Juggling

First, a couple of pictures from this past week:

Coffee w/Gabriella, one of my former viola students who just moved to Mazatlan, Mexico, to serve with YWAM for 2 years. I'm so excited for her!

Father's Day with my dad

Stress: this upcoming trip is totally stressing me out! The thing is, it's not the trip, but the prep. for the trip. This trip is a very unique trip for me in several ways: 1)a group from my church is going, 2)I'm going from the States to the camp, rather than from a location in E. Europe, 3)My brother's family will be a part of the Eng. camp in Ukraine. So why is this stressing me out more than other trips? Well, cause I kind of feel like I'm juggling plates. None of them are bad plates, but throw in one too many plates, and it all comes crashing down. I'm juggling trying to piece together my own schedule for the next month of traveling to four countries, doing an English camp, and meeting with staff; followed by lots of questions and concerns from the folks at my church here who are going, plus trying to coordinate getting tons of supplies and special requests donated from church members, while raising funds for my brother's family to be at the camp; plus fielding requests from friends and missionaries in the various countries to bring supplies, and personal items, and order things for them; followed by lots of e-mails and phone calls from the home office needing me to carry over 57 pounds of bibles and pancake mix and peanut butter and binders and cash and....the list goes on.

One of the plates fell yesterday; thankfully, I caught it. I started typing up my schedule and realized that I was missing one plane ticket for the middle of July, taking me from Odessa to Vienna for 2 days of rest. Oops. Better to realize it now than the day I was supposed to fly, right?

Like I said before- none of these plates are bad. I'm super excited that a group is going from my church..really, really excited. I'm really excited that my brother's family is going to be at camp...really, really excited. I'm happy to be going back to my former team to do this camp with them and the new interns and others that I know from church...really, really happy. I'm glad to be able to do the fund-raising and supply collecting, and money-carrying, and communicating, etc. I'm really looking forward to seeing all of our staff in the different countries. It's just a lot of details that seem to be spinning around right now, on top of everyday life, and I feel the stress from it. But I know that it will all come together. I might drop a few plates along the way, but that plane takes off on July 1st, and Lord willing, all those plates will be shelved and in their proper places. I'm trying to remember right now that it's not necessarily as much about getting all the plates to their right location at the right time, as it is about how I respond to all the plates that are being tossed into my juggling act. Am I juggling the events and questions and people and e-mails lovingly, graciously, and in a manner that says that I care for them, or am I letting the number of plates overwhelm me, so that I forget about the people that I'm supposed to be serving? I'm not very fond of juggling, but right now, it's what I've been called to do. May this remind me to juggle in a manner pleasing to Him.