I've found that in my life, the phrase, "calm before the storm", never applies to me. It's always, "storm before the calm."
Take for instance my major in college. Actually that's a really long story in itself, so I won't delve into that, but basically what happened is that there was a lot of turmoil, tension, and tears before it got better and I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. If you really really want to know the story...you'll have to ask me later
Anyway, back to the story.
As you all know, or the ones that read about the beautiful week from hell (see post below), I was NOT having a good weekend (well, besides the fact that Kelsey and David got married and it was a beautiful wedding). It was a series of unfortunate events, really.
Well, needless to say, it got extremely better in a matter of a few days. And a few unexpected surprises came with it.
We must back up to a year ago when I was...well....figuring out my life. Ok, so I guess you'll hear at least part of my life story. Haha.
After my horrible, but life-changing summer, where I was compelled to change majors but was still not sure what was going to happen, Pastor Joedy Melashenko, the director of Youth Ministries at the Quiet Hour Ministries (wow, that's a mouthful), whom I was privileged to go on a mission trip with to Fiji the summer of '09, emailed a bunch of us inviting us to go to Tonga on a mission trip the next summer (Summer '12).
Ok. Tonga. Mission trip. I mean, who wouldn't want to go?
So I emailed Pastor Joedy back telling him I couldn't give him a definite "yes" yet b/c I wasn't sure where I was going to be in the summer, but that I would seriously consider it. About a month later I talked to him on the phone and told him I wanted to "step out in faith and say that I'm going to go regardless of my school situation b/c I feel I need to go on this trip." Ok, two things.
1. Because of my major at the time (Medical Laboratory Science), this summer I was supposed to be up at Andrews University doing my clinicals ALL summer long.
2. I felt a really strong calling to go on this mission trip that I couldn't explain.
So I signed up. Mind you, this is like...October of 2011. I was super excited to be going into the unknown.
Fast forward a few months.
My mom called me and told me that Auntie Beth and Baby were going to be staying with us for a good portion of the summer and wanted make sure I would be home to take them around. Yeah, of course I could take them around. Wait. But I'm going to be in Tonga. Houston, we have a problem.
Long conversation short, I made a decision to forget about Tonga and stay at home to be with my relatives, b/c I love them and they've done so much for me. It just seemed fair and right for me to do so. It was a struggle, let me tell you. I prayed a lot about it, and asked for advice from a bunch of people too.
Well, truth be told, Tonga stayed in the back of my mind afterwards. I told God, "If You want me to go on that mission trip, make it happen. If not, I'll live."
A month or two later, my housemate, Shauna, was going through one of her mid-life crisis about what she was going to do with her life and such that summer. So I jokingly mentioned to her that we should go together to Tonga and she actually considered it. So much so that I started getting excited and called up Pastor Joedy.
Yeah, false alarm. She ended up deciding to go to Japan and Korea with her family. Which, I kind of don't blame her for doing.(But, now I kinda do, so Shauna, I really really wish you weren't over there right now.)
Anyway.
Plans kept on changing at the last minute for us (my family is REALLY good at doing that for some frustrating reason). We were supposed to go to Alaska after Hawaii, but there wasn't enough time to get Baby a visa from the time school ended for her to us leaving for Hawaii. So we decided to go after Kelsey's wedding.
Side note: The three of us, Auntie Beth, Baby, and I all have passports from different countries.
Well, as you read (or didn't read) the fiasco about her not being able to get a visa at not only DC, but also NY as well (they told the last three people in line that they had to come back the next day b/c the embassy had reached its limit for the day and they were part of that last three), it ended up that there was no more availability for the Alaskan and Canadian land tour. Since we had had so much problem with that, we decided that we were NOT meant to go to Alaska and Canada at all!
So we had to look at other places to go. Baby voted for Europe, but that got nixed pretty quickly as we found out that Auntie Beth must get a visa to Europe in the country that she holds a passport in. Well, that was NOT happening since she would have to go to the other side of the world.
Back to square one.
I told my cousin (the one that has been acting as our travel agent of sorts) that we needed to find a country that we ALL could go to without a visa.
The three countries she came up with were Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Peru. Ok, cool. DR didn't have any tours at the time, so she looked up Peru. There was a tour that included going to the Amazon in Brazil. Perfect. I've always wanted to go there. Oh, just kidding. I need a visa to go to Brazil. Seriously?!!
Around this time we were all about to pull our hair out. Three countries and at least one of us needed a visa for that country. Something or Someone was working hard against us. I kept on praying, "God, if You want me to go on this mission trip, Your will be done...but they're leaving in a week, so You're going to have to work fast." I'm pretty sure God was chuckling at me at this point.
A good family friend of ours called that weekend and asked me what I was doing this summer and then asked me why I wasn't going on the mission trip when I told him I was going to be traveling with my family. He then asked me if I knew if that was what God wanted. At that point I wasn't so sure so I told him, "I think so." He said to me, " 'I think so' is NOT a good enough answer. You should know whether or not this is God's will." Hah. Food for thought.
So the last country that we were going to try was Costa Rica. So on Tuesday, my cousin requested availability for a tour there and we all waited.
Meanwhile, the day before, on Monday, I had received an email from Quiet Hour saying:
Dear Tonga mission trip participants,
Just a few items before you go to Tonga this weekend in the attached letters and below....
I was super confused when I received it and decided to disregard the email. I must have been on an old list or something b/c I hadn't been planning on going. Shoot, I hadn't even paid a dime yet!!
So I promptly call up Quiet Hour and ask them if they can explain this.Turns out I was on the list to go. So I asked if I had a ticket or not, b/c I would SO go if I did. So she told me she'd call back to verify with me if I did or not. Meanwhile, I had to go to the mall with the family to get stuff...yeah, the cell reception in the mall is NOT good at all. So I ended up missing her call, but the message stated that if I wanted to go, I could go, and they would hook me up with the travel agent and I could pay online!
The next day, after discussing it with my parents, I was all ready to call up Quiet Hour to tell them I wanted to go when the travel agent, out of no where, called me to confirm my domestic flight from home to LAX. Ummm...I hadn't even told Quiet Hour I was going for sure and I'm already supposed to confirm my flight out? Whattt?????? Eventually I got everything settled, including more waiting for phone calls to verify things with little to no cell reception once again (I needed to talk to my cousin about when I should fly out and such to match up with Auntie Beth and Baby and she was NOT answering).
By that night, Thursday, I was all set, everything paid, with tickets to go to Tonga. Except the next day, I realized I had never gotten my itinerary for LAX to Tonga and back. I hadn't the slightest clue as to what airlines I was flying, much less my confirmation number. I got quite worried and had to call/text/email/message people in hopes of contacting someone that would know. After a few tense hours of waiting (God has REALLY been teaching me patience and faith this summer!) I finally got to talk to our travel agent, Glenda, who forwarded my itinerary to me. Thank the Lord!!! I had also messaged a former participant, Betty, that I had gone to Fiji with, that I found out was going to Tonga as well and she helped me out. Thankful for friends!!
So....I'm going to Tonga. Tomorrow. It's still pretty surreal and won't hit me till I get there. But I'm super excited to say the least. Apparently God knew all along and wanted me to go on this trip!! And would you believe it, but as soon as I decided to go to Tonga, the Costa Rica trip worked out for my family.
God has definitely been working in my life!!! This will be an adventure for sure!
I still have to pack. And I don't know if I'll have internet over there, so if you don't hear from me for awhile, you'll at least know where I am this time. Please pray for not only me, but our whole group of about 40 people. I have a feeling that we'll be roughing it over there b/c they asked us all to bring solar shower bags. Haha.
Here is my conversation with Niki about trying to find one.
Me: I need to find a solar shower bag. I can't find anywhere that sells it in store. I don't want to risk ordering it online b/c it might not get here in time.
Niki: Umm. Keri. We live in the United States. Why would anyone need one of those?
Me: Uh...campers?
Niki: Not even campers are that hard core.
Lolol. I found one....they had some leftover at our Walmart, thank goodness.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories to tell when I get back!
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