The Beginning

Here I sit writing the first entry for my new blog. There's excitement in the air here as I plan for my new trips coming up rather soon! That, dear friends, is why this blog was created! Hopefully throughout the next months, and the next year or two, you come back and read about the many adventures God is taking me on! Even at the age of 17 I have already been blessed with the possibility of going on two trips this year! The first trip will be to Burundi, Africa where I will be for three weeks. While there I will be providing childcare for two U.S. families and several missionary families stationed there indefinitely. There will be 18 children that I will be caring for all under the age of 10. This experience will not only strength my love for children but will also give me some experience as to what missionaries do out in the field. My other trip will be with a youth group from Michigan that I used to attend while Mia was in the hospital. This trip will be to Haiti for one week. We will be helping out a children's organization there! Both of these trips will help me to prepare for after graduation when I hope to go to Haiti and work at an orphanage known as God's Littlest Angels. Some of you know about these trips, and others are probably extremely confused by all of this mission work talk, well let me ease your mind and explain some things to you. The best way to start this is at the beginning, so just sit back, relax, read and travel back in time with me! I think we all started out with a dream when we were little, whether we wanted to be a princess, or a football player, or a superstar. We all had a dream. Mine was to be a missionary. I grew up hearing about my cousin's aunt traveling to Africa as well as many other missionary stories. At a young age, I decided that was what I wanted to do! Well of course as we get older things change and dreams fade, maybe not forever, but they are replaced with more realistic or mature ones. So just like everyone else my dream changed, I wanted to be a singer, then a cosmetologist, then back to a singer and then one day I stumbled upon a Facebook post. One of my friends from Michigan had taken a trip to Haiti and worked at an orphanage there called Gods Littlest Angels(GLA), well if you know me you know that I LOVE kids! So it was natural that I had to read all about this trip. The next thing I know I'm on the orphanages website and soon after that communicating with my friend! Even after one conversation with her I knew that's where I wanted to go. There was no doubt in my mind that was where I planned on going after graduation. (And as of now it is still in my plans and I feel it is my calling. But of course that is God's decision and not mine!) So after we looked into GLA more we all thought it was a great plan and started asking more questions about it. Well just in the past two months or so my parents decided that before I just up and leave to another country I should get some experience. I have never been farther than Kenmore when it comes to mission work. I had two options, I could go to Burundi, Africa with my friend and stay with several missionary families or I could go to Haiti with the Michigan youth group. After contacting my friend about Burundi, we came to the conclusion that she couldn't go so we crossed that one off of our option list and proceeded to fill out forms and contact people about the Haiti trip. About a week later, my mom emailed the missionary family from Africa wondering if there was anything I could do. And you will never believe what happened next! The McCropders emailed my mother saying that they had been praying for someone to come help! They're having two U.S. families come to Africa this April to get information on moving there and they were in desperate need of help with the children! With all of the adults in meetings and giving medical care, the children needed to be cared for. My mom got chills as soon as she read the email! I was so shocked! Not only did God answer our prayers for experience but He blessed me with two trips to hopefully go on and answered the prayers of the other families across the globe! 　 Now I'm busy making a ton of preparations for both trips, everything for Haiti is in place I will just need to attend a few meetings, get some shots and possibly have a talk with the youth pastor. As for Africa...not as much is done....I have to get immunizations and malaria pills, a visa, a plane schedule, clothing so I can match their culture and the list goes on! I will need to raise money for both of these trips so I am also busy writing my sponsor letters and sending them off to friends and family. Though the preparations can be stressful my mom is always here to remind me that if God truly wants me to attend both of these trips it will be done! I am so excited for both of these trips and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for me! You're prayers and support are much appreciated and I hope through this blog I can communicate to you the amazing experiences I will have! I leave you now with a joyous heart and one of my favorite bible verses, have a blessed day! -Nina Isaiah 6:8 "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send Me!"