Happy New Year!!  Welcome 2012, bring it on.  I awoke yesterday morning with a smile on my face, literally.  Yes, you can imagine my cheesy self laying in bed with a grin from ear to ear.  Not just because I am not on call, have 9 days off (unheard of) and had just spent the whole weekend with friends who are all home visiting for the holidays (joyous!), but because this is when it all begins.  June 2012 isn't just a date my friends, it is 5 months away!!!  Heck yea.

AND!!!!  Tomorrow I head to Visalia, CA (right outside of Fresno) for new missionary orientation with Students International.  I don't care that today I awoke with tonsils the size of rocket ships and post nasal drip drowning my lungs.  Tomorrow at this time I will be boarding a flight at JFK towards my new life.  Towards my dreams.  Towards the life God has prepared for me before I was even made.  

Do I sound too excited?  Just bare with me.  All of you who know me well know how excited I can get about things, yea this is one of them.  I can't wait to commune with other missionaries.  To meet other people who have been led to leave the life they know and love and to serve in a foreign place.  To hear their stories.  How following Jesus has caused their lives to be up-rooted and a crazy wild ride.  To learn what it means to have brothers and sisters in Christ from around the world.  For me, this is step one.  And boy am I ready.

Students International works in 5 different countries; DR (obv), Costa Rica, Fiji, Guatemala and Nicaragua.  All new missionaries that have been accepted in the past year will be meeting in Visalia.  Which means, I will get to meet missionaries that have joined staff in the DR that weren't there in July when I interviewed.  That is what I am the most excited about!!

I will be bringing my journal with me like I did on my interview and hopefully share with you my chronicles of this trip.  Please pray for safe journeys of all the missionaries as they travel from various areas of the world.  Please pray that I won't be THAT person sneezing and grossing people out on the plane.  Please pray that as we are all together we further our love and journey for Christ.  And  if I may ask for one more prayer request.  I have a huge fear that I will not want to come back.  That as I am leaving Cali on Saturday I will not be ok coming back to my life in Poughkeepsie, NY; especially as the Dominican missionaries will be heading to the DR.  Please pray for strength and perseverance as I continue my stateside preparation.  Thank you!!

Yesterday, I was blessed to receive a scripture reading from a very dear friend and mentor (thanks Lourdes, xoxo) and I thought it was so applicable to all of us as we enter the new year!!

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."  Jeremiah 1:5

Rest assured and in peace with this knowledge.  He knows you and loves you.  Live 2012 with and through that knowledge.  And continue to testify according to that love.