13 days.

Bright and early on the morning of June 7th, I will begin my journey to Uganda. The first two weeks of my trip will be spent with a team from Believer's World Outreach - the same organization that I went with last year. Our first week will be spent at Amani Baby Cottage in Jinja, Uganda and the second week will be spent at Jireh Children's Center in Masaka, Uganda. After the BWO team leaves, I will remain at Jireh Children's Center for seven weeks to help with their Children Sponsorship program until August 8th, arriving home on the evening of August 9th. I am, without a doubt, very excited to see what amazing things will take place on this trip! I know that I will experience some awesome things while I am there and I am prepared to fall in love with this beautiful country all over again.

I am very excited to meet up with the BWO team because the people that I have talked to thus far have an overwhelming excitement and passion that is contagious and I am sure that God will use us to accomplish amazing things! I am also excited to love on the babies at Amani, to watch them play, to sing with them, to hear their sweet voices pray and to watch them put on their smart clothes. I am excited to dance with the kids at Jireh, to have them show me that they know how to do the macarena, to crack the tough shells off the boys who think that they are just too cool, to hear them sing praises, to learn Lugandan and to tell them that they are loved. I am overwhelmed with joy when I think of spending nine whole weeks with these kids and I know that it will be the hardest thing ever to say goodbye at the end of the summer. The impact that they have already made is unbelievable.

I must admit, however, that my anxieties are building as the date draws nearer. I will only have nine weeks - seven weeks, really - to focus on the sponsorship program at Jireh and I want to use that time as wisely and effectively as possible. I have some great ideas and dreams of what can happen and what can be accomplished, but I have no idea where to begin to execute these things. I would love to take new pictures of all the children and make sure that they are all on the website. I would like to set up a new filing system with detailed information about each of them. I would like to have the children who are already being sponsored write letters to their sponsors. I would like to record lots of footage with the kids in hopes of making a new sponsorship video. There are many more things that I would like to accomplish while I am there, but I do not know where to begin or how to fit all of that into a mere seven weeks.

Also, a very special little girl that I grew attached to while I was there last summer, Assimwe Maclin, passed away in February. I think that there is a small piece of me that is holding on to a hope that it was all a mistake and I will still see her when I arrive there. I understand that it is irrational, but I am beginning to realize that my arrival there and her absence will begin a whole new step of the grieving process and I am not sure how to prepare for that.

I say these things so you can keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I prepare to leave. I really appreciate all of the support that I have received from my family and friends thus far and I am grateful that you are letting me go and live out the dreams that God has placed in my heart.