Getting ready...

I guess I'll start at the beginning. My best friend found the organization Heart for Africa through a co-worker of her mom's. She decided to go on the July trip. After a while of seeing her getting ready, I knew it was something I wanted to do and she asked me if I would go. Of course I said, "YES!"

Every volunteer got a book in the mail called "It's not OK with Me" by Janine Maxwell -- the VP of Heart for Africa. It took me a while to read it, and once I did, I felt sick and had nightmares after reading the first 4 chapters. I told my friend on the phone, "I don't know if I can read anymore." It told stories of the most horrendous things happening to these little children. It told of 6 year old children running away from their horrible living situations and ending up on the street getting tortured by the older runaways. Things that my imagination could never even think of. Things that my brain couldn't wrap around.

You see the pictures on TV. You feel for the little malnourished babies and the mom's that can't take care of them. There's just so many other things happening that would horrify you if you ventured to find out what they were.

I have a 3 year old son. I can't help but thinking of him in these situations. And every time I do I can't help but cry. And cry.

For the 9 months leading up to going to Africa until I got there I fully thought of this trip as "once in a lifetime". But now I've been home for 4 months and I can't shake it. Not that I want to shake it, but I think I just felt like -- this is what's happening in this part of the world, and it's sad, but what can I really do about it?

It was a week and a half of my life, and a story to tell my children. Hey, look at me -- I went to Africa and volunteered at a children's home one summer.

That's definitely not what it's turning out to be.

It's taken over my life. I'm on a mission now. I CAN and WILL help these sweet little children as much as I possibly can -- which isn't much right now. But big things are in the works.

Trust me.