She's Waiting :: On Heading to Africa (and a RAD giveaway!)

This is the night before everything changes. Again.

If there's one thing I've learned in recent years, it's that nothing ever stays the same. We weren't meant to sit too still or too quietly. So tomorrow I'll begin my journey to Ethiopia. (Or, as Calvin says, "Ethreeopia".)

This trip snuck up on me a bit, as everything important, semi-important and otherwise is prone to do. I've discovered that my best course of action is to one-day-at-a-time it. But tonight my attentions are turned toward the suitcase up on my floor (mostly packed), the love notes tucked away for the kiddies, and, most of all, the rest of it.

How does a heart condition itself for a shake-down? I know it's coming and so do you. The cool thing about it? It won't just be my heart beating faster. You get to come along with me.

My prayer, as I prepare for this trip, is that I'll share what needs to be shared. I don't know how it will happen. It seems next to impossible, a task cut for a finer writer or a surer soul.

I don't know exactly what it is I have to learn or how it will possibly be narrowed down and funneled through the wide end of four short days.

What I'm hoping is that I won't cry eight hundred times a day. I'm hoping I'll be wide awake (in the literal and theoretical sense.) I'm hoping I accept every moment with an open hand, not wishing anything away, never wanting the clock to move faster.

I'm also hoping practical things, like that Calvin's health will stay sturdy and the kids will breeze through their first week back to school. I'm hoping for a triple shot of patience for Cory. I'm hoping Silas knows for sure that his Mama's coming home.

I'll be honest, I'm hoping my hair cooperates. At least by half.

Above all else, I'm hoping for a heart-break. I'm hoping my hunch is proven yet again - that God is most accessible in the low places, that His heart builds its mansion in the improbable and wonky. I'm not sure if I'll be bowled over by the beauty or broken by the poverty. Hopefully both, in equal parts.

But I enter this adventure with the spirit of an explorer, my heart already splitting at the seams in anticipation of all I'll carry home with me. I go without assumptions. I go with deep peace.

I'd be grateful if you'd come along.

In honor of our trip, fashionABLE is giving away a Meseret scarf and a Tigist leather clutch from the brand new leather line.

 

One lucky reader will win both items. I have the clutch (it's gorgeous!) and I get compliments every time I wear one of my fashionABLE scarves. (See my Genet scarf here.)

To enter, follow @mochaclub and  @livefashionABLE on twitter and like them on facebook here and here. You get one entry for each follow, so please leave separate comments for each.

 Thanks for journeying with me, Lovelies!