What's Keeping Me Up at Night?

• In 6 days Janelle and I board a plane to Kenya with 10 other students and 2 adults. Are we ready? Can we really be ready for this?
• After 24 hours of travel, we get a night's sleep then put on a carnival for 200 orphans who will be bussed out of the slums for one day. 200 orphans. Will we be able to offer anything worth while?
• On Easter Sunday (April 4), we drive into the AGC Baby Center, drop off our luggage, then head over to worship our risen savior at the Afica Gospel Church in Ngata. I will be preaching through a Swahili translator that morning. Preaching in the heart of Africa. Who am I? What words do I have to offer to a people I've never met in a town I've never been but 30 minutes before I get up to talk?
• Monday-Thursday (April 5-8) I will be with the team at the Baby Center loving on 36 abandoned babies, painting walls and digging ditches, and encouraging the workers at the Baby Center (the real heroes). What will God be revealing to us during this time? How might he wish to use us?
• On Friday (April 9) we drive into a Maasai village to meet with pastors we have invested much prayer and finances in to see a disciple-making movement take place throughout all Maasai land. We will share our dramas with them and worship together. No major questions over this one, but a lot of anticipation.
  
• On Saturday (April 10) I say goodbye to the team (and more importantly my wife) and connect with Caleb Bislow for leg two of my Africa adventure. How exhausted will I be?
• On Sunday (April 11) we hop on a plane to Kigali, Rwanda.
• Sunday-Tuesday (April 11-13) we tour through Rwanda and reconnect with some of the churches that were planted through the Rwanda Exodus Conference our students funded through Rwanda Night. Will these churches be thriving or struggling?
  
• Wednesday-Friday (April 14-16) we head into an area and work with pastors and Pygmies that are a part of what many have labeled as the most significant and overlooked humanitarian crisis going on right now. Safety? Role? Health? Will I let my faith win out over my fear? Who am I?
• Saturday (April 17) we tour the sites of the greatest humanitarian crisis of the 90s... the Rwandan Genocide.
• Sunday (April 18) I begin the long journey home. Kigali -> Nairobi -> Amsterdam -> Chicago -> my daughter in my arms and my wife by my side.

So yes, in all honesty, I'm overwhelmed. I'm nervous. I'm scared. It's all about a faith journey that's being battled by fear. It's questions on whether or not I'm the man for the job. Fears all the way from anxiety over speaking to a thought in the back of my mind that I'll leave my wife a widow and my daughter fatherless (no I'm not saying i really believe I'm going to die on this trip... I'm saying there's fear there).

I know HE is in control. I see how my life has led up to this point and these opportunities. I know there is purpose in my participation in this adventure. I know I'm not that significant, but I am a part of something significant. I know that the promise from God's word that my awesome wife gave me Wednesday is exactly what I need to hold on to...

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Deuteronomy 31:6