On Friday I will get on an airplane and head back to Haiti.  This time will be different than all the last trips I had taken there.  This time I won't be visiting any of my children there.  They will be back in Austin waiting for me to return home.  This time I'll be taking a kid with me, and I couldn't be more excited about Cayden getting to go on his first trip out of the country.  This time the trip will be full of laughter and joy, and no sadness from leaving kids there.  Aaron and I are super excited to be celebrating with our friends as their daughter graduates high school and starts a new phase in life.  We are also so excited for Cayden to meet the child he sponsors through Compassion International.  What a monumental moment that will be for him.  All he talks about lately is meeting Wonsli.

I'm 100% glad that Cayden will be on this trip because I think it will help me process the emotions that I will be feeling.  I can't even explain how I feel about Haiti.  In fact when I say it out loud it sounds like quite possibly the dumbest thing I can possibly think of.  You see this year I've been working through some deep hurt from our adoption process.  I think I've suppressed these feelings and just gotten on with life, but this trip is forcing me to deal with them.

I would say that our adoption process was one of the hardest things I've had to go through in my life this far.  And in a very close second, if not tied for first place, would be the first year after Amos was home.  And so somewhere in my messed up brain and heart I have placed all the blame for those hard times on the country of Haiti.  You see, it's dumb.  I'm mad at a country.  Not a person.  A country.

Sounds ridiculous.

But, I'm working through it.  I'm praying to God that on this trip he would soften my heart towards this country that moved me so deeply during my first trip in 2006.  I'm asking God to put a sense of hope back in me for a country that in my mind has hurt me and my child so deeply.  I'm asking God to provide emotional healing for me while I'm there.  I'm asking God to renew my passion for helping the people there.  We have friends that are involved in ministries that do amazing things there, and I would love to be able to support them not only financially, but also emotionally as well.

So, I'm asking you to pray for me as well.  Will you pray that as I step off that plane and walk to the airport that I will feel HIS presence with me constantly.  That it will be a supernatural peace in my heart that only comes from HIM.  To pray that while I'm there I can make new memories of visits there, that don't involve heart wrenching departures.

Thanks friends.  I leave Friday and return Tuesday.  5 days for God to do big things in me.  I'm hopeful.