Well I am about 1 week away from jumping on a plane to head to the UK. A lot of events led up to this moment, and now that it is here it feels so surreal. My freshmen year at Boyce College I found out about a program called Hands On where college age students could intern with the International Mission Board for a semester. As soon as I heard about the opportunity, the Lord laid it upon my heart that this is what He had for me. Then my sophomore year I started the process of writing essays and trying to be approved by the IMB, but I got stuck on the question of where I wanted to serve. One of my absolute best friends Carrie was also going to do Hands On at the same time I was. We wanted to serve alongside one another but only if it was God’s will. So we made a plan to pray about it, look over all the different job opportunities, make a list of the top 10 places we wanted to serve in, and then reconvene to see what each other had put. Well I prayed about it, made my list, and then met up with Carrie. We actually had a lot of the same job opportunities, but she had one job opportunity that caught my eye in Wales. When I was praying about where God wanted me for this opportunity, I did not even click on the job opportunities in Europe because I never thought God would put me there. However God likes to lead us in the direction that we’re not even looking in. The more Carrie and I talked and prayed about it, the more the Lord made it obvious that He wanted both Carrie and I in Wales for this 5 months of our lives. We were both approved by the IMB and will be joining 9 other college students on August 18th in London. We will be in London till around August 27th for orientation with all the other students serving with Hands On in Western Europe this semester, and then our team will ride a train to Cardiff Wales where we will be stationed. It has all been such a whirlwind, and it is crazy that it is actually time to go seeing as I’ve talked about it for so long. However, the Lord is sovereign and has really given me a peace about everything. I am going to try to do a weekly update on here with new prayer requests and of course a European phrase or word of the week haha. Love you guys; ya’ll are absolutely amazing:)