Day 23: If you’ve been following along here, you know that Tim and I met on a trip to Ethiopia. The part you might not know is how I got to Ethiopia in the first place…

The summer after my first year of college I lived at home, worked at my high school waitressing job, and took a couple of classes at the local community college. When I went back to college to start my sophomore year I declared that that summer was lame, and I needed to do something cooler next summer.

I got a folder and wrote “What the heck am I going to do next summer?” on it. I then requested information from all sorts of summer programs. The one that piqued my interest the most was a job waitressing at Yellowstone…how fun does that sound?? I went to a conference hosted by the campus ministry I was involved in (RUF) and saw brochures about summer missions internships. I grabbed one and stuck it in my folder when I got home.

When it came time to decide, it was down to Yellowstone or missions internship. I ended up deciding that the missions route sounded like the “good” thing to do. I filled out the application and got to the part where you select countries you’d be interested in going to. Y’all, I had never been on a plane, and I didn’t know many people who had been to other countries. SAWDUST, remember? I put down Mexico and some Central American countries…they seemed close. Then as I was looking back over the descriptions of the projects going on in different countries, I thought the project in Ethiopia sounded really cool. So as my last selection, I wrote “Ethiopia” with a chuckle…"who even knows where that is?”...

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and my cell phone rings. It was a pastor from my hometown who says he’s calling because his son is the MTW missionary in Ethiopia, and he told him that a girl from our town had applied to work there this summer. WHAT?!? I put down a random, far-away country as my last choice, and it turns out that the guy in charge there has family in my little hometown?

I hang up the phone, sit down on my bed, and say “oh my goodness, I think I’m supposed to go to Ethiopia.”…and the rest is history. 😊 #31daysofcalling #lovesinethiopia