At 1pm tomorrow, we officially take off ... EH!?

T'is the night before departure
And all through the house,
Our bags are strewn everywhere
Seriously ... just about!

Our final list of things to do is done! I've never seen so many to-do lists in my life, and I'm married to someone who thrives off of to-do lists. You'd think I would be used to them by now, but apparently not. Actually, it's ok because if it were up to me, we would have probably done all of the running around in two days, packed once, and would still have been packing on the way to the airport. Yet another reason why I love Taryn and her gift of administrative abilities.

The past couple of days has reminded us of just how fragile we are. In all of the planning, packing, studying, re-packing, fund-raising and re-re-packing we keep coming back to the realization that we are only human, and that by ourselves we cannot serve God. There have been times in this process where we've wanted to take control away from God and do things "our" way, and it's not that things turned out worse in these times, it's just that things turned out SO much better when we relinquished control - sometimes even reluctantly - to God. It sounds kind of funny (and yet sobering) to admit it but there were times when, if we look back honestly, we didn't really want God to be in control ... especially when things were going well. Of course when things weren't going well (or as planned), we took out our soothers and wondered why God was making things so hard. The truth is that we make things hard by the selfish choices we make, but God makes things right.

So as we take-off on the jumbo jet tomorrow at 6pm (EST), land in Nairobi 2:30pm (EST) on Saturday and continue to PACE, we go with the confidence of knowing that God graciously and compassionately makes things right - and we will choose daily to leave Him in control.

Psalm 116:5 - "The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion."