The LORD is Faithful!

Friday: Find out that I need $1,500 for my plane ticket...by next week. Commence freakout and mass texting to see if I can send people a copy of my support letter.

Saturday: Still freaking out.

Sunday: Freaking out more. But still trying to lean on God more than my freaking out. That night I can't sleep. I'm just staring at the ceiling not able to even get a sense of relief from closing my eyes. So I start thinking. I'm thinking that now I have even less time to get my fundraising in. How I'm supposed to believe that God is going to come through and is able to provide more than enough of what I need. And how I can't stop freaking out. Then I remember that I haven't responded to an email from a family friend about a potential fundraising opportunity. Throughout this whole Uganda journey I've learned that if I get this feeling that I could lift a car off a baby, aka an adrenaline rush, and a severe prompting to JUST DO IT that I should follow that gut feeling. So very late last night, I answer his email. And then I can go to sleep about 30 minutes later.

Monday: Wake up and can go about 30 minutes into my day without freaking out. And then I remember that I'm still $1,500 short of a plane ticket. And so the freaking out begins again. I call Imagine Design Team to see how my bracelets are doing. Melanie says that we've raised about $100 which was awesome to hear! I gather up all my checks to send to Sweet Sleep and the total is $1,050. And about half of that amount was from my own money. I had listened to a podcast earlier today that was talking about Abraham, Isaac, and if he should've trusted God. A God that said, "Here's your promise, here's the actual promise come alive, and now I want you to kill it." Or, at least, that's my version of Abraham's thought process. I knew that God had given me a promise that He would get me to Uganda. Truly, there is no other way to describe this mission journey besides God has promised to send me to Uganda. And now, I felt as though He was asking me to lay it all on the line and kill my promise. Umm, WHAT? WHY? But He has been faithful before. He has brought me this far. So I gave up a lot of my security in one check and got busy praying. I knew that God would open a door at anytime with anyone in any place. I just thought it would be at the end of this week. Instead, God answers my prayer and even gives me almost a double promise! I got an email back from our family friend saying that he would like to partner with our mission journey and donate $3,000! DOUBLE THE AMOUNT THAT I REALLY NEEDED. So all I could do was hug my mom and cry because God provided. He really does have unlimited supply and He really has promised that He will send me to Uganda.

If I ever needed a bigger gesture that God is truly faithful and that I WILL be going to Uganda on July 12th then this was the gesture. I know that God doesn't always work like this and I know that what I see in Uganda will change my whole worldview. For some reason God REALLY wants me in Uganda and I cannot WAIT to see why!

What I've Been Watching: Invisible Children Video

Invisible Children Video

This is the video that started the Invisible Children movement. It talks about a current issue in the world which is the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). Now, the war has ended in Uganda but they have moved to the surrounding countries and continue to take children. Also, Uganda is still trying to heal itself from the war. They still need our help.

Be Still and Get Moving

The theme of this week has been "Be Still and Get Moving". God works in oxymorons so just let me explain.

Be Still
Psalm 138:8   Hebrews 13:6   Psalm 62:1
Obviously, this whole process of going to Uganda is teaching me the importance of being still and letting God work. I am definitely more prone to feeling as though I need to take everything in my own hands and that I will be the one that makes it all happen. I needed to learn that it wasn't me that was actually doing the work. I could put the support letters in the mail, but do I hand deliver them? Do I make sure that they are put in the hands of the people that will help me? No, God does that. So that already helps take some pressure off of myself. I don't have to feel as though I need to be in control because as soon as something leaves my hands I don't have any control.
God knows what He is doing. I have to trust that He does even when I have a little doubt that this might be the time that He doesn't come through.

Get Moving
Galatians 6:8   Isaiah 6:8   Romans 5:5
But this does not in anyway give me an excuse to put off sending out support letters! Or talking to the person that I know needs a little encouragement. Or thinking that God is going to move in some HUGE way so I can just "be still". So when God tells me that I'm going to Uganda in July and I have about a week and a half at the latest to get $1,500 for the plane flight you best BELIEVE I start moving! But it also shows what I should have been doing these past two weeks, then not to feel ashamed or stressed that I procrastinated, and to keep moving forward.

By the way if you happen to have $1,500 in your wallet and want it to be tax-deductible please email me at righthanddistance@gmail.com.

What I Am Reading

"He challenged them to embrace radically different standards, to love their neighbors and their enemies, to forgive those who wronged them, to lift up the poor and downtrodden, to share what they had with those who had little, and to live lives of sacrifice. Then He likened their effect on the world around them to that which light has on darkness. Light dispels darkness; it reverses it. Likewise, truth dispels falsehood, and goodness reverses evil."

-The Hole In Our Gospel by Richard Stearns