Resting

I’m always waiting for the next best thing. Waiting to go to nursing school. Then I couldn’t wait to be done with nursing school.

Once I was officially DONE with nursing school, then I had to wait to take the NCLEX.

Now the NCLEX is done (and I PASSED! Praise the Lord!).

What’s the next best thing? Finding a job. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. So far I’ve applied for 20+ positions (okay, so it’s not a lot compared to some people), and I haven’t had any calls about any of them.

And at least 9 of my classmates have jobs already (not that I’m keeping track?).

I really am excited for them. And I’m trying to keep the green-eyed monster at bay.

My roommate (and nursing classmate) had an interview yesterday and has another one for a different position next week.

I want to be excited for her and help her through it (and I am), but I want to be able to do so without feeling frustrated with myself for not applying for more positions, for not having a good enough resume to get call backs. I don’t want to become bitter.

I’m aware of where my heart is in all of this – and I don’t want to follow it down that road of bitterness and jealousy.

I am excited for my roommate and all of my classmates. And I keep reminding myself that God has a spot out there for me. Whether it’s one that I’ve applied for yet or not. He will continue to guide me and bring me to the place that He wants me to be. He brought me back to Northwestern for nursing school rather than the U of M. He provided throughout nursing school and he continues to provide for me in this in-between time.

I know that in the days to come, once I find a job, I will miss the days of doing “nothing” and being able to sleep in and [finally!] relax after a crazy busy 16 months of nursing school. I am thankful for these days to recover from the non-stop craziness of school. And resting in God’s promises that He knows what’s best for me right now.

Melt my Heart - Aaron Jeremiah

On our second day of working at the hospital, we continued with our well-baby checks and got to see lots of little ones. Some baby clothes had been donated and so we picked out outfits to give the little ones that came in.

One afternoon, Jeri pulled me aside and asked if I could bring an outfit for a little boy who had been born at the hospital, but missed the Blessing Ceremony that we had for them. He was about 6 months old and I had to dig through all the girly outfits we had for something for a little guy that looked like it would fit him.

When I brought it out to him, I asked his mom if I could hold him for a bit. I loved it - I just love babies, so it made my day. So we took some selfies together

And then he fell asleep. In my arms. Bliss.

So I walked around with him for a while with him sleeping in my arms gave his mom some time to be with her mother (the main reason they were at the hospital in the first place).

He just snuggled there for what seemed like an hour. And then he woke up and soon after it was time for me to leave the hospital. Such a sweet little guy.

Melted my heart.

Melt my Heart...just the beginning

Just last week, I returned from a 2 week medical missions trip to Kampala, Uganda. It seems so cliche to say that it changed my life. But it did. I'm not sure how exactly to describe that change. But my heart melted. Time and time again.

I've never been one to blog and write down every detail of what happened on a trip - there's just too much to capture, and I've never been able to keep up with my own journal detailing a trip...so what I want to do here is to share and remember the moments that melted my heart. Many of them have long stories and backgrounds, some were just brief instances. But these are the memories that are going to live long in my heart.

I never learned this precious girl's name. She never said anything to me. We were touring a government hospital, conditions were not ideal. I'm not sure anyone in the States would be willing to accept health care from a hospital like this one - but it's what they have. As we were wrapping up our tour, we visited the pediatric outpatient clinic. A few of us had stopped to talk to a little girl who was wearing her best dress - it was beautiful and she was so proud of it. As we were talking to her, this little one climbed down from her chair, toddled down the stairs and toddled straight to me.

She never said a word. She just stood there by me. So I knelt down and asked her if I could give her a hug. She came closer and hugged me. When I let go of her, she toddled to the others and then just stared at us as we had to leave to catch up with the rest of our group. I just wanted to scoop her up and hold her longer.

Melted my heart.

Psalm 46:5

following God WHEREVER.

I started this blog a few years ago to document and share my adventures as God took me to Ecuador for a summer. Since that summer I have been on several more trips. I love to travel and it has been fun to see where God has brought me on different missions trips over the years - Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama, and soon to be Uganda!

I considered starting this blog up again to document my upcoming trip to Uganda. But I've never been good at being able to share everything about my trips and stay up to date.

But as I was thinking about this, I realized what the name of this blog was - "Following God Wherever." This doesn't just mean following Him on my international missions trips. This means following Him in my every day life.

This is my life. This is me following God. Wherever.

Never the Same - Panama 2012

I just got back home from a 2 1/2 week missions trip to Panama with Susie Magazine, a Christian magazine for teen girls, and Big World Ventures, a nonprofit Christian organization that specializes in planning short-term missions trips for teens and churches. This was my third mission trip with them -- my first mission trip with them was in 2006 to Peru when Susie Magazine was Brio Magazine (a magazine published by Focus on the Family).

Now that I'm home, I actually have time to take a moment to think about the trip and everything that happened. There was so much to think about and learn and everything while on the trip, but I was too busy loving on my kids and running around helping with organization stuff. It was so much fun, and even though I would have loved to spend another week in Panama, I'm glad to be home.

The trip started out different for me than any of my other trips -- I flew down to Miami, FL a day early to be a part of "Team Big World Ventures" and help with set up and getting everything ready for the leaders to arrive the next day. The leaders arrived and we had several training sessions and time for preparation for the students to arrive. The students arrived and the leaders were prepared and organized to receive them -- we had teams at the airport picking kids up in our matching shirts and another set of leaders back at the hotel to get them registered and make sure their passports were accounted for.

Striped zebra in the corner = boredom during slow times of registration

That night we had our first large group meeting -- FUAGNEM ((F.ired U.p A.nd G.oing N.uts E.very M.inute)) -- and our first meeting as Team 1. And then we had drama casting for the drama we would be performing on our ministry days in Panama.

Our first night with the students ended with us casting each team member as a part in the drama -- from the evil magician to the toys, from the Toymaker to the mimes, everyone was given an important role.



More stories and pictures to come...


Simply,

Amy Lynn



To learn more about next year's Never the Same Mission trip to Peru, visit www.neverthesamemissions.com

Very little internet access...and very little time...

I had hoped that I'd be able to update this blog a little more, but I have only just discovered that I have access to the internet in my room. I also have been quite busy and haven't had much time to write or do much else.

Facebook has been quite the medium for sharing updates on the trip -- we have a facebook group for the whole trip (( http://www.facebook.com/groups/PanamaMission2012/ )) and I created a page for my team ((http://www.facebook.com/groups/176615665802660/)). We have several photographers on the trip who are updating the whole group's page and my team leader, Lia, has been updating our team's page with pictures via her iphone.

I myself have taken over 2000 pictures so far and I have not had much time to sort through them yet!

Today is our free day -- we've had 4 ministry days so far, and we have two more days of ministry left. Saturday we have our shopping/tourist day and then we fly out on Sunday. I can't believe it's gone so fast!

Brief update on what our days have been like so far:

Panama Day 1 --We took motorized dugout canoes up a river to the Embera Tribe. They performed a dance for us and fed us fish and fried plantains (delicioso!). We did our drama for them, and then talked, prayed and played with them until it was time for us to leave.


Panama Day 2 -- Our second day was titled "food distribution" and our first stop was to a supermarket where we bought rice and several different kinds of beans. We then sorted the items into individual bags with 5 items each. We packed over 100 bags of food to take to a local community. We then walked to the site where we'd be meeting with people and performing our drama. I'm not sure how far we walked, but it was at least 2 miles. We went door to door, inviting people to our drama, performed, talked and prayed with people and distributed our food. We still had about half of our food left to give away, so we decided to walk to another village/neighborhood. Just as we started walking, it started raining...and we continued to walk the opposite direction of our bus for another 3+ miles, in the pouring rain...




to be continued....I'm hungry and it's time for dinner!