through some Psalms.  Again and again I surrendered the Swaziland trip to God and asked Him to take the details.  My moment of peace was interrupted when my stomach begun doing back flips.  I fought a loosing battle to keep the tea down but eventually ran upstairs to the bathroom.  It all came back up.  It’s the first time in my life I’ve thrown up due to nerves.

After that humbling experience I realized two things.  First, my need to control is making me crazy!  I asked Molly (my sister) the other day what she thought sidelined me in life, and with out a pause she answered that it’s my need to control.  There are details of this trip that I can’t work out ahead of time, and that just has to be ok.  I have to choose to let God hold those details as well as my limited amount of time to get everything ready. 

Second, I realized that I need more prayer.  I haven’t done a great job asking for prayer for this trip, and I need it!  Here are my biggest prayer requests…

•    Pray for leadership – I’m leading the vision trip part of this and am so excited about it!  Pray that I will have wisdom, discernment and good leadership.  Also pray that each person on the team connects with what God wants him or her to connect with in Swazi.
•    Pray for safety and good transportation – There are still some transportation details that I don’t have worked out and I would love prayer for those as well as safe travel.
•    Pray for connections – Through this trip I hope to connect people in the US to the kids at the care point in Nsoko. 

I leave for Swaziland on Tuesday afternoon!  I’ll be traveling alone for almost 2 solid days before meeting up with the rest of the team in Johannesburg.  After that we will spend one night in the city then head up to Nsoko, Swaziland, one of my favorite places in the world.  It’s been about 110 degrees there lately, so we have some heat to look forward to.  The first week I’ll be with the vision team, the second week I’ll be with the World Racers, and the third week I’m heading down to Cape Town to stay with some friends. 

Despite the nerves and anxiety I know that God has called me to this trip and made it possible for me to go.  Thanks for joining me in prayer!  I’ll be posting updates as much as possible while overseas.