A Message From Above

Welcome to my India Blog. As most anyone who is reading this knows, I have been in preparation for this trip since last September. Many of you are the reason I am able to do this trip. It has been your generosity, support, ideas, encouragement and love that have kept me focused and convinced that I can do this!!!

We leave on Monday (5 days) and I’m starting to loose a little sleep over it all. Tossing and turning over the ideas in my head of what India is going to be like, over the packing list and things I might forget, over the “what if’s” around travel in such a distant place, over wondering if Choco’s really are the best choice of shoe for three weeks of walking in a third world country. We’ll see.

But today, I received one of those wonderful signs from the Universe.

Again, if you know me well enough to be reading this, you may also know about a few of my idiosyncrasies. One of which is my love of the Beatles, and my belief that God talks to me through them. I have found throughout my life that whenever the Beatles come on the radio if I stop for just a moment I can see that whatever it is I’m doing, or decision I am about to make, is absolutely where I am “supposed” to be, and that all is right in my world-in a really big way. You need to know that I cannot “cheat” the system and simply put on my Beatles CD’s whenever I want to be convinced “I’m where I’m supposed to be”. No, it doesn’t work that way. It only works when I hear The Beatles in random places at random times. And, for the record, someone ELSE doing a Beatles song doesn’t count, nor does songs sung by any of the Beatles as an individual. Only the true Beatles will do when God is talking to me.

So today Cedric and I had an appointment at the bank to get our Travelers Checks. And because we both have been fundraising, and we’re headed to India to work on a project, we have a nice size amount of these checks.

But this past week I’ve been getting a bit nervous about the trip. All my own fears, doubts, worries and neurosis have been popping up throughout my days and nights. I’ve worried about the projects, I’ve worried about doing the trip “right” for all our financial supporters. I’ve worried that if the project doesn’t go the way I think it should then I’ll let everyone down, and feel obligated to return their generously donated dollars.

And as we stood at the counter at the bank, and the teller says, “I’m going to have quite a few forms for you to sign” I find myself tappin’ my toe to , “c’mon, c’mon, c’mon baby now” and realize that there, in the middle of a usually quite bank, are the voices of my favorite four, singing to me, and reminding me that I can’t do this wrong, I can’t do it badly, I can’t screw this up. But I can choose my thoughts and ideas around how I WANT to do this. Do I want to be in joy or in fear? And as I ask the question, the answer is provided, “shake it up baby now!!!”