Haiti

Friends, I am headed to Haiti next Tuesday for ten days.

I am so so so excited for this opportunity, my buttons could just burst right off. From the second I heard about the earthquake, my heart just broke for all the people and the country as a whole. I wanted so badly to go and be with the people and help. Just a few weeks ago everything unfolded so perfectly and fast for me to join a medical and counseling team. We'll be working in a medical clinic in Haiti and doing some counseling there and then the counseling part of our team with head into Port Au Prince to lead a conference for Haitian counselors and locals on counseling techniques and coping skills. It couldn't be more perfect.

I have never enjoyed the process of fundraising and asking people for money for trips like this but this trip was completely different. Everything just fell right into place and donations came in from close friends and from family and from people who I don't even know. I was completely humbled at the generosity of the people I surround myself with and not just with funds but with encouragement and support and excitement. I am so so grateful for it all.

It just affirms to me that this is where I am meant to be and what I am meant to be doing right now. I am so thankful for this opportunity to give of a skill that I have and to be present in the midst of both joy and sorrow and to bear witness to the lives of those who have been through immense tragedy yet choose to fight each day for more.

It's work like this that makes my heart come alive and as this great man says,

"Do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -Howard Thurman

Thank you all for standing by me and helping me to do the work that makes me come alive.

For that I am forever grateful.

the road less traveled

I feel as though throughout life we are challenged to step out of our comfort zone. Those moments come at us like forks in the road in which we can choose the paved, well lit path where many have traveled before or we can choose the muddy path filled with brush and brier, the road less travelled.

I’ve definitely chosen the well lit path many a times in my life and the result was pleasant and all but also, boring. Who wants boring? No one I know that’s for sure. The few times that I’ve chosen the road less traveled, the result was adventure, heartache, joy, sorrow and the feeling of being alive. Not the most pleasant route, but it was never boring, not even for a moment. It was absolutely mad, in a good way.