Casting My Cares

Hello friends and family!

Time has been flying the past couple of weeks as my departure date draws nearer. After finishing my final term for the year, I have spent the last few weeks on a couple different vacations with my family. I’m so grateful to have had these past weeks to just spend time with them before I go, and am so blessed by their love and support for me!
As far as big preparations, not much has happened in the last month, but God continues to answer prayer and show His love and faithfulness through all the "little" things!
One of the bigger little things that He worked out was helping me find a violin to take with me. Until the last few weeks, I had only thought briefly about taking a violin with me. Due to the hot, dry weather in Galmi as well as long travel distance and limited luggage space, it isn’t easy to transport an instrument there, especially a fragile, sensitive one like a violin. However, the more I started realizing how difficult and seemingly impossible it would be to take a violin with me, the more I realized how much I really wanted to! This was for several reasons. For one thing, there are very few things in the world as cross-cultural as music. In my opinion, music can reach across the gap of generational, racial, lingual, and societal differences in a way that nothing can apart from the Gospel of Jesus! Also, for me, music is a huge area of ministry. The more I thought about it, the more ways I could think of to use music as a ministry in Niger—playing for worship services at the compound, for patients at the hospital, for people around the compound and village that could just use some beauty in their life and many others! Lastly, playing the violin is a big way that the Lord has given me to express myself emotionally and spiritually. As strange as it sounds, the time I spend practicing my instrument is often the time that I spend with the Lord and feel closest to God. It is a form of praise and spiritual reflection, no matter what kind of music I am playing. These were all things I began realizing once it seemed like God had closed the door for me to have a violin with me in Galmi. So I began praying about it, and as I did God pulled all the details into place! A few days after I began seeking the Lord on this, my dad found a very high quality violin on Ebay for right in my price range! (I didn’t want to take mine with me due to the extreme weather and possibility of it getting damaged during travel.) In addition, he figured out a way to make (yes, I said “make”!) a lightweight violin case that would fit in my suitcase in case the case it came in was too long! So now I have a violin AND way to bring it with me! Have I mentioned how amazing and wonderful my heavenly and earthly fathers both are?! :)
Apart from this exciting new development, God has been working out many of the other details of my trip. Because the Lord has been providing all the funds I need for my trip, my parents and I decided that it would be easiest and best for everyone involved if I flew from Medford to Seattle and back again, rather than my whole family making two nine-hour road trips up and back. Thank you again to everyone that has been supporting me and has made this a possibility!

Now that you all know what has been going on since my last update, I want to answer a question that many people have been asking lately: What are you going to be doing while you are there? The simple answer is that honestly, I don’t completely know. My role in the Galmi team is still yet to be determined by the rest of the team and staff at the hospital. Because I don’t have any medical training beyond anatomy, physiology and chemistry (which isn’t very applicable in a clinical setting), my main responsibility will be to provide help and support to the rest of the trained staff so the that they can better serve the patients in Galmi. Possible ways that I could do this include providing childcare for missionaries’ children, helping at the pharmacy, assisting with meal planning and housework, and many other things. Please continue to pray for this. Pray that God will provide opportunities for me to serve and minister in whatever ways or situations I can. Also pray that He will give me the ability and strength in the areas I need it to be able to best serve Him and others!
I hope this clears that up a little better. I briefly addressed this in my support letter, but I appreciate everyone who is interested and has been asking! If you have any other questions, I would love to answer them to the best of my ability!

I only have one last thing to add. Please pray for me! I know that many of you already are, and I'm so grateful for that! However, please continue to lift me up to the Lord!
The closer I get to the day I leave, the more real all of this becomes. At first, it was so far away and new that it seemed surreal. But now that everything is starting to fall into place, it is starting to dawn on me that I am actually going to Niger! Obviously, this is incredibly exciting and fascinating, but I also find myself feeling somewhat nervous and apprehensive, for many reasons. For one thing, I have never been away from home for longer than two weeks, and even then I was with my sister. This will be the first time that I have been away from my family for even remotely this long, and considering how close I am with all of my family (biological and spiritual!), I have no idea how difficult this will be for me!
One of the other big things that I find myself worrying about is the fact that I hate to see people suffering. Crazy, I know! I've picked the field (both for this trip and my college pursuits) that is exposed to more suffering than most others combined! If I was so reluctant to see people in agony, I probably shouldn't have chosen to pursue medicine. However, this is me following God's direction and calling. Yes I'm scared to see the hurt that people experience, but the same Creator that put this overwhelming sympathy in my heart for people is the same one that is leading me to help heal them. Who knows? Maybe God will use this compassion and sensitivity of mine to fuel my desire to serve and care for people. Please pray for me as I strive to put my faith in the Lord and cast my cares on Him in this way and pray that He will calm my fears!

"Then David said to Solomon his Son, 'Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed, for the Lord God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished." (1 Chronicles 28:20, ESV)
These were words of encouragement and consolation that King David offered to his son over three centuries ago, and today, they are the words of encouragement and consolation that my Father offers to me, his frightened child. Thanks be to God for his compassion, patience and gentleness towards  towards me, His humble servant and undeserving child.