my future: the next 12 months...

so i've realized that a lot has changed since my last blog post. i don't know why it's taken me so long to finally post again, but for some reason it has. last time i wrote, i was trying to decide between a potential job teaching violin next year and going as a student missionary. now looking back on what i wrote i realize how much has happened between then and now. i decided against the job even though it would have been a great opportunity, because i didn't want to compromise my wish to serve as a student missionary. if i didn't take this chance now, then i think i would have a harder time trying to make my missions dream a reality in the future after i had already got settled into a post-graduate life. so all in all i feel at peace with my decision to let the job opportunity go and instead spend my upcoming year at a location very far away from home, doing something i've never done before. things have fallen into place quite nicely. yes, it's taken me a long time to get all the student missions paperwork in and get the process merrily on it's way, but i finally did, and now i'm looking forward to spending 12 months in egypt! i know it's going to be very different from what i'm used to. i've traveled a lot, but none of my trips have been anywhere near this extensive in length. i think the longest trip i've been on has been probably somewhere around 3 weeks, and the longest i've been away from home has been a semester, which i've done 8 times throughout my years at southern. but nothing will quite equal the experience of being in a foreign country for a year. i'm really excited about what's to come throughout the next year that's coming upon me so fast i can hardly believe it, but i also am getting a sense that this may very well be the first time i experience homesickness. i never felt homesick in the least while i was at college or on mission trips i've been on, but i'm wondering if the feeling is going to rise throughout my year. i really hope it doesn't, because i enjoy new experiences and being independent, yet i just have this feeling that my world is going to be so far from what i've known that i'm going to be feeling things i've never felt before. it doesn't help that my favguy will be across the atlantic ocean from me for an entire year too. i'm gonna miss him immensely, but i hope that with God's help i will be able to get through this year and come out a better person from the things i have experienced. i also want to be a witness to those that i meet in egypt, but i realize that it may be hard to witness in the typical sense of the word since egypt is predominantly muslim, and i may not be able to speak freely about God. yet i want to serve as humbly as i can. i will be in charge of running a preschool...something which i've never experienced, and which i have no professional training in. i've worked with children in different areas of my life and i've love it, but it has never been in a school setting. i just hope i'm able to do the job and be the willing person that God will want me to be. this year will be tough i'm sure, but i hope it will also be the most rewarding of my life thus far. i'm looking forward to it with a hesitant eagerness, if that makes any sense at all. i just ask for your prayers as i venture out into this new life that lies ahead of me...