The love of adventure admist the butterflies

Well, it is September and it has been a while since I posted anything. My tendency is to only blog while traveling. I quess there is something therapeutic about it.

I leave tomorrow for another 3 week adventure in Africa. This time through I will be talking to the Africans about how to create and operate from holistic budgets. We all love those conversations. Add the dynamic that budgets really do not mean the same thing to Africans as they do to me...and we might have an interesting task ahead of us.

Largely, I have done well with this trip. I have tried really hard to see that my job is rather cool and to be passionate about the overall mission to empower the Africans. You tend to lose the focus when you are in the middle of the tasks and the emotional rollercoasters...or at least that is me. I have begun to get excited and to see this as truly an adventure. It is only three weeks and it will be fun. The last trip wasn't bad and this time I have a co-worker with me so it should be better. I have taken extensive moments to just sit and mediatate (some say it is prayer but really I was just trying to be still). Overall, I am going into this well. Until yesterday, my boss asked me if I was ready. A very nice caring question and the butterflies started to flutter around my stomach. I actually felt a sensation to throw up. It comes and goes but as I get closer they feel stronger. Maybe it has a tinge of excitement in it.

I feel sort of weird as I am packing. I relate it to a feeling that tomorrow the world is going to end and everything is surreal. Everyone is moving but it feels as if it is passing by towards oblivion and I am the only one who knows it. Odd. Yes, I know. In reality, I don't want to go on the 2 day trip to Africa. I have to be awake and ready to roll when I get there at 6 am on Thursday morning. I wish transporters like the ones in Starship enterprise actually existed. So, it just feels odd knowing that everything will change for a brief 3 weeks.

I am also looking forward to getting to sit next to a nice pool, read a book, and enjoy the warmth. I am looking forward to the routine of meeting with people and then relaxing that I have learned I must insist happens during my visits. I am looking forward to seeing people that I haven't seen in a while. Still the butterflies stir...

I am also nervous because I think I fear that something bad will happen....nothing has yet. My co-workers wouldn't put me in harms way but still...the plane could crash...the bandits could come. Yet, in reality any of that could happen hear in the states. Maybe I am just learning to face a reality I have just chosen to ignore most of my life....race ahead in the simplity of youth. I know God has a lot to say about this and I acknowledge it all with my head. However, my heart really is trying to catch up.

So, I sit. I try to calm my heart and mind. To simply reach out a hand and ask God to hold it (and yes I do literally imagine that sometimes). To acknowledge that I am just riding on Gods breathe as he changes the world. To realize that I have people who love me and they will still be here when I come home. To try to live in the now and love the adventure I am in.