It's t t t tomorrow...

Wow. Just... Wow. In roughly 24 hours we'll all be gathering ourselves up and heading for the airport to begin what for most of us will be the adventure of a lifetime. I'm going to get a little personal with this one. One of the rather weird little quirks of my family is that we have a family theme song - The Great Adventure by Stephen Curtis Chapman. It's a fairly involved story that I won't bore anyone with right now, but if you're interested, you can dig into it on my personal blog at http://thegreatadventure-77.blogspot.com/ So we're all off on our own Great Adventure. "We'll follow our Leader into the glorious unknown!"

There's so many emotions that have been swirling for months, and I suspect that each team member is experiencing the same feelings but in their own unique way. There's a fear of the unknown. There's the excitement of traveling to what is, in many ways, a whole different world. There's nervousness about all of the processes and wanting to make sure we're doing everything right. And there's the anticipation - which is becoming quite palpable - at what the Lord has to teach each and every one of us.

And there's distractions. In the past week I've learned of a young man from Rolling Hills who chose to take his own life. I learned that an old friend of mine has a neighbor and friend - another very young man - who made the same choice. Two of my old friends have lost their fathers in the past 4 days. Multiple other friends are in the midst of significant battles with cancer. I'm not going to point the finger and say that Satan is behind all of these distractions -death and disease is a part of our fallen world. But they are distractions, nonetheless.

And so I - along with all of the rest of the team members - continue my preparations and try desperately to keep focused. Once again, I'd solicit prayers.

But in the end, I AM excited! I know this will change my life as well as the other members of the team. I pray that it will change the lives of some of the people in Uganda that we come into contact with.

So saddle up your horses, ladies and gentlemen - This IS the Great Adventure!