All praises be to the King of Kings!

Today.  What a day!  Allow me to explain.

When I was getting ready to study abroad in France a few years ago, it took two tries to get my visa approved.  On the first go around, I thought I had all of the documents I needed, so with complete confidence, I walked up to the desk when my name was called only to learn that I was missing a very important document.  The woman working asked me where my form was and when I pointed out it out, she said "No.  The form you need you will receive after sending in a cash order to [an office I cannot remember] in Washington D.C.  You can come back when you have it."  With that, I had to go home empty-handed, figure out what I needed to get, sent in the order, drove back up to camp, and then had to try again at the end of the summer.  The second time I applied, I knew I had everything I needed, but I was still overwhelmed with nerves are kept thinking of what would happen if it didn't go through.  Thankfully, it did go through and I got to study in France, meet wonderful people, and gave a very amazing wake up call to God's work in my life.

Since then, I have been working towards going back to France.  It was a challenging time in my life, with so much change happening at home and in my own personal life while being in a different country.  But, the greatest challenges bring about the greatest growth, and without growth we are unable to see or even begin to understand God's desire for our lives.  There are two things that I love to do: hang out with kids, and organize things.  I think that kids can teach us so much more than we can teach them, and if we are discouraged or frustrated with what is happening in the world, the best thing we can do is spend time with kids who will, in the end, be the ones who can change things for the future.  As to organizing, well...I'm just a bit of a nerd and enjoy putting things in order, and I love to come up with different ideas for events.  I have the change to do this in France at GBSE!

You can imagine then, since this is something I so greatly have wanted to do, that remembering how difficult it was to get a visa last time has caused me to be rather anxious.  Over the past few weeks, I have quadruple checked every component of getting a visa, talked to people in France, at the CrossWorld headquarters, and those people have talked to people, just to make sure everything I had was correct.  Between that stress, daily construction outside my house starting at 7 in the morning (who does that?!), and having a bit of a cold, sleep has not been my friend.  Last night, I was wide awake well after midnight, woke up in the one o'clock hour, around 3:30, and finally when my alarm went off at 6.  Well, after a train ride, a water taxi, walking a few city blocks, and waiting in line, I am overjoyed to say that I was approved for my visa, and could be in France within a matter of weeks!  Ahhh!  God is so good.

In order to get there though, I still have 13% of my monthly support to raise, which is about $370 per month.  So, if you are in need of cards or knitware, or just want to donate a dollar or two, let me know!