French-Malgache Food!

I am restarting my blog. Yes, wake up in Jesus Name!

I've decided, by inspiration of a blogging friend of mine, Jess Strabava, to blog about the free trip I'm taking to France and I am doing the pre-trip blog right now as I eat food I learned how to make from my "French" host mom from Madagascar. Yum!

I'm busy thinking about what I have to pack and waiting to hear back from the orginization about when I fly out. I fly out of Missoula in a week and they still haven't contacted me with any more vital info like when I'm leaving, what I need to pack, who my students are going to be, where exactly in Europe I will be going-so I have time to research and at least give the impression that I know about where I will be leading the kids.

Yeah, so I got "hired" to lead a group of U.S. high school students to France and Germany for three weeks this summer. Freaking out!

Here's the story, One day in late March I was like, "Yo, Jesus, Big Guy." (We're real tight so I can talk to him like that.) "I'm kinda bored, it would be cool to have something to look forward to." I just kinda threw up a mini-prayer, not even expecting anything. I guess I just wanted to say that to God. I do this all the time, just say stuff to Him.

So a couple days later, I was on Facebook, where I spend like 83% of my time anyways, when I saw an ad about traveling with students or something. I thought that was cool so I checked it out. Well, come to find out I was like half an hour from the deadline for submitting your application to be a group leader, but they said to call if you were interested. And I was really interested, they said they would pay for me to get from New York to France and back if I were a group leader. SWEET! So I called and they said if I got an application in by the end of the week they would consider me. They said they would contact me in April or the first week in May if they were interested in my leading a group of kids abroad.

So I got my application done, had my super sweet awesome reference people hook me up-Jason S., Jessica K., and Nicole G. and got everything send in about two days late. (Just like when I was in college.) And then I waited. They said if I didn't hear anything back that was good, and meant they had gotten my application.

I was pretty unsure about this trip, praying about it I had some hesitation, mostly about cost. I'm wanting to save up for some other traveling (missions stuff) which I deem more important and was just worried that paying to get to New York and Vermont (where the training is) and for the one meal/day would cost too much to justify going on this trip. I saw this trip as potentially frivolous and not really in God's plan since I was already more sure about other things (missions stuff).

Even though, I don't believe God sees giving me an almost free trip to work with students where I won't be doing missions style work ungodly, I was still concerned. I even prayed that they don't call me back if I wasn't supposed to go. So when the middle of May rolled around, I knew they weren't interested in me going and felt a sense of relief. No money problems!

Then the third week in May happened. Having totally written of this trip and being completely ok about not going, I prayed "God, I'm kinda bored. I want something to look forward too." again without even remembering the last time. The next day, I got a phone call and the guy said he wanted to interview me for the trip! I was shocked and kinda freaked out. He even was willing to interview me that night! That sounds like God rearranged someone's schedule to get me a spot!

So, still nervous about the money thing I interviewed. I had to talk about what I would do if I lost one of my kids at the airport, speak French and explain how to handle Mexican host parents finding condoms in one of my kids purses and thusly thinking they were housing a girl of ill-repute (apparently that happens :/). He said he would call me back with their decision. And then, I didn't have time to ask about the money/compensation.

Nextly (is this a word?), I went to my team leader of the very schedule sensitive company I work for (if you need a job I will hook you up, use me as a reference, I get money.) and asked them if I could get time off in a couple weeks for five weeks. etc etc.

I got a call back a couple of days later and they said they were officially offering me a job to travel with students in France and Germany for three weeks and that they were going to pay for all my expenses from Missoula to Vermont to New York to Europe and all the way back to MSO! And they are throwing 100$ per week on top of that. SWEET, no money out of my pocket! All I have to pay for is souvenirs. I've been to France three times. I need no souvenirs. Score! And apparently my boss talked to her boss who talked to her boss and they decided to give me time off! I'm even taking an extra week off before to go back home to visit family and Alice, my French friend who is visiting her host family, just a few miles from my ranch! WINNING! Hopefully, I'll get to meet my host family from Lyon!

Now I just need to pack, get a medical checkup and get details about my trip. And word to the wise, be careful about telling Jesus you are bored. He is not ok with boredom and will deal with it appropriately!