"Well I Guess if You Say so I'll Have to Pack my Things and Go"

"Hit the Road Jack" | Ray Charles

It's a good feeling to just get something off of your chest. Honestly. It does.

I finally told my parents that God is calling me to do a gap year in England with All-Saint's. It definitely went better than I ever could have imagined.

After worship last night I told Amy-Jo that I wanted to tell my parents because I couldn't really keep it in any more and I needed to tell them before I went to England in 17 days. She helped me put together a mini packet of a letter composed by her, a couple of emails from the vicar, and a basically meaningless printout of the LAUNCH program web page. Surprisingly enough it helped me tell them, and it was something tangeable. Something to show them it wasn't a spur of the moment thing.

I took the long way home from church last night. I was too scared to tell them. I didn't know how I was going to do it, I didn't know how to do it. As soon as I walked out of the church building, the tears flooded down my face. It was something I knew I had to do and it was something I knew would change my life forever. I was scared to tell my parents. I was scared of dissapointment. I was scared of them saying no. I was scared of them saying yes.

All I could do was pray. It helped...for about fifteen minutes. Then it was D-Day.

I walk into the house. I say the usual "hello" and walk in to the kitchen to find some food. I see it but I'm to nauseous to attempt to even put food on a plate. I walk back into the living room.

"Can I talk to you guys?"
A collective yes follows.
"Can I turn the tv off?"
A collective uh, yea, glance at each other follows. This must be serious.
"I have something to tell you."
More glances.
"You love me no matter what, right?"
"Uhhhhhh...yeeeeea..."
"Well I've been trying to figure out how to tell you something for a while."
"What is it?"
(At this point mom completely dominates the conversation)
"Well I feel that God is calling me to do a gap year and (tears start flowing) in England and I don't know how you guys feel about that." as I hand mom the mini packet.

My dad calms me down and gives me a hug and tells me that this is a good thing. God has called me to do something and he will support me and not stand in my way. The worst thing I could do is not to follow it.
My mom on the other hand just stares at me for a good ten minutes not saying a word. I can see tears in her eyes. She finally says something, but of course it's negative. I will lose the Hope Scholarship by doing this.

I'm honestly fine with that.

Finally she starts talking and it's becoming more positive and she starts joking. That is the Kimsey family stamp of "I'm getting used to this."

So now I am in the process of filling out the Launch Gap Year application, the parents will be in the process of checking out visas and other odds and ends that need to be worried about. They have probably 9 months to help plan and pray. I have probably 9 months to plan, pray, and save. It's not going to be cheap.

I'm in the process of getting ready spiritually for this mission trip in 16 days and the gap year in less than a year. I know God wouldn't call me to do something I couldn't do. I'm not going to lie, I'm nervous. That's 10 months away from my parents in another country with weird food. It's not something that if anything goes wrong, "Oh well. I leave in a few days anyway." It's roughly 10 months for me to stick it out.

There's going to be a lot of trust put into God in the next couple of years. I'm going to have to embrace a buttload of humility as well. There's no way I could do any of this if I was even a little bit prideful. Something that I constantly deal with. I'm pretty sure pride is the stem of all my other flaws.

Yea so I'm sure that this house is going to hear millions of prayers from each person in the family. Good.

You can pray too. And by "You can pray too." I mean, pray for me.