Halfway there! Halfway to go...

I am pleased to announce that I am halfway to be fully funded as a Students International staff person!  The past few weeks I have had some more dear friends and family join my support team and I am encouraged each time I see another name on my list.  It's such a humbling thing to know that I have people believe in me and in the call that the Lord has given me, and want to make sure that I'm able to GO and fulfill that call.  So THANK YOU for your prayers and financial gifts, I am so grateful.

This week has also been an interesting one for me emotionally.  I have had several different moments of realization that I'm going to be moving and leaving family, friends, my job, my home, my car, my youth group girls that I've been with for four years, my church...and it makes me sad to think about that.  I have been so blessed by all these things and have grown to love Visalia.  I think it hit me when I heard the wonderful news of a dear friend's pregnancy and realized that I will be missing out on that birth and the first years of their life.  But I know that everyone special to me here will not be able to experience all that I will be experiencing there either.  I'm very thankful for technology and the fact that I will be able to video skype and facebook and email.  But I will miss zumba with my friends on Tuesday night, praying with and having dinner with my ladies Thursday nights, lunch after church with the crew, etc.  I know that there will be more moments of realization how big of a deal this move will actually be, but I think it just began to feel real to me this week thinking about these things.

In other news, I was also reminded that His timing and ways are not always my timing and ways this week.  The "plan" had been for me to go to Missions Training International in Colorado in the middle of January and then move to Costa Rica at the beginning of February.  I found out this week that the training I had signed up for and put a deposit down for was full with a 10 person waiting list already.  None of the other sessions were full, including one this month, in November and in February.  I was really bummed when I received this news and still partly am, but I'm trying to remember that it is in His control when I go.  I will now most likely go to the training that starts later in February and move mid-March.  The silver lining is that I would be able to meet my niece or nephew who is going to be born at the end of February before I would move, whereas if I moved at the beginning of February I would miss out on that.  It's continuing to be a journey of surrendering all aspects of the move and the fundraising and the tying up loose ends here to Him.  And I'm sure this is not the last "bump" in the road and change of plans.  

This week is parent conferences for me at my school.  I'm challenging myself and not having a translator to help with my Spanish speaking parents but speaking to them on my own.  I made a cheat sheet of academic vocabulary that I may use and praying the rest goes well.  I need to start getting used to thinking academically in Spanish!  :)