Aug
2
Written by:
David Strickland
8/2/2007 1:33 PM
I can remember growing up in Midwest Iowa. Like any Iowa town we had a pool. Back in those days they didn't have slides and water guns, all that all we had was a low diving board and a high diving board. I can remember the first time I climbed up on that high board and stood on the end looked down. I remember all the things that go through your mind. As you stand there staring at the water miles and miles beneath you there is a little voice in the back of your mind telling you to just turn around climb down the ladder, walk out of the pool and never look back.
We are down to 48 hours till departure and that little voice seems awfully load at the moment. But the thing that made me go ahead and jump off the board is likely to be the same thing that will make me get on that airplane on Sat. the long line of people behind me that are expecting me to jump. Some because they are my friends and want to see me succeed and some because they are hoping I'll do a stupendous belly flop. But both groups expected me to jump. I have a sneaky suspicion that those that said they were my friends and those that wanted to see a stupendous flop where one and the same.
So whether you are reading this because you hope we’ll succeed and out of curiosity of how big a wave we’ll make when we hit thank you for lining the ladder and cheering us on. Thank you to those that have sent gifts for us to take to the girls. Thank you to those that have paid for our Airfare or our shipping costs. Thank you to those that have sent money to help us get started. Thank you to those that have prayed asking that we succeed. Thank You.
We fly out at 1:30 on Saturday to LA. We have a group of friends we are going to speak to on Sunday and then take a couple days break. After that we are off to Denver then LA, Taiwan, Malaysia and finally India. We will travel nearly 13,000 miles between now and Aug. 10th when we arrive. We have a place to sleep the first couple nights but we have to get to work first thing finding an apartmen. t, 2 apartments to be precise one for the orphanage and one for ourselves. Once we have a house we have to go vehicle shopping, Get Utilities and internet hooked up and start the process of networking to find girls in need of help. We will likely start with 7. We have sponsors for 2 and we are going to try to always have 5 girls available for sponsorship.
At the same time I’ll be job hunting. And in the first week of Sept. Of shipped goods arrive. It’ll be a wild ride for a couple months. About the time it all settles down in Oct and Nov. we’ll have to start getting ready for our son who is scheduled to arrive by stork Dec. 5th.