To help prepare for the trip, Robin and I arranged for both sets of our parents to meet over lunch yesterday when she came down from Dallas. My parents know her mom, but they hadn't met her stepdad. It was kind of awkward at first but eventually it was fun. We kept joking about the lunch being like the first time an engaged couple's parents meet and try to be friends. But if you think about it, Robin and I are going off for a year together and we're going to be like each other's surrogate family, so we wanted our parents to know how to contact each other. Plus we wanted to answer any questions they had and get their advice on a few things. They gave us some good tips about managing our money and a list of questions that we still needed to email admissions with just so we'd have some more information, so it was helpful. It also made me more nervous because I realized just how close we are to actually leaving.
After lunch, Robin and I went back to my house to email admissions, try to figure out how we were going to get to LA for our flight to Sydney. After exploring train, plane and automobile, we decided it was cheapest to fly Southwest to LA. It's still a chunk of change, but we live in the middle of the country so there's no other way around it- we have to pay extra to get to the west coast. Then we sat on the back porch and wrote a letter to friends seeking help with tuition money. I hate writing those letters and I'm never sure how people will react, but we are going to try anything we can to make sure tuition is payed for. Plus, my family has already had several church members asking where they can donate to. We know that Hillsong isn't a mission trip of any sort, but we feel that once we are trained an in ministry many lives will be touched and hearts will be changed for the Kingdom. So we wrote the letter and maybe someone will feel called to help us be trained for ministry. This is just one more instance in life where my Mountain TOP experience has come in handy.
Something else I'm doing to prepare for HILC is taking guitar lessons. I'm so stoked about this! I'm getting better week by week, and although I'm no professional, I'm learning new things and that makes me happy. The guy that's teaching me plays in our church's band and it's his ministry. Meaning, he'll teach someone for free if they promise to teach another person at some point in their life. He's really good and he uses terms I understand and he teaches with praise music, PLUS it's free...so I'm pumped.
In other news, I suffered an ear infection and a perforated ear drum this week, making me miss 2 days of work. Of course I worried about that, but then out of the blue Robin tells me her mom is thinking about helping us with tuition. Every time I worry and try to control things, God just snaps me out of it and puts me right back on track. Man, I love him.
All we're waiting on now is our housing packets to apply for housing and see who we are rooming with. We can't wait for our next leg to begin! I hope that life is treating all of you well and that his plans for you are coming together too.
Blessings,
Aislinn
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