Christmas Day is almost here!!

No, Michelle isn't high on drugs, no I haven't been sniffing too many garbage fumes from all the garbage clean-ups, nor am I following any odd African calendars!!! :) You see, when I left 5 months ago to come here to Uganda, it felt a bit like Christmas eve. Think about when you were little or if you have kids now...the excitement and anticipation on Christmas eve, the hustle and bustle all around town, the cleaning, cooking and preparing, and for Christians, the heart preparation and celebration. Though the world around us gets caught up in "stuff", we know the true celebration of Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior, and can spend time reflecting on that. Sooooo, the night before I left to come here, I was excited, busy packing and running all around, focused on Jesus and excited about the work He was going to do in me and thru me, had great anticipation for the next day, ect. I was coming to visit a whole lot of family that I'd never met before!! I've been here fixing my eyes on Jesus, doing Kingdom work, visiting with my newfound "relatives"...but now realizing that the day after Christmas is quickly approaching, and you know what that means! It means, sad goodbyes with the relatives you love so very much, no more feasting on amazing home cooked food and sitting around the dinner table having amazing talks and discussions, it means getting back to work (although I have definitely been working, just a different kind of work here), it means no more girl talks late at night, and it means packing and traveling, traveling, traveling!!!

There are 2 big things I realized this morning, that I wanted to blog about. First, I have a HUGE family in Uganda of lots of brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles that I've become super close with and that love me dearly (and of course I love them)! :) Second, I don't really have a physical place I call "home" on this earth...my home is truly right next to the Father's Heart...that's the only place I wanna call home. I will go whereever in the world that He asks me to go and can adapt to any situation/circumstance/environment as long as I'm next to the Father's Heart! At the beginning of the trip, I never thought I could get used to all the dust, the heat, no air conditioning ever, cold showers, power outages, etc. However, if the Lord asked me to move to Uganda and call it "home", I could and would do it, because I really do think of any physical place as "home" anymore!

So, does this mean my calling is full-time overseas missions?? Only the Lord knows this. All I know is that I'm more in love with Him than life itself, am hungry and thirsty for more and more of Him, want to spread His Word and love all around, want to be obedient to Him, and just wanna be me (who He created me to be!!!!)

Have to go finish packing, writing some cards, hanging out with the internationals...oh yeah, and sleep a bit!! :) Graduated from discipleship school tonight and serve at church for the last time tomorrow! I leave Uganda Sunday night about 10pm (3pm in Florida) and arrive in FL on Tuesday evening. If you think about it, please keep me in your prayers for traveling mercies! Also, I do need some Favor...as of right now, I still don't have my passport in my hands and I have no exit visa to leave the country....long story...but need some divine intervention to actually leave the country smoothly with no financial corruption issues!!

Love you all and see some of you very, very soon!!!

Living to know Him more and more,
Michelle