“The toughest job you’ll ever love.”

That’s what started it all. Started my dream of changing the world. Those Peace Corps commercials from the sixties, when I was just a kid and didn’t have a clue. But I would watch those ads, and see young Americans feeding starving children in Ethiopia or building a bridge in Colombia, and I would think, “That’s what I want to do some day.”

Instead, God sent me a husband (and then a second husband), two children, an eight to five job, a mortgage, a car payment, a dog and too many cats. Ok, maybe God didn’t do all of that. Maybe I made some choices of mine own. Maybe I took the easy path, the road more traveled, the conventional life.

In 2005, when God told me it was time to take that trip to a third world country, to make a difference, to change the world, I wasn’t easily convinced. After all, I had the husband and the kids and two dogs at that time. Plus I was old (hard to believe that I am even older now). I went to Africa, just as God had told me to do, and while I was there, I felt sure that I couldn’t make a difference and I certainly couldn’t change the world.

What changed inside of me? Did I lower my expectations? Did I accept second-best? No, but I figured it out. I can make a difference, you can make a difference. It really isn’t that hard. Just answer when God calls.

"The same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world and changing lives everywhere, just as it changed yours that very first day you heard it and understood about God’s great kindness to sinners." 

Colossians 1:6 Living Bible

(If you are reading this blog on the day it posted, you still have a chance to get my memoir for free and learn all about that first trip to Africa. Simply click here.)