A "Rookie" Mission Tripper Gets Ready

Here’s a chance for everyone to hear from a “rookie”. My name is Jordan and this year is my first year going on the trip. I summed up my feelings pretty well in a thank you note to a family friend. They always pick on me for getting myself into the craziest adventures whenever I leave my little hometown in Pennsylvania, in particular they like to mention that I ran off to Europe and jumped out of a helicopter (it’s really not as dramatic as it sounds, I was studying abroad and was in the extreme sports town of Interlaken, Switzerland). But I said to them in my note that my feelings are pretty similar to that day when I went skydiving because I am experiencing such a mix of emotions from minute to minute.

It seems a little surreal to me still. Through all of the preparations and countdowns it has become a sort of “thing” in my mind rather than an “experience” It seems like it’s already been a long road from when I first met the team, committed and turned my summer birthday party into a fundraiser. But now it’s just one day away and I am flooded with so many different emotions this is proving very hard to put together in any sort of logical way. But I feel so ready to jump in with both feet and experience what I have been hearing about for the past few months from the veterans on the team.

After procrastinating all week and filling my suitcase piece by piece and stopping into the same stores for just “one more thing” I feel like I’m almost packed, but I’m still worried I am forgetting something important. That’s one key emotion that keeps coming up in my head—worry; the what if’s keep going through my head. What if I get hurt or sick, what if I break down emotionally, what if I forget my passport, what if I can’t sleep, what if about a thousand other things. But just like before I jumped out of the helicopter the “what ifs” are all part of the experience and I trust that I am in good hands and that I am doing God’s work.

I think my overwhelming emotion that overpowers any of the others is that I feel so blessed. After such a short time I already feel so close to a team of great people. The team has welcomed this rookie with open arms and a funny nickname. The support that I have seen from people in my life has been truly uplifting and a reminder of what amazing people I am surrounded by. This feeling I know is about to multiply with the love from the children in Jamaica.

~ Jordan ("Rookie")