The end of a season means the beginning of another...

This is my first official blog post. I don't know how much time I've spent trying to figure this thing out since I'm a newbie. Just to keep everyone up to date, I graduated on May 8th from Northwestern College with my major in athletic training. I leave for Haiti on May 20th for 10 weeks and will return July 28th. Once I return, I'll begin the fun of job hunting, hopefully doing athletic training. The thing I lack most in athletic training is confidence, and I know the only way I'll gain confidence is through experience, so for now, working seems to be the best option. I'm pretty sure there will be more schooling within the next few years, likely in the area of physical therapy. I'm not sure if I will apply to a doctorate of physical therapy program or a physical therapy assistant program. We'll see if God reveals anything to me this summer along those lines.

I just got an email today from Gretchen giving me a better idea of what to expect this summer. (Gretchen and her husband Bob DeVoe founded Lifeline Christian Mission about 30 years ago, though all the credit they receive they give right back to God.) Gretchen will be there for the first couple of weeks I'm there, but after that, it sounds like it will be me and a couple who serve as the Laborlink Coordinators who will be overseeing the workteams that come down throughout the summer. Gretchen is planning on me spending most of my time in clinic doing rehab and therapy with the Haitians who were affected by the earthquake on January 12. I am so excited because doing therapy in missions is what I have wanted to do since beginning college, but honestly, I am scared out of my mind. My therapy experience consists of working with college athletes and assisting in a PT clinic at home, not organizing therapy for people with amputated limbs and who knows what else. As scared as I am, for the same reasons, I am so excited and can't help but laugh. I know that God doesn't always call the equipped but more often equips those He calls. He is calling me, and I feel SO unprepared and unqualified with no professional work experience. The verses I'm sure I will be clinging to this summer come from 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10: "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for MY power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that the power of Christ rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I have no clue what will happen this summer or how God will reveal Himself to me, but I am SO excited to learn. I know God is good, and I pray that you will be encouraged as you read my stories and thoughts this summer. I want to be as much as an encouragement to you as anything. Though I am the one who will physically be in Haiti, it's all of us, working together as the Body of Christ, who will be able to impact this world for the sake of the Kingdom. Thanks for joining me!