All According To Plan (just not my plan)

It was a ten year dream, and I had given it up.

I wanted to study. 

It was the one thing I knew how to do and I had placed so much hope in finally going to college after working and working for it. But while my friends moved to college, studied, hung out, and advanced their lives, I sat at home, bewildered about my purpose. It had seemed pretty clear: I was to be a missionary nurse, and to be a nurse I needed my degree. What was God doing?

For a couple of months I puttered along: I became an AWANA leader for older elementary school students, I wrote a little, spent some time with my family, worked out a bit, and began to trust the Lord and to be content, despite the disappointment.

And then one day, it happened. During my senior year, I had attended a meeting designed to create a team that would facilitate the coming of an African childrens’ choir hailing from an orphanage our church supported. Deeply interested, I looked over the volunteer opportunities and found “Director of Sponsorship.” I was intrigued. My sister and mom felt a nudge towards my taking that position. I had planned to finish highschool a semester early (yay homeschool), and figured in my tiny brain it would be perfect timing.

It wasn’t.

I finished my senior year, didn’t go to college, and at that point, the time for the choir was ready for harvest. Not only was I given the opportunity to help people begin a sponsorship, I was also given the chance to go to Uganda. I was ecstatic. One night at AWANA, a cute guy I had been secretly crushing on for a while came over to talk and I ecstatically told him I was going to Africa. “For how long?” he asked. (Apparently he wasn’t as excited as I was.) “Forever,” I said enthusiastically. “I’ll just start over.” 

Once in Africa, I once again was unsure of my place. I was young, not a leader, and I didn’t know why I had been chosen. Until Mama Sandi, the wonderful mentor who had basically taken responsibility for me in a foreign country upon herself, gave me an idea. She needed a blog written.

I wrote it. It turned out writing blogs wasn't her favorite. So I started to write. It became my purpose in Africa. I also began to collect stories about each child I would be helping to find a sponsor. One of them was shy, sullen Afiya,* and I held her in my heart.

We returned to the States after a month of challenging circumstances and many victories from the hand of the Lord. We began to tour, starting at our own church. As I put together the different packets I had carefully laminated and stuffed, I considered sponsoring Afiya myself. I wanted her to have a special sponsor. But no, it wouldn't have been fair. As I talked to different people, cute-guy-from-AWANA came over. I’m sure it was my desire to seem compassionate and wonderful in his eyes that prompted me to passionately relay Afiya’s story. It worked. Cute-guy-from-AWANA started sponsoring Afiya.

Well, this blog post is getting very long, so if you want to find out what happened to college dream/ cute-guy-from-AWANA/ my unpredictable life/what God was actually planning, you’ll have to come back for my next post. Also, if you want to see my reaction to not going to college that year, I’ll leave this here. :) Happy reading, friends. 

Sara

*name changed for safety purposes