worth it.

I've been struggling immensely with leaving. My grandpa was diagnosed with cancer recently, and that made me realize that if something like that happens while I'm in Haiti...I can't be here for my family right away. I'm realizing more and more, every day that when I move to Haiti just about every aspect of my 'normal' life will change. I can't safely go for a walk alone, I can't call up a friend and see if they want to go see a movie, I won't be able to sit and have coffee with my mom in the morning, take trips to Rural King with my dad, go on drives in the middle of the night through the sticks of Putnam County with friends and talk, I'm going to miss my little brothers senior year of high school and helping him pick a college, I'm going to miss so much. I'm nineteen years old, and I'm moving to the third-poorest country in the world. It's so easy for me to look at all of these things from a worldly perspective and question whether or not I should even take this next step. But when I step back, and look at it all from a perspective of a Christ-follower. I'm so humbled. Missing out on these things is more than worth it. Because, the Creator of the Universe, the very one who made the birds of the air and the fish of the sea has chosen me: a screwed up sinner, to represent Him: a perfect King in a country that's in so much need of Light and Love. When I look at it from that perspective, all of this stuff is worth it.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out.

Romans 12:1-2

117 days.