these days

Days swiftly fade into nights only to awake again with the sun as a new day begins. It feels like these days are slipping through my fingers with barely a memory to hold their place.

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving and with recent events in my life I am reminded how precious and fleeting life on this Earth can be. I am so thankful for the people in my life. Memories flood my mind when I start to think of all the people that surround me. It doesn't seem enough to simply say a simple prayer of thanksgiving for my friends and family, yet it is something I am glad to do. I have been given so much and I am so grateful for what I have. Let me not forget or ever cease being thankful.

I am also thankful for the opportunity to travel over 8,000 miles to another continent to share a piece of myself with others. I will be going March 25 through April 10, 2010; my portion of the trip is $4500, which includes airfare, transportation, housing, etc. I would be so grateful if you considered a financial gift towards my trip. Even a small donation makes a huge difference.

Here’s how you can donate:
To make a tax-deductible contribution, go to
http://www.crossroads.net/gomamelodi

Click on the donate tab and type in my last name to make a secure donation.

If you prefer to write a check, please make it payable to Crossroads and put my name and Go Mamelodi 2010 in the memo. You may either give it to me in person or put it in the mail.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. I know that March will be here sooner than I think is even possible, so I'm hoping to take a few moments to enjoy the adventure as much as I can.

It's official!!

The email confirmation came yesterday afternoon and excites me to no end. It said that I'm part of the Go Mamelodi 2010 trip for the week I selected (I actually selected to go for BOTH weeks). You don't even know how many exclamation points I'd like to be using right now (yayay!!!!!!).

So many things to think about, so many things to do to prepare for this trip. Many more posts will come about all those things I'm thinking about and all the preparations that need to be made.

Somebody just pinch me because this feels a bit surreal and I'm sure that when I set foot in Africa it will feel even more surreal. I remember that feeling very vividly seven years ago when I went to England. I remember thinking (and saying repeatedly to Jen), "I can't believe I'm in England!!"


So excited to be/do/love/hope for something bigger than myself. more to come soon...

there's far too much to see...

Tonight I went to the info session about the Mamelodi trip and I'm having a hard time trying to contain my excitement. I mean, the excitement has gradually been building, but I don't think I can remove this grin from my face. I am well aware that there are going to be difficulties to overcome before, during and after this trip but I am filled with a sense of hope and an undeniable joy.

This is what God has for me; I wholeheartedly believe that.

As I was getting this post together Ellery's song Perimeter of Me came on my itunes and the words are eerily appropriate:

"And I want to live with wider eyes,
There's far too much to see
To think of nothing else
But where I've been and where I'll be
I've been longing for the freedom
That is waiting silently
In the life that's just beyond the small
Perimeter of me"

So, if you're the praying type I have a few things that would be helpful for you to pray over:

*I'll be able to go for both weeks
*I'll be able to connect with my GO group in an amazing way
*the people we'll be connecting with both here and in Mamelodi
*raising financial support (more on this later, but my portion of the trip will be $4500)
*my relationship with God as I continue this journey
*my family

much joy to you,
dana

soak in the last line

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

My heart for Africa

Much like affection for a deeply loved friend, my heart for Africa continues to grow. One of the first times I remember feeling compassion for the people of Africa was when I heard about the devastation AIDS was having on the country and Bono's response to it. I was glad that someone was doing something about it, but didn't know if or what I should be doing. A few years ago my friend was going to be in charge of getting donors to sponsor children through Compassion International and had several of the packets at her house. Of course I had to look through them and I knew that if I sponsored a child, I would like them to be from Africa. I flipped through the children’s packets and came upon a bright, smiling face of a young girl from Tanzania. She seemed so sweet and so deserving of love and a chance at life. I decided to partner with Compassion International and sponsor that beautiful young girl named Beatrice.

Fast forward a few years...I have been attending Crossroads for a few years now and LOVE it (there will be a future post on how it has changed my life). For the last few years Crossroads has partnered with a church in Mamelodi, South Africa called Charity and Faith. Several trips between the two churches have already taken place and from the time I heard about it, I have wanted to go.

There is something amazing about mission trips. Traveling somewhere to be intentional about serving people and loving on people is maybe my idea of doing the things God has given me passion for all wrapped up into one. Wow. I had never even realized that until I wrote that sentence. These kinds of trips are not easy, for sure, but my past two experiences have proven to be life changing and nearly indescribable. It has been far too long since I've taken a trip like this.

I knew that the desire to go was already within me, but I wasn't sure how it was all going to come to fruition. Brian Tome (the Sr. pastor) recently said, "Most of the time when God puts a call on your life it’s simply something you know that God would approve of and you just have to do it." That resonated within me and a few days later I went to Crossroads to attend an info session on Mamelodi and the upcoming trips. My mind had pretty much already been made up and this was only confirmation that I wanted and felt that I needed to be a part of the Go Mamelodi 2010 trip.

This is only the beginning of the journey for me; I hope you'll join me in some way. I'll be updating this blog probably a bit randomly at first, but more and more often as the trip draws near. Thanks for your charity in reading!

~With much love,
Dana

For last year's recap video check this out; my heart for her continues to grow.