CHANGE

I am moving to Haiti on August 29th to help out an awesome family... the Livesays. I will be homeschooling three of their wonderful children and working with Heartline Ministries whenever they tell me to.

This is totally different than what I planned to do this fall, which was grad school in El Paso. However, that is exactly why everything has changed: MY PLANNING. Not God's. Yes, multiple doors were opened for me in EP, and part of me was so ready to be there. To help people on the border and become completely bilingual and get a foot in the EP med school. To experience a completely different life in the same state. To become an adult.

When I graduated in May I had an odd pit in my stomach, like the feeling you get when everything isn't right, or how you know something big is about to happen and you have no control over it, or just living in the dust of Jesus' feet and having previous knowledge of inner peace... and that peace no longer being there. The absence of calm. The absence of control.

I am, in no way/shape/form, a control freak. According to my parents, I generally 'fly by the seat of my pants.' But this decision was different. Was special. Was only made through God's grace and amazing power to change hearts. Like the way Buckner is donating SIX MONTHS of health insurance, which would normally be $618 a month and would have prevented me from going. Or the way my parents, who were skeptical and didn't understand my reasons and my complete turn around from desiring grad school to desiring a completely different life, have supported me and helped me in decoding the desires God has placed in my heart vs. the desires of my human heart. Or the way an American doctor goes to church with the Livesays and can help me out if anything lupie happens while I'm there. Or the way God has answered all my prayers and showed me so many times that He wants me there.

I went to Lubbock in early July, before this move was a sure thing, to tell my friends and ask for prayer and say goodbye for a year, just in case. I learned 3 things up there: 1) Amanda, a friend I met this past year and instantly connected with, helped build the Heartline clinic with her church group; 2) Kendal, another friend I had to wait until my last semester to meet, went to Haiti on a mission trip, loved it, and is going back; 3) even if every single one of my friends thinks I am insane, which is probable, they are super excited for me. God used that trip in so many ways. I knew I wanted to go, but I just needed confirmation that it was the right decision for me, at the right time, with the right family, in the right country. You know, just right. And He gave it to me. Not just through those 3 things but through prayer too.

So, I'm leaving this great state of Texas and moving to Port-au-Prince, into a guest house with plenty of room and internet. COME visit. You won't get kidnapped or beat up or whatever else the U.S. government wants you to believe about Haiti. Sure, it can be dangerous. Yes, I'm going to stick out because I'm the color of a ghost. BUT if this is what God wants, and I am 187% positive it is, then I am in the safest place in the world.