Saturday, January 30, 2010

I Love Kenya.

Coming home from Kenya in November, I was praying and praying about my future there.

I wasn't sure if or when I would come back since I had just made the transition from Saddleback to Mariners.

But God knew.

{If you are not interested in the process, but in the end result, skip to ***}

I came home praying that I could talk to Jeff {my boss} in an easy, comfortable conversation; not wanting to say "I just came back...when can I leave again?"

Two days after I came home, Jeff brought up the idea of my returning...mentioning that he had already spoken to "the Kenyan missions guy" at Mariners {whose name is Christian; he's actually Kenyan and runs all of the trips to Kenya...making the title doubly awesome} and that I could go back, but we'd just have to figure out timing.

So, I began to pray for an easy, comfortable conversation with Christian. I didn't want to walk-up and say, "Oh, you're Kenyan. I love Kenya...when can I go there?"

About a week later, I got an email from Christian saying something-along-the-lines of: "I heard you love Kenya. Want to meet up and talk about Kenya?"

I instantly wrote back and said, "Absolutely."

The next afternoon, I sat in Christian's office talking about how I've fallen in love with Kenya over the years. I also mentioned that I would love to take some students there. We talked through a few things, he asked a few great questions and we left it with: let's have another meeting, with Jeff.

About a month later {a few weeks ago} Jeff and I met with Christian. We talked through a bunch of details...and a lot about our desire to take students on an international trip.

Christian said, "Go for it!"

***

Mid-March, three of us from the Student Ministries Team will be taking a scouting trip to Mariners' partner church in Nairobi. After a week {or so}, the boys will fly home and I will head to Kitale for a few days!

Then, in June, we will take a group of students out to Nairobi! I am so excited...I'm already praying, thinking, writing about the preparation for the trip. {Oh, and I will head to Kitale for a few days at the end of that trip, too!}

God is so good. What an amazing process to have been facilitated in less than two months!
I honestly can not wait to see how this all shakes down!

1 comment:

Julie Hibbard said...

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
Yeah God and Yeah Allison and Yeah Kenya!
This is so inspirational...
God works EVERYTHING for good and He certainly knows the plans he has for YOU...
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!