SLOVAKIA

Slovakia.

I'm going there. In 79 days.

Guys. God is so crazy! I don't even begin to understand Him. Somehow in 4 days He convinced me to get on a plane and fly across the ocean to go work in a VBS camp with kids I have never even seen, and be without my family, my bed and sweet tea for 11 days. Talk about scary!!

It all started back in January. I wanted to go on a mission trip to South Africa this summer. Mom and Dad just weren't digging it. =) Meaning, they said no. They just didn't feel like it was what God wanted. They both felt extremely uncomfortable about it. So we decided to pray about missions' work and if the opportunity arose next year, we'd see what God had told us.

Then came February 24th. We were having our Sunday night Bible time. We all gathered in the living room to talk about what we had learned at church that morning. I was talking about how I felt like God wanted me to stop worrying so much about doing "good things" and do the best things, the best things being the things He has for me. Blogging and writing books and reading and mentoring girls are all good things, but I said that I didn't want them to keep me from the best things.

Less than 30 minutes later, a friend of Mom's texted her about a mission trip going to Slovakia and wanted to know if I might be interested.

I freaked.

In typical Jennifer fashion, I whined, "Mom..."

In typical Mom fashion, she said, "Funny this came up when you just said that you wanted to do what God wanted."

Over the next four days, I prayed harder than I've ever prayed before. And God kept making it abudantly clear that it was what He wanted through my brothers' reactions when I told them about it, and through verses like these:
"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:  preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,  and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

God made it clear. I heard about the trip on Sunday night. Wednesday night I met with the man who was leading the trip and later that night, I started filling out paperwork. The next day, I wrote a support letter and got addresses. Friday I mailed out letters. And it all went uphill from there!

I have received so much support through friends and family. Even my Internet friends have become involved and I've sent support letters to some of them! It has been so good to see God work through this adventure.

Yeah, I'm still pretty freaked about the flying part. And I'm freaked about being away from home for 12 days. But I'm so excited and I can't wait to see what God's going to do. And trust me, I'll keep you guys updated on this trip, cause it's gonna be awesome!!