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Ready for Launch!!

I have asked myself several times over the last few months what the heck I was thinking. Back in January, I said "yes" to the Global Outreach office at our church. Yes meant that I was willing to lead a short-term mission trip to Mission of Hope Haiti. At the time, I envisioned a father/daughter mission trip. I pictured 8-10 dads and their girls, ranging from elementary to high school ages. I imagined an awesome bonding opportunity for the girls as older girls spoke into the hearts of the younger, and dads commiserating and learning how to deal with the ages to come. Cute. Fast forward to March and I find out that rather than dads and daughters, I will be leading a team of teenagers. This is a whole new level of crazy!!  

Here we are, about a week and a half from our departure to Haiti. I've got a great team of kids and I am genuinely excited to have the chance to get to know each of them. I am certain that this is the right trip, with the right team. By now, we have completed all of our training sessions which has taught us how to speak with locals using translators, how to communicate our own faith story, how to handle the messiness of team dynamics and even a bit about Haitian culture. In mid-May, we had our commissioning, where we enjoyed a potluck dinner of Haitian food at my house.  I've included some photos below from our potluck!

I would love to say that it has been easy.  I'd love to say that I have given this opportunity all of the attention that it deserves. I'd love to say that I have felt fully in command of the tasks that have come about with this trip. None of these statements are true. Just like everything in life, it has taken some blind faith, some willingness to let go, accepting help from others and a whole lot of grace in order to bring me and our team to the point where we are ready to board a plane next week to go to Haiti.

Speaking of planes... good grief! You know that I really love my job and love what I do. A big part of what I love about my job is getting on the road with the sales team and meeting our clients and prospects, and visiting cities all over the country. Truly, I love that! Having said that, I have had a ton of work travel leading up to this trip which has kept me on the scramble. It leaves me feeling like I have too much on my plate back at the office, wondering whether I have given my family enough time and made it really hard to get all the errands run so that we can prepare for our trip.  

At the end of the day, I know this... I know that we have prepared mentally, spiritually and physically for our trip. I know that so far, 2016 has been a year of challenges and that we have faced them confidently as a family. I know that my beautiful bride takes my wild hairs in stride (secretly, she may even kind of like it). I know that our team is excited about our trip and that Mission of Hope will be able to put us to work in great ways that will propel their vision for the village of Simonette.  

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