Hey guys! I am finally writing my first blog post! Ahhh! So exciting! I kept trying to plan the perfect first post and when to post it and what to write about. Turns out there is no such thing. But, the other day I received something in the mail that I just had to write about. I received my passport in the mail. Now for some people this may not be that monumental and exciting but when I saw it in person my heart raced just a bit. Most of you don't know but this is my very first mission trip and will be my first plane ride.

Seeing that passport meant so many things for me. It meant that I could finally travel as much as I had always dreamed about, I could quite literally hop on a plane to Africa tomorrow and no one could stop me (except for covid regulations, maybe, who knows). When I saw that little booklet that is my ticket to everywhere, I didn't just see a passport but I saw what all the booklet would allow me to do. This will allow me to make disciples of ALL nations not just the one that I live in. This is so radically cool that I wanted to cry. I felt so much excitement, nerves, but mostly super expectant for this next season. 

Since starting my World Race journey I have hit some bumps in the road that caused some unexpected nerves and uncertainty. Since I was the very last person to get accepted for the September gap year routes, I had a lot to get done in a short amount of time. I had to raise $3500 in 13 days which no one, including myself, thought was possible. What we didn't know would happen was that I would raise $2500 in less than 24 hours of the start of fundraising. God truly showed up in some many ways. I was overwhelmed and feeling so thankful. Little did I know that my journey would quickly take a turn. I ran into some health issues and ended up having to completely change my plans. At one point I was unsure if I would continue at all. One day I saw that they still had the semester trips available. This was a 3 month trip based in Central America. That was such a God thing because I knew that I could go on this trip in January and I would have time to heal. So after all this change and health issues I was feeling all kinds of things but when I received that passport (that wasn't supposed to be here until mid October) I just had peace about this new trip and journey that I am going on. I knew that God was surrounding this trip and every step of this journey has all been part of His plan.

I know this wasn't a profound post that had some amazing life lesson in it but it you don't get anything from this post at least get this. Although, we may not always see God in everything he is always there and He is always working. We simply just have to trust in him.

-Catherine <3