Getting ready to do the France thing!!!

It has definitely been a fun and frustrating job getting ready to go to France. And God has certainly shown up to show me that he wants me to take this trip. Since I'm a French Major and I love to travel and learn languages I decided that I wanted to go to France for a whole year. So starting the end of my freshman year i started going to the study abroad workshops and stuff to figure out what all i needed to do. I got in my recomendations, essays, and other paper work. While i was doing all this preliminary stuff i wasn't sure If this was what God wanted to do at this time in my life, but i decided to keep doing what i needed to so i wouldn't cheat myself out of it if it was God's will. I also prayed that he would show me exactily yes or no on if i should take this trip. ...
One day during the fall semester of '05 when i was still doing the prelim. paper work i decided that after class i was going to go take a nap on one of the couches in the upstairs of the UC (University Center where there are bunch of food places to eat, and many offices, a book store...). I had heard my campus pastor (Scott Barnett) talk about how he always did that when he was a student here at UM. It really appealed to me, but when i got up to the couches I decided to go back down to the second floor, i can't really remember why, either the couches were full or i got hungry... IDK (i dont know). So I went to the food court (where I had decided not to go) and got some food and ate it. After that I wondered what i should do... I decided to start working on some of the France paper work stuff there in the dining area. Just as i was shuffling through the papers a girl from my campus ministry group (Chi Alpha, see link on the side bar of the main page of my blog) walked right past me and almost sat with her back to me at the table ahead of me, but I called out her name and she turned around and said hi. So she sat down with me at the table and we started talking about whatever and then she saw my paperwork and asked about that. I told her what i was applying for and then that I wasn't sure If this was really where God wanted me to go. bla bla bla (Up to this point in my life i've always been afraid of messing up God's plans for my life by making the wrong choice in something big like this.) She told me that she felt that God wanted me to know that it wasn't like that, that We as Christians had so much freedom in Christ and that as long as we are loving God and loving people as God wanted us to that we had the choice of weather or not to do certain things(she used a story from her life to demonstrate this-God didn't show her what to do in a big situation and he helped her understand this truth about freedom in Christ). This answered my prayers Big time! God always like to confirm things to me by killing two birds with one stone. First of all he showed me that i had alot of freedom and that i didn't need to be so worried about making choices in these types of situations. And because he had used this girl (Faith) to reveal this truth to me I knew that God thought it was a very good idea to go to france. The fact that I hadn't planned to be in the food court at all that day (I wanted to do somethign differently that day) and how God got me down there to meet up with her also proves this was from Him. How awesome and exciting! It is so awesome to have God active in your life like this, I can't even tell you all. This was no coincidence, it was a God-incidence! So sweet!
So I went out with a confidence and got the paper work all done and handed in. The funny thing about all the deadlines is that I have either been very close to the deadline or even late and things keep working out for me. I believe that i even missed a deadline that was to determine howmany students would be switching between franc and Montana, but it still worked out. God really wants me to go on this trip, despite me things are working out!
My plane leaves from Billing, MT on Aug, 29 then i fly to Minneapolis, MN and then to Amsterdam, netherlands and then to Lyon, france where the univesity is that i will studying at.
Ok another cool thing. One of my best friends is going to school at Lyon 3/Jean Moullin (names of my university). Alice Bartz, the exchange student that came to my school my senior year transfered there this past school year. Out of all the universities in France God made it work out that she would go there and that it would be one of the three partner universities that the University of Montana has with france.
As far as housing goes I signed up, again on the last day possible, to live in a dorm/appartament thing jsut a couple minutes from the university. I also had probems this summer with getting my passport and visa. My Passport was locked in a small safe back at home on the ranch (northe eastern Montana) and the correct safe got lost so i waited for ever to have the family open a safe that i thought was the correct safe (it took forever because we didn't have a key for that safe). Once we found out it wasn't in there I applied for a new one so i'm waiting until the first week in august to get it. Then I have to go to SAN FRANSISCO to get my visa because the office in Seattle was all booked up. ( I couldn't make plans until i knew the status of my passport.
I still have many advernture to go through before I make it to France, but i'm confident that my God will make it work out. It's so exciting!


Please pray that God's plans for me in France would be fullfilled. It seems that he really has something up his sleeves or he wouldn't be so present in this whole process. Please also pray that I could impact many peoples lives for Christ while I am over there. Thank You all so much!