Hey everybody! I just wanted to give y'all a little update on how everything is going. I leave for my mission trip in less than two days! Can you believe that?! It's just mind blowing to me to think that I'm about to leave my home and my family for nine months. And I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. 

Everyone asks the same question: Are you excited? That's a hard question to answer. I am excited for all the awesome things God is going to do on this trip. But I am not excited at all to leave my family, my best friend, my church, and everyone in between.

Almost two weeks ago covid hit my church hard. My pastor, his wife, the music director and her husband, and the youth pastor all got sick. Pretty much all of my extended family got sick, and I could no longer see my friends because we all went into lockdown. I was out of town when everything happened so when I came back I learned that I wouldn't be able to hug most of the people that I loved goodbye. Thankfully my immediate family and I are fine and haven't gotten sick. But here I am a couple days away from leaving and my heart aches because of how much I want to hug my best friend bye.

This is a blog that was really hard for me to write because pride didn't want me to show you the hard part of leaving. I know that God has a reason for everything, but that doesn't make the hard stuff easy. So I just wanted to let you know that it's ok to not always be ok. Even when you're excited you can be sad. God made us complex with so many different emotions and I don't think He wants us to hide those emotions from each other. He wants us to come together and connect because of our similar emotions.

I'll update as I'm able while I'm gone.

Always His,

Jaiden