Here we go!

Our room looks like a bomb went off. (That's me and my roommates: Hope, Abbey, me, and Cathy.) With a smokey haze from incense and our belongings thrown about the room on the floor, in piles, and halfway in suitcases,  it truly does look like someone threw a bomb in and ran from the imminent disaster. Trying to fit my life for 50 days of both sticky hot and frigid cold all into a trekking backpack seems close to impossible, but it's forcing me to learn the essential life skill of packing lightly. Very lightly. (Dad, you'd be quite proud.) :)

I'd like to say I'm still in denial of leaving, but that packing mess tells me otherwise. We fly out tomorrow morning for Mumbai, leaving our base around 7am. With the time changes, it will feel as though we've traveled two solid days before we land in India. I'm not really nervous; I'm just excited and expectant. Leaving this base is going to be incredibly hard. Granted, we'll be back for a week to debrief in January, but it won't be the same. I'm actually going to miss some aspects of living in this neighborhood. Yes, it is full of drugs, violence, and prostitution--it's earned its label of the 3rd worst neighborhood in the US--but God is here and pockets of His light are present. I'm going to dearly miss the staff here at YWAM. I'm going to miss The Beat, our "second home," the coffeeshop on Fremont that we haunted every weekend. I will miss the Dream Center, the church one block from the YWAM base that most of us attended every Sunday. Today was especially meaningful since not only was it our day there, but Cathy--one of the students--danced and the entire church prayed over us, sending us out.  That church is seriously anointed.

So, on our last day together as one big happy dysfunctional family, Sean makes funnel cakes, laundry is washing, rooms look like they exploded, last dance parties occur, and we cook stir fry for a "family dinner." All of us have grown and learned so much these last 4 months, but we're ready to put into practice all that we've learned. We've found true love here in Las Vegas in a neighborhood full of desperation and poverty. We're finding love in hopeless places.  This is love:

 

Do It Anyway

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

-Mother Teresa

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” 

Joshua 1:8-9