(I expect there will be no Starbucks in India!) 

 

I have a lot of different expectations for this trip.  I expect a challenge.  I expect to make great friends.  I expect joy.  I expect pain.  I expect to find myself.  I expect to find God's purpose for me.  Frankly, I expect it all.

 

If there is one thing I have learned in my life, so far, is that you need to expect the unexpected.  I have had multiple experiences cross my path that I would have never seen coming in my entire life.  One of them was my friend Sam getting sick my freshmen year of high school.  She went to have a normal tonsillectomy, but came out diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis (the flesh-eating bacteria) and it was something that none of us ever would have expected, and with the great doctors and an immense amount of prayer she got better and you would never know she had ever been sick.  Thank the Lord!

 

Unforunately, we again, don't expect things and then they don't turn out the way we want them to.  I know I've mentioned many times my very best friend Becca dying in a car accident this past fall and that is a good example of unexpected things.  And I was so mad.  I was furious.  I never wanted to expect that such a horrible thing could have happened, but it did, and I am facing it still today -- so I expect that this trip will bring new joy into my life and a healing that only God can bring and that I still search for every day.  

 

I expect that God will show me things I could never see here and I cannot wait for that day to come!! (and it is coming up very soon!!) I also expect that I will come back totally changed and ready to face my college head on! One again, I cannot wait to expect the unexpected as well as the expected joy that will come with people and places that God will show us in India!