Welcome to My South Africa Semester Blog

Okay so here's the deal. I've never done a personal blog or shared my musings with anyone so this is one giant experiment. I'll start by giving a huge shout out to my mom, because she's probably the only one that will faithfully look at this and actually care what it says, not because I'll be writing anything interesting, but because it'll be her indication that I am actually alive and haven't been carried off and sold. Let me just say, Dan Gross is no Liam Neeson but he "will find you, and he will kill you" and then he'll find some way to fix you with his tool belt. Secondly, I'll segue into an apology. When I write I tend to get carried away. I guarantee you'll probably get a lot more information than you want or care to know. My mind is a giant cesspool. I deal with it every day, be thankful you only have to deal with it on this blog and at any point YOU can get out of it. I can't. Anyway, hopefully I'll look back one day at this and smile, maybe laugh, maybe cry, and maybe get a little angry at all the typos and grammatical errors I find but that's beside the point.

As I sit here, I'm about 3 weeks from my departure into the unknown. September 4 is the date and it's coming way too fast. Between weddings, hanging with the few friends that I actually care to talk to from high school, catching some UV rays in Osoyoos, B.C. on our annual family vacation, watching some true blue Lynden sport at the demo derby,  and dealing with impossible neighbors, I haven't really had time to get excited. And that doesn't even take into account the "distraction" of the incredible summer I have had so far. I have been around the world and back again. Three weeks in the Southern states eating barbecue and ministering with the University Choir and Orchestra, competing and WINNING an international world choir competition with some of my closest friends in Germany and Austria with the APU Chamber Singers, and doing ministry in Phuket, Thailand with Full Sail Ministries has pretty much kept me living out of a suitcase the last 3 months (this is starting to sound like a Christmas card). Well, I'm about to do it again folks. 4 months in South Africa will be the longest I have spent away from home and family. It's weird for me to think about the fact that I won't be home for Thanksgiving this year, or my 21st birthday but I guess I can't complain. My life has been so full of amazing opportunities to see the world and experience culture. I thought that my quest to Europe with my sister after my senior year would quench the incredible thirst I had for more of this world but, in fact, all it's done is fuel it more. Every time I go, I come back wanting more of the world, more of my God, and more of myself. I am truly a blessed person, and I sincerely hope that I never forget it, so, future me, YOU ARE BLESSED and God has had you in his hand. Read it again if you have to.

Let's see, how did I get to this point? Well, since the 8th grade I've had this sort of creepy fascination with studying abroad. I think before I even knew I wanted to go to college (not that my parents would have let me sit THAT one out although being a music major I might as well not have gone since all I'll be doing is eating ramen anyway right?) I knew I wanted to study abroad. So,when two days into my freshman orientation at Azusa Pacific University, I got an email saying "have you thought about studying abroad?" I knew I was at the right place. I hadn't thought about my major, my books, my friends, or how I was going to get to west campus on the first day of school, but I sure had thought about studying abroad. Somehow I knew God had a plan for me to go. I'm not entirely sure why South Africa, I'll be honest. Maybe it's just a new continent to explore, but I've had that flag posted on my bulletin board for the last 2 years and I've been waiting for the right time. I'm still not sure why He chose Fall 2013. I had the opportunity to go last spring and to be honest, looking back, it would have been much more convenient with my schedule. Over this last semester I finally chose a major, I finally was settled with solid friends, I finally pulled my head out of my butt and now He's sending me away. But maybe that's why? Lord knows I needed to figure out how to pull my eye balls from the shoes people are wearing and the cracks on the sidewalk up to their eyes and actually be able to function while saying hello. Maybe someday I'll be approachable. I doubt it, but a girl can hope, right? I can't help but shake my finger and say "good one God, you knew."

I think what it comes down to is the idea that the Lord has been systematically destroying my perception of home in the last two years. That sounds utterly horrible reading it back but, let me explain. All my life I've been hungry. Hungry for change, hungry for experience, hungry for life (and hungry for chocolate). All this time though, I've known I would always have a home to come back to. I was one of those students that waited till the May 9 deadline to decide what college to go to. I got to that date and basically said, okay, what school is going to get me the farthest from Lynden? Not because I wanted to leave my family, or because my life was tragically difficult, or even because I haven't always been a fan of 300 days of rain a year, but because I was hungry for more. I know any college experience would have been completely different than my Lynden life but, 18-year-old me said, "I need to leave this state". So APU it was. Surprisingly, I had a lot of anxiety leaving home. I was worried about my friends, and my family forgetting me, and my boyfriend that I was leaving in Washington, but I packed my bags and flew the nest. When I started school, after I got over the incredibly difficult task of making friends and fitting in (thats a whole other entry let me tell you), there was always this confusing and somewhat disconcerting war going on in my heart. I knew my family was in Washington, but Azusa was starting to feel like home. When I would visit Washington I was "going home" but somewhere on the 2 1/2 hour flight back to LA I would start to get excited that I was "going home". This is when it all started. Where was home? Since then I've come to grips with the fact that, let's face it, for all intents and purposes (I've always thought that phrase was "intensive purposes" and never understood what it meant. Look at me now!) I have no home, at least that's the way it might look to most. So then I started to think, well, home is about the people. Which, in some ways is true. My family is the main thing that makes me feel like I'm home when I'm in Washington, and my friends are the main thing that make me feel like I'm home in Azusa. But what happens when THAT is taken away. I get to spend precious weeks with my family in Washington but that's not the majority of my life to be completely honest. APU is the majority of my year, so what happens when THAT sphere is ripped from under you? Well, that happened this year. My life got jumbled up, and a lot of sh*t happened (excuse the expletive please). I'll spare you the gory details but, bottom line is, I have had to rebuild my view of home and family and I suppose love in general. Or did I really just have to go back to the basics? Let's be real, family are those people that stick by you and love no matter what you do, how you mess up, or what horrible fashion choices you make (that's why that guy wearing black socks with his sandals and cutoff jeans is still my dad). They say, "I wanna love you because you're you and I think that that you is awesome." and thats it. No if's ands or buts. No tag backs. No reneges. No conditions. That's what I need in a family. That's what I do for my family, and I deserve that right back.

Anyway, after a long semester it was time for me to go home. I was only there for a month before I had to pack right back up again and leave the country. Time to leave the bed I love so much and the family that loves me no matter what, and go exploring. Who knew that when I left I would find family! For two weeks in Germany and Austria, the 36 members of the most incredible group I've ever been in were my family. Being with them felt like home. Just as I got comfortable though, I got torn from that. (I'm starting to sense a bit of a pattern here aren't you? That's why I can confidently say the Lord is trying to teach me about home. He's practically hitting me over the head with this lesson.) Straight from Vienna I was thrown into another new environment: Phuket, Thailand. From Europe to Southeast Asia was more than just time difference (which killed me by the way). I went from singing to playing, from classical music to worship music, from a place of total comfortability to a group of people I hardly knew anymore let alone felt completely comfortable with. Yet some time in that two weeks I found home. I found people to pray with, people to laugh with, people to vent to and people to sit with me on the curb and hug me while I let all my anxiety all my anger and all my sadness from losing my family out. I found these people in the most unexpected places. Flash forward two weeks and I'm back at home. Enjoying my family to the fullest. It's different now, my sister lives in Seattle and it takes me a lot longer to just crawl into her bed when I can't sleep. My brother and his amazing wife moved to Lynden,  and my parents are busy and have more to do than just sit and listen to me talk, which brings me to the next blow. WE'RE MOVING. Thats a doozie ain't it? You can't write this stuff I tell ya! Yep. All my life I've had my country home on the outskirts of Lynden to go back to. A comfy bed in a cold basement to look forward to at the end of my travels. Well not anymore folks. The Gross's are moving. The house is sold, two days ago I had to clean out my room and get rid of half of my belongings (let's be real though, there was so much junk in that room), and when I leave in a week, I'll never be back there. When I first got this news I just got really tired. I mean, granted, rough life over here, we are moving to a beautiful house on the lake complete with dock, boat house, and a beautiful view of the sunsets, but God, why are you doing this? This is my home. Can't I just have one thing in my life that stays consistent? Can't I at least know that I have a bed to go back to in a room that I've decorated myself? Can't I at least live in the comfort of that one junk drawer with notes from my 6th grade lovers and the 27 different colors of sharpies I thought I needed to start the school year with? Or that attic full of Barbie's and batons and my Polly Pocket collection? Nope, He says, that's not home.

Well okay God, WHAT IS HOME? Tell me then. I think the answer is in the single most cliché phrase I could use at this point: Home is where the heart is. Yes, I found home in that 816 Birch Bay Lynden Rd. house. But it was because I threw my heart and my soul into that place. I grew up there. I cried there. I loved there. I followed my dad around in diapers there. My heart was there. But when I left, my heart came with me to Azusa and that became home. I've loved there, I've been broken there, I've learned there. I've wandered around in almost diapers there (wait what?). I've been all over the place. 23 countries, 37 states and I've taken my whole heart to each one of these places. If there's one thing I know about myself it's that I don't half-ass anything. When I go, I go. When I put my heart into something, it's all in. Which is probably why I can confidently say that wherever I have gone, I have been home. I found home in Austria, standing on a stage in the middle of the Alps with 35 of the most beautiful people I know singing Rachmaninov as the rain fell, I found home in Thailand throwing a ball to a little boy for almost 30 min. while sweat dripped down my back from the 90% humidity. I'll find home at the Milton Street house when I get back at Christmas because my heart and the people I love will be there waiting for me. And I will find home in South Africa. So, as I start this incredible journey I have an immense hope.  This is Africa. I'm tasting the waters and in 20 days, I'll be coming home.