Have Fun with It :)

What's up kiddos! This is Austin here bringing you the latest and greatest from the Ghana team. Please bear with me I'm admittedly a terrible blogger but this beats a Blackboard submission any day.

Life Lesson Alert (Please refer to the title of this article): Have fun!

As we near our departure, I have been really stressed and anxious about the trip. So many questions have been flittering in my head: Do I have everything? Am I going to be useful? What is this place going to be like? What can God show and do through me to these people (sap), et cetera. I have been to multiple countries and been on mission trips before, but this has been a different sort of animal. I have been procrastinating packing for days, trying to figure out Ghanaian customs, getting used to wearing pants and long sleeves in the heat of Africa *tears*, and taking a pill for what seems to be a sickness or disease or plague that the travel clinic faculty could remember. On top of that, our team still needs to finish final details in our design while figuring out a way to transport all the hardware required for our system to be operational.

With all of this kind of crashing in on me these last few days, I have been trying to remind myself to stay positive. It's easy to be bogged down by stress and work; it happens all the time in the world of engineering, but we need to remember to have fun and love what we are doing. It's okay to have questions, doubts, and stress, but one of the most gratifying parts of mission trips and life in general is God's answers to these feelings. Having this balance is essential. You will realize how much you have, how much you CAN contribute, and how much this foreign place is actually your home.

So despite having stress and apprehension about leaving, I am so excited to see how God responds to me, how I will become a brother to a group of strangers, and how I can serve a village of people that need help.

Pow Pow The End.