Page Turning Into A New Chapter

Yesterday morning I was an 18 year old recent graduate, living at home, waiting for what was coming next. Tomorrow I will still be an 18 year old recent graduate, but I will be walking into my new home in a new country with new people, a new culture, and a brand new way of life. My routine will completely shift, no more mom making sure I'm awake, packing my lunch, or asking if I remembered everything before I walk out the door. Today was our full day of orientation in Atlanta, GA. All day long we listened to every aspect of CR and everything we're going to experience. The day kicked off with a memory game of names, which was interesting but really fun. Now that I know all about my teammates and how they like elephants and hot dogs, I'm even more excited to be living the next nine months with them. Then we heard about all the rules, dress code, how the internet would work, and everything we'd be expected to do. That was a pretty boring part of the day. But what came next was my favorite. Five GAP alumni came in to do a sort of panel discussion about CR and all that came with being a global year student. It was so cool!! They told stories of learning Spanish, meeting people, serving in the churches, living in the villa, and everything in between. Every time I hear someone talk about their experiences, it just fires me up even more to get down there and be a part of it myself. The host family that I'm staying with here has a daughter who went down two years ago, so I've gotten to hear millions of stories and see pictures and ask questions. I'm more than crazy excited to board that plane tomorrow morning!! We heard about how to deal with health issues, culture shock, and homesickness later in the day. As a shout-out to all my Haiti team members reading this, I laughed when we got to this part because the number one thing they kept saying over and over was "use hand sanitizer and drink water!" Oh how I miss our days with Levi and Jesse as our Sanitation/Hydration experts.. ;) So I'll be once again carrying my trusty orange water bottle and germ-x everywhere! Another thing that we talked about today was our Bible classes. One of our two student life counselors (a married couple who are like our mentors, or group parents) gave his promo for all the Bible stuff he gets to teach us. He's basically going to pump sound doctrine, apologetics, systematic theology, and the entire Bible into us, so that we all come out on fire, white hot, crazy dangerous Christians. Which makes me so super excited!! He warned us that our brains would explode and our beliefs would be challenged in such a way that we would be forced to defend them and make them our own. No more "because that's the way my church does it" or "that's what my pastor tells me." This year it will turn into "I believe this because -insert Scripture and strong defense here- and I couldn't be more fired up to be fired up for my Lord. This year is going to be so amazing, and sitting on the very edge of experiencing it is making me so giddy I can't sit still. We meet at the church tomorrow at 4:30am, and after that there's no turning back. I'm bound for Costa Rica, the Spanish language, and serving my God. Pray for me as I allow him to completely break down what I call my life and rebuild me into a bright shining tool for promoting his Kingdom!!