prep work.

((wrote this post this morning before i left DFW, but they don't have free wi-fi. so i'm posting this from newark. one flight down. two to go!))

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Well. It’s impossible for me to believe that today is the day.

But here I am. Sitting at DFW airport, sipping on my chai and blogging.

Someone said the other day when I was talking about how frantic things have been that they were surprised by that.

“didn’t you know you were planning on doing this for months?”

sure. I did. And have been planning on this great adventure for sometime, but to be quite honest, it all snuck up on me.

Isn’t that how life is though?

You wait so long for something to happen and then it does.

And then it’s over.

Was it all you thought it would be?

Were you fully present for the experience you were so looking forward to?

It is my prayer that both of those questions will be answered with a resounding YES when this entire experience is over.

I am expecting these next 9 weeks to be much more than I could ever dream.

It is my goal, if nothing else, to be fully present.

It’s actually one of the things I’m looking forward to most.

No texting.

No facebook on my phone.

No returning phone calls.

No worrying about who’s doing what.

No fast food.

No job.

Just being.

I have joked with numerous people that I am anxious for the flight so I can sleep. Seriously. last night I packed, and re-packed, and packed again…I am bringing a huge rubber maid full of supplies, food, treats and gifts for the kids, Jon and Ashley. The Rubbermaid weighed exactly 50.5 pounds this morning. Since I can only check 2 bags that left one bag for my clothes and necessities for 9.5 weeks. Not quite the easiest task. I started with a ridiculous amount of stuff and whittled it down to what I felt was the bare minimum. Honestly just clothes, a few pairs of shoes, toiletries and 2 towels. Last night at 9:30pm this bag weighed 75 pounds. SEVENTY-FIVE POUNDS!!!! (keep in mind blackie and doug were picking me up at 3 in the morning to drive to dallas.) So I took quite a bit of stuff out…but only got it down to 64 pounds. Had to pay the extra for the luggage weighing too much, but whatever. It will be worth it to have one overweight bag when I start passing out all the goodies from my Rubbermaid. (and don’t worry, my purse is overflowing with stuff and my backpack may burst at the seams…)

Speaking of packing. I could NOT have made it through the past few days without one of my best friends, krystle. She came over to my house on Saturday and spent literally the whole day bagging items and helping organize the chaos that had become by living room and kitchen. She brought such order to the madness. I just honestly wanted to sit in the middle of my living room and cry because I didn’t know where to start, but she helped me find a starting point and go from there. Love her.

The 4 loads of clean laundry that needed to be folded and put away. Which, by the way, I had done in record time! Ask anyone who knows me. Putting away laundry is my most dreaded chore.

Me in the middle of the mess.

Some of the stuff krystle bagged up for me. What a bagger!

After spending most of the day packing on Saturday, krystle and I went to get pedicures and then met haley for dinner. Had to get one more round of chips and salsa in before bouncing out of the US! After dinner, we all went back to my house for more packing and organizing and postcard addressing. My friend from work, julianne, came over and brought her sweet 4-week old baby, Madison, with her. We laughed and talked and worked some. It was so nice!

This is Madison on her first st. patrick’s day. It was so hard to tell her bye. I can’t even begin to imagine what she will be like when I get home! I’m extremely sad that I will miss out on the next two months of her life…but hopeful that I will get some pictures to make the distance a little easier.

Sunday was filled with church and friends. I love the support I always feel from my church family at broken arrow Nazarene. Their generosity and thoughtfulness is so endearing. They will never know what their prayers and well wishes mean to me.

After church I had a “last lunch” with tons of my great friends at red robin!

Robert, ken, gabby, james

Jana, hope, krystle, shelly

Micca, amber, Jason, my sweet dad, shane, kolby, Kevin, konnor

Konnor loved the BOTTOMLESS rootbeer floats!

Well, if you think about it over the next 24 hours, please pray for safe flights for me. I leave dallas at 10:30 and land in benin tomorrow night at 8:00pm their time (they are 6 hours ahead of us). I fly from DFW to NY, NY to Brussels, Brussels to benin. Pumped about taking some melatonin and sleeping tonight on the flight to Europe!

I should be able to update after my first few days in sakete. Kelli will update my facebook when she hears from my mom that I arrived safely! Have a blessed day. love you all!!