My New Life Plan and How the Germans Ruined Everything

So...it seems like I have some big life changes coming up soon. As most of you know, I got engaged last month and since I've promised some people the full story and explanation of what happened and what's happening next with my life and ministry, I figured I'd write it out so everyone could read it or not read it at their leisure. Warning: this will be the full story, beginning to end, so feel free to skip to the parts you find most exciting or are most curious about. There won't be a quiz at the end to see if you read it all, I promise.

Jordan and I met last fall at the Team Expansion office. He was in the office for some training before he headed to North Africa. We started dating in November and he left for North Africa in February. Before he left we discussed the possibility of me eventually moving to North Africa too and we decided I'd go visit in the summer to see how I felt about it (sidenote: I did not feel good about it at the time). He flew me out to visit at the beginning of June. It was a really great trip; I got to see the country, learn a little about the culture and the people, figure out what sort of North African food I'd be willing to eat, and see the work Jordan is doing there. Jordan's been doing amazing things in the short 4 months he's been there. He's really picked up the language and has made a lot of friends from the local university. He's had the chance to share his testimony and the gospel with his new friends multiple times and some of them really seem open to studying the Bible together. It's really pretty awesome. God is doing big things in North Africa right now and seeing all that made me really excited to be a part of it (but no act of God or man can make me excited about the prospect of eating North African food for the rest of my life. Pray for a McDonalds). 

Jordan's currently in North Africa on a tourist visa, which means he has to leave the country every 4 months in order to renew his visa. I just so happened to be visiting when his first 4 months were up :) We figured we'd take advantage of our chance to go somewhere fun, so we went to Milan, Italy for a week and stayed with some of Jordan's friends that live there. So that was super fun. 

I figured there was a pretty good chance Jordan would propose soon (I assumed there aren't that many girls willing to move to North Africa, so I figured he knew he needed to lock this down while he had the chance, before I went home and changed my mind) and I assumed he'd do it in Italy (I mean, he could've done it in North Africa but....come on). On the second day we were in Italy he wore the only nice shirt he brought, so I figured there was a good chance it would happen that day (spoiler alert: I was right). So we spent most of the day sightseeing around Milan, we visited the Duomo cathedral, walked the little Italian streets, we both knew he was going to propose soon and joked about it, so he fake proposed multiple times during the day at random places (to which I responded "You're not doing it here. Stop it. If you do it here I'll say no."), we ate lunch at McDonalds, you know, super romantic stuff. In the afternoon we decided to go see Da Vinci's Last Supper painting at the Santa Maria delle Grazie church. We found out after we got there that you not only have to pay to see it, but you have to make reservations ahead of time (that seemed silly to me), so we never actually saw the painting the church is famous for. But in any case, we started leaving and saw this little courtyard behind the church so we stopped in. 

We sat down in the courtyard for a minute and then he started into his speech of why I'm the most fantastic person he's ever met and how no one is nearly as awesome as I am and never will be and how he'll do whatever I ask him to do for the rest of his life (that's how I remember it going, at least). I thought this was another fake proposal, so I kept saying, "No, stop it. You're not doing it here. Why would you do it here? Quit it." At which he replied, "No, I really am doing it here." I said, "No, why would you do it here?" (I was perchance being a slight bit difficult) Finally he just said, "Kelsey, I'm doing it here! I have a photographer and everything! I'm going to propose to you." By then I was super confused at who and where the photographer was, but I didn't have much time to wonder because in the middle of his speech a large group of German tourists came pouring into the courtyard. He stopped talking, hoping they'd walk through and leave, but apparently they thought it was a really nice courtyard, too and decided to stay awhile. The Germans got comfy and sat down (with their luggage) on either side of us. So there we were, sitting in this Italian church courtyard, surrounded by German tourists with German luggage, in the middle of a half-finished proposal. Jordan had announced he was going to propose but hadn't actually done it yet, so we were sitting awkwardly in silence as he tried to figure out how to recover from the unexpected company. He decided we'd move to the other end of the courtyard, so mid-proposal we got up and walked to the other side where he un-flustered himself and finished his proposal. It was really super funny and we both decided later we wouldn't have had it go any other way. It was hilariously perfect. 

                                     

The proposal definitely hadn't gone as planned, but to his credit, Jordan had tried really hard to set everything up to go perfectly. He had a friend scope out the courtyard a week before at the exact day and time we'd be there to be sure it would be empty and he'd hired a photographer to take pictures of the proposal and to take some pictures of us around Milan afterward. He had even researched a really nice restaurant in Milan to go to that evening, but after a 45 minute walk there we found out it was closed (poor Jordan) but thankfully he had a plan B so we ended up at a really nice restaurant downtown Milan that overlooked the Duomo. Despite everything that didn't go as planned, it really was a wonderful day and now we have a super funny story, so I think it all worked out for the best :)

Ok so, now that we're engaged, what happens next? Well, it looks like I'm moving to North Africa. But not yet, don't worry! Jordan won't be able to get back to the States long enough for us to get married until next fall, so as of now, the plan is for us to get married with just our immediate families on a beach in September 2014 (so if anyone has a beach house they want to let us use for that I certainly wouldn't object). We hope to have some celebrations/receptions with our extended family and friends after we get back (more details on that later...much later. We have absolutely nothing planned yet). 

Team Expansion's policy is that newly married couples have to spend their first few months of marriage in the States (hooray!), so we probably won't be moving to North Africa until the spring of 2015. Until then, things will pretty much be the same. Jordan will continue his work in North Africa and I'll keep working at the home office in Louisville. Since we're both already with Team Expansion it makes things fairly simple. I'll have to go to a few more trainings between now and then, but that should pretty much be it! Well, that and all the planning and packing and support raising and getting married and combining our finances and sharing a car...but THAT should be pretty much it! Maybe?

So....I think that about sums it all up! I'm getting married and moving to Africa. That's not such a big deal, right? Right? Ok if you really want to, you can start praying for North Africa to really embrace the idea of McDonalds. And Taco Bell. And donuts. And Jesus. And movies in English. And Mt. Dew...

Japan

So…I went to Japan last week!! That was pretty crazy, right? The whole trip kind of came about out of nowhere (for me at least) and I only had 2 months or so to get myself all ready for it. But I’m so glad it all worked out because it was a really great trip! I went with Team Expansion of course, with Doug Lucas (President), Betty Byrd (Prayer and Personnel), and 3 younger girls, Casey, Cassidy , and Whitney. Whitney had just finished college a year or so ago, Casey was in college, and Cassidy was only 16 and still in high school, but really had a heart for Japan. We took this trip for a couple of reasons: 1) To visit the missionaries we have in Japan, 2) So Casey, Cassidy, and Whitney could see if Japan is somewhere they’d want to serve long-term, and 3) So I could get experience in leading these types of trips for the future.

Just a warning: I’m about to give you a detailed recap of the entire trip…so if you don’t care that much (which I don’t blame you for) or don’t know how to read (which is sad, we should talk about that), please feel free to stop here and go get a snack or skim the rest of it to see if any exciting words pop out. Just to keep you interested, I might add in random words to catch the attention of all you skimmers. Things like DRUGS and PUPPIES and TACOS. We’ll see.

Ok so I’m probably just going to go day by day here, since that seems easiest.

FRIDAY/SATURDAY: So we met at the airport Friday morning at 4 am. Needless to say that wasn’t fun. Plus, if you’ve been getting my e-mail updates, you know I’m slightly terrified of flying…so I wasn’t super excited about the whole travel part in general. Our first flight was from Louisville to Dallas and it was fairly miserable. I got super air sick and I was really pretty nervous so it was just a bad few hours. But we got to Dallas and I ate some crackers and took some DRUGS (legal ones, just to be clear) and felt much better. The flight from Dallas to Tokyo was much better. The DRUGS really helped, as did the whole “being able to watch movies on your own screen on the headrest in front of you” thing. It took about 12 hours, but I slept for most of it so it wasn’t too bad. We got to Tokyo on Saturday afternoon. There was a delay on one of the trains we had to take (a number of people told us there was probably a suicide—apparently it happens pretty often, people just jump in front of the trains on an almost daily basis. Very sad.) so we missed the last train to Ishinomaki (the city we were headed to). Needless to say that created a pretty crazy series of events where we were rushing around train stations and random city streets trying to find a very specific bus stop so we could get the absolute last bus to Ishinomaki. Luckily we made it and arrived in Ishinomaki at like, 11 pm, and were greeted by the distinct Tennessee accent of one of the missionaries yelling “Konichiwa, ya’ll!” which was wonderfully amusing after 30+ hours of traveling.

SUNDAY: We had a pancake breakfast at the church in Ishinomaki, which was delicious. It was a really cool experience getting to worship with Japanese believers, the missionaries, and a few other short term teams. After that we headed to Onegawa, one of the cities hit the hardest by the tsunami last year. Ishinomaki had also been hit badly, but Onegawa lost something like 80% of their buildings and ¼ of their population. We went with 2 Japanese believers, Ahbay-San and his daughter. He had lost his wife in the tsunami when she tried to seek shelter on the roof of the bank she worked at. Sadly, it wasn’t high enough. He and another man, Suzuki-San (a community leader trying to rebuild the city) explained to us that the evacuation center for the town was a hospital pretty high up on a hill (but still right beside the water).  They said it was pretty cold the day of the tsunami and a lot of people were in their cars in the parking lot of the hospital trying to stay safe but also keep warm. They could see the shoreline very well from where they were, so they were trying to keep an eye on the water levels. However, the mountains behind them apparently forced the water to funnel back toward the hospital, where no one was looking, so many of the cars and people at the evacuation center were swept out to sea when the waves came rushing toward them from behind. It was pretty surreal to stand in that parking lot, overlooking what used to be a thriving downtown area but was now just empty lots, knowing that dozens of people died where we were standing. Not to get too morbid here…but all I could think about was the fear these people must have felt while they were being swept away inside their cars, knowing there was nothing they could do to save themselves. Knowing the statistics of the country, it’s also pretty safe to say almost none of these people were Christians. It’s scary enough to know you’re being swept out to sea and won’t survive…but can you imagine knowing you’re going to die and not knowing where you’ll go or what will happen to you once you do?

While we were talking to Suzuki-San we asked him what we could pray for and all he said was that he wanted to be remembered. He asked us not to forget him or Onegawa and to not let everyone in America forget what happened and how they’re all still healing and rebuilding. The tsunami might be over, but the recovery is a long, painful process for them.

MONDAY: Monday morning we woke up to a 6.2 earthquake around 5 am! So that was an exciting way to start the day! The rest of the day we spent with the missionaries, cleaning up Ishinomaki. Since the missionaries in Ishinomaki moved there about a year ago (from Osaka, where they had been doing church planting) they’ve spent almost every day helping the community clean up from the tsunami. Almost every day is a “work day” of grueling physical labor for them. On Monday we spent the day with them, cleaning up a number of small apartments that had been ruined by the tsunami. And by “cleaning up” I mean we emptied the houses of the owners’ ruined, muddy, moldy possessions, removed moldy floors and walls and doors, and took multiple truckloads of debris to one of the dozens of massive city dumps. The dumps were one of the craziest things to me. I had never really thought about it before, but all the debris from the tsunami has to go somewhere. Every piece of broken furniture, every moldy item of clothing, every ruined house and car and office building has to go somewhere. The size of these dumps is almost unfathomable. They’re stories and stories high and some go for miles. It’s just unbelievable how much debris is leftover.

One of my favorite parts about Monday was all the different stories we heard about the people who lived in the apartments we were cleaning. One woman and her children were saved by a neighbor who told them to run, not take the car, which saved their lives. Many people got in their cars to try to outrun the tsunami but ended up getting trapped inside and washed away. We heard about a few other families who used to live there and were so excited about the prospect of moving back into their ruined homes. It really made all the hard work that much more special, knowing we were doing it for real people with real stories who wanted their lives back.

One of my other favorite parts about Monday was that I got to use a sledge hammer. Turns out, I really love knocking out walls and hitting things with heavy objects J (TACOS)

TUESDAY: We left Ishinomaki Tuesday morning and traveled (for like, 5 hours on 3 different trains) to Karuizawa, where we met with another missionary family. (PUPPIES) Karuizawa is in the mountains of Japan, right next to an active volcano (which was pretty exciting!). The missionaries in Karuizawa work with a Christian school and camp. We were able to stay in a beautiful cabin on the camp. The missionaries let us participate in their Tae Kwan Do class they teach at the school---which was super fun! We learned all sorts of good moves so I’m pretty dangerous now.

That evening we went to dinner at the home of a Japanese Christian couple, Mikio and Kazuko. Mikio is the minister at a church near Karuizawa. It was really neat to be able to eat in the home of not only a Japanese family, but a Christian Japanese family! After dinner they took us to a Buddhist temple high in the mountains to pray for the people of Japan. It was pretty crazy to see an actual Buddhist temple with all of their creepy statues and idols that they pray to and make offerings to.  One of the craziest things, to me at least, was that some of these weird little statues had tiny knitted hats and aprons. Mikio told us the Buddhist monks put those on them to keep those “spirits” dry and warm. How sad is it that the gods they worship need someone to keep them warm? How pathetically un-powerful is a god that needs a human to put a hat on it to save it from the elements? While it was incredibly sad to know a lot of the people in that area pray to these false gods, it was also incredibly comforting to know that our God is all-powerful, he doesn’t NEED us to do anything. He doesn’t NEED us for anything. But he wants us and he loves us anyway.

This was the night of the typhoon, so while we were praying at the temple the winds and storms were blowing like crazy. It was definitely a powerful experience to be praying that God would knock down the high places of these false gods during a huge storm like that.

 After that we went to a Shinto shrine to pray, as well. It was still storming and while we were praying that God would show these people that praying to their ancestors was empty and pointless, the light that was shining on the shrine went out. We continued to pray and as we left we started singing Here I Am to Worship. As we sang “light of the world you stepped out into darkness” the light came back on. I’m certainly not saying this was a sign from God or anything like that. Lights do tend to go off during typhoons quite regularly. But it was a pretty cool reminder that God is still in control, even in places like Japan that don’t know Him at all.

WEDNESDAY: We spent Wednesday morning helping an English school move to a new building. The school was run by 2 young missionaries that use the English school as part of their ministry. I learned how to use a drill and take shelving apart, which was pretty exciting! (UNICORN) That afternoon we went to downtown Karuizawa. Apparently, the town of Karuizawa was founded by a missionary in the 1800s and is home to the oldest wooden church building in Japan. We also got to see the tennis courts where the current Emperor of Japan met his wife and where they return every year to play a game of tennis. Very fun.

Karuizawa was really one of the coolest little places I’ve ever been! The streets were all brick and lined with the cutest specialty shops. One of which was a French bakery that John Lennon and Yoko Ono used to frequent (Yoko Ono was from Karuizawa).  The streets and buildings perfectly framed the awesome, smoking volcano too, which was pretty cool. Since the entire town of Karuizawa is in the mountains there’s a lot of forest around, so a lot of the restaurants were nestled back into the woods. They all had outdoor seating with Christmas lights all around, so it looked like you were just eating in the woods. It was really pretty cool. (TACOS) Also, Bill Gates is building a house there---so you know it must be a great place!

THURSDAY: Thursday we traveled to Niigata to visit another one of Team Expansion’s missionary families. They took us to a really neat conservatory with all sorts of Japanese gardens and flowers. There was one sort of flower that looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, it was just a straight green stem with a ball of purple on top. Very weird! The conservatory overlooked most of Niigata so we spent the afternoon praying for the city and the work the missionaries were planning to start there.

FRIDAY: We spent lots of hours on trains again Friday, but ended up in Tokyo by the afternoon so it was worth the train rides! We got to spend the whole day in Tokyo, just sort of exploring and shopping and seeing the city. We took by far the craziest train ride ever through Tokyo! It was more packed than I could’ve ever imagined. I honestly thought for a second I was about to get crushed to death! (DINOSAURS) It was already packed when we got on the train, so we were uncomfortable to begin with. We thought for sure no one else could fit…but we were clearly wrong. After we got on (and thought it was full) at least 10 more people shoved on. Probably more, but at that point I couldn’t see anything past the person in front of me, and there was no room to turn around, so I have no idea how many people actually got on.  We were packed in there so tightly we couldn’t even hold on to anything, but it was ok because we were so squished we couldn’t have fallen down anyway!

SATURDAY: We headed to the airport Saturday morning and spent about the next 30 hours traveling…which was crazy because our flight left Tokyo at 6 pm and we got to Chicago at 4 pm, so technically it was a -2 hour flight! We had a short flight from Chicago to Louisville and we finally got into Louisville around 9 pm!

So I think that’s a pretty detailed trip summary! I won’t add anything else on here at the end because if you’ve actually read through this entire thing you deserve to go take a nap. And a medal. But you won’t get one, so just go take a nap and know that it’s your reward for reading like a champ!

The Story of How My Life is Awesome....Finally!

For those of you who have kept up with my blog I have some great news for you! YOU WIN A PRIZE! Just kidding. Well sort of. Your prize is that you get to continue reading my blog…. Or Marshall will lick you in the face. Those are your prize options. What I was actually going to say before I started typing haphazardly was that for those of you who have kept up with my blog, I know they’re usually slightly depressing. It’s been a rough couple of years. However! You’re in for a pleasant surprise. This one is not depressing. In fact, one might even say it is (gasp) happy. So hold on to your seats because Kelsey’s in a great mood (this could partly be due to the fact that I have a bag of delicious snacks next to me but we’ll say it’s only partially because of that).

So as you know, for approximately 43 days now I’ve lived in Louisville and have been officially working at Team Expansion. And I’m not gonna lie, it’s been pretty awesome. Let’s start from the beginning. Day 1: I moved in. Morning of Day 2: Marshall jumped in bed with my roommate at 7 am while she was still asleep. She did not get mad. She laughed. Awesome roommate. Evening of Day 2: My niece and nephew were born. Awesome day. Day 7: Went to the Post (Southeast’s Sunday night service) and afterwards met an awesome group of people who invited me to join their small group. Friends by Day 7!? Winning at adulthood already! At some point between Days 8 and 12 I cooked for myself (like a champ)—I made chicken bruschetta and some delicious bread. Well, I didn’t make the bread, but I didn’t put it in the oven and that counts! Days 13-20 were spent working from Chicago and spending time with my fantastically adorable niece and nephew (because I have the best boss ever and he let me work from home for a whole week before I’d even been here a month!).

I’m not going to lie to you—the rest of the days are kind of a blur and I can’t remember what really happened. I could make up day numbers and activities but I’m sure you’d all see right through me when I started saying things like “Day 58: Rode a narwhal to the Megashark vs. Dinocroc fight and stopped for Taco Bell with Margaret Thatcher after.” But the point isà so far, life is awesome. Let’s start with why my job is awesome.

My job is awesome. Not only because I have the most awesome boss in the world (which is true, he’s pretty fantastic and lets me go see my babies when I need to) but because I really do love what I do. I love what Team Expansion does. This is not in any way meant to belittle anyone else’s job—but I really do feel like I’m part of an organization that is doing THE most important thing in the world—reaching the unreached with the Gospel. I honestly can’t think of anything else in my life that would be more important than that. Jesus straight up said “Go and make disciples of all nations…” That wasn’t a suggestion, that’s what he told us to do. That was his final thought before he left earth. And I don’t think it was one of those “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this before, so do it if you want, no big deal” kind of final thoughts. I’m pretty sure he planned this one out ahead of time. (Just to clarify one more time—I’m not saying anyone else’s job isn’t important or that people can’t do mission work in their other chosen career fields. I absolutely think they do. I know they do. People can be involved in mission work and spreading the gospel in millions of ways. So I’m not trying to say you’re not as good as me because your job doesn’t involve working for a missions organization. I’m actually fairly certain that you’re better than me in multiple ways. Unless my Dad is reading this in which case Dad, I am better than you always and don’t forget it.) My point in all this is—I’m incredibly lucky to only be 24 and be totally and completely happy with my job. There’s nothing (so far—I’ve only been here a month you know) about my job that makes me dread coming into work or makes me wish I could do something else or leaves me feeling unfulfilled. Fulfilled. That’s the word I’m looking for. Finally, after years of working toward this point, I feel very fulfilled. I love what I do. I know what I’m doing, even when I’m making spreadsheets or e-mailing people I don’t know about events I don’t completely understand, is directly affecting the souls of people that don’t know Jesus (in a good way, just to be clear). That’s a pretty cool feeling. What else could you possibly ask for in a job?!

Other reasons my life is awesome--- I’ve met some really amazing people since I’ve moved to Louisville. There are awesome people I work with for sure. But even outside of work I’ve met some incredible people that have been ridiculously nice and welcoming to me considering they don’t know me at all. Within the first week I was here I met a great group of people and I’ve been in their small group ever since (which has led me to meet more incredible people).  The first night I met them they got my phone number and started inviting me to do things with them. Who does that!? Really nice people, that’s who. It was pretty cool. I met another great group of people through a person I’d never actually met. I had a friend who had a friend that lived here so we got in touch and she invited me to her small group too even though I’d never met her and as far as she knew, I was completely insane. I went to that small group also and those people were ridiculously nice and welcoming too! I don’t know if it’s Louisville or if this is what “southern hospitality” feels like or if I just happened upon some really wonderful groups of people…but either way, God has put some pretty great people in my life down here so far.

More reasons my life is awesome—Marshall and his new puppy roommate (my roommate’s dog) get along super well. They run around and play and Marshall gets all his energy out before bedtime, which is great. Plus, he’s always happy even when I’m at work all day because he has a puppy buddy. So that makes me feel much better about leaving him while I go to work. I’m not going to say I haven’t thought about bringing him to work with me…but I haven’t been able to come up with a conceivable way to sneak him in so if anyone has any ideas please share. I’ve considered dressing him up like a baby and telling everyone he’s my nephew but that hasn’t panned out so well yet. I’ve also considered getting him a Seeing Eye Dog vest and pretending I’ve been temporarily blinded. So that’s an option too.  

Let’s see, what else is awesome… Louisville is awesome. So far, it’s been a very fun city to explore.  I know there’s still tons I haven’t seen but from what I understand there’s all sorts of exciting things to do in the summer: Shakespeare in the Park (free!), random festivals and fairs (free!), lots of pretty parks and things to wander around (also free!), tons of great restaurants (not free but worth it!). I hear there’s a pretty fantastic local music scene too which I have not checked out yet but am super excited to find out about. So basically, Louisville’s a wonderful city so far.

So to sum up…my life is pretty great right now. It was a rough couple of years with all the fundraising and waiting and having little to no social interaction with people other than my parents for about a year….but it was absolutely worth the wait! I’m so so happy to finally be down here and to finally have a life.  I may not be completely winning at adulthood yet (I may or may not eat frozen dinners and Taco Bell 73% of the time) but so far I’ve paid all my bills on time and I haven’t died from malnutrition yet so I’ll count that as a win! High five for being awesome at adulthood!  

The Story of How I Am Already a Terrible Missionary and Why It's Ok

So. This is sort of it. I have officially raised all my support to work at Team Expansion in Louisville!! I can't even begin to describe how crazy it is that this is actually happening. This whole thing has been in the process of happening since August of 2010. I've been raising support since January 2011. This is the goal I've been working toward for almost a year and a half now. I've never committed to anything for that long in my life (except for my love of The Office and Taco Bell but those are really different situations...) And now here it is. Right in front of me. About to happen. I have lots of mixed feelings about this that I'm about to share with you. Don't worry, I'll start with the bad so I can end with the good and hopefully you'll leave feeling smiley (rather than unsmiley. No one wants to be unsmiley.)

As excited as I am about this whole "having a real adult life" thing I am also the same amount of horrified and bone-chllingly scared. I've never had a life before. I've never been an adult before (I'm not sure I will become an adult even once I move but I'm sure I'll be closer than I am now...living at home, letting my Mom do all my laundry, staying up til 3 am and sleeping in until 11...) and it's terrifying to think I have to become one now. I was on CCU's campus the other day and I realized that whole phase of my life is over. I had such an amazing college experience but it's done. That can't be my life anymore. And that made me sad. Because my only options are grow up or end up on Dr. Phil as one of those 30 year old moochers that still live off their parents and refuse to have real jobs. But there's nothing fun about being an adult...and everyone knows I only like to do things that are fun. Being an adult seems lame. It's all bills and stress and waking up to the miserable sound of an alarm clock every morning. Eugh. I don't think I hate anything more in the entire world than waking up in the morning.

In addition to being a grown up and paying bills and waking up at a reasonable hour, I'm going to have a job. A real 9-5 every day sort of job (Did you know jobs happen every day? Not ideal for my lifestyle, really). Now don't get me wrong, I'm super excited about this particular job. I don't think I could make myself get out of bed every morning for a job I don't absolutely love and I'm already convinced I will absolutely love this job I have waiting for me. However, having a real job means (once again) waking up in the mornings. Taking regular showers. Wearing real clothes (I'll only have to do this until the Pajama Jean company comes up with a classy pajama work pant design). Planning my meals more than 3 minutes ahead of time. Having social interactions on a daily basis with people that aren't my parents. Going to bed before the infomercials come on at 1 am. And most terrifyingly, no more $5 matinee movies where I'm the only one in the theater. I do love that. I think I will miss that most of all....that or not wearing real pants (I really hate pants).

On top of all that, I'm moving to a new city. I've never really moved to a new city before. I kind of moved to Columbus for 3 months but I don't feel like that really counts. This is so much more...permanent. This isn't an internship, it isn't a summer job or a trial run. This is the real deal. A real job, in a new city, 2 hours away from home. I've never lived more than 30 minutes away from home before. I realize that's slightly ridiculous considering I'm 24 years old but I haven't and it makes me sad so deal with it. I like my house. I like my parents (even though my Dad is worse than Toby and my Mom only does my laundry like, once a week. Really Mom, could you be any more of a slacker?). I like living in a city that I know how to get around. I like Cincinnati. And now I'm leaving....and it's not like going to college leaving or going to Africa for the summer leaving. It's forever leaving. When I move out of my parents' house this time it's for good, there's no coming back for summer vacation and Christmas break. I'm for real moving out (well, unless I lose my job or something and am forced to move back in with my parents but that would really just be sad and not quite the celebratory homecoming of a summer break). Once I move that's it. My room at home won't really be my room anymore (despite my attempts to have the Historical Society preserve it as a national historical landmark). The permanence of this is really a terrifying thought to me. I hate things that are permanent (hence why I've never colored my hair or or signed up for a gym. You really can't quit the gym once they get you.) I like things that are flexible, undo-able. I like having options and escape plans and back up plans for my escape plans and alternate routes to get to my back up plans. I hate permanence. But I guess that is part of being a grown up...committing to things and permanence and forevers. Blech.

As terrified as I am by all of that...I really am also very excited. I'm excited to explore a new city, meet new people, have friends that live within 30 minutes of me, spend weekends doing something other than embroidering and watching Hoarders. I'm also super excited to start working at Team Expansion. Everything I know about Team Expansion and the people that work there is just amazing. Plus, I am genuinely thrilled to be doing the job I have there. I won't go into all the details again of what I'm doing (I assume most of you know and if not then...make up something really cool and pretend I'm doing that. Something like super secret spy or Taco Bell food taster). When I was in school I never really knew what I wanted to do or what kind of job I wanted to have. I had an idea of general things I wanted to do (like not have to wear a visor or hair net to work) but I didn't have a specific idea of what it was I was working toward...but I think that's just because I hadn't heard of Team Expansion yet. I know it sounds cheesy but at this point, there is no doubt in my mind that this job is exactly what God had in store for me all along.

Most of you know about the awesome way I came upon this job...it was really nothing short of God throwing it in my lap and saying "DO THIS NOW!" (I like to think of God yelling at me the way Baby Pearl would in The Landlord) But ever since then, time after time, God has shown me this is exactly what I should be doing. And for many of you who know me, it takes a lot for me to say God wanted me to do something. I tend to be very wary of throwing around phrases like that (with the exception of saying God wants me to eat donuts 3 mornings a week. He and I have a very clear understanding there) but in this case it was pretty undeniable.

Now that I'm fully funded I feel like I can say this without fear of much repercussion...I am horrible at fundraising. I mean absolutely awful at it. I didn't follow half of the rules I was supposed to***, I chickened out of more phone calls than I made, and when I actually did get up the courage to meet with people they were the ones that usually ended up having to ask about my ministry and what I was doing because I couldn't find the right way or time to bring it up myself. It was really just embarrassingly bad. I can speak in front of big groups and churches and stuff, but when it comes to one on one meetings I get weirdly socially awkward and I do a lot of that nervous laughter thing and I make a lot of bad jokes and I ramble about lawn gnomes and how the consistency of cottage cheese freaks me out and how many times I ate cookie dough that week. But despite how much it seems like I was trying to sabotage my own efforts, the money still came in. People still got excited about this ministry. I would get random e-mails or letters or checks in the mail from people I barely knew or hadn't even talked to saying they wanted to support me. Months after I mentioned what I was doing in a casual conversation someone would say they wanted to be a part of this with me. Friends from school who barely had enough money for rent just freely volunteered to support me without me ever even thinking of asking them. It really was nothing short of an absolute miracle. During some of the rough times when I was crazy far away from my goal and felt like I was running out of contacts I'd have people say "So what happens if you don't reach your goal? What's your Plan B?" And that always caught me off guard because I didn't have a Plan B (which is exceptionally odd for me. I have Plan B's for everything. I have a Plan A, B, and C for what happens if I run out of Mt. Dew before I'm finished typing this). But I didn't have a back up. I didn't have a "what if." I just knew I was going to work at Team Expansion. This is exactly what I've wanted to do for a long time now and it seemed odd to me to plan for disappointment. I just knew this was where God wanted me (that's not to say I didn't have moments/weeks of utter terror wondering what would happen if I never was fully funded...but I also have moments/weeks of utter terror about what I'll do if I contract a flesh eating bacteria or if the zombie apocalypse really happens but I never really plan for the possibility of those things either).

I'm not saying all of this to make you think I am some sort of awesome missionary who is so tight with God that I don't worry about anything or that I'm so great that people just throw money at me as I walk by (although that would be super awesome and I wouldn't complain.) I'm telling you all this so you can see how AMAZING God is despite me. I did nothing to make any of this happen for myself. If anything I hindered the whole process a good bit. If I hadn't sucked at this so much I probably could have started working at Team Expansion a year ago. But God still prevailed. He provided, He reassured, He gave me confidence in what I'm doing. He gave me an amazing team of prayer partners who have been utterly fantastic and faithful. And THAT is why I'm so excited to move to Louisville and start at Team Expansion. Because God showed me, time and time again, despite everything I did to prove Him wrong, that this is where He wants me. This is where I'll be useful. This is where I can best serve Him. This is where my life will matter.




**Disclaimer-- Just to be clear, Team Expansion's fundraising tips and coaches are awesome and super helpful and things probably would've gone WAY better for me if I had actually done what they said all the time. However, I am a chicken and I am lazy and I ended up doing it my own (much less practical) way. I wouldn't want anyone to think I was advocating not doing what the experts tell you to do. The experts are experts because they are awesome at what they are doing. I am not an expert because I was awful at what they are doing.

Happy Thoughts

So I feel like I normally sound kind of depressing on my blog posts...it's usually about how my life is horrible or I realized I was a terrible person or found a way to be less of a terrible person.  But fear not! Today I am super happy and instead of gloom, I will be sprinkling a wee bit of sunshine on your day.

As you all know I'm raising money to work at Team Expansion right now and it's been a bit of a process. In January it'll be a whole year since I first started fundraising. At first I thought I'd be down in Louisville by the summer (as in last summer) and then when that didn't work my goal became fall, which also didn't work. So needless to say, the reality of my working with Team Expansion has always seemed far off. I never had any intention of giving up, it just seems like it's something that's so far out of reach that it's almost not real. However--I am happy to say I'm getting SUPER close to my goal and will (hopefully!) by in Louisville by Spring of 2012!!

God has really been doing amazing things lately, especially when it comes to my support raising. I've been around $1,000 away from my goal for about a month or so and I'm really running low on contacts. I've talked to most everyone I know already so I was, to be honest, starting to get a little worried that I'd have to come up with a Plan B, like working part time at Team Expansion and getting a part time job somewhere else to help pay the bills. I was getting fairly stressed out about it and I have obviously been praying about it a lot and then just the other day God totally blindsided me with an amazing miracle that cut the rest of the support I need to raise in HALF! How awesome is that!? God has continued to amaze me throughout this whole process and it continues to blow my mind each time!

This means I am now less than $500/month away from living in Louisville. I can't even begin to express how amazing this feels. It's been a crazy long road, and I know I'm not there yet and there's still a lot to do before I can move down there, but it's getting so close that it's becoming real. I'm starting to really believe this is going to happen. I'm starting to look into apartments and furniture and locating Taco Bells in the greater Louisville area.  It's been such a long time in the making and I feel like I'm really going to move, which is super crazy. But also crazy exciting! I'm getting ready to start a life. A real life. So far every stage of my life has been sort of an in-between stage. In high school I was always waiting to get to college. In college I was always waiting to graduate and get a real job. And for the past year and a half I've been waiting to move out of my parents house and start a life of my own. But once I get to Louisville, there won't be any more waiting. It'll be the real thing. I'll be living in an awesome city near amazing people doing the job I've always dreamed of doing. My life is going to be freaking amazing. And I can barely wait.

Anyways, I was just really excited about everything that's happening right now and how close I am to my goal so I just wanted to share that with everyone :)

PS...I'll be trying out some new names for my blog. Obviously Adventures in Africa wasn't quite cutting it anymore. If anyone has suggestions I'd be happy to hear them. I'm terrible at this.

I Wasn't an Accident, Kyla!

So there’s two things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m not sure if they fit together but I’m going to put them in the same blog post because I’m lazy so I will try to fake my way into making them sound like they’re related.  If you can figure out where the two thoughts come together you win a special prize! Marshall’s losing his teeth now and I can’t keep them all, so….

The North American was a few weeks ago (and was amazing, by the way!) and I spent most of my time at the Team Expansion Unleashed for the Unreached booth. For those of you who weren’t there, it was a really cool, humongous booth set up for people at the convention to research and hopefully adopt an unreached people group. Once they chose a people group they placed a pin on the big map where their people group was located. It was really amazing, we had around 200 people choose people groups and the map filled up really quickly. So that was really cool and very exciting because it will be my job (when I finally get down there!) to follow up with these people and hopefully work with them on a long term basis.

So anyways—here I am, seeing all these people researching these different people groups and putting their pins all over this map and it kind of occurred to me, I could’ve been born in any of these places. I could’ve been born in India or Afghanistan or North Korea. I could’ve been raised in a Muslim family or I could’ve been born to Atheists or I could’ve been born to Fred Phelps (God Forbid!). The point is, I was born to 1 family out of billions. I happened to be born to a Christian family that took me to church all my life and showed me Christ and his grace and what it means to be a Christian. Would I still be so dedicated to the cause of Christ if I had been born in one of those other places? Maybe.  Maybe not. There’s no way to know.

But then last week (due to the fact that I was home alone and really bored and entertaining myself by watching lots of historically set movies) I started thinking—I could’ve been born not just anywhere in the world, but at any time during history. I could’ve grown up during the time of Constantine or in the Middle Ages or in the 1920s. There are literally infinite possibilities of time/place combinations for me to exist. Europe in the 1500s, South America in 2000 BC, or Ohio in 1987. It’s not that I just feel blessed to be who I am and where I am at the time I’m in. I definitely do. But it’s more than that. Why? Out of these billions of places and times I could’ve been born, why now? I have a hard time believing that it’s just chance that we’re each born exactly where we were during the exact time period we’re in. I know there’s more to it than that. I think God specifically brought you (and me) into existence at this exact time and place because this is when He knew we’d be most effective for Him.  It’s no accident that I was born when and where I was out of these infinite number of options.

So the trick now, I suppose, is figuring out what it is God wants me for here and now.  I probably won’t ever know exactly what it is God wants me for or why I exist now and not 1000 years ago. But at least I know there is a reason and that it was not an accident (even if I was an accident KYLA!).  

So that’s kind of comforting.  A lot of the time (especially right now while I’m in limbo between slight unemployment and an actual job while I’m fundraising) I feel kind of useless. And a little lost, to be honest.  I’m fundraising, yes, but it’s a slow, somewhat frustrating process at times where you have to put your entire self-worth on the line for people to judge. That may seem a little dramatic, but it does feel like that sometimes. Here I am telling people about my dreams and goals and passions and heart, telling them that I found my true calling in life and they get to listen to me, judge me, and decide whether or not I am worthy of their time or prayers or money.  **Now, to be clear, I don’t feel that way with most people. Almost everyone I talk to is very excited for me and they’re so happy for me and they’re almost always willing to pray for me even if they can’t help me in other ways, which I totally understand and appreciate. But it’s still hard to put your entire being out there for examination and judgment and approval so you can do your dream job. It’s very humbling, which is not a bad thing. And I’ve learned so much so far and met some really incredible, generous, sacrificial people. **

Sorry, I got a bit sidetracked. The point I was trying to make was that I’m in this super weird in between stage of my life where I have a job waiting for me, but I just can’t get there yet. So I can’t really get another job because I’m working full time trying to get to the job I have waiting. Most of my friends have real jobs or are going back to school this month or are married or live far away. They’re all moving forward and I feel like I’m still stuck in this awkward stage where I don’t really know what I’m doing or when I’ll get my chance to move forward.

This was really bothering me for awhile. I got so frustrated because all I wanted was to move to Louisville and start working but it just wasn’t happening yet. Someone said to me a few weeks ago “I had no idea it was this hard and took this long to become a missionary!” And I had to agree with them. During training they told us it would take awhile, sometimes years, to get your funding to go and that it’ll all happen in God’s time when He’s ready for it to happen. But I just kept thinking –Why?? It’s not like I’m doing anything helpful to You right now.  I could be with Team Expansion, reaching these unreached people, but instead I’m sitting at home watching another Cake Boss marathon, waiting for it to be my turn to go. (Just to be clear again—I do lots of fundraising things during the day most days. But I also watch a lot of Cake Boss while doing so…I mean, you can only make so many phone calls in a day you know?)

This really bothered me for awhile. And still does a bit. But not that long ago I started reading Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest and, on a particularly difficult day, came upon this:

Put God’s Will First. “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God” (Hebrews 10:9).

A person’s obedience is to what he sees to be a need— our Lord’s obedience was to the will of His Father. The rallying cry today is, “We must get to work! The heathen are dying without God. We must go and tell them about Him.” But we must first make sure that God’s “needs” and His will in us personally are being met. Jesus said, “. . . tarry . . . until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). The purpose of our Christian training is to get us into the right relationship to the “needs” of God and His will. Once God’s “needs” in us have been met, He will open the way for us to accomplish His will, meeting His “needs” elsewhere.

It kind of blew my mind that, first of all, I read this on the day I was thinking about all of this stuff so much and was really upset about it. That was cool. But it also made me feel like such an idiot. Maybe God’s “needs” in me aren’t met yet. I have to obey his will for ME and meet his needs in ME before I can meet His needs in other people. I was being so selfish and so impatient. I wanted to go and start my work because I didn’t like where I was in my life. I didn’t like being in between. But maybe this is exactly where God needs me right now. Maybe if I started working with these unreached people now, as I am today, I’d ruin their chance of loving Christ forever.  I hope I wouldn’t be that terrible haha But I guess you never really know. For whatever reason, I’m not who I need to be yet. I’m not sure how to become that person that God thinks is ready to serve Him in Louisville but now I have another goal, besides getting the funds I need to move—becoming that person that God knows will serve His people in the best way possible. That and finishing my Cake Boss marathon. 

The Two Little Circles That Changed My Life

So as I mentioned before, I'm starting with Team Expansion soon. I have officially been accepted into Team Expansion which I'm super excited about! (They must not have read the psych evaluation too closely...) I already finished the 2 week training program called Launch and everything, so now it's on to the prayer raising and fundraising and life planning bits.

But let's go back a step. Launch. Like I said before, it's a 2 week training program for anyone who wants to work with Team Expansion. It's mandatory for everyone and I can see why...it was awesome. Seriously, some of the best teachings I've ever had on spiritual disciplines and missions and finances and faith and grace and tons of other things. I really learned a lot during those 2 weeks and some of it I figured I'd share...well, just because I can. And now that you're reading this you're probably curious and can't stop.

When I first got to Launch I was actually rather intimidated by...well, everyone. There were 8 of us there for both weeks and out of those 8 at least 5 had already been involved in long-term missions around the world. One woman had been a missionary for 43 years already. Everyone else was older than me by at least 6 years. And here I was, 23 and clueless, coming in with just a 2 month trip to Kenya under my belt. (Now I'd like to clarify here that I don't mean to belittle my time in Kenya...it was by far the most amazing experience of my life, but it seemed kind of puny when compared with 43 years overseas) After the first few days of hearing what everyone else had been doing with their lives, the ministries they were involved in, the souls they've saved, I started to feel kind of inadequate. I'd already been dealing with feeling like I wasn't good enough or qualified enough or spiritual enough to do this. I've never directly brought anyone to Christ. I've never baptized anyone. I've never led a Bible study. I can barely muster up the focus to read my own Bible half the time. Why did I think I was good enough to work with an amazing missions organization full of some of the most godly people I've ever met? I really struggled with this for awhile and thought a lot about what I was getting myself into and if I'd be able to handle it.

Then one day during training we were actually talking about this, feeling like you're not worthy of serving God. We were going through Mark 10:29 and Ephesians 6 and one of the guys said something that really stuck with me. He said, "When you say you're not worthy, you're saying Jesus isn't worthy." That was a huge eye opener for me. As soon as he said that I just felt a thousand times better. If we love Christ and are filled with him and the Spirit then by saying that we aren't good enough, we're saying he's not good enough. If we think we can't do it, we're saying he can't do it, because he's in us. If Christ is in my heart then insulting myself is like insulting him. It made it a lot easier to accept that it's not ME that's going to be doing great things for the Lord, it's God working THROUGH me. I'm just the vessel for His work. It takes a lot of the pressure off when you see it that way :)

Thing I learned #2. During one of our talks about support raising we were talking about our fears, things that make us dread raising support for our ministries. I learned a lot about faith that day, but one of the things that meant the most to me was when someone said "If it makes sense on paper, then you don't need God in the equation. You've got to have faith." This was huge for me as a super organized, systematic planner. I like to have everything all completely and totally together myself before I ask God to step in but when you're fundraising for a ministry that's literally impossible. I can do all the preparation I want, but when it comes down to it, I just have to have faith that God will get me what I need. He will open peoples' eyes and hearts to His work; I just have to do my best and He'll take it from there. Once again, it takes a lot of the pressure off when you realize there's nothing you can do and that you just have to give it up to God and trust that He'll be there.

I realize this is getting long. Sorry. Feel free to get a snack, go to the bathroom. I'll start again when you're ready.

Good? Ok. So before I get to the big life changing moment of the 2 weeks I'll tell you 2 other things I learned (but in a super short, concise way)

Super concise thing #1. It's hard to tell which voice in your head is the Spirit's. If you're like me, you have multiple voices (I really don't think they read that psych evaluation...) and some of them are telling you that you're a terrible person for doing or thinking whatever it is that you did or thought. And you might be a terrible person, I'm not here to judge that. However, what I learned was that God's voice, God's Spirit, condemns the sin or the action, but not the sinner, not the person. When I'm feeling bad about myself, about who I am, I have to remember that's not God. God doesn't break us down, he builds us up. He loves us despite our actions. I thought that was a pretty cool thing to remember.

Super concise thing #2. Ok this isn't so much something I learned but something that I heard and was awesome. On this particular day we were talking about spiritual disciplines and fasting and when fasting changed things. One of the couples there had been serving as missionaries already for a number of years and the wife had gone through a period of pretty intense depression, almost to the point of suicide. There was a 3 day period she said she was just consumed with this dark depression and could barely function. Then on the morning of the 3rd or 4th day she woke up and just felt better. Like, 100% completely better, no dark thoughts hanging over her head, no depression, just joy. She immediately went to go tell her husband and his response was "Good, I can finally eat again!" This whole time she'd been dealing with the intense depression he'd been fasting for her without her knowledge, just praying that God would bring her out of it. I don't know why, but that really stuck with me, too. I thought it was not only sweet, but incredibly awesome to have a husband who is such a good friend and such an obedient Christian, who would literally go days without eating to make sure his wife was ok. Anyways, I thought that was cool.

Ok....last thing. But this is the big life changing one so get excited :)

I have a tendency to get incredibly and unnecessarily anxious about silly things I can't change. Things that are far in the future or things that might never actually happen. It's slightly ridiculous, but true. To give you an example....nope. Not going to. I sincerely thought about it and even typed out a few examples...then I realized, no one needs to see the ridiculously crazy side of Kelsey so we'll just leave it at the fact that I get worked up over things I have no control over.

Anyways, Doug Lucas was talking to us about the life of missionaries, things we need to be prepared for mentally and spiritually, how life is going to be different, things like that. He said that when we go overseas the culture is obviously going to be different but it's up to us how we handle it. We can be frustrated that we have to stand in line for 3 hours to pay a bill or we can use that time to practice language skills with people around us. It all depends on our point of view, our attitude. He made us repeat the most important word I heard the whole 2 weeks: Acceptance. He said to picture our worries, concerns, and irritations like 2 circles, one inside the other. In the big circle it says concern and the smaller circle inside says influence. Inside these circles are all of the things we're anxious about, things we want to change, things we stay up worrying about at night. But we need to separate our worries into the 2 categories: concern and influence. The big circle is everything that we're worried about, but the smaller circle is what we can change. We need to focus on the smaller circle, on our circle of influence. There is absolutely no point in spending 3 hours worrying about the weather tomorrow or if someone's going to rear end my car on my way home. That's not my circle of influence. I can't change it so I need to give it up and ACCEPT whatever happens.

It's at this point we need to trust in God's sovereignty. Another thing Doug reminded me of is that God has something planned for us everyday--it's just up to me to find whatever "easter egg" is hidden in my life that day. There's something we can learn, something we can get better at, something we can understand more deeply every day, we just have to find it, find the positive in the situation and accept the negative for what it is.

Without going into detail (you are obviously a good friend for reading this far already and I don't want to abuse your fantastic attention span), I'll just tell you that this one idea, the circle of concern vs. influence, seriously changed my life. It changed what I think about on a daily basis. It changed how stressed I am about my future. It taught me to live in the present, not in the worst case scenario future that I used to dwell in. It's so freeing to actually realize that you have little to no control over your life. Scary? Yes. But so good. Because the person who IS in charge is the person I trust the most. And let's be honest, He'll make much better life decisions for me than I would make for myself...