We’re well into our second month of writing. It has gone by so quickly! I’ve got stories for 7 countries completely written with about 3 more in the works. I’m a little behind my three stories a week goal. I think it was one of my overly optimistic goals. I tend to think I can accomplish more in a given amount of time than is actually possible.

(For the curious, here is my list of country stories so far: Albania, Benin, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Fiji, Haiti, India, Nauru, Qatar, and the Solomon Islands.)
The plans for our Operation John travels are beginning to form…which is good timing since we’ll need to get our visas in order as soon as possible. We’re still planning to head to India first. I just wrote a story about India and read up on Sundar Singh. I don’t plan to walk barefoot through the Himalayas like he did, but I was inspired nonetheless. I know we’re going to spend some time in orphanages in the neighboring country, too.

I’ve been reading another book about the street children of Brazil and can hardly get through a page without my eyes pricking with tears. When I was growing up, I read as many missionary stories as I could get my hands on. Their lives seemed exciting, but a little unattainable. Now I’m actually the age of the missionaries in the stories. I can relate to them a lot better now than when I read about them as a kid. Their sacrifices mean more to me because I actually understand what they’re giving up by leaving their families, culture, language, and country behind to follow what God asked them to do.

I’ve also discovered that when God puts this kind of thing on your heart–like caring for street children and orphans–it is harder NOT to obey. I don’t think I’ll feel satisfied with my life until I’m really, truly doing what God asks me to do with my life. It’s something that has been so ingrained, so obviously designed in me, that I can’t imagine living any other kind of life. And as I’ve let God re-soften my heart, have opened myself up to feeling the kind of pain He feels when He sees these abandoned children everywhere, He has increased my capacity to love.

In other news….

I’ve also been using my spare time in the evenings to create more digital scrapbook pages. It’s getting more challenging as I’m trying to teach myself the basics of good design and layout principles, like what I’d hear about in a graphic design course. I’m learning more tricks with Photoshop, too, which is pretty fun. It’ll be a long time until I can do half the stuff that my sister can, but that’s ok. I mean, what are sisters for if not to show you Photoshop stuff?