It just hit me a couple days ago that I will be leaving for Zambia in only about a month. I don't know how it's going to come together. I am not anywhere near ready in terms of having everything planned out, but I felt this pull on my heart for many months and emotionally, I couldn't be more ready to embark on this adventure.
I guess I should back up a bit...
From the moment that I found out that I needed to complete a summer internship as part of my masters program, I knew I had to go back to Africa. I was in Tanzania for two and a half weeks a little over a year ago (http://tanzania2009-journeytoafrica.blogspot.com/) and have longed to return everyday since. Funding for international internships is not easy to come by, especially if you aren't conducting research. For a brief moment, I considered doing research in Palestine... going the way of much more certain funding, but I never could shake the feeling that I was meant to be somewhere else. I knew exactly where I was supposed to be... in Zambia, working with an incredible non-governmental organization (NGO) called FORGE (more about them later). My mom came across their website and in reading about their mission and philosophy on international development, I felt as though I had found a group of individuals with the same heart as the one that beats in my chest. I knew that no matter what the cost, no matter what I had to do... I would make this happen.
And here I am. A backpack waiting to be filled and a one-way ticket purchased to leave for Lusaka, Zambia on June 2nd. Informal internship agreements have been written up and I am set to spend 10 weeks working in the Meheba Refugee Settlement. With a new credit card nearly maxed out with the balance of my airfare, and barely enough money in my savings to cover my accommodations and support at the FORGE camp, I have yet to make an appointment to get all the necessary prescriptions, book a return flight back home, and I found out a couple days ago that I have no chance of getting the grant I applied for. But God provides. Maybe I'm just young, excited, and carefree... but I find that I just forge ahead, certain that I am on the right trajectory and that everything will come together because this is what I am meant to be doing right now.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." - Matthew 6:25-34
