For those of you who have read my blog before, you probably remember Becky. I am absolutely in love with every child at the orphanage I have been visiting for the past three years and will do everything in my power to show them that are loved beyond belief, but I feel a special call to take care of this sick little three-year-old girl. My college years have been incredible and I have met people that I will call my best friends for my entire life, but I also miss this little one every single day. My dream is to be "Mommy" to orphaned children, and I write these blogs so that they are able to look back and realize that God placed them in my heart far before they ever realized.

  For Becky, The 15 Things I Hope You Do Better Than I Have 

1.     Always look people in the eye when you’re talking to them. Not at your phone, and definitely not at your watch. Let people know that you are genuinely interested in what they have to say.

2.     No one has it together. I promise, no one. Don’t live to please everyone else. You be you, all the time, whether that means being the most innovative surgeon in the nation or waitressing down the street.

3.     Don’t grow up too fast. Be a little girl as long as you can. Don’t wear make-up or shave your legs too soon. Trust me, it’s all overrated.

4.     People like to get hung up on the details of things. My advice: stick to the big picture. It really isn’t our job to choose what is right and what is wrong. Focus on loving God with all of your heart and loving others with all of your heart and that should be enough work to last a lifetime.

5.     Let your dating years be fun. I overheard a girl talking yesterday about how her boyfriend is so “wise” and “intentional.” Those are great things, but also remember that laughing until two in the morning is just as important.

6.     And when it comes time to find Mr. Right, make sure he loves you more than he loves being in a relationship with you.

7.     Start tithing when you get your first job. If you’re faithful with the small, it will be so much easier to be faithful with the big.

8.     This is so silly and I still don’t understand it, but politics can cause a lot of fights around here. My advice: don’t get into arguments over them. You aren’t going to change their mind and they aren’t going to change yours. Believe what you believe and don’t post about it on Facebook.

9.     Try and treat everyone like you would treat Jesus. Your best friends, the girl alone at lunch, the homeless man outside of Walmart, the girl that says mean things about you behind your back. Everyone. 

10. It’s good to love people that are different from you. Sometimes the world tells us to run away from differences; I say run towards them. If you don’t get to know all of God’s children, you’re missing out on a huge part of who He really is.

11. Always bring a fun game in the car. Your Mommy is the world’s worst at directions. I promise we’ll get where we’re going eventually, but it may take three hours when it’s supposed to take an hour and a half. And on that note, I may be the world’s worst at a lot of things at first (or my whole life), but know that I’ll never stop trying to be the best I can be for you. Never. So be patient with me.

12. Write hand-written thank you notes. And it doesn’t have to just be for gifts. Thank the people that got you where you are.

13. When you do start to wonder how you ended up with me, know that I will be there to hold your hand. Also know that if I had the choice, I would take back every hurtful thing that brought you to me. But on that same note, you are my angel on earth. I have never been so thankful that God brought someone in my life.

14. A lot of people don’t understand adoption. Kids may ask mean questions. But always know this: God took a clueless, sheltered, small-town loving girl 5, 048 miles away from her home, and then 5 hours out into a tiny village to find you. He has raised thousands of dollars to get me to you. He has worked out timelines and moved relationships so that I get to you. Never doubt we were brought together for a purpose.

15. Know I’ll always be your biggest fan. Always. 

If we’re being completely honest, sometimes I’m really frustrated with the way my life is turning out.

I’ve always wanted to do something out of the ordinary. I think that we all want to feel like we’ve done something significant with our lives. I think that there is the slightest fear in all of us that we will fail, that we will miss our cue, or waste the perfect moment to do something great. Even when I was thirteen, I remember thinking that I wanted to do something different…something that would leave the world a better place. And it all seemed a lot easier when my Mom was making me dinner every day and “credit history” and “bills” were words that were never in my vocabulary. If we’re being honest, when I was that thirteen-year- old little girl, I thought that my life at twenty-one would look a lot different than it actually does.

I was supposed to know exactly where my life was going. I was supposed to have a boyfriend. I was supposed to be a lot more patient with my brothers and know at least five recipes off of the top of my head. I was supposed to wake up early every morning to exercise. I wanted to have a good bit of money in my savings. I wanted to be the girl that had it all figured out.

And in my most frustrated moments like today, when my bank account is practically empty and I can’t remember the last time that I exercised, when I burn (literally) everything I cook, and thinking about what I’m supposed to do after graduation absolutely terrifies me, I can hear God’s voice saying, “Sweetie, your life has to go differently than expected so that it can be better than you ever expected.”  

Isn’t that the scary truth? I’m so quick to become frustrated with God because the new and unknown is so scary. When everything you planned is crumbling, it feels like He is abandoning. But He’s doing the exact opposite. He’s taking things away so He can give us something so much better. We ask time and time again for Him to do something extraordinary through us. To make our lives stand out—to make our lives significant. But yet we still want to be comfortable. We were made to be different, and sometimes being different brings hurt.

So when we’re terrified of what is in front of us, when it’s new and scary and lonely and people are disapproving and discouraging, He isn’t walking away. He’s just giving us what we’ve prayed for time and time again.

I’m so guilty of thinking that “having it all together” makes me closer to God. The only thing that brings us closer to Him is to be at His feet. And that never requires us to be perfect. It doesn’t mean we have to have our hair brushed and our tears wiped and our plans set in stone. It means that we realize we are nothing in comparison to Him. We are weak and broken and so unbelievably flawed, but that He is our Dad and He will lead us and guide us and use us and most importantly, love us.

He doesn’t just want us when we’re clean and perfect and pure.

He’s our Dad, and Dads want their children even when they’re dirty and guilty and scared.

People ask me a lot of the time, what made you want to go across the world to help orphaned children? Can't you just use the money and help here? Do you enjoy riding 15 hours on a plane and landing in a place where you have to sleep with a mosquito net and buy bottled water so you don't get sick? I've had people ask these questions from a genuine place of curiosity, and in those cases, I love to explain why every bit of inconvenience is totally worth it to me. But many times, I've had people ask those very same questions with different undertones. Many times, people think that I'm too "extreme" and that spending $2,000 on a plane ticket is simply ridiculous. I've heard people that I love the most call it "excessive" and "weird." And I'll be honest, sometimes, in the middle of fundraisers and logistics and raising money to get back on that plane, I have to sit down and remember the little faces that make it all so worth it.

Recently, though, something happened all too close to home that reminded me of why I choose to say, "Yes, I'll fight for them," even when that's the hard answer. Even when I'm tired. Even when it's been nine months and I can't even remember their little hands or the way they smell or what it was like to hold a sick baby in my arms. Even then, in the hardest of times, I know that as a follower of Christ, I was made to fight for these children. Convenient or not.

"The test results were abnormal," my Mom said over the phone as my heart broke for someone I love more than I could ever explain. "She's going back for more testing in the next few weeks." I'll never forget the weeks that followed that phone call. Even though I tried to think positive, my mind raced with the possibilities of the devastation a sickness like this could bring. It was the last thing in the world I wanted this family to go through. And then I thought about that families little girl. What if she had to watch her Mom go through this? Who would be there to help her with her make-up before her first homecoming? Who would be there to hear about her first dates and cook for her friends when they came over? It was crazy--all of the sudden, I became such a fighter. There were no measures that seemed too extreme. No distance that seemed too far. I had already decided, if the worst happened, I would move to where they lived, and be the best mother-figure I could ever hope to be. Quitting school was an after thought, and my own "plans" quickly became to seem nonexistent when compared to the importance of taking care of this little girl. Because I loved this person so much, it didn't seem like sacrifice--it just made sense. I know that if I were in this mother's position, I would want someone to do whatever it took to make sure that my little girl was taken care of, so why would I not do that for her?

I still thank God today that, after many follow-up doctor's appointments, she was told that it was nothing to be concerned about. Although I feared the worst in that situation, I learned one lesson I will never forget: You will do immeasurable things for the people you love.

And then it hit me--this "worst case scenario" has happened to millions of children around the world. 13 million children to be exact. 13 million children have had both parents die and left with no one to care for them. These kids are referred to as "double orphans." That means that there were 26 million parents in the world that were forced to leave their children before they were supposed to. Mothers that were laying on their death bed suffering from AIDS as they wished that they would make it to see their first born graduate from high school. Fathers who woke up and kissed their children goodbye before leaving for work and never came home because they were killed innocently due to an unstable government that caused civil war. This happens. It isn't just a worst nightmare to some people.

And I can guarantee you one thing. If those Mothers and Fathers were still here, they would be begging us, "Please, do whatever it takes. Those are my children." Because wouldn't you do the same thing? When it comes to saving your children, deadlines and degrees and status and money and reputation don't matter. They're your children.

These kids that I work with, they were all someone's child. Some of their stories I'll never know. And in those situations, I have the choice to fill in the blank. I will always choose to believe that their parents did everything they could. That they fought until they had no more fight in them. And I will love them and fight for them as if I were that mother. Because that mother is my sister in Christ, and one day when I see her in heaven, I hope that I can honestly say to her, "I did everything I could for your child."

Because wouldn't you want the same thing for your kids?

I remember sitting in a tiny hotel room halfway across the world two years ago, my heart broken and my eyes opened, when one of the members of our trip said, "Don't be surprised when you go back home and people don't want to listen to your stories over and over again. It isn't that they don't feel bad for these kids. They do. It's just that they don't know Henry. They haven't held little Christian's hand. They haven't seen Smallma's precious smile. It's a lot easier to fall in love with someone when you can hold their little hands and look into their eyes and see the need for love."

Since I've been back from Liberia, I've learned that numbers don't cut it. There are 300,000 kids in a country with half the population of Georgia. While I know this number is informative, it just doesn't have the ability to break your heart. Numbers don't have that effect. Faces do.

I want to introduce you to Josie. Josie is a seven-year old little girl whose story of redemption reminds me of God's faithfulness every single time I think of that sweet smile. Josie spent the first part of her life in a baby home in Uganda. During this time, she suffered malaria, a disease that can have a drastic effect on little bodies like Josie's. Although she overcame the malaria, Josie was continually sick and running high fevers.

Halfway across the world in Nashville, Tennessee, a family of eight, already passionate about loving orphans, decided to make a trip to Uganda. Suzanne and Mike would take their two oldest children to visit a dear friend who was serving there. During this trip, they visited the baby home where Josie was living. Josie couldn't walk, and when they arrived to the baby home each day her little body was sitting out in the hot sun, her head burning with a fever. Although they showered Josie with as much love as any family can give, the time to go home was approaching quickly, and they knew they had to get back to care for the other four kids at home. Once they returned, however, home didn't seem the same. Grace, their oldest daughter, continued to beg for Josie to be her little sister, and finally, after a lot of prayer, the Mayernick family decided that Josie's home was their family. This decision came with another trip to Uganda, and this trip held devastating news: Josie was positive for TB and HIV. Although this news stunned the Mayernick's, after 24 hours of desperate researching, they were assured that they could provide Josie with the proper treatment in Nashville, and soon, she would be able to live a normal life, just the same as any of their other children. After prayer, love, and a lot of commitment, the Mayernick's took Josie home.

Today, Josie is a precious, outgoing little bundle of joy who is, most definitely, a Mayernick at heart. Her precious Mom, Suzanne, allowed me to come visit their house in Nashville several months ago, and I'll never forget the love I saw in that family. And, yes, they were real people! A real family with fast food on the table, and friends over, and Josie begging, "Pllllllease Mommy, let me go to Chuckie Cheese!" But amidst all the "normal," there was something holy about this family. I got to see a Dad of seven kids watch and laugh at the craziness, greeting me with, "Welcome to our house. This is our life!" I met a lady who is so passionate about giving the 147 million orphans in our world a home, that she sacrificed time (on her oldest daughter's prom day!) to talk with me about what it means to love. I watched Josie, a little girl who, for months, had to have a nurse come into her house every day, run up to me and read a book in my lap. I watched brothers and sisters playing basketball and not realize the color of skin. I saw a family who was willing to commit to the difficult moments, the counseling, the craziness, the tears, and the questions, because they know that Josie, and Grace, and Michael, and Annabelle, and Miller Anne, and Joshua, and Caleb are ALL children of God. Each one of them is precious and irreplaceable and no matter where they came from or what happens in their life, they will fight for them. Because that is what love is.

I'm telling you this story because, tomorrow, a man named Daryl Roberts from my home town will start his venture to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. He is hiking "from the ground up," in order to rebuild our kids in Liberia, "from the ground up," and at the end of the day, he isn't hiking for the 300,000. He is hiking for the Josie's, and the Becky's, and the Henry's, and the Christian's. He is hiking so that every little mouth of the 300,000 is fed and every tummy healthy and every hand held, so that, eventually, every child will have a story like Josie's.

Join Orphan Aid Liberia in the climb by liking our Facebook Page or visiting our website: www.orphanaidliberia.com

If you would like to hear more about Josie's story, you can check out her amazing mom's blog: www.joiningthejourney.blogspot.com