Am I prepared?

I think the question is not if I am prepared but is anyone ever really prepared? I mean am I prepared to encounter giant spiders or kill poisons frogs? Am I prepared for a 15 hour flight with the possibility of getting blood clots from sitting so long (unlikely. But really. It could happen). Am I ready to be graduated from college? Am I prepared to be a wife? Am I prepared to be a mom? Am I prepared to change poopy diapers? Am I prepared to trust the Lord completely with every aspect of my life? Am I prepared to go to heaven? I don't think there is a hand book on how to deal with giant spiders or even how to be a good mom or how to change a raunchy diaper. The only thing I know is that, it's okay not to be prepared. Why? Because I trust the Lord to keep me secure and safe and to guide me. You can tell me a thousand times what I need to do to prepare for a test but in reality when it comes down to it, it is by the grace of God where I pull those answers from. So like in many situations in my life it is agian by the grace of God that I am prepared. And my idea of prepared may be different than His idea of prepared. But I mean if I was prepared for EVERYTHING in life, life would be straight up lame and boring. My mind can not possibly prepare itself for being on a different continent than literally everyone I know but am I scared? For some reallllyyy odd reason, no. The only explanation for it is: Jesus. Shocked?! I know. Me too. It's not like I talk about Him all the time or anything..

I know that His presence with me is a guaranteed promise (just read Psalm 139 and you will see what I mean by always being with us). Now the thing about this is it can either be seen as a blessing or a curse. At times I see it as a blessing and than at other times not so much, I mean if He is always with me what happens if I have to go to the bathroom? Talk about a major breech in the personal bubble space. I joke about this stuff but I know I am never separated from Him and the challenging part about all of this is that I must see Him through eyes of faith. I don't get to see Him face to face until I see Him in Heaven but I know that when I do my Joy will be off the charts by any earthly standard (Jesus Calling). I am okay with having Jesus in my bubble and that is the only reason why I can explain this lack of fear to take off on my adventure. I can't wait. Who wouldn't be excited!! I would have to be a crazy person not to be! Okay, well I am a little bit of a crazy person but everyone is in their own way, which I love. Or maybe I would describe it not as crazy just, "special". So here is a peek into my little bit of crazy:

Keep in mind these are all PILES of clothing and I am just getting started.. I'm in some serious trouble

So I am doing my very best to never forget that the Lord is with me because when I do fear starts creepin up on me.

Just a lil' sum sum

Sooo my purpose in life is to obey the Lord. Easy right!!? Heck to the no. Well at least not for me anyway. As the count down begins for the "great adventure" or whatever you wanna call it I find preparation being my biggest obstacle for my obedience. If you have ever heard or read the story of Mary and Martha from Luke 10:38-42 (if not that's okay but you totally should), I am Martha. I wish my mind worked liked Mary's. I like to be prepared, if you know me than you know that spontaneous or dare devil is not my middle name. Some may know me as the Mother Hen of the group. For example, people like to go cliff jumping because it is exhilarating and crazy, I however jump off I five foot cliff and get a bloody nose from anxiety and yes this did happen. When people are explaining how they got this totally awesome scratch or scrape from this unbelievable wipe out my first words are: "Holy crap did you disinfect that!!?" I am the type of person who plans a "hang out" two weeks in advance, needless to say I am not very good at just flying by the seat of my pants.

Martha and Mary are sisters and Martha opened her home to Jesus and His disciples to come eat and rest. Martha was, "distracted by all the preparations that had to be made" (Luke 10:40). Let's be honest, I would be running around like a chicken with its head cut off if Jesus was coming over to my house. I mean this is the Son of God, everything would have to be perfect, Right? Wrong. Nothing would have to be perfect. Mary the other sister simply sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to what He has to say (Luke 10:39). And when Martha sees this she is pretty much angry with her sister for just sitting there and doing nothing to help her. I would be guilty of the same. But when Martha runs over to Jesus to complain about her sister Mary being a lazy-bum He simply says, "Martha, Martha". "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:41-42) I get so caught up in and fixed on the preparations for Australia and trying to make sure that I can control as much as I possibly can before I get there I forget to sit and listen. I forget to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to what He is preparing me for. I forget to let Him prepare my heart in a way that I could never possibly.

My whole life I have been a worrier, a lot of times a silent worrier, but for the past few years I have been working with the Lord to give it all up to Him. When I do, it is the most freeing experience to just trust and not carry these unnecessary burdens. So when I picture Jesus talking to Martha I instead interpret it like this and replace my name with hers so that He says to me: "Karri, Karri". "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Me." So this journey beckons me to be this spontaneous, trusting woman of God, to fly by the seat of His pants (What? awkward.) but really. Bring on the adventure and bring on the crazy cause this girl is goin for a crazy ride that begins and ends with Jesus.

Here is the deal: I am embarking on a new adventure to the great down under! I will be flying out July 7th to attend James Cook University in Cairns Australia for a study abroad program for 5 months. The Lord has taken me on this crazy ride to get to where I am going today a.k.a Australia so here is how it all started:

Back in November I was sitting at Grace City church, here in wee little Corvallis, and we had this awesome guest speaker named Bernard come in and give the talk. I was mesmerized by the sound of his voice, he talked about his ministry and church in Christchurch New Zealand. They had been having earthquakes shake up the town and were getting hit pretty hard with devastating loss, the people's hope was diminishing as well as their faith. Bernard and his crew at Christchurch had a mission to save these people with the love of Jesus. I immediately knew I was going! Or so I thought..

I was determined that New Zealand was where the Lord was going to take me. I told myself I would give myself a week to pray about, during that week I researched the heck out of Christchurch, immediately emailed Bernard in the hopes that he would jump at the thought of me coming and magically everything would fall into place! But what I came to find out was that what I wanted and what the Lord wanted for me were two completely different things. May plan since I was in middle school was to study abroad going into my junior year but as soon as this New Zealand idea popped into my mind I got the itch in my pants to make my study abroad experience happen ASAP as in I would go to New Zealand in March.. I soon found out that was not gonna happen. I quickly began to meet with advisers and scramble for any possible way to get my plan to work but it didn't. Going over there was extremely expensive, I was told there was no way to make it happen this year, and to be honest I wasn't gettin the vibe that Bernard was as excited as I was to move in. As I began to pray and really actually listen this time I felt the Lord leading me in another way. Australia. My first reaction: "NO way have you seen how big those spiders are." Not to mention Australia is home to the 8 deadliest creatures in the world. Awesome. I am afraid of deep water, spiders, snakes, alligators, not to mention I am the whitest girl ever and would burn to a crisp without out wearing a whole bottle of sunscreen, and it is the longest flight in the world.

But what do ya know, slowly but surely the Lord began to soften my heart to the idea. I had no idea of what I was going to be doing this summer, I had been wanting a change and a challenge for a long time in my life. All of winter break I frantically did as much as I could do to apply for the Australian program, I got my passport, talked to my parents which was huge because I had no idea what they would think but of course the Lord had my back and they took it as lovingly as parent could (but seriously dad if you are reading this I was freaking out about talking to you.. I even had a paper written out with what I was going to say and answers to questions I was anticipating you would ask). By the end of December I was completely done with the entire application and now had the daunting task of waiting for a reply until March. The great thing about this James Cook University program was that they had things called exchange programs. Where this picked 3 students that could do an exchange through the universities meaning that I would be paying the same amount in tuition I paid here but just over there. A.k.a I would be saving thousands of dollars if I got the exchange spot. So for me the only way I could go was if I got selected for this spot. I was 1 of 10 applicants, the odds were not in my favor. I kept saying to myself, "okay if this is what the Lord wants than I get one of the exchange spots, that way I know for sure this is His plan and not my own". Deep down the Lord continually reassured me that this was right, I just kept denying it.

The next few months were my kind of hell, if you haven't noticed I am kind of a planner. I have never in my life had to be patient for so long, I was so used to driving through and making things happen. Taking the reins into my own hands. But this time the Lord was bootin me out of the drivers spot. I was not so graceful during this time, just ask poor Kelley (my awesome mentor) who had to listen to my insanity. The Lord had placed me in the right spot at the right time randomly throughout these few months. The first time I was in the study abroad building and was able to meet the lady that chose who got the spot face-to-face. We ended up walking together and talking for almost 20 minutes where she told me what to write about and things to put in my exchange essay, we clicked immediately. Little did she know that I would be her worst nightmare. I am pretty sure I emailed her at least twice a week about anything that I could possibly think of. Finally after 3 months of waiting I got the letter.. "Congratulations Karri Heacock you have been selected for an Exchange spot to James Cook University in Australia". My roommate Ashley was in the room and I am pretty sure I made her almost pee her pants because I was so excited. Months and months of waiting and praying I finally knew that the Lords plan was to sweep me off to Australia, just Him and I.

The next best thing about this was that I had been searching for a church down there, I had no idea how I was going to find one because the one organization I thought would help me out turned out to be a dud which was super discouraging. But one day I came across this church called: Cairns City Church. And I could immediately feel the Lords presence. I decided to email them and see if I would get anything back. I felt really awkward saying I was from the U.S. and all this other random stuff but oh well. Four days later I received an email say, "We are so excited for you to come and will welcome you with open arms" amongst other things. 

I booked my ticket for July 7 and am leaving Portland Oregon at 4:05pm and arriving in Cairns Australia July 9th. All together making it over a 24 hour flight, 15 hours straight from LA to Sydney. Oh and did I mention that I have never EVER been on a plane or flown before? Yeah I know I was a deprived child. My parents took the term "road trip" extremely seriously, as in driving on the road.

So that is a little taste of what the beginning of my adventure looked like, there are so many other unbelievable details that go into because God has been so good to me. So I hope you enjoyed my little bits and pieces (sorry I know it was really long) and will stay around to hear about the journey to come!!