First Post from Palau!!

Ok... Wow... this took a while... But I've been super busy trying to get things ready for school.. I'm seriously going to try to update more often now. But anyway, we've been here for almost 2 weeks now but it feels we've been here forever and a day! The island is beautifull!!! and the people are super friendly. It's taking me forever to upload pics so it's going to be a while before I'm able to do put up any here. But if you want you can go to my MySpace and see pics there...

Anyway, right now I need to be doing some lesson planning...so this is the end of this post. Take care!!!!!! And I promise I'll update more later...

The time has come...

So here I am... the night before I'm leaving... It's 11pm, I was kinda hoping that by this time I had been in bed for like two hours... But it's a Saturday and had too many things to do....

I'm feeling tired and anxious... But I want to go... I basically have mixed feelings...

Anyway, I need to go to bed... Next time I write it would be from either Honolulu or Palau!!!

Please keep me in your prayers!!!

Oh the craziness...

My room is a mess... Packing is not fun AT ALL...

Uhm... only Friday and Saturday left... This week has been sucky... With all of the good-byes, the packing, the shopping, the anxiety, the not-knowing, the mixed feelings... My mom says that it is normal for me all of a sudden feel as if I don't want to go anymore, it doesn't feel normal to me! I KNOW I'm going to be ok and that I'm going to enjoy it, but it's that "going away" that's getting me like this... I don't like leaving.

Yesterday Nejil and I were talking and decided that it would be WAY beyond cool to have a closeth like the one in the Chronicles of Narnia... That way I would step into the closet and go to Palau, enjoy everything Palau has to offer, and be an SM... Then I would just step out of the closet when I'm done and it would be as if I was gone for just a few minutes... Nice huh?

But anyway, I'll keep this one short... There are a few things I still need to do tonight!!!!

One week to go

Well, just got back from Hispanic Campmeeting... I'm beyond tired... Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING hurts... But it was a good experience. The preacher our conference's youth director brought this year has by FAR been the best one so far!!! Very moving...

I feel a little bad though. Like if I wasted a whole week when I could have been getting ready to leave... But then again, time spent with God is NEVER wasted!!!! And some interesting things happened at camp. Particularly the last Saturday (July 22)...

First, the director of Hispanic Ministries for the Greater New York Conference found out that Rebecca (my friend from Andrews) are both going to Palau and he decided to tell EVERYONE about it. Yah... and the way he chose to do that was to call Rebecca and I up to the platform Saturday norming during the adult Sabbath School program and tell people about it. Yeah, we (more like I) had to explain where Palau was and why we were going and all that good stuff infront of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. Then Pr. Torres said that he had asked us how we were paying for all our expenses and commented on how Rebecca had said that it was all up to God and sponsors. So Pr. Torres announced that if anyone wanted to help us out that it would be greatly appreciated.

So Rebecca and I are now waiting to see if anyone felt the need (hahaha) to help us out. So please pray for us. I'm still missing like $400 or so from the $2600 I had to fundraise, but Rebecca is missing like $2000 from the $3500 she had to fundraise to go as a SM from Andrews. Her processing fee was $1000, compared to my $100... It's kinda crazy if you ask me.

I really want Rebecca to go... I feel bad for saying this, but I almost feel like if I "NEED" her to go, and I don't want to say that because I don't want to jinx it. I know this should be a year of depending completely in God. And I'm willing to do that. But it would be 10 times easier to spend so much time away if I have someone close. God is in control right? I need to start believing what I keep telling her... If God brought her this far, He is not going to leave her half way there. PLUS He knows I need the moral support...

One week to go... At this time next Sunday I'll be in Hawaii

God is in CONTROL!!!

On my road to Palau...

I'm scared... there's no doubt about that... But then again, this is no small task... I'm leaving everything behind, and basically starting fresh half across the globe... But you know what? God has lead me this far and He will continue to lead...

What I find amazing is how there are people... people in our own religion, who believe that leaving for a year to do mission work is... gasp... a WASTE OF TIME!!!! Even my non SDA friends seem to be excited about it, but so far I've come across 2 people who have asked me why I'm willing to "waste" all that time while there are things to do here...

• First, there's the shocked friend... "So you are wasting a whole school year?". Well, all I have to say to him is "I'm NOT wasting a year, a year as a SM is going to teach me some lessons I will NEVER learn in a classroom!"... AND some schools put mission work on high regard

• And then ofcourse is the "concerned" parent (NOT mine of course).... "My daughter wants to go too... but I tell her that no one is going to want to hire her after she comes back because she wasted a whole year after school, she will have no experience whatsoever!!! And what about those loans?!?!?!?!?!?!? You need to start paying for them right away you know?"... to him all I have to say is that I have awesome parents and an awesome God who provided for me during college and that even though there were things I had to sacrifice (like not having a car), I was able to graduate from Southern loan free!!! I owe $0, and Southern actually mailed us a check with money we had paid extra, so THERE!!!!! And what makes him think that after serving God for a full year that He is going to leave me half way? NO WAY!!! He WILL find me a job, better yet, he will find me a job and a boss who will appreciate the fact that I DID leave for a year to do mission work!

You know... Going as a SM was not a decision made over night... It took a lot of years and a lot of prayers to get there... And I believe God is leading me every step of the way... Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will fall into place right? Didn't He also promise that He would never leave us nor forsake us?

First Blog!

Well well well...

Following the example of two of my VERY awesome classmates (Sonya and Amber that is...) I've decided to create a blog to let you guys know about whats going on during my SM adventure...

Not much to write right now... I'm two weeks away from leaving... I'll be in Hawaii training for 3 days and then we'll head to Palau. There is so much to do during these last two weeks, and it doesn't help that I'll be at Hispanic Campmeeting all of next week!!! Blegh... That leaves me only ONE week to finish getting ready to leave... How do you pack 10 months of your life into two suitcases???

It wasn't until this week, specially yesterday, that it hit me that I'm going to be away for a very long time. Up until now it just felt like I was going on vacation somewhere, but yesterday I had a meeting with one of the deans at the graduate school of social service at Fordham University and we started talking about Palau and all that good stuff. Then we started talking about filling out FAFSA, and she mentioned that since I'm going to be away for a long time and getting some kind of subsidy that I should file FAFSA as me being independent... She started talking about filling it out in March... March is so far away... Yet by then I would ALMOST be coming back home... Wow, that made it real.

It's all an adventure...