Indonesia!

My amazing school has a program called Emmaus Road (a pretty clever title I think: go read Luke 24:13-35 and you will probably agree!). Emmaus Road sends the students to countries all over the wolrd on different types of mission trips--China, Nepal, Uganda, Bolivia, Spain, and Guatemala are just a few that come to mind.


I, completely loving mission trips, applied of course. I applied to Uganda (the students would be working with orphanages), to Guatemala (where the students would be working with victims of human trafficking), and to China (I don't remember what that one was, but it was awesome!) and was super stoked about it.

I had my interview, no big deal, and began to wait in anticipation of some sort of notification via mail. When I finally checked my box (I was kinda afraid of it), I had the letter! It said I was going!!!

...to INDONESIA?!!?!?

Completely and brutally honestly, I was super disappointed. I really wanted to go to Uganda (or the other two, but I REALLY wanted to go to Uganda). I kinda moped around about it for a while and didn't tell anyone.

"Why Indonesia? So random! That's not even a program you could apply for!"

I went to the Emmaus Road meeting and found out some pretty cool stuff that completely changed my poor attitude:

1) Westmont has been trying to partner with a church (I think) in Indonesia for a while and though that they would be able to next summer and got a surprise letter telling them that the church wanted some missionaries this summer. So this team will be the first Westmont team there ever.

2) The only religion legal in Indonesia is Muslim so what we'll be doing is highly illegal.

3) We'll be island hopping so we'll visit people all over the place.

4) We'll be living with native families that are secretly Christian, but cannot mention it.

5) Our translator will be a Christian too, but is not allowed to admit it or mention it.

So basically, we'll be spreading the gospel "without" spreading the gospel.

I am super excited about it. A little nervous, but super excited! It's going to be so great! I'll be gone like a month and will be exhausted when I get home, but I am soooo excited!

I officially turned in all my paperwork today (which is why I haven't posted anything about it yet--I wanted to make sure I was actually going) and am definitely going to Indonesia this summer. It's a done deal.

YAY!!

The plan is this: I'm going to bring my laptop with me and write posts on this blog as often as I can to keep you updated with what's happening with me and my team while in Indonesia.

I'm really excited about this!