I couldn’t believe my ears. I broke into a huge smile and turned my head to look at Abby.

6 or 7 of my girl friends (including Mrs. Dietrich J) were on the Dietrich’s back porch on a muggy July evening, sharing prayer requests. Glasses of tea and copies of Respectable Sins were scattered on the patio table. I had arrived late that night, rushed and frazzled from a hectic night at work. Oh, I had expected to come and be encouraged and to have fun that night, but I was completely blown away by what I saw God doing there. He had been writing stories all around me for months and years, and I was beginning to see where some of them were headed. The plot thickens.

“Well,” Abby was saying,” Please pray for wisdom and guidance for me. Recently I’ve been thinking and praying about going to Costa Rica for about six months, beginning in January.”

I simply had to interrupt. “ABBY. I have been thinking and praying about the exact same thing for three days now!”

Of course, giddy girl talk followed. “Oh my gosh, really? I had no idea! What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?”

As excited as we were that night, Abby and I still had a few doubts. Where will this desire lead us? Is this what God wants for us?

Since July, Abby and I have emailed, researched, prayed, made phone calls, prayed, googled, raised money, and prayed. Four months later, we are set to leave on January 3^rd for Villas de Ayarco, CR, to serve with the missionaries of the Abraham Project. Among them are Jonathan and Amy Griffith, the Thomas family, and Dr. Jorge Gomez. I have a feeling that these people will become very dear friends J We will be serving in a poverty-stricken community that suffers from violence, gang activity, drug and alcohol abuse, and broken homes.

So, after discovering that my friend had the same desire to serve as I do, I decided it was time to tell my parents what had been going on in my head.

This was a fairly typical late-night conversation in my parents’ room. I walk in with a smile on my face, still thinking about everything Abby and I had discussed, ready for my enthusiasm to gush out and spread to my parents. I walked in, throw my purse to the side, and sit down at the foot of the bed, Indian-style.

“Ok.”

Mom puts down her magazine, adjusts her glasses, and sits up with the slightest tensing of her shoulders.

Dad sinks deeper into his down-feather pillows, eyes closed, head back, mouth slightly open. Oh, it’s not that he’s not interested; it’s just that he had a long day, and he knows that an hour and a half conversation is about to ensue.

Mom waits with expectation (how do moms have so much energy?), and dad asks, “Yeah, baby?”

“I think I want to go to Costa Rica next year. For, like, a semester.”

We had a great talk. I’m so thankful for parents who trust God and are willing to let their children go and follow Jesus wherever he calls them. My parents know that Jesus isn’t kidding when he says,

"I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves."

Jesus also wasn’t kidding when he said,

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand."

The love that Jesus has for me is stronger than any other force I will face in this life. Greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world.

Pues… Here I go! Abby and I are scrambling to get the fundraiser together. I’m scrambling to finish my classes this semester and to hang out with friends that I’m going to miss.

More to come about the movie night fundraiser! I'll keep you posted on what God is doing. Come glorify the Lord with me! Let us exalt his name together! This is his story.