Today's the day!!!!

Well CI is done with (hopefully I will get a chance to blog about that later, maybe on the plane or in the airport hehe) and I am all packed up and ready to go. I'm slightly annoyed because I was getting all excited about the possibility of a mobile boarding pass on my phone (I wouldn't have to keep up with those stupid papers) but to get those you actually have to check in FROM your phone and I did it online so I still get to carry papers. At least I can remember for my return flight I hope.

I still have a bunch of prayer cards in my room if anyone wants one. I'll try to leave them somewhere that my family can easily find. :)

Well I'm going to change the sheets and make my bed (so the awesome people coming to stay at my house for CMT can not be grossed out ;D) and possibly make one last dash to the store. I will do my best to take LOTS of pictures and post them. I will make only this once shameless begging for attention but PLEASE if you think of me, post on my Facebook or even call my cell number and leave a message. I have a Google voicemail so I will still be able to listen to those. :)

prayer request

Well as sibling number seven has fallen prey to the icky stomach virus that's been going around I am asking if you will please pray for me that I will stay well and healthy this week!! I'm doing lots of hand washing, lots of water, and hoping my immune system is as well as it can be with regular visits to the chiropractor and the other supplements and things I've been taking. Unfortunately sleep is not something I'm probably getting "enough" of so I'm hoping that doesn't become the chink in my armor. :( I should probably have picked up some colloidal silver today while I was at the health foods store but hindsight is 20/20 right??

Speaking of, I was there getting some pycnogenol which has been tested to see if it would be helpful with jet lag. I shall let you know how it turns out. :D I'm supposed to take it beginning two days before I leave up through five days afterwards, drink plenty of water, and it is supposed to somehow help the transition be easier on my body. We shall see! I'm personally counting on the fact I will be so absolutely exhausted by the time I climb on that plane that I'll have no trouble sleeping.

I'm so very sleepy today. Not really tired although I was definitely exhausted on Saturday night, but I've just wanted to sleep all day today and the brain doesn't want to focus. I'm sure the rain helped with that. Well instead of sitting here talking about the sleep I need I'm going to try to go through verses a time or two and then get some. I knew I would be tempted to sleep in tomorrow since I didn't have work and no appointments until the afternoon so I scheduled my haircut for 9:30. Now I HAVE to be up and dressed and out the door by then. :P

Had some sweet Daniel-time today and how precious it was! He's responding a lot more to people with smiles and even some tiny baby-laughter (you know that adorable little grunting sound??) and even cooing to answer you. My how much fun it is to have adopted nieces and nephews!! I've missed getting to be with little Faith and Abby who are growing up far too quickly in College Station without me being there to see them. :(

Having the quiet hour while Daniel slept was much helpful in my beginning to feel more confident about CI. The one thing I've found that helps me be the most comfortable going into the seminar is to have the songs and verses down backwards and forwards and inside out. Sometimes you think you know something until you're standing up in front of 80 kids and they're waiting for you to teach them the next line...and suddenly it's not there!! I haven't yet found much worse than that panicky moment when you stare blankly into the sea of faces trying to remember what comes next. Last year I was much more confident about both songs and verses and the seminar was just FUN! Between Paris and working 40 hours a week (a first for me while planning CI!) I've been struggling to find time to really focus on memorization. The teacher training is somehow much easier for me to pick up here and there and write a little but I feel like I have to have a chunk of time to really focus on verses. Then there's always so much to do at the house! But being here at Stephen & Melody's apartment there were no distractions (with Daniel asleep hehe), and total silence for concentration. It's not completely there yet but I do know it enough now that I can practice in the shower or in the car. :) Biggest hurdle done!! Songs are much easier.

I'm so very excited about the program this year. I always am and I don't know if it's MORE than other years but I was telling my friend Abby that my role with CI right now is exactly what I LOVE doing. If I could do this a couple of times a year it would be so very awesome! It made it so very hard to turn Amy down when she asked if I could possibly stay long enough to help with their missionary retreat in the Alps in Oct/Nov.

I'm soooo very excited about Paris right now I could just burst. I will admit I waffle between feeling homesick in advance and wanting to run around like a five year old with the thrill of it. I wish I could just teleport back and forth between here and there, it would make things so much easier!! I'm hoping I can think to bring everything that would be useful and know what to not bring because it will just be in the way. I do finally have both of my suitcases in my room ready to go and they have about three things in them (a sweater, a hoodie, and my power converter). Very soon I will begin packing more in earnest! I'm hoping to take a few things that will help me feel more comforted and like I'm close to home, like candles with familiar scents and my big memory board that Erin gave me that has pictures of me and friends. :) I want to replace a couple of the pictures, hopefully I'll find time to print them out. There were a few I would like to have taken with me and various ones but oh well. I just wish there were more time between CI and when I leave because I know I'd like to have been able to have some of those pictures!!

Well I've spent as much time as I dare not working on CI or Paris for now, please continue to pray for me to have clarity of thought and for finances! I know God is so good about providing us with exactly what we need when we need it. I'm looking forward to seeing how everything comes together!

plotting and planning

My how the time is fleeting until CI and Paris...I'm so worried I'm going to forget something vitally important for one or the other until it's too late! The other night I dreamed I made it to Paris and opened my suitcase and I'd forgotten to pack clothes. I'm sure that won't happen but it made for a stressful dream.

One of the super cool things about this whole adventure (yes adventure and I haven't even left yet!) is that a friend of a friend also got on the Mission Nannys' site and got connected with a family in Rome. She left a week ago! I've been reading her blog and enjoying it so much. It's so obviously God's plan for her to be there and it awes me to have been used as an instrument to point her in that direction. How amazing is our God?? We haven't even met officially but we've been chatting some and I am picking up a kindred spirit vibe. :) Those are few and far between so it's pretty cool. We are determined to meet when I get back from Paris. She comes home the end of August and I won't be home for another month so we will pass each other.

I also love how God cares about the small things. One day I was chatting with my friend Jen who lives in London about what I would need to plug my American electronics into the European outlets. She showed me exactly what to buy and I bookmarked it to remember to purchase later. Less than twelve hours had passed before I received an email from my Mamma saying she'd found two of the exact converters I needed and would love for me to use them if I wanted or needed them. I had not even told anyone yet about it!

On the CI front we've had quite the time of it with our curriculum this year. I think it's because of the brand new-ness that we've had so many lines crossed but we originally received the old version of the curriculum we wanted whereas I'd been working the last month off the new version (different crafts and memory verses). Thanks to my wonderful friend Sarah who made a LOT of phone calls for me we got to the bottom of the mix up and will be receiving the correct curriculum soon. It was beginning to bother me since we are getting down to the wire!

I'm beginning to think I might start actually packing some clothes soon. Some of the things I'm going to be taking are more fall-ish (for Houston weather anyway) and I most certainly will not be wearing them here before then. I also thought of packing things like hairspray and the like. There will still be plenty left for me to do the night before I'm sure! But I have this basket in my room of miscellaneous clothing items that should have been packed away in the out of season box but never did so I'd like to go ahead and get all of that type of thing taken care of and leave a nice clean room to come home to. I also should put away some of these piles, especially the one on my bed...hmm...

2 Corinthians 9

¹For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you:

²For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many.

³Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready:

⁴Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.

⁵Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.

⁶But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

⁷Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

⁸And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:

⁹(As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever.

¹⁰Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)

¹¹Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.

¹²For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God;

¹³Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men;

¹⁴And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you.

¹⁵Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

I do not blog often enough these days, or at least not nearly as often as ideas come to mind to write about but it just doesn't seem like there's ever enough time to actually sit down and type it up. As is usual it is very late and I will need to be up very early in the morning for VBS this week but two things happened this weekend that were just so incredibly special I couldn't let them go without praising God publicly.

The first thing was Saturday when I received an email informing me that a large amount of money had come in for my trip to Paris. At some point I do remember telling someone that I was pretty sure most of it would come in "late" (as in much closer to my time of departure, not actually late as God is NEVER late). The timing was absolutely perfect as I was beginning to be a tad discouraged at what I in my humanity deemed as a lack of attention on God's part. I love to quote Hudson Taylor to myself in these situations "God's will done in God's way will never lack God's supply" but when it all comes down to it that is easier said than believed. It's so precious to me when God chooses to acknowledge my whimpering "but God, I thought You said--" by gently reminding me that He does have a plan and He is working even when I don't always see it.

Then today was Pastor's anniversary and in honor of that we had Dr. Brandon bringing the messages. As if that wasn't special enough after his amazing testimony of how God has spared his life a little longer on this earth, at the end of the day when they were about to leave I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Are you Megan?" Mrs. Brandon has always been such an example to me, and I have always said I want to be like her when I grow up. She is so very beautiful and never seems to age physically as well as having the most wonderfully sweet spirit. I was a bit taken aback that she would remember my name and said "yes". She exclaimed "I just needed to hug your neck!" She remembered me from IMPACT in 2007! It was so very special and sweet to me and such an encouragement although it may not seem like much to anyone else. But she remembered me--and wanted to hug me. She'll probably never know how much that little gesture meant but it really was huge to me, especially following two weeks of some fairly intense personal spiritual warfare. You never know how YOU can have an impact on someone else! If you are prompted to speak to someone or hug them, please do it because all of the mes out there need you to give that little bit of help to keep on keeping on. :) Sometimes God just wants to use you as His way of physically hugging someone.

Time continues to fly as CI and Paris approach. I am more and more excited about both and at the same time nervous. I know the time will pass quickly there but once or twice I've caught myself thinking "why did I agree to go for so long? what am I thinking?". But I know that it's God's will and I am very excited to see what He has in store. Thank you to all of you who are praying for me and my trip. Please don't stop!! :)

Paris prayer letter

For those interested in it I have put my prayer letter up here (where I will also be uploading my pictures) and you can read it or save it and print it out. There's also information on how to donate money towards my plane ticket if you feel so led. I'm very excited about how quickly it's coming up!!!