5 am – wake up

5:01 am – make coffee

5:05 am – drink coffee

6:00 am – Call Rwanda Compassion office to plan a trip for a church

This was the start of my day, now I am at the end of my day watching Steve pack.  This is a very very good thing, because he is packing for a trip we will be together for.

Tomorrow, I leave for the Dominican Republic.  Have I had time to breath?  Not really, but it’s all good.

I’m tired tonight, but extremely excited because tomorrow, when I get on that plane, my tribe, my peeps, my kids, my church, my community, will be with me.  Wingman is going too; my husband’s best buddy.  There won’t be new people to meet, there won’t be the loneliness of nights without my family, and there won’t be skype calls home from across the ocean, because they will be with me.

30 of us will go back to Barahona, Dominican Republic, to spend time at the Compassion center and church to minister to kids.  My sweet Isabel will see 605pairs of shoes delivered that she had a part of collecting through her ministry, we will meet a bunch of our sponsored kids through Compassion, we will serve in a church amongst Haitian refugees, we will build a retaining wall, play with kids, and we will connect to the body of believers that live in the community where we will serve.

My children will have a chance to use their gifts.  Grace and Julia learned Spanish this last year… just for this very moment.  My husband, who works for Compassion as a marketing director over the music and speaker program, paid his own way for this trip.  He will live with high school guys for the week and serve as our foreman over the work project.  I organized the trip on the Compassion side, our youth pastor recruited and also helped organize the trip on the church side, and our team helped prepare for ministering to kids.  Go team!

This trip keeps me grounded.  It’s the one trip that reminds me how important my own church, family, and community serve in my life.  It’s the one trip that reminds me how others support our family.  It’s the one trip that my family gets to be a part of my own job and ministry through Compassion. It’s a special trip.

My house looks like a tornado hit it as all the bags are being prepared for departure, my dogs are an emotional wreck trying to understand the chaos, but it’s an amazing day.  I am in a tornado of goodness and it’s so exciting.  Tomorrow is another adventure.